From: Ramona B. <bu...@it...> - 2009-04-15 13:28:26
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***************************** * SUE-Newsletter April 2009 * ***************************** SUE is short for Screenreader & Usability Extensions, an effort to make screen reading on Linux more usable. SUE is based on the former Linux Screen Reader (LSR), an excellent platform for all kinds of assistive applications. SUE itself is the first of those assistive applications, namely a screen reader for graphical user interfaces on the GNOME desktop. SUE is available either from SVN trunk or in version 0.4.0 from our download section at Sourceforge.net. Documentation including installation instructions may also be found at http://sue.sourceforge.net. Since our last newsletter, SUE has successfully been presented at this year's CSUN conference in Los Angeles, California (http://www.csunconference.org). Discussions at the conference and the conference itself were very interesting, providing even more input and ideas to our project! * New functions in SUE: *********************** * Magnification SUE now officially supports Compiz and its Accessibility Plugins for magnification purposes. As part of the new SUE output concept, the new MagnificationScript provides magnification specific output like focus tracking. Unfortunately some issues with focus tracking remain, but we hope to solve these within the next few weeks. Please note: The GNOME magnifier does not work with SUE anymore. Since development on this magnifier stopped, running it on current Ubuntu versions only creates more problems. That's why we decided to remove GNOME magnifier support from SUE. * Caret movements The SUE behaviour with caret movements in text was been revised. Jumping from word to word in a text with (Ctrl+Right) or (Ctrl+Left) SUE now reads these words. Also using the delete and backspace keys in a text was improved: After hitting the delete key, SUE now reads the character after the deleted one. Upon hitting the backspace key, SUE reads the deleted character. * Text selections With SUE's behaviour on text selections revised, SUE now reads the newly selected text. In addition to this behavior, a new setting was added to the settings dialog: under 'Speech output' in the scripts tab of the settings chooser (Alt+Shift+F2), the user may choose whether actions in a text (like delete, backspace, select, unselect and insert) should always be read, should only be read when different from the previous actions or should never be read by SUE. * GTK Window Decorator SUE now supports the Compiz window manager along with its GTK Window Decorator as an alternative to the Metacity window manager. It automatically recognizes the active window manager and uses the proper script. * Localization In addition to English and German, SUE now comes with a nearly full hungarian localization, about 55% portuguese, 48% french, and 13% czech localizations. Thanks a million to all volunteers! * Bugfixes: *********** Bug: The SUE console command "sue -y 'string'" sends the given string to the speech engine. This command sometimes ended with a Segmentation fault. The error was fixed and the command works again. Bug: Some buttons in the SUE dialogs didn't work correctly. The problem was with out-of-date constants in the ChooserChange event. All buttons should work correctly now. * Current work: *************** . We are working on the next prototype which will provide support for OpenOffice spread sheet. . The enhancement of the Braille output continues. . We are also working on a new Braille monitor, which uses the compiz window manager. . Implementation of the large-print monitor continues along with contrast/color filter generators for Compiz/ eZoom. . Firefox support remains an important issue. . The SUE documentation is about to be re-structured and updated. If you are intrested in testing SUE but experience problems at any point, please don't hesitate to send a message to this mailing list. If you find a bug, you may add it to our bug tracker on SourceForge.net or send an e-mail with your bug description to sue...@it.... A few notes on how to submit a bug in either of those ways and which information to include are available on both our project wiki at http://www.sue-projekt.de (in German) and our documentation page at SourceForge.net (in English). To request a feature, you may use the same means of communication. Thanks a lot for your tests, comments, and feedback! The SUE team |