[SUE-list] SUE newsletter April 2009

[Ramona B. <bu...@it...>]

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* SUE-Newsletter April 2009 *
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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:
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* 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