Notices by James Scholes (jscholes@dragonscave.space)

Imagine describing Alt+Tab as "popular", rather than, you know, critical in allowing non-mouse users to operate their computers: https://www.pcworld.com/article/2514044/windows-11-24h2-breaks-popular-alt-tab-shortcut-heres-what-you-can-do.html

@simon And, when it happens, will it be better than the average Audible Original drama?

@GossiTheDog Do you know of any resources describing this in more detail? I'm confused about who is fighting over what.

Am I imagining that in Notepad2, the keystroke for duplicating a line was Alt+D? In Notepad3, that does something called "transposing" two lines instead; full marks for feature naming but I've pressed it hundreds of times when I actually wanted duplication.

@BorrisInABox Ah, Lumos. How are their NOCs? #CrappyHarryPotterAndNetworkingJoke

It took the #BBC 17 years, but BBC One, Two, Three, and Four now have #audioDescription while watching live on the #iPlayer. When I tested CBBC, CBeebies, and BBC Scotland, they weren't showing a described program at the time, but the player did have an "audio description and subtitles" button. For BBC Alba, there was no such button, and for S4C the button only referenced subtitles and not AD. #accessibility

I think #Anki holds a great deal of potential for #blind learners of #languages and other subjects:

The desktop app uses Qt 6, so isn't entirely unusable. It's also fully open source.

The iOS app is extremely usable with VoiceOver, albeit relatively expensive for a mobile app at £24.99, and not open source.

The web interface is usable, but would currently cause people to think more about how to use it than the actual subject they were studying. Still, with some user scripting, it could be workable.

And finally, all Anki functionality is available via their Python library, which could be used in a command line app or more #accessible frontend.

Of course, the issue is always the time needed to take things from where they are now to where they need to be. And I suspect a significant challenge would be having screen readers speak/braille things in the correct language as hopefully declared by each flashcard.

#accessibility #language #languageLearning

I bought a paid #Anki deck today, and successfully modified its templates to do things like:
1. set appropriate `lang` attributes for the non-English text, so that a screen reader will switch pronunciation rules automatically;
2. add headings to the different sections of the answer side;
3. group certain related things on the card into lists; and
4. auto-focus the answer when it's shown.

These modifications are synced via my AnkiWeb account, so apply equally whether I'm using a browser or the iOS app. So far, I'm really happy with it as a learning tool, although I have a lot to discover now I'm not thinking about the accessibility of the cards themselves.

CC @zersiax, @KaraLG84

@JonathanMosen Thank you for sharing your perspective. As the author of the post I assume is being referenced, I'd like to provide some context:

Recently, I've encountered several elitist viewpoints on this subject, using phrases like quote "the proper way" unquote to consume literature. I strongly disagree with any implication that there are right and wrong ways to educate and entertain oneself through books.

However, I acknowledge that my post could have made its scope clearer, and you're not the only one to mention how this view is weaponized in educational settings. Regardless of the reasons, making counterproductive and lazy decisions on behalf of disabled students is unacceptable.

I hold certain educators and educational systems responsible for the fact that blind and low-vision students too often leave school with subpar literacy levels. While they may justify their approaches with certain rhetoric, it's their actions and agendas that are at fault—whether rooted in ignorance, misguided attempts to compensate for lack of funding, or other reasons. However, the rhetoric itself shouldn't be automatically blamed for how people choose to interpret and misuse it.

As for the differences in brain activity between different consumption methods, some studies suggest that in adults, listening and reading by sight or touch aren't as different as commonly thought. I notice you've received responses stating the opposite, but I don't have the expertise to state one position over another.

Semantics aside, I think we can agree that consuming material that educates and uplifts is more important than ever, regardless of how people choose to do so.

I feel like in iOS 18, certain VoiceOver pauses are longer, like the one between the name of a control and its role. As an example, find the "VPN" option in Settings. The pause between "VPN" and "not connected" is huge. The pause between "not connected" and "button", less so, but still longer than it was before (I think).

Here's hoping that one day, Apple will make this a configurable option. Naturally, for at least one version of iOS after they do, the increased customisation will mean control names aren't spoken or something equally broken. But then it will be great.

When turning the rotor to "audio ducking", VoiceOver speaks what sounds like an enum value ("audioducking.mode.off"). I like my screen reader bugs strongly typed and constrained to a set of acceptable values.

A setting I believe is new in iOS 18 that I haven't seen mentioned: VoiceOver -> Rotor -> Change Rotor with Item, the description for which reads:

"Changes the selected rotor based on the VoiceOver-focused item."

This sounds like a great thing to turn off in certain activities, e.g. the rotor switching to "Actions" each time you swipe in Mail or Dystopia can be frustrating. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be one of the settings that's editable on a per-activity basis, limiting its usefulness. I'm not sure I want to turn it off system-wide.

(Edit: this apparently isn't new in iOS 18, just new to me.)

I think per-activity configuration is a hard problem to solve, mainly from a user experience/workflow perspective. There are still certain parts of NVDA config profiles that constantly trip people up, for example, and many of them without obvious solutions.

Having said that, Apple's decision to explicitly define a subset of settings that can go in an activity seems like the wrong way to do it. It only leads to fragmentation, and the feature being far less amenable to creativity than it otherwise could be.

As an example, activities include an "audio ducking option", the options for which in iOS 18 are: "Default", "On", or "Off". In other words, the new ducking modes exposed by the rotor haven't made it into the activities system, because it's isolated and fragmented from the rest of the screen reader.

It requires Apple to explicitly opt aspects of behaviour into activity readiness, and make a new UI for their configuration even though one already exists elsewhere. The result, unsurprisingly for something that relies on humans to put in extra work, is activities feeling like an outdated island, or a feature that's still very immature.

Aside: apparently the setting to not change the active rotor on focus is not new in iOS 18. Which makes it even more disappointing that it can't be set on a per-activity basis, and only proves the point about the activities feature being badly designed.

According to Messages settings, my iMessage is disabled, and I'm not signed in. But I just received an iMessage from the Apple Store, and sent one to someone. Doesn't matter that much to me, given that I used the Messages app about once a year, but I'm not sure what's going on.

Live Recognition claims that there's a group of people in my living room, standing in the snow.

@BorrisInABox If you got rid of the boxes, then the image will demonstrate an absence of boxes, because there are no boxes. However as previously stated, we have a one lifetime box per customer policy which, by your own admission you have violated by having several boxes to dispose of. As such, your account will be permanently purged from our system in 15 calendar days should you be unable to refute these claims with appropriate evidence.

@BorrisInABox Any image showing the absence of boxes will suffice, as long as it is signed by a qualified private investigator in your jurisdiction, witnessed by one of the permissible professionals listed on our website, and notarised by a solicitor.

I like: URLs with slugs in that give me a clue to the title/theme of the content before I click.

I dislike: #Mastodon apps truncating URLs for display.