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List:       mozilla-ui
Subject:    Re: voice browsing
From:       Aaron Leventhal <aaronl () chorus ! net>
Date:       1999-12-18 18:21:50
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Well, I am interested in doing the voice browse interface, but it will take
time for me to get up to snuff on Mozilla itself. I'm just getting into
Mozilla now, but ... and I see the light! If someone else starts taking
voice browsing on I want to be in communication with them, because I have a
background in accessibility work and this stuff relates to my job.

Here's my Mozilla Alternative User Interface wishlist (MAUI?)
* A generic input API, for inserting any input module. There is speech
input, special keyboard input (such as phone keypads and 6-10 key Braille
notetaker keyboards), 'single switch' input for users with severe physical
disabilities, pen input etc. Someday we can even have sign language gesture
support for wearable computers.
* A general purpose output API that allows one to plug in any output module
such as speech, or Braille display support. Video can work for different
form factors, so that low vision, palm pilot and cell phone users can all
conformtable read the screen
* The ability to remove any video support whatsoever if Mozilla is being
used on a system with no screen at all. The purpose here is simply to avoid
unnecessary overhead.
* Configuration options, such as do you want the entire menu read outloud
whenever you enter a menu? Advanced users may not want that - they will
also want control over how emphasis and links should be spoken, etc. (We
can use different voices)
* Support for both hardware and software based speech, esp. .open source
speech software such as Festival and Mbrola.

If you think about it, Mozilla is the perfect software basis for a wearable
computing or PDA platform. Much of this is probably being worked on by some
company in private - for example, Nokia is working with Mozilla source,
meanwhile Nokia and AOL are in on the Palm IPO. Hmmmm..... I think there is
a lot more happening with Mozilla behind the scenes with than the public
hears about, which makes it difficult to make informed development
decisions as an individual developer! Of course all this outside corporate
development is good for the project.

Working on Mozilla is going to be a full time job for me - yes! 
Instead of just putting on RFE bug for this and help wanted, can we attach
my name to it so anyone who wants to work on this can collaborate with me?
I haven't use Bugzilla yet - is that where I would put this?

Cheers,
Aaron





At 12:39 PM 12/18/99 +1300, Ben Goodger wrote:
>sounds like a good project for someone then, at least on MacOS. Maybe we
>should file a RFE bug and HELP WANTED-it in case there is someone who is
>interested...
>
>Simon Fraser wrote:
>> 
>> In article <385A267A.2216BF5F@mailandnews.com>, mpt@mailandnews.com
>> (Matthew Thomas) wrote:
>> 
>> > Aaron Leventhal wrote:
>> > >...
>> > > Is any work currently being done for voice browsing with Mozilla, or
>> > > for blind use of Mozilla?
>> > >...
>> >
>> > None that I know of, but over the past few weeks a voice has been
>> > nagging in my head: `hey! XUL would be really good for voice support!'
>> >
>> > It would be a lot easier to read XUL dialogs and so on aloud as they
>> > were displayed, than it would be to add voice support to a traditional
>> > hard-coded UI. In fact, you wouldn't need to do much beyond hooking the
>> > voice support into Gecko, since Gecko also renders the interface ... But
>> > you'd want a distinct voice to distinguish between Mozilla interface and
>> > Web content.
>> 
>> May I direct your attention to the aural stylesheets section of the
>> CSS2 spec:
>> 
>> http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/aural.html
>> 
>> Mac OS supplies a speech synthesis API, so this would be pretty easy
>> to implement on Mac, at least. Indeed, there is an OS-level setting
>> that causes the system to speak the text in alert dialogs already
>> (though of course this won't work for XUL dialogs).
>> 
>> Simon
>> 
>> --
>>           Simon Fraser   Entomologist
>>   sfraser@netscape.com   http://people.netscape.com/sfraser/
>Attachment Converted: "c:\aaron\received\rgoodger3.vcf"
>

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