Category: Geeks r Us
I was curious to know what I M or standalone chat programs are most accessible
Some of the things I would be interested in are searching for new people, chatting in groups or chat rooms and voice chat.
The most accessible that runs with any screen reader without scripts or anything additional is windows messenger which comes with windows XP.
I don't know if there is one for vista.
The rest of them such as live messenger, aim, MIRC etc need scripts or spessifick screen reader to work but as most people use jaws it is very likely that all these will be also accessible. Also skype has got chat and with skread you can make the chat messages to be read to you with sapi5.
No no Nicos. I use WindowsLive Messenger perfectly well without any JAWS scripts needed, on a Windows Vista laptop. It is very accessible and VI friendly.
Jen.
I am 1 of those who use windoweyes I havn't tryed window's messenger, yet I have skyp but never heard of skread. can you tell me a little more about it?
You can download skread from www.randylaptop.com/projects
I hope it works because this website is under development right now.
Live messenger works with windows vista and jaws because freedom sientifickadded support for it. If other people use it with other screen readers appart rom jaws might not be so happy lol. That's why i said windows messenger works with just any screen reader not just jaws.
I'll give it a try, and I'll let you know
If I say "IChat" on the mac will I be shot? But really! in leopard the newest operating system IChat is just the best. It automaticly speeks the incoming messages and is accessible to voiceover the mac screen reader.
I tried the Window's messenger and it works perty good with wineyes, but I don't see a way to meet new people on it. It would be grate if I had a whole lot of contacts to add to it and just like chatting to them,. I was thinking of something more like the icq program, back in the day, when it was usable with a screen reader, boy! oh boy! how far we have come.lol
skread is cool. i'l have to get in touch with sean to get him to get his arse in gear on his site, grin. good old randy.
Skype has got a search feature where you can meet people by country, jenre, age etc. Windoweyes supports skype so you should be fine with it.
you might try Mirc4life if you're interested in finding a group of people to search for. However, at least from my own experience with it, depending on what server you connect to, and what time of day you connect, there may be a large group of people in one room, but they could simply be idle.
Maybe someone with more experience can offer you some tips.
I think a better way to rephrase the question would be what's your favorite instant messenger, cause obviously someone won't suggest a program that doesn't work right?
For me it's WLM. Windows messenger is just, eh, ok. But I have aim, Skype and msn. Never did like yahoo's, but it was just, eh. ok.
I use MSN messenger with jaws and it works fine. I have also used it with window eyes and it works all right.
My favorite is msn messenger version 7.0 or 7.5. Wlm is ok and works fine, I just like the earlier versions better. BTW, I use window eyes.
is msn the same as window's messenger? I found that I like skype, I couldn't get the skread software, to work I keep getting a run time error, so I gave up on it. Yahoo sucks, and I can't get it to not load at start up, window's messenger works very good and it's the 1 I'll use to keep in tutch with frends and family, If msn is differant I'll try that. thanks for all the help.
ok, history lesson here. MSN is microsofts instant mesenging program they made. I don't recall when it came out, but it's been around a long time. (well before I got my start on the net at least.) Windos messenger is a client that would connect to the msn chat network, that came with windos XP. (maybe win2k as well, but I'm not certain.) It's features were a lot less advanced than msn, but it had other abilities more relating to businesses that they were trying to market it. (It's not worth me really going into that I don't think.) Windos live messenger is the newest version of the msn client. They've ditched calling it msn, and now it's known as windows live messenger. I believe this started with what would've been msn version 8 if they'd stuck with calling it msn. But all of these connect to the same network.
Here are the other major instant messenging programs:
AIM. (AOL instant messenger.): not as generally accessible as the msn varients, but it's usable. Personally I dislike it, do to personal experiences of it crashing at the drop of a hat, and reading messages that people have sent is more work than with msn. Though I do need to give the newest version a try. The one thing aim does excell at is transferring files, and I do keep it around for this purpose. Be aware though that aim has a habbit of installing extra stuff along with the main intsant messenging program, so just watch what it does, and be careful to check the options as you install anything from AOL.
YIM (Yahoo Intsntant Messenger): oh boy. Hmm. My blunt and honest opinion is that it's crap. It's accessibility has always lagged behind the other intsant messengers at best. There are some jaws scripts for it which make it somewhat usable, but it's still a pain. Just avoid using it if you can. The only reason I've ever used it is I have family members that seem to love it. I will give it the point of it does have a loyal, if smaller than the other ones, user base. But even more than aim, yahoo is littered with extra things it tries to install, some of which it asks about, some of which it just goes ahead and installs. It can make a real pain out of itself.
ICQ: This used to be very popular, but in the last few years it's user base has dropped sharply. I rarely Ahear of people using it today, though I suppose someone will come out of the woodwork and inform us they still do if I outright say that no one uses it anymore. :) Accesibility wise it was usable, but nothing that special. When I finally stopped using it, about all I ever saw on there was the very rare person, and *lots of bots.
Skype: A bit newer to the whole chat system business is skype. While it's primarily for voice chatting, it does have a pretty decent chat interface. I don't know how well it works with window eyes, but there are some pretty powerful jaws scripts out there that make it function pretty much like the msn or windows live program scripts do.
Those are the mainstream programs. Any questions, or other ones people want me to cover?
I use skype, Windoes live, andAIM. I don't like any one program over the other, they all work fine.
I use window eyes with windows messenger and I've had no problems with it.
the new AIM to put it bluntly sucks. 5.9 was much better. They got rid of what I liked about AIM which was the file sharing stuff. At anyrate, is there any other accessible Multinetwork IM clients aka miranda? I can not switch to that because I can't figure out how to get IM's to show up as windows like they do in Windows Live Messenger or whatever. I'm watvching instantbird.com , but until that's matured a bit there really is no other answer that I know of.
my favorite instant messenger is yahoo and my second favorite is aim. They both work wonderfully with no scrhipts with jaws 9.
Mirc4Life is good for this,
i don't just say that as the creator.
you can connect to many diffrent servers like you would with vt.
you can also connect to bitlbee, (Mirc4Life supports) and use IM
I use MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, AIM, Google talk through it and it supports oscar and jabber too.
the busy servers which it lists has around 130k users online normily but as some one said, depending on where you connect and what channel (room) you join wwil effect the activity level,
you can join as many servers and channels as you wish, i am normily on seven servers and around thirty to fourty rooms.
Mirc4Life 2.1 Download!
support is offerd in IRC, MSN, ICQ, AIM, Email, Web form and phone.
mirc 4 life seams a very good program but one disadvantage of it is that is limited to spessifick screen readers. I know most people use jaws and window eyes but what about people who don't have those? Maybe sapi5 output would be a good idea.