Category: Geeks r Us
Am I the only one who chooses to use WebbIE over regular Internet Explorer? I find that the first works better with Hal, but sometimes, I have to use IE. For example, when I'm trying to post a message on Craigslist, I always have to do a save target as on that stupid capture thing because for some reason, my laptop refuses to automatically bring up the Windows Media Player, even though it's set to play wav files. Sometimes, WebbIE just can't handle certain pages. But overall, I love it's versitility, the way I can just jump through text without having to tab through links, the way I can easily copy an url to the clipboard and then just paste it in somewhere. So yeah, who's with me on this? For those who either want to get or want to know about WebbIE, the page is here.
http://www.webbie.org.uk/download.htm
They also have accessible software for reading rss feeds, for listening to some radio stations, for reading the Gutenberg texts, for listening to certain programs from the BBC that you might have missed and for listening to your favourite Podcasts. The newest version, which I just discovered, even has a program to help you search Google for podcasts as well as the feature I've waitied forever for them to add, one that'll let you select WebbIE as your default browser. But that last isn't working in this release. Btw, if you want to delete all the other programs that come with WebbIE, you can and it'll still work fine.
Interesting, will check it out. I have a very easy time with either Firefox or Explorer and Jaws. I certainly would rather not switch to Hal given my experience of it so far, but may be I am too used to Jaws.
yeah, fireFox is really cool to use, really easy too.
Firefox is cool with JFW, I admit. But it doesn't work well with my version of Hal, and I just thought it kind of silly to have three browsers installed.
This might be an unpopular opinion but i'm gonna say it anyways. I think that some of the programs that Webie has are cool, but do we *really* need a specialized browser just for blind people? I'm sitting here right now, using Internet Explorer 7 with JAWS 9.0 and I'm typing with absolutely no problems. I've also tried Firefox, and I like it because on some sites it seems to load them faster than IE 7. But I've never quite understood why this other browser exists, I tried it because I was curious and it didn't give me anything I couldn't already get in a mainstream browser. I also think it's good to try to use mainstream technology whenever possible, because if there's a problem, you have to go to the developer of the specialized browser, get them to test it with your screenreader, and it just becomes a big mess. It just seems really silly when mainstream products work so well. and of course the argument can be made that some screenreaders work better on the web than others, but let's save the screenreader debates for the grafiti board on that. So I'll stick with my mainstream browsers, because they work very well for me.
I think for those who have jaws windoweyes and system access webbie wouldn't be any usefull because jaws and the others have got very good web support. But for hal, the free thunder screen reader and NVDA webbie is a good way to look the internet. Maybe if webbie didn't say link1 and link2 i would use it full time but now i use internet explorer with hal. But it's not the best screen reader to use the internet with. But i like a lot the other programs that come with webbie.
I tried it once when the Jaws upgrade I'd requested for my laptop hadn't come in yet and the version I was using in 40-minutte mode decided to finally time out and I had to switch over to Thunder and that didn't agree well at all with Internet Explorer. As far as both programs were concerned, I found them both doable at the time for what I needed to use them for, but I had no idea how to use Web Ie's interface, so it took some time getting to the place I needed to be.
One thing I also noticed, and I don't know if this was more of an issue with Thunder, or a Web Ie issue, was when downloading a file it goesn't seem to give you a percentage whatsoever on how far along the file is.
WebbIE should give you apercentage, especially if you alt tab out and then back into the window. Plus, it has clicks to let you know that it's still downloading, though I can certainly see how that can be annoying. Yeah, Hal and IE aren't the best of friends. But even with JFW, I sometimes find it hard to select things with IE. It'll say nothing selected, and in order to make it work, I have to eithr switch to Hal or put Hal on and mute it's voice so JFW works like it's supposed to. I'm using JFW 8 and Hal 6 btw.
I forgot that WebbIE let's you go straight to input boxes. I'm sure IE has a command for that, but have no clue what it is.
I noticed the clicks when it comes to downloading a file as well, and thought that was really cool. However, I'm not sure like I said if this came from me not being experienced with both Thunder or Web Ie, or at that point in the day I didn't have a lot of time in the day to devote to figuring out what the download was doing all in the same time, but I was noticing at one point, the clock was still ticking so-to-speak, but the dialogue box if I remember correctly had closed, and my file was in its folder, so I finally just had to take a quick glance at it and shut the computer down.
Yeah, sometimes that happens. I don't know why. I usually just turn it off after awhile too. Maybe it's a bug.
In Jaws you just press e and it'll get you to the first text enter box on the page, if one exists.
I like the insert f7 that will bring up all links on the page in a listbox, b will get you to the first button, n will get you past the next grou pof links, h to the next heading etc. I'm certainly not going to start a screen reader debate, not on this board anyways, but I'm kind of surprised to see that Icelandic students are practically forced to use Hal and are being told it's by far the best on the market and absolutely no one else I've talked to from other countries agrees with that. Not saying Hal is awful or anything, but it's certainly not the best.
I have JFW9, and when I updated to IE7 I found that Jaws often wasn't sitting on the webpage, but instead it was sitting out in the middle of no where, and if I clicked on the page it turned off the vertual pc cursor. Any such results with the other using Jaws9 and IE7?
I am using jaws 6.2, and there are some pages that have weird graphics on them that don't really run very good with internet explorer.
www.huffingtonpost.com (I think that's the url).
However, webIE will load it in a flash.
For the most part I use internet explorer, but occasionally I use webIE. I, too, wish they'd quit numbering the links that's not helpful and rather anoying.
Bob
I wish they'd keep the link numbering but have a toggle switch for it. Sometimes, when I'm on a huge page or want to find something quickly, it helps to remember the link number or at least to be able to quickly go through the links I've already seen. Another thing that I love about WebbIE is that when I do an alt tab out of that window and then go back into it, it doesn't start me all the way at the top of the page like IE does. It actually holds my place, and this is true whether I use JFW or Hal. As for quick navigation, WebbIE's commands are universal. So if I wanted to do a links list, it's always ctrl-l and to get to the input is always f 6 etc, regardless of what screenreader I use.
I'm a big fan of safari! Oh wait, better not say that here for the fear of the boot of sir Brew and the harsh rebuke!!! Okay! but seriously, I agree with the post about main stream technology. One of the things I do when I teach a screen reader is to teach as many windows commands as possible rather then all of the warm fuzzies offered by the screen readers. there is a place for them but I've always felt that a person should be able to use a computer weather it has jaws, window-Eyes, hal, supernova, or any other adaptive technology. example, most screen readers offer a command for going to the system tray. I usually won't teach it in favor of windows-b instead.