[BRLTTY] Interacting with common braille-refreshable-display devices : General clarification

[Lee Maschmeyer]

Hello Siju Samuel,

There is a class of programs called "screen readers." These programs attempt 
to read screens. In an ideal world they would be able to read all screens, 
but in this area even more than most others we are far from an ideal world. 
If your program uses reasonably standard controls with reasonably standard 
user interactions there's a good chance one or more existing screen readers 
might be able to use it with little or no effort on your part.

In trying to get information about this stuff you may run into parochialism. 
Linux users don't like Windows. Window Eyes users don't like Jaws.

There are open source programs available on both Windows and Linux. BRLTTY 
is the main, but not the only, Linux braille program. NVDA (Non Visual 
Desktop Access) is open source access for Windows though I think there's at 
least one other though I could be wrong. Windows also has several commercial 
screen readers. All of these deal with the question, how will people get to 
your program in the first place. Rather than adding a bit of accessibility 
to your program it might be more efficient to see whether existing screen 
readers can already deal with it or whether the screen readers' developers 
might be willing to make any needed changes.

Good luck,

-- 

Lee Maschmeyer

"Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to 
others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you 
had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise."
--Lewis Carroll