Has anyone used google docs with their Braille Display in safari? Just pasted the contents of a document that I wrote in MS Word and the braille output is unintelligible.
It is horrible, Google injects its accessibility into braille support and they have not listened to all my calls to stop injecting their accesibility into the app, It makes using braille with Google Docs almost impossible.
Thanks for your message. I might not be the best person to explain the difference between google docs itself and braille support because I don't have a technology background. When I use google docs in Apple Safari on my Macbook, I cannot read the text with my braille display, but I can read it using limited VO commands. I suspect there might be some braille translation issue. Symbols display on my braille display, but they are unintelligible. Braille support is limited using JAWS and it's even better using the iOS app.
Issues with Docs and Braille:
1. SPeech and braille are not synchronising right, no matter what you do with the display you can not get to the end of the document. Press the command to move to the top or bottom of the document, braille cursor stays in the very top while speech is where it is supposed to be at the bottom.
2. You can move by paragraphs, but not for the document length, you move through three or four paragraphs then you receive that dinging sound.
3. You will always get that flashing message on the braille display length announcing in braille what is deleted, what is being spoken by VO. There is no need for this, it is confusing. Here is an example:
- Go to the end of your document.
- By all means, if you could scroll your display to the end of the document, delete a character using your braille display. You will be able to delete one character only, if you try to delete more character you will get a ding sound. This will continue to be the case until you relocate the cursor to where you want to proceed with deletion. Further, the braille will scroll to the top of the document.
The problems you described are all long-standing issues within macOS. Speech and braille output is not synchronized, panning doesn't work right and some other issues when working with text fields in general. We can just hope that they get this stuff fixed one day.
That's good to know! I thought this was just an Apple+Google issue. I'm really annoyed that I can use a braille display without speech on every device I own besides my Macbook.
Comments
It is horrible, Google…
It is horrible, Google injects its accessibility into braille support and they have not listened to all my calls to stop injecting their accesibility into the app, It makes using braille with Google Docs almost impossible.
Could you elaborate a bit on this?
I may be able to follow up with Google on this issue but I am not sure I understand the difference between braille support and the app itself.
What do you mean by that?
I don't have a tech bakground
Hi,
Thanks for your message. I might not be the best person to explain the difference between google docs itself and braille support because I don't have a technology background. When I use google docs in Apple Safari on my Macbook, I cannot read the text with my braille display, but I can read it using limited VO commands. I suspect there might be some braille translation issue. Symbols display on my braille display, but they are unintelligible. Braille support is limited using JAWS and it's even better using the iOS app.
Issues with Docs and Braille…
Issues with Docs and Braille:
1. SPeech and braille are not synchronising right, no matter what you do with the display you can not get to the end of the document. Press the command to move to the top or bottom of the document, braille cursor stays in the very top while speech is where it is supposed to be at the bottom.
2. You can move by paragraphs, but not for the document length, you move through three or four paragraphs then you receive that dinging sound.
3. You will always get that flashing message on the braille display length announcing in braille what is deleted, what is being spoken by VO. There is no need for this, it is confusing. Here is an example:
- Go to the end of your document.
- By all means, if you could scroll your display to the end of the document, delete a character using your braille display. You will be able to delete one character only, if you try to delete more character you will get a ding sound. This will continue to be the case until you relocate the cursor to where you want to proceed with deletion. Further, the braille will scroll to the top of the document.
Many braille problems in macOS
The problems you described are all long-standing issues within macOS. Speech and braille output is not synchronized, panning doesn't work right and some other issues when working with text fields in general. We can just hope that they get this stuff fixed one day.
Adding to Wenwei's post,
I don't think this issue is limited to Google Docs. I did the same workflow you described but with Simplenote, instead of Docs and I got gibberish.
Expressing my disappointment
That's good to know! I thought this was just an Apple+Google issue. I'm really annoyed that I can use a braille display without speech on every device I own besides my Macbook.