trouble with CVS

trouble with CVS

[Adam Myrow]

I am trying to help somebody get their Linux system up and running.  I
wish to compile a new kernel with the latest and greatest Speakup on this
system so that we can use the cut 'N paste feature.  They have a DSL
Internet connection which works great most of the time, but it doesn't
seem to work with CVS and the checkout script.  Every time I try to
connect, I get a message that login was aborted and the connection was
reset by pier.  I can't remember the exact wording, but that's close.  I
have no trouble on my old dial-up.  I figure a firewall is blocking CVS or
something.  Is there any way to get a tar ball of the current version
since it has the features that are missing from the official release and
also works on the newer kernels.  Also, Kirk, do you believe that the CVS
version is stable enough to call the next new version?  It has really come
a long way since the 1.0A release.

Re: trouble with CVS and a request for votes

[Kirk Reiser]

Hi Adam:  I'll try to answer your questions from both posts here.
>From what I understand brltty works very well with speakup.  I don't
use it but Gene Collins and a number of other folks on the list do use
it.

As far as cvs goes, the problem you are having is caused by your
friends isp not resloving a reverse lookup on his/her ip address.
When you connect to the cvs server it does a reverse lookup on the
address.  It takes that returned host.domain name and then resolves it
forward.  If it does not resolve then it assumes someone is doing ip
spoofing and refuses to talk any further.

We have been discussing a new speakup release recently on the
reflector.  If it looks like the speakup hooks are going to stay in
the kernel then we will create a new release.  Cvs will then only work
with kernels newer than the release snap shot.  If speakup does not
stay in the kernel then I would still like to get modularization of
the synth drivers in place before I make a new release.

But! while we are on the subject of releases, we need to take a public
vote.  Should the next release of speakup whenever it is released be
version 0.11 or as some folks are arguing 1.0?  I'll put it to a vote
because it seems quite a few people have an opinion on the subject.

  Kirk

-- 

Kirk Reiser				The Computer Braille Facility
e-mail: kirk@braille.uwo.ca		University of Western Ontario
phone: (519) 661-3061

Re: trouble with CVS and a request for votes

[Tommy Moore]

Hi guys.
For speakup to be included in to distributions like Red Hat and debian it
may be better to go for the 1.0 since it is pretty stable from what I and
a lot of others have seen.
Even with the current stage of the progress of the program it rivals the
other speech packages out there for other systems and considering the cost
for the users it can't be matched and I'd really like to thank you for
offering something like this to the public that you could have made a
fortune on if you charged what other people do.

Tommy

Re: trouble with CVS and a request for votes

[Thomas Stivers]

I would like to second that vote. I am moderately experienced with
programming and a newbie to unix-based systems and I had no trouble
getting speakup up and running once we were firmly into the 0.10 version.
It is a good point of stability to release a Ver. 1.0 imho.

On Wed, 26 Sep 2001, Tommy Moore wrote:

> Hi guys.
> For speakup to be included in to distributions like Red Hat and debian it
> may be better to go for the 1.0 since it is pretty stable from what I and
> a lot of others have seen.
> Even with the current stage of the progress of the program it rivals the
> other speech packages out there for other systems and considering the cost
> for the users it can't be matched and I'd really like to thank you for
> offering something like this to the public that you could have made a
> fortune on if you charged what other people do.
>
> Tommy
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>

Re: trouble with CVS and a request for votes

[Gregory Nowak]

Hi all,

Ok, here's my opinion for what it's worth.
Since the cursorring issue is not yet compleetly resolved,
and since a few of us seem to be experiencing the system-freezing
bug with the new cut and paste feature when trying to copy more
then 1 line, I think speakup should stay as 0.11.
Only when all known bugs are totally iliminated, should speakup come out as 1.0.
Greg


On Wed, Sep 26, 2001 at 08:18:05PM -0400, Kirk Reiser wrote:
> Hi Adam:  I'll try to answer your questions from both posts here.
> >From what I understand brltty works very well with speakup.  I don't
> use it but Gene Collins and a number of other folks on the list do use
> it.
> 
> As far as cvs goes, the problem you are having is caused by your
> friends isp not resloving a reverse lookup on his/her ip address.
> When you connect to the cvs server it does a reverse lookup on the
> address.  It takes that returned host.domain name and then resolves it
> forward.  If it does not resolve then it assumes someone is doing ip
> spoofing and refuses to talk any further.
> 
> We have been discussing a new speakup release recently on the
> reflector.  If it looks like the speakup hooks are going to stay in
> the kernel then we will create a new release.  Cvs will then only work
> with kernels newer than the release snap shot.  If speakup does not
> stay in the kernel then I would still like to get modularization of
> the synth drivers in place before I make a new release.
> 
> But! while we are on the subject of releases, we need to take a public
> vote.  Should the next release of speakup whenever it is released be
> version 0.11 or as some folks are arguing 1.0?  I'll put it to a vote
> because it seems quite a few people have an opinion on the subject.
> 
>   Kirk
> 
> -- 
> 
> Kirk Reiser				The Computer Braille Facility
> e-mail: kirk@braille.uwo.ca		University of Western Ontario
> phone: (519) 661-3061
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

Re: trouble with CVS and a request for votes

[Frank Carmickle]

Greg

When did you last update?  Some fixes went in a day or so after the
announcement was made.

On Wed, 26 Sep 2001, Gregory Nowak wrote:
> and since a few of us seem to be experiencing the system-freezing
> bug with the new cut and paste feature when trying to copy more

-- 
     Frank Carmickle
phone:     412 761-9568
email:     frankiec@dryrose.com

Re: trouble with CVS and a request for votes

[Gregory Nowak]

The dmesg output says that I have a Sept. 17
revision of speakup. I upgraded this past Monday.
If thoes fixes are in this cvs release, guess I'll have to try it again.
Greg


On Thu, Sep 27, 2001 at 05:37:35AM -0400, Frank Carmickle wrote:
> Greg
> 
> When did you last update?  Some fixes went in a day or so after the
> announcement was made.
> 
> On Wed, 26 Sep 2001, Gregory Nowak wrote:
> > and since a few of us seem to be experiencing the system-freezing
> > bug with the new cut and paste feature when trying to copy more
> 
> -- 
>      Frank Carmickle
> phone:     412 761-9568
> email:     frankiec@dryrose.com
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

Re: trouble with CVS and a request for votes

[Deedra Waters]

     I'm not really experienced with speakup, and I've had a lot of
problems in general, but honestly most of that comes from not being
experienced with linux and speakup, but I've got to say this.  From what
I've seen speakup is verry stable, and the cut and paste feature makes it
even better. I still find tracking with some things a little dificult, but
I think part of that is still learning and adapting.. I'd say call it 1.0,
and if there are bugs that need to be worked out then call the next one
after 1.0 1.1 or something like that. shrugs, just my oppinion

On Wed, 26 Sep 2001, Gregory Nowak wrote:

> Hi all,
> 
> Ok, here's my opinion for what it's worth.
> Since the cursorring issue is not yet compleetly resolved,
> and since a few of us seem to be experiencing the system-freezing
> bug with the new cut and paste feature when trying to copy more
> then 1 line, I think speakup should stay as 0.11.
> Only when all known bugs are totally iliminated, should speakup come out as 1.0.
> Greg
> 
> 
> On Wed, Sep 26, 2001 at 08:18:05PM -0400, Kirk Reiser wrote:
> > Hi Adam:  I'll try to answer your questions from both posts here.
> > >From what I understand brltty works very well with speakup.  I don't
> > use it but Gene Collins and a number of other folks on the list do use
> > it.
> > 
> > As far as cvs goes, the problem you are having is caused by your
> > friends isp not resloving a reverse lookup on his/her ip address.
> > When you connect to the cvs server it does a reverse lookup on the
> > address.  It takes that returned host.domain name and then resolves it
> > forward.  If it does not resolve then it assumes someone is doing ip
> > spoofing and refuses to talk any further.
> > 
> > We have been discussing a new speakup release recently on the
> > reflector.  If it looks like the speakup hooks are going to stay in
> > the kernel then we will create a new release.  Cvs will then only work
> > with kernels newer than the release snap shot.  If speakup does not
> > stay in the kernel then I would still like to get modularization of
> > the synth drivers in place before I make a new release.
> > 
> > But! while we are on the subject of releases, we need to take a public
> > vote.  Should the next release of speakup whenever it is released be
> > version 0.11 or as some folks are arguing 1.0?  I'll put it to a vote
> > because it seems quite a few people have an opinion on the subject.
> > 
> >   Kirk
> > 
> > -- 
> > 
> > Kirk Reiser				The Computer Braille Facility
> > e-mail: kirk@braille.uwo.ca		University of Western Ontario
> > phone: (519) 661-3061
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
> > Speakup mailing list
> > Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> 

Re: trouble with CVS and a request for votes

[Buddy Brannan]

On Wed, Sep 26, 2001 at 10:28:16PM -0500, Gregory Nowak wrote:
> Only when all known bugs are totally iliminated, should speakup come out as 1.0.

Good grief! Speakup will *never* get out of beta if we do this, then!
Once we squash some bug, some other bug will no doubt pop up (creating
another known bug). You show me bug-free software, and I'll show you
software not written by a human being! 
-- 
Buddy Brannan, KB5ELV    | From the pines down to the projects,
Email: davros@ycardz.com | Life pushes up through the cracks.
Phone: (972) 276-6360    | And it's only going forward,
ICQ: 36621210            | And it's never going back.--Small Potatoes

Re: trouble with CVS and a request for votes

[Shaun Oliver]

I agree with buddy. if all known bugs were squashed,
you would only end up with new known bugs.
however, at least let's try and agree on the version. I don't see why it
shouldn't be 0.11. having said that, I think that at this juncture, we
should maintain the statusquo for now. at least until the "MAJOR" bugs are
dealt with.



Shaun

I never made a mistake in my life.
I thought I did once, but I was wrong.
                -- Lucy Van Pelt

email: shauno@goanna.net.au
icq: 76958435

On Thu, 27 Sep 2001, Buddy Brannan wrote:

> On Wed, Sep 26, 2001 at 10:28:16PM -0500, Gregory Nowak wrote:
> > Only when all known bugs are totally iliminated, should speakup come out as 1.0.
> 
> Good grief! Speakup will *never* get out of beta if we do this, then!
> Once we squash some bug, some other bug will no doubt pop up (creating
> another known bug). You show me bug-free software, and I'll show you
> software not written by a human being! 
> -- 
> Buddy Brannan, KB5ELV    | From the pines down to the projects,
> Email: davros@ycardz.com | Life pushes up through the cracks.
> Phone: (972) 276-6360    | And it's only going forward,
> ICQ: 36621210            | And it's never going back.--Small Potatoes
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> 

Re: trouble with CVS and a request for votes

[Gregory Nowak]

I said *all known bugs*. That means bugs as of right now--at least it means that to me.
Sure there are going to be more bugs (software wouldn't develop otherwise).
I have only noticed 2 bugs, and from the posts I've just started to read, it looks like 1 of them is fixed.
Therefore, the tracking problem still remains.
My humble opinion is that speakup shouldn't be a 1.0 release until that's fully usable.
On the other hand, show me a DOS screenreader that couldn't track an application cursor properly
(I'm sure you all know what I mean by that), and that got released as 1.0. The analogy here is not too far off, and may I point out that not all of them are comercial software.
This is certainly not meant to put down the work of Kirk and
other speakup developpers who have done a grate job which even
surpasses comercial software. A big thank you and hats off to all of you for volenteering your
time and tallent into making speakup what it is today.
Sorry if this isn't very coherent, but I've had a tough day, and have a splitting
head ache to boot.
Greg


On Thu, Sep 27, 2001 at 08:19:20AM -0500, Buddy Brannan wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 26, 2001 at 10:28:16PM -0500, Gregory Nowak wrote:
> > Only when all known bugs are totally iliminated, should speakup come out as 1.0.
> 
> Good grief! Speakup will *never* get out of beta if we do this, then!
> Once we squash some bug, some other bug will no doubt pop up (creating
> another known bug). You show me bug-free software, and I'll show you
> software not written by a human being! 
> -- 
> Buddy Brannan, KB5ELV    | From the pines down to the projects,
> Email: davros@ycardz.com | Life pushes up through the cracks.
> Phone: (972) 276-6360    | And it's only going forward,
> ICQ: 36621210            | And it's never going back.--Small Potatoes
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

Re: trouble with CVS and a request for votes

[Cláudio Haase]

In my opinion speakup 1.0 can not be release before
the track cursor funtion works completely fine.


=====
Claudio Haase. ICQ 100877433

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Listen to your Yahoo! Mail messages from any phone.
http://phone.yahoo.com

Re: trouble with CVS and a request for votes

[Kirk Wood]

On Thu, 27 Sep 2001, Gregory Nowak wrote:
> Therefore, the tracking problem still remains.

Umm, I may be wrong, but I recall Kirk Reiser saying there isn't a
tracking problem. There is a problem with automatically speaking what is
tracked. He also indicated that fixing such was quite low on the priority
list.

When you say fully functional, I consider can you do everything you need
to? From one who doesn't use it every day the answer seems yes. Given that
many people use Speakup exclusively, and many more use it primarily I have
to believe it is functional.

Upon further reflection of what Kirk has said about tracking, I think
that "fixing" it would be a major marker that in itself might be worthy of
a marker. Consider that Kirk's original intent was to make it 1.0 when the
synth part was modularized. Given that this is way before work on
tracking, all the more reason to go for it now.

=======
Kirk Wood
Cpt.Kirk@1tree.net

"When I take action, I'm not going to fire a $2 million missle at
a $10 empty tent and hit a camel in the butt. It's going to be decisive."
	- President George Bush

Re: trouble with CVS and a request for votes

[Kirk Wood]

On Wed, 26 Sep 2001, Gregory Nowak wrote:
> Only when all known bugs are totally iliminated, should speakup come out
> as 1.0.

I think that if you wish to use this system, then perhaps it is the thing
to do would be to pull the cut and paste out and name it 1.0. If you have
software that is constantly under revision and addition then you will
never have a place where no problems ever exist. This is the very thing
that Linus pointed out when they moved up to the 2.0 kernel. He said that
yes,bugs still exist. But they will always exist. At least they are
admitted. My suggestion would be to make 1.0 the curent one if the hooks
remain in the kernel. Then when modularized synths become solid go on to
1.01 or something to signafy the difference.

Going to a 1.0 version or higher will help make speakup an accepted part
of the code base. And the marker that the hooks are in the kernel all the
time seems like a logical reason to say that it has made the marker.

=======
Kirk Wood
Cpt.Kirk@1tree.net

"When I take action, I'm not going to fire a $2 million missle at
a $10 empty tent and hit a camel in the butt. It's going to be decisive."
	- President George Bush

Re: trouble with CVS and a request for votes

[Charles Hallenbeck]

On 26 Sep 2001, Kirk Reiser wrote:

> But! while we are on the subject of releases, we need to take a public
> vote.  Should the next release of speakup whenever it is released be
> version 0.11 or as some folks are arguing 1.0?  I'll put it to a vote
> because it seems quite a few people have an opinion on the subject.

I would vote for 1.0. Speakup is a lot more mature and stable than its
present release number would suggest.

Chuck


Visit me at http://www.mhonline.net/~chuckh
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin, 1759.

Re: trouble with CVS and a request for votes

[Nick Gawronski]

Hi, it should be 0.11 version of speakup.  bye On 26 Sep 2001, Kirk Reiser
wrote:

> Hi Adam:  I'll try to answer your questions from both posts here.
> >From what I understand brltty works very well with speakup.  I don't
> use it but Gene Collins and a number of other folks on the list do use
> it.
>
> As far as cvs goes, the problem you are having is caused by your
> friends isp not resloving a reverse lookup on his/her ip address.
> When you connect to the cvs server it does a reverse lookup on the
> address.  It takes that returned host.domain name and then resolves it
> forward.  If it does not resolve then it assumes someone is doing ip
> spoofing and refuses to talk any further.
>
> We have been discussing a new speakup release recently on the
> reflector.  If it looks like the speakup hooks are going to stay in
> the kernel then we will create a new release.  Cvs will then only work
> with kernels newer than the release snap shot.  If speakup does not
> stay in the kernel then I would still like to get modularization of
> the synth drivers in place before I make a new release.
>
> But! while we are on the subject of releases, we need to take a public
> vote.  Should the next release of speakup whenever it is released be
> version 0.11 or as some folks are arguing 1.0?  I'll put it to a vote
> because it seems quite a few people have an opinion on the subject.
>
>   Kirk
>
>

-- 
http://users2.ev1.net/~nick6
Home of Chihuahua Radio, the internet radio station that I run.

Re: trouble with CVS and a request for votes

[William F. Acker WB2FLW +1-303-777-8123]

1.0 sounds right to me.



          Bill in Denver

Re: trouble with CVS and a request for votes

[Adam Myrow]

Given that many DOS screen readers don't automatically read where you are
in every application, I have to say let's call Speakup version 1.0.  It's
got a lot of features that make it a good choice, not the least of which
is that it comes up talking from the beginning.  Many people give more
respect to a 1.0 or 2.0 product than a 0.10A product.  That's my vote.
Oh, I got Brltty and Speakup working together.  They make a good, pair.

Re: trouble with CVS and a request for votes

[Gregory Nowak]

Give me an example of a DOS screenreader
like that in an editor.
I'm interested to hear of one now, maybe I'll relent
on that issue after all.
Greg


On Thu, Sep 27, 2001 at 08:10:04PM -0500, Adam Myrow wrote:
> Given that many DOS screen readers don't automatically read where you are
> in every application, I have to say let's call Speakup version 1.0.  It's
> got a lot of features that make it a good choice, not the least of which
> is that it comes up talking from the beginning.  Many people give more
> respect to a 1.0 or 2.0 product than a 0.10A product.  That's my vote.
> Oh, I got Brltty and Speakup working together.  They make a good, pair.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

Re: trouble with CVS and a request for votes

[Charles Hallenbeck]

Hi Greg

On Thu, 27 Sep 2001, Gregory Nowak wrote:

> Give me an example of a DOS screenreader
> like that in an editor.

I can't help you on that one, but here is an interesting observation:

I am a pine user, and so I am relatively comfortable with pico editor.
Pico tracks the cursor perfectly but it does not spontaneously read
anything when the cursor moves. On the other hand, the pico look-alike
'nano' which also tracks the cursor perfectly, does spontaneously read
each character as you move the cursor left or right.

The point is: Cursor tracking is not the problem. The problem is what gets
spoken as the cursor is tracked, and on that score there3 are wide
variations from one application to the next in a Linux environment.

I do not think it is helpful to look for DOS parallels.

Chuck



Visit me at http://www.mhonline.net/~chuckh
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin, 1759.

Re: trouble with CVS and a request for votes

[Adam Myrow]

Try JAWS for DOS in edit.exe and you'll see what I mean about DOS screen
readers having trouble in some applications with speaking the cursor
location.  On the other hand, it works great with a port of emacs to DOS.
Jaws for Windows chokes on a port of Vi Improved to Windows, but works
fine in traditional word processors.  Go figure!

On another subject, try finding a Windows program that will telnet to a
remote site and allow a totally blind person to read the screen without
repeating or losing parts of it.  Try the same thing under Linux and note
the difference.  In short, it took me a long, tiresome search to find a
good telnet client under Windows, whereas in Linux, I typed "telnet" and a
hostname and actually forgot for a moment that I was connected to a remote
site.  Same goes for SSH.

Re: trouble with CVS and a request for votes

[Gregory Nowak]

Hi Chuck,

If this is more of a problem with how a programmmer codes
their particular editor as opposed to how
speakup reads cursor movements, then I'll relent
and say 1.0.
Is there a particuar factor anyway that would
make speakup speak cursor movements in one editing enviornment, and not another?
Greg


On Fri, Sep 28, 2001 at 06:35:09AM -0400, Charles Hallenbeck wrote:
> Hi Greg
> 
> On Thu, 27 Sep 2001, Gregory Nowak wrote:
> 
> > Give me an example of a DOS screenreader
> > like that in an editor.
> 
> I can't help you on that one, but here is an interesting observation:
> 
> I am a pine user, and so I am relatively comfortable with pico editor.
> Pico tracks the cursor perfectly but it does not spontaneously read
> anything when the cursor moves. On the other hand, the pico look-alike
> 'nano' which also tracks the cursor perfectly, does spontaneously read
> each character as you move the cursor left or right.
> 
> The point is: Cursor tracking is not the problem. The problem is what gets
> spoken as the cursor is tracked, and on that score there3 are wide
> variations from one application to the next in a Linux environment.
> 
> I do not think it is helpful to look for DOS parallels.
> 
> Chuck
> 
> 
> 
> Visit me at http://www.mhonline.net/~chuckh
> "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
> safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin, 1759.
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

Re: trouble with CVS and a request for votes

[Charles Hallenbeck]

Hi Greg

On Fri, 28 Sep 2001, Gregory Nowak wrote:

> Is there a particuar factor anyway that would make speakup speak
> cursor movements in one editing enviornment, and not another?

I do not know the details of the source code well enough to say, but
evidently pico and nano handle screen output very differently, so that one
makes speakup say the char under the cursor when the cursor moves, and the
other does not. But you have to distinguish between cursor tracking and
speaking the current text as the cursor moves. Perhaps it has to do with
how an application chooses to show you the cursor. If it shows you the
cursor by brightening the char the cursor is on, perhaps by rewriting that
char to the screen, that should be easy to catch.

The situation in DOS was relatively easy compared to Linux. DOS has system
calls that tell you where the cursor is and what char is there. What I did
was for every key press to record the current cursor position befpre
[assomg tje cjar tp tje suste,. tjem waiting an arbitrary time and
checking the position again. If it moved from its original position, then
I did one of three things: (1) if it moved only one position, I pronounce
the char at the new location; (2) if it moved horizontally more than one
position, I read enough chars from the screen to isolate a 'word' and
pronounce that word; and (3) if it moved vertically, I read the line to
which it has moved. That was a good plan, but it meant capturing the key
stroke before the system gets it, as well as capturing data sent to the
screen, and coordinating the two.

I think there is room for improvement in the way speakup speaks the cursor
movements, since at present the way it does it varies from one application
to another, and it shouldn't do that. I am not an emacs user like Kirk is,
but I am told that emacs behaves even more friendly than nano does in that
respect. Hey Kirk, are you reading this? How about switching to pico for a
day or two so you can see how a weak application works? <smile>

Chuck



Visit me at http://www.mhonline.net/~chuckh
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin, 1759.

Re: trouble with CVS and a request for votes

[Buddy Brannan]

Just a quick note...the distinction that Chuck notes between cursor
tracking and speaking what's under the cursor is a very important
distinction indeed. Speakup's cursor tracking has been very good for a
very long time now, but as for speaking what the cursor moves over
automagically, that's another thing entirely. From what Kirk has said
about it, it's a much knottier problem than it might at first appear
to be, and the solution isn't easy (obviously).

At first, I didn't think much about the version number thing...after
all, who cares so long as itt works? But as I read the debate, I think
I must cast my vote, as well, for 1.0. 
-- 
Buddy Brannan, KB5ELV    | From the pines down to the projects,
Email: davros@ycardz.com | Life pushes up through the cracks.
Phone: (972) 276-6360    | And it's only going forward,
ICQ: 36621210            | And it's never going back.--Small Potatoes

Re: trouble with CVS and a request for votes

[Gregory Nowak]

Hmmm, very interesting.
Although, in emacs, speakup still doesn't speak
characters or lines as you move the application cursor.
Even if you enable the experimental cursor peaking, it still does very poorly
and repeats charactors twice in a row.
It still is better here then in pico, because you here
the charactor you just backspaced over.
Since this doesn't seem to be an alltogether speakup
problem, I guess I'll get into the 1.0 boat.
Greg


On Fri, Sep 28, 2001 at 06:56:45PM -0400, Charles Hallenbeck wrote:
> Hi Greg
> 
> On Fri, 28 Sep 2001, Gregory Nowak wrote:
> 
> > Is there a particuar factor anyway that would make speakup speak
> > cursor movements in one editing enviornment, and not another?
> 
> I do not know the details of the source code well enough to say, but
> evidently pico and nano handle screen output very differently, so that one
> makes speakup say the char under the cursor when the cursor moves, and the
> other does not. But you have to distinguish between cursor tracking and
> speaking the current text as the cursor moves. Perhaps it has to do with
> how an application chooses to show you the cursor. If it shows you the
> cursor by brightening the char the cursor is on, perhaps by rewriting that
> char to the screen, that should be easy to catch.
> 
> The situation in DOS was relatively easy compared to Linux. DOS has system
> calls that tell you where the cursor is and what char is there. What I did
> was for every key press to record the current cursor position befpre
> [assomg tje cjar tp tje suste,. tjem waiting an arbitrary time and
> checking the position again. If it moved from its original position, then
> I did one of three things: (1) if it moved only one position, I pronounce
> the char at the new location; (2) if it moved horizontally more than one
> position, I read enough chars from the screen to isolate a 'word' and
> pronounce that word; and (3) if it moved vertically, I read the line to
> which it has moved. That was a good plan, but it meant capturing the key
> stroke before the system gets it, as well as capturing data sent to the
> screen, and coordinating the two.
> 
> I think there is room for improvement in the way speakup speaks the cursor
> movements, since at present the way it does it varies from one application
> to another, and it shouldn't do that. I am not an emacs user like Kirk is,
> but I am told that emacs behaves even more friendly than nano does in that
> respect. Hey Kirk, are you reading this? How about switching to pico for a
> day or two so you can see how a weak application works? <smile>
> 
> Chuck
> 
> 
> 
> Visit me at http://www.mhonline.net/~chuckh
> "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
> safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin, 1759.
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

Re: trouble with CVS and a request for votes

[Kirk Reiser]

Hi Chuck and all:  Well let's talk a tad about the difficulty of
automatic speaking of cursor movement.  In dos and windows the screen
review program only has external access to the data as in interrupt
hooks or an os api.  At first glance you would expect that if you have
total control at the kernel level you would be laughing, right?
Wrong.  The kernel is absolutely not a sequential device as in you get
the key, you track the key, the screen handles the key, you say the
key.  Everything is handled through a series of interrupts which does
very fast rudimentary handling of the event and then schedules on a
bottom-half queue.  Okay, so what is a bottom-half queue.  It is a
routine which runs after the interrupt has happened by a timer.  It
keeps close attention to how much time is is using and reschedules if
the jobs are not all handled.  At the same time all of the standard
processing is also going on as normal.  As you can see we have already
induced asynchrony in the process.  This also happens with our
output.  So to cut to the chase, when identify the keystroke we don't
necessarily have any idea to when the exact time that keys event is/was
handled by the output routines.  So you track the cursor say what is
on the screen at that point and woops, the screen hasn't even got
close to making that change.  You just did the wrong thing at
absolutely the right time, wrong time, well which was it?  So, maybe
we want to be smart about it and set our own timer.  Okay, when? How
do we know whether we're saying the correct event or not?

I do not believe this is an insermountable problem.  I know however it
will take more examination of the system as a whole and I've already
spent extensive time on it.  The truth of it is I don't know myself
the best way to handle it.  So if you don't know, you put it aside and
work on the myriad other things which need to be done and come back to
the problem later.  Meantime you hope you gain a better understanding
on a clear way to handle the problem.

If someone thinks they can jump in and do a better job of it than me,
please don't hesitate to step up and fix it right.  Until I have a lot
of other things finished it has moved way down on the priority list.
It tracks perfectly.  It speaks correctly some of the time, and that's
all it will do for now.

BTW Chuck, it works worse under emacs than under pico or any other
editor because emacs has an anoying habbit of bouncing the cursor all
over the place whenever it crosses a tab-stop position.  When I'm
editing I almost always have speech output turned off with ins-enter.
It tracks perfectly then and I don't really care whether it speaks
every char or line.  I am very familiar with where the review keys are
and I use them when I want feedback.

  Kirk

-- 

Kirk Reiser				The Computer Braille Facility
e-mail: kirk@braille.uwo.ca		University of Western Ontario
phone: (519) 661-3061

Re: trouble with CVS and a request for votes

[Charles Hallenbeck]

Hi Kirk -

No question about it, the DOS environment is a piece of cake compared to
the Linux environment. I am not at all unhappy with the way speakup
handles things right now, and I have also learned a few work arounds that
make life easier.

Even in a single process system like DOS, the timing problem is not easy.
The longer you wait to allow the screen to react to the keystroke, the
more sluggish the speech; but the faster you make it, the more errors you
get. Then there is the situation where the user is connected via a modem
program to a remote system, and the timing gets totally out of control.
And those problems are on simple systems.

I mostly wanted to emphasize the distinction between cursor tracking,
which as far as I know speakup has always done flawlessly, and speaking
what the cursor travels over, which is an entirely separate problem.
When I work in pico to edit a text document, I usually do my traveling
with the review cursor instead of the true cursor, and when I find
something I want to fix or change, I use the pico search function to bring
the true cursor to the point of interest. I have no problem living with
the current state of affairs. There are so many other things that speakup
offers that I have no hesitation at all in opting for 1.0.

BTW - Did you know that the very first release of the landmark data base
program "d base" was called "d base II?" There never was a "D Base 1."
Ashton Tate  was convinced that people would have more confidence in a
product with a "II"  after it.

Thanks for all the great work on a fine product.

Chuck


On 29 Sep 2001, Kirk Reiser wrote:

> Hi Chuck and all:  Well let's talk a tad about the difficulty of
> automatic speaking of cursor movement.  In dos and windows the screen
> review program only has external access to the data as in interrupt
> hooks or an os api.  At first glance you would expect that if you have
> total control at the kernel level you would be laughing, right?
> Wrong.  The kernel is absolutely not a sequential device as in you get
> the key, you track the key, the screen handles the key, you say the
> key.  Everything is handled through a series of interrupts which does
> very fast rudimentary handling of the event and then schedules on a
> bottom-half queue.  Okay, so what is a bottom-half queue.  It is a
> routine which runs after the interrupt has happened by a timer.  It
> keeps close attention to how much time is is using and reschedules if
> the jobs are not all handled.  At the same time all of the standard
> processing is also going on as normal.  As you can see we have already
> induced asynchrony in the process.  This also happens with our
> output.  So to cut to the chase, when identify the keystroke we don't
> necessarily have any idea to when the exact time that keys event is/was
> handled by the output routines.  So you track the cursor say what is
> on the screen at that point and woops, the screen hasn't even got
> close to making that change.  You just did the wrong thing at
> absolutely the right time, wrong time, well which was it?  So, maybe
> we want to be smart about it and set our own timer.  Okay, when? How
> do we know whether we're saying the correct event or not?
>
> I do not believe this is an insermountable problem.  I know however it
> will take more examination of the system as a whole and I've already
> spent extensive time on it.  The truth of it is I don't know myself
> the best way to handle it.  So if you don't know, you put it aside and
> work on the myriad other things which need to be done and come back to
> the problem later.  Meantime you hope you gain a better understanding
> on a clear way to handle the problem.
>
> If someone thinks they can jump in and do a better job of it than me,
> please don't hesitate to step up and fix it right.  Until I have a lot
> of other things finished it has moved way down on the priority list.
> It tracks perfectly.  It speaks correctly some of the time, and that's
> all it will do for now.
>
> BTW Chuck, it works worse under emacs than under pico or any other
> editor because emacs has an anoying habbit of bouncing the cursor all
> over the place whenever it crosses a tab-stop position.  When I'm
> editing I almost always have speech output turned off with ins-enter.
> It tracks perfectly then and I don't really care whether it speaks
> every char or line.  I am very familiar with where the review keys are
> and I use them when I want feedback.
>
>   Kirk
>
>

Visit me at http://www.mhonline.net/~chuckh
The Moon is Waxing Gibbous (94% of Full)

Re: trouble with CVS and a request for votes

[Kirk Reiser]

Charles Hallenbeck <chuckh@mhonline.net> writes:

> BTW - Did you know that the very first release of the landmark data base
> program "d base" was called "d base II?" There never was a "D Base 1."
> Ashton Tate  was convinced that people would have more confidence in a
> product with a "II"  after it.

That clinches it, we'll put out speakup-vi immediately! 'grin'

  Kirk

-- 

Kirk Reiser				The Computer Braille Facility
e-mail: kirk@braille.uwo.ca		University of Western Ontario
phone: (519) 661-3061

Re: trouble with CVS and a request for votes

[Saqib Shaikh]

Similarly, Dr Somon's AntiVirus started at 1.1 since nobody buys version 1.0
software.
Also, When slackware 4.0 was around and redhat had gone from 5.0 to 6.0,
patric volkerding got fed up of people asking "why are you using linux 4
instead of linux 6?".  he got so annoyed with these silly questions that
slackware went from 4.0 to 7.0.

Saqib

Re: trouble with CVS and a request for votes

[Gregory Nowak]

I've always wondered why there was a big version gap in slackware distro archives.
I figured that versions between 4 and 7 were taken
out to save room.
But, I guess that explains it.
Greg


On Sun, Sep 30, 2001 at 06:32:54AM +0100, Saqib Shaikh wrote:
> Similarly, Dr Somon's AntiVirus started at 1.1 since nobody buys version 1.0
> software.
> Also, When slackware 4.0 was around and redhat had gone from 5.0 to 6.0,
> patric volkerding got fed up of people asking "why are you using linux 4
> instead of linux 6?".  he got so annoyed with these silly questions that
> slackware went from 4.0 to 7.0.
> 
> Saqib
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

Re: trouble with CVS and a request for votes

[Amanda Lee]

Yes, I tend to disagree here too because I know that

Artic BusinessVision will allow you to query the exact row and column of
the cursor as well as there are keystrokes as well as the use of the
numberpad to read character, word, line sentance and paragraph.

JAWS for DOS does similar functions.

I'm sure that the DOS versions of GW's products do similar functions as
well so don't know where folks got this mis-conception but this is mixing
apples and oranges.


I believe the version should be 1.0 and go forward.

Amanda Lee
Alexandria, VA



On Thu, 27 Sep 2001, Gregory Nowak wrote:

> Give me an example of a DOS screenreader
> like that in an editor.
> I'm interested to hear of one now, maybe I'll relent
> on that issue after all.
> Greg
>
>
> On Thu, Sep 27, 2001 at 08:10:04PM -0500, Adam Myrow wrote:
> > Given that many DOS screen readers don't automatically read where you are
> > in every application, I have to say let's call Speakup version 1.0.  It's
> > got a lot of features that make it a good choice, not the least of which
> > is that it comes up talking from the beginning.  Many people give more
> > respect to a 1.0 or 2.0 product than a 0.10A product.  That's my vote.
> > Oh, I got Brltty and Speakup working together.  They make a good, pair.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Speakup mailing list
> > Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>

Re: trouble with CVS and a request for votes

[Janina Sajka]

I vote for this. Kirk, I want to strongly recommend it's time to go 1.0 
with speakup. After all, 1.0 is not a goal which crowns a life's 
achievment. It's just a major milestone. I think we're very much at that 
point now. My best evidence is the recent beginnings of inclusion from 
Cox, and the way that will likely change our world.

So, let's 1.0 and begin working toward 2.0.

 On Thu, 27 Sep 2001, 
Adam Myrow wrote:

> Given that many DOS screen readers don't automatically read where you are
> in every application, I have to say let's call Speakup version 1.0.  It's
> got a lot of features that make it a good choice, not the least of which
> is that it comes up talking from the beginning.  Many people give more
> respect to a 1.0 or 2.0 product than a 0.10A product.  That's my vote.
> Oh, I got Brltty and Speakup working together.  They make a good, pair.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> 

-- 
	
				Janina Sajka, Director
				Technology Research and Development
				Governmental Relations Group
				American Foundation for the Blind (AFB)

Email: janina@afb.net		Phone: (202) 408-8175

Chair, Accessibility SIG
Open Electronic Book Forum (OEBF)
http://www.openebook.org

Will electronic books surpass print books? Read our white paper,
Surpassing Gutenberg, at http://www.afb.org/ebook.asp

Download a free sample Digital Talking Book edition of Martin Luther
King Jr's inspiring "I Have A Dream" speech at
http://www.afb.org/mlkweb.asp

Learn how to make accessible software at
http://www.afb.org/accessapp.asp

Re: trouble with CVS and a request for votes

[Steve Holmes]

I would vote for a 1.0 release. Somehow the 0.?? version numbers makes it
sound like it is still very very rough on the edges and not really ready
for prime time. I personally find speakup to be much closer to prime time
than that.

My only concern about these new hooks in the kernel and whether they stay
or not is that uncertainty could impact compatibility of different speakup
versions, would it not? I mean official release vs CVS and what kernel
versions are in use. As long as that is all strait and verry, verry clear,
go for it!

I do strongly feel a new official release to be an excellent idea. That
should make it a lot easier for new comers to jump in with a current
speakup and a recent kernel.

Re: trouble with CVS and a request for votes

[Joseph Norton]

Why not go for 1.0.  All I can say is that I got more work done and less 
frustration out of speakup in its 0.x incarnations than I ever did with a 
certain DOS screen reader who's last version was 2.31.

RE: trouble with CVS and a request for votes

[mo.valli]

Hi,

Most definitely 1.0 as I believe that the maturity level of the package
together with clear and concise documentation is beyond what normally one
expects from a 1.0 release. In my experience, almost all windows based
screen readers at the stage of release 1.0 were basically unworkable, that
is frequently, the system would halt and would require hard reset.

I have only recently started with Linux and had to come over many
difficulties. However, speakup is definitely one of the very few packages
which was hassle free.

I would like to thank Kirk and others for their dedication on this project
and providing the blind world with a "free to use" screen reading
application for the Linux platform, which is in many ways far superior to
the commercial crap on other platforms.



Mo.


-----Original Message-----
From: Kirk Reiser [mailto:kirk@braille.uwo.ca]
Sent: 27 September 2001 01:18
To: speakup@braille.uwo.ca
Subject: Re: trouble with CVS and a request for votes


Hi Adam:  I'll try to answer your questions from both posts here.
>From what I understand brltty works very well with speakup.  I don't
use it but Gene Collins and a number of other folks on the list do use
it.

As far as cvs goes, the problem you are having is caused by your
friends isp not resloving a reverse lookup on his/her ip address.
When you connect to the cvs server it does a reverse lookup on the
address.  It takes that returned host.domain name and then resolves it
forward.  If it does not resolve then it assumes someone is doing ip
spoofing and refuses to talk any further.

We have been discussing a new speakup release recently on the
reflector.  If it looks like the speakup hooks are going to stay in
the kernel then we will create a new release.  Cvs will then only work
with kernels newer than the release snap shot.  If speakup does not
stay in the kernel then I would still like to get modularization of
the synth drivers in place before I make a new release.

But! while we are on the subject of releases, we need to take a public
vote.  Should the next release of speakup whenever it is released be
version 0.11 or as some folks are arguing 1.0?  I'll put it to a vote
because it seems quite a few people have an opinion on the subject.

  Kirk

-- 

Kirk Reiser				The Computer Braille Facility
e-mail: kirk@braille.uwo.ca		University of Western Ontario
phone: (519) 661-3061

_______________________________________________
Speakup mailing list
Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

RE: trouble with CVS and a request for votes

[Watson, Keith]

Ok, since we are voting, I vote for 1.0 as the next relese. Yes there are
bugs, and as we all know whenever you fix one of those hairy little bastards
another one always seems to pop up. Speakup is at a point now where it's
functionality is stable enough to warrent a 1.0 release, so I say do it!

Keith

-----Original Message-----
From: Kirk Reiser [mailto:kirk@braille.uwo.ca]
Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2001 8:18 PM
To: speakup@braille.uwo.ca
Subject: Re: trouble with CVS and a request for votes


Hi Adam:  I'll try to answer your questions from both posts here.
>From what I understand brltty works very well with speakup.  I don't
use it but Gene Collins and a number of other folks on the list do use
it.

As far as cvs goes, the problem you are having is caused by your
friends isp not resloving a reverse lookup on his/her ip address.
When you connect to the cvs server it does a reverse lookup on the
address.  It takes that returned host.domain name and then resolves it
forward.  If it does not resolve then it assumes someone is doing ip
spoofing and refuses to talk any further.

We have been discussing a new speakup release recently on the
reflector.  If it looks like the speakup hooks are going to stay in
the kernel then we will create a new release.  Cvs will then only work
with kernels newer than the release snap shot.  If speakup does not
stay in the kernel then I would still like to get modularization of
the synth drivers in place before I make a new release.

But! while we are on the subject of releases, we need to take a public
vote.  Should the next release of speakup whenever it is released be
version 0.11 or as some folks are arguing 1.0?  I'll put it to a vote
because it seems quite a few people have an opinion on the subject.

  Kirk

-- 

Kirk Reiser				The Computer Braille Facility
e-mail: kirk@braille.uwo.ca		University of Western Ontario
phone: (519) 661-3061

_______________________________________________
Speakup mailing list
Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup