2. Implementation (connecting to the pc)
I used this with NVDA is pretty solid, especially if you install this add on (I had to cheat using the computer for entering this URL because I frankly have no idea how brackets are typed in Spanish dot 8 braille)
The only thing that I find hard to do yet, is reading links, and underlined text and all of that. I find that when dot 7 is added for computer braille caps, I have a hell of a hard time reading a word but that is because probably I am not at all used to it. Also, I wish braille extender was a bit more clear on the key assignments.
I know b1, for example is braille dot 1. And d1, means press the select button plus dot 1. b9 is the space bar. But then we get to b10, b11, and b0, and that is not even possible to do on the orbit... so you should go to the gestures dialog in NVDA and reassign some of them, or all if you want. Oh right. I never managed to emulate say, shift plus something. Or control plus something. And there is a bug, because I like using grade 2 English (which I know quite well) and grade one Spanish (until I can get my own table being put into lib louis which is the official one for spanish grade 2) but I have not been able to even switch between tables because oh, surprise, when I go into the config dialog to select the tables only the second one gets selected, so the shortcut is useless, I would guess editing the .ini file or something would be a workaround. Oh, navigating pages with one letter presses is just a blast. And say, to go to the previous heading you would type the caps sign for your language, and then the letter h. That was a nice discovery. Finally, there are commands that you use with select plus braille letters to emulate alt f4, windows d, windows m, ETC. they are somewhat intuitive, but I still have to get used to those or assign and propose assignments for the orbit 20 exclusively, but despite all of those quirks I really like the add on so far... if only could we use custom braille tables at least to test them (the issue was brought to life and worked on for a really good while and then the author just threw the towell too fast)
Typing text with the braille keyboard lagged a bit, as promised.
The orbit compensates for this by having a special prompt invoked when you press select plus down arrow which opens an edit box so that you can type the text fast, then send up to 255 characters of text to any device and apparently speed up entry that way, but I have not tested that feature yet. Finally, its hard to say that roboBraille converts spanish accurately, it certainly has a very hard time with accented letters. So I would say, if there is no grade 2 support for your language (only the U.S. is the spoiled one in that department I am afraid) then simply convertting the files to unformatted plain text (UTF8 ) in microsoft word should work for any western language because you can open them directly in the orbit reader, it re-flows them auto magically for you.
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A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where a train stops. On my desk, I have a work station…