2019-06-15 18:55:21

Hello!
It is very important to be active and do as much as possible!
read the entire post for details.

In the English-language android mailing list, one user decided to create a petition for Google to implement Braille input to TB (also called the accessibility accessibility service, designed to voice text and applications not seen by android smartphones), accordingly, it will not need to be turned off every time using the keyboard.
Help, please collect signatures as much as possible.

There are people who used Braille input and were very tormented when they had to write even simple words. for example, to write "Hello", they needed to turn off the screen reader.
Even a sighted person and one who does not need it at all can sign the petition simply by taking a few minutes.
I have already asked for statistics to sign my friends, you can probably sign more from their different email addresses.
At the moment, the number of signatures is 479, and you need 1000.
Here is the link:
https://secure.avaaz.org/en/petition/Go … ID_TAMBEM/


It is enough to enter your first name, last name, E-mail and press the "Sign" button.
Everything is in English there, but it will not be difficult for anyone, because there is a button for signing "Sign this petition"
If you do not want to receive email messages, you will receive a link to the unsubscribe in the email.

Let's make braille input on Android affordable and convenient for us!

Thanks in advance!

If you can share this publication in social networks with friends and with those who can and are not difficult to sign a petition.
Remember that if you help, you will also be helped!
take part in this mini-vote after signing the petition, please!
We will know the results at the end of July.

--
The faceless ghost wishes you a good mood and good luck in all your endeavors!

2019-06-15 19:11:36 (edited by Facelessghost 2019-06-15 19:24:39)

A small fix!
I wanted to, after signing the petition, you pass a mini survey that I created on this forum, but it turned out that it is not displayed.
So that it will not.
in spite of this, I will continue to keep track of the company, in support of this petition.
at the end of July, I will report the results.
if someone is interested, you can write the results in this topic.
do this after the petition has reached 1000 subscribers.
and she will go to google for consideration.
Thank you for your attention and support.

--
The faceless ghost wishes you a good mood and good luck in all your endeavors!

2019-06-16 00:51:51

Lol, you think Google listens to us? Nope. Only Microsoft does that nowadays, and Apple does a little, just enough to keep us hoping for better braille support. But Google? No. Y'all're kidding yourselves if you think Google will improve in anything but the least useful things, as the accessibility folks are so soft that they don't demand fixes from the Android developement team, and don't call that team out to their superiors. And even then, all Google cares about is the "new" stuff. Live captioning, instead of better Brailleback or Talkback fixes. Lookout instead of AI in Talkback. Seriously, as little as Apple improves Braille, they at least have the basics right. If you want braille, you'll need an iPhone, simple as that. Don't pray to Google, they don't care. Even an iPhone 7 will do.

Devin Prater
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2019-06-16 01:24:33

Apple's Braille support is now 100% spot-on from what I can tell. I've had no issues as of late. So I'm surprised that this is still an issue on the Android system...ten years after accessibility became mainstream.

It's one of the primary reasons I'm still on iOS: I love Braille, and a turn-off even in NVDA for me was its lack of solid Braille support.

2019-06-16 02:50:45 (edited by Ethin 2019-06-16 03:06:46)

There's BRLTTY for Android, you know. And if you haven't tried politely asking for updated braille support, might you try that? (If I had received a demanding email to update braille support that contained no politeness I certainly wouldn't put it very high on my list to fix or update if I were the accessibility team.) It also uses Liblouis. I think, though I can't confirm, that Apple uses a proprietary technology, hence their "spot-on" braille support as post four put it. NVDA has been pretty good for me when it comes to braille (though Ihaven't tried it in some time). Add to that the fact that it uses BRLTTY and the braille should be pretty solids in regards to braille display support. Touch braille is a hole other matter and I can understand why Google might not implement it; I can't imagine its easy to do, and Apple probably uses exclusive contracts and other stuff to get theirs to even work.
@3, do you even know how the accessibility team operates? Have you worked for them and with them? If you haven't, then I'd consider most of post 3 a bunch of speculative nonsense coming from a pissed-off Android user who has nothing better to do. Have you tried sending a message to the Google Accessibility forum or applying for the Accessibility Trusted Tester program? Google wants the latest technology -- that's true. Braille support isn't the best... if you can code in Java, you could also, uh, contribute too, instead of bitching. But hey, if you can provide evidence that proves your case, go right ahead -- I await it.
Not trying to defend it, but still, post 3's arguments are shaky at best. "Don't listen to anything we say". OK... where's the proof for that one? I've linked above to two places where you can give feedback -- which are two places anyone should try before directly contacting Google Accessibility. (Obviously... right? Apparently not...) You can contribute, too. I don't know if some of the issues reported on the reviews page of Google Braille Back on the Play Store are caused by BRLTTY or Braille Back itself, so it may be difficult to figure out and fix (I think debugging an app on android is harder than on a native machine). One way we can find out, mind, is to text it on Linux with BRLTTY and see if similar problems occur.

"On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament!]: 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out ?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."    — Charles Babbage.
My Github

2019-06-16 03:17:20

Re: post 3, @Ethin I've heard this from multiple other people as well that Google has downsized their access team. And no, NVDA's Braille support is cute at best, at least with the displays I've used. Your premise of using Java to contributed is also flawed since not everyone is a developer, so you can't expect everyone to jump in and start coding. I've seen this type of attitude from many people as of late and it's simply not how the world works. In fact, FS used to use the same argument: if something is broken, you can script it, so that alleviates us from responsibility. Heck, even GW Micro used that argument when they came out with their app development stuff.

It's easy for you to write such things but you fail to see it from the average user's perspective.

2019-06-16 04:14:34

@6, it may not be flawed but its out there. And I would suggest you use BRLTTY on Android if you want that; supposedly that's good, better than BrailleBack. NVDA worked nicely with my Brailliant BI 40.

"On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament!]: 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out ?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."    — Charles Babbage.
My Github

2019-06-16 16:36:25

Lol, just listen to the interviews Victor Tsaran did a few times. He specifically says that other Android teams have their own priorities. So, accessibility, very apparently, isn't one of them? The platform, aside from braille for a second, won't allow TalkBack to implement multi-finger gestures, after a good ten years of work? Nah, the Android developers just don't care, and the accessibility people don't seem to have the power to change that. Also, if you're such a big bad coder, Ethin, why not fix braille yourself, and add in multi-finger gesture support into the accessibility API while you're at it? After all, its not that hard, right? After all, anyone can do it, right? I'm so tired of being told to "just fix it yourself." "Oh Linux is great, and if you have a app you want make it yourself! Open source rules because everyone can make anything!" and "you want some thing we deem unimportant in a screen reader? Make it yourself!" Back to Android, I'm sure Google would gladly accept your commit, and maybe even thank you privately for improving accessibility, doing what they've not been able to do for 10+ years! Like, you must be some kind of genius or something if our engineers couldn't even figure it out. All this makes me proud to be an iPhone owner, that I've given my dollars to a company that at least tries to care about accessibility, and gets it mostly right.

Devin Prater
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2019-06-16 20:01:43

Wow! Post 8 flew off the handle a little! Damn! And missed (or forgot) that BRLTTY is available and that I recommended he try that instead...
Also, my post part where I say "If you know java" pretty much implies "if your a software developer and know how to fix it". I would think that that would be obvious whenever someone who says something like "Well, you could contribute" says something like that.

"On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament!]: 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out ?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."    — Charles Babbage.
My Github

2019-06-17 02:20:43

Again, can someone explain what exactly the problem is with NVDA or android and Braille? is your display just not supported and that makes such a big chaos around your personal and emotional life?

A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where a train stops. On my desk, I have a work station…

2019-06-17 03:45:37

@10, I've been wondering the same thing. If something doesn't work with their braille display its suddenly the end of the world and the economy is collapsing.

"On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament!]: 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out ?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."    — Charles Babbage.
My Github

2019-06-17 03:58:32

When it comes to Braille from Google, your best off using ChromeVox with a Chromebook, if ya want Braille.
Also, have a look over at This AppleVis Blog Entry (particularly startting with "comment 39" onwards,) as the discussion between IOS and Android, is quite inspiring!

2019-06-17 06:54:48

@12 though outdated (the post in here is somewhat more comprehensive and less winy) it still does not explain the braille thing in android.
What is again, so bad, terrible, unstable or whatever... about it?
is it the lack of braille input? which i don't even get how it works in IPhone because everyone is great at complaining but really poor at explaining and I have no plans to own one anytime soon, but nevertheless would love to know. I also use a braille display that has no problems at all with any of the things I use, including brailleBack and NVDA and can type braille with it.
Anyway, if the main argument for terrible braille support in android is the lack of braille input, that is a very dangerous thing to say because if it really is so, then I can conclude silly every day stuff by that same logic, like drinking too much milk will give me cancer and so on just because I am lactose intolerant.

A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where a train stops. On my desk, I have a work station…

2019-06-17 13:31:59

You cannot even do the most basic thing, which is turn the speech off and use braille. If you want to go into detail, brailleback needs to be set as your default keyboard each time you want to use it to input on your display, and when you disconnect it then you have to change keyboards again. Hopefully this at least should be possible to resolve in Android Q. Scrolling also used to be very buggy back when I tried it. It all sounds great on paper, Google has 2 channels to report accessibility bugs, but the reality is most things you report there will be read by somebody who never used TalkBack longer than 15 minutes and will have no idea how to reproduce something. All this comes from a 5 year Android user. With Oreo, when Victor stepped in it really seemed like Android will massively improve. Here we are, just a year ahead and we're back to how it was in pre Oreo days. We get a TalkBack beta with no info on what bugs were fixed, Youtube is constantly breaking accessibility with every update, web browsing is a lot of fun with focus jumping all around, and in general issues that any blind full time Android user would notice in a few days. No, you can't contribute. A flawed argument with no evidence to back it up. How do I contribute to TalkBack when the last open sourced version is out of date and when Google is not accepting pull requests? That source is there just for reading, not so people can actually contribute. Simple translation pull requests were not merged, a pull request by a member of LineageOS team was not merged, so I can only thank Google for making it useless to contact custom rom developers and ask them to fix accessibility shortcut on their setup. Brailleback even as far as I know is not open sourced at all, however I could be wrong on that since I didn't check. If it is, great, but it probably works on the same principle as TalkBack, they will update the sources once per year and that's it. There's a reason Samsung created voice assistant from TalkBack's source and didn't contribute, it took Samsung one Android version to make multy finger gestures work. It took Samsung one Android version to inspire Google to later add accessibility shortcut, dark screen to TalkBack and god knows how many other features. This is not bad at all, however it should not stop there. Android is accessible, that's for sure, but it's a major payn for some tasks including web browsing, and add to this that almost any list having over 100 items is painfully slow to brows with TalkBack and you got the root of the problem. Google needs optimisation, nothing else.

2019-06-17 13:54:39

@14 +1.

@10 To some of us, Braille is really important. Just because you don't really use it as much as we do or care for it as much doesn't mean it's not useful to someone and that someone isn't heavily reliant on it.

So yes, for some of us, bad Braille support is a definite deal breaker. When NVDA started to fix their Braille support, I was using the SmartBeetle Braille display. It worked...and then broke...and then worked and then broke again. I'm not sure of the latest on it since I've switched to JAWS since then which has always had in recent memory great Braille support. It's solid, reliable, and really, really customizable.

I think the argument in this thread is that one shouldn't have to install something else besides the Android defaults (whatever that means) to use Braille. That smells heavily like Braille is totally an afterthought in Android.

And yeah, those of you who can fix it, go fix it. But then, if I go down that road, I'll end up reiterating what I said in post 6. That argument of "well...you can just fix it yourself" bugs me to no end, and I'm a computer scientist with over fifteen years worth of professional work experience. It's like someone saying their roof is broken and a roofer going "well, you can learn how to fix it yourself and just go fix it yourself."

But this is the mindset of the younger kids nowadays who live in the tech world day in and day out. To them, everyone is a techie and they fail to realize that their view is only shaped by the bubble in which they've placed themselves. Once you guys get out into the real world you'll be amazed at how diverse it is.

2019-06-17 17:56:51

The only screen reader that lets you "Mute" the speech while using braille on "Pure" Android, sadly is Samsung's own "Voice Assistant."

Now, if we are talking Braille Display Support using the VoiceView screen reader from Amazon, way nicer experience I hear!
(Links above take you to their respective "Fire Tablet Accessibility" help page.

2019-06-17 20:27:29

OK. So braille support is a deal-breaker for some people -- we've established that. That doesn't mean that Android is shit, which this topic is absolutely advertising -- "iOS is God, Android is shit!"
As for the optimization thing, you can only do so much when it comes to optimization. I don't know if its Java doing that or bad coding. The web hasn't been much of a huge issue for me (though I haven't used it much). As I've said before, use BRLTTY instead of BrailleBack (http://mielke.cc/brltty/doc/Android.html).
@15, that mindset is not just echoed by youngsters these days, its pretty much echoed by everyone, though its just not so outspoken (see https://typo3.com/blog/pros-cons-of-ope … ise-level/ for an example, posted back in 2018). In fact I doubt that mindset has anything to do with the "current generation" but to those who have fully embraced open-source code. If the code is available, and you have a problem, there's a pretty good chance you can fix it yourself. I'm not sure where BrailleBAck's source code actually is -- at least the up-to-date code -- and I don't know if the experiences raged in this topic are actually *up to date* with modern times or not.

"On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament!]: 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out ?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."    — Charles Babbage.
My Github

2019-06-17 23:43:09

Just because those of us that know how to code can fix code we don't like doesn't mean everyone should be told to fix broken software themselves. As I pointed out earlier, FS adopted this mentality at one point and so did GWMicro, and I didn't like it then, either. It absolves the companies--who hire people to fix problems--of the responsibility of fixing them, because well, the community, if it weren't so damn lazy, would just fix it itself. See my roofer analogy above.

Plus, we go right back to the argument that not everyone is a coder, so you can't just expect every person and their mom to jump in and start coding on such a complex project as Android. It's simply not realistic. Most of these people don't even know what a linked list is. Just like hardware is out of the league of many of us, so is software to many others. If DYI was so easy, nowadays everyone and their dad would be a plumber. But...surprise! We still have hardware stores around to do hardware maintenance.

So, again, it's easy for people like you to just come here and write "well...just fix it yourself," but this idea is simply not realistic because now you're assuming everyone has the domain-specific knowledge you do. So you can't use that catch-all as a solution to every open-source problem you come across.

And this is definitely a younger mentality we've got going on here because it's idealistic and based on a premise that simply doesn't hold in reality. I used to think the same way when I was your age, until I realized that people go to school for different reasons--and still more don't go to post-secondary at all.

Also, reading backwards, I don't think anyone said Android is shit. We all have raised accessibility concerns and the lack of a true access effort in Android, which, even I, (not being an Android user) have heard many Android users themselves complain about.

2019-06-18 01:32:49 (edited by Ethin 2019-06-18 01:38:22)

@18, your not outright saying Android is shit but its whats being implied. Post 3 literally is oozing with the android is shit mentality purely because its braille support isn't up to the standards of Apple. I have already linked to several resources that make it easy to install BRLTTY on your phone, which will get you the same braille support that you'd get on Linux (which supposedly is quite good).
I get how the mentality of "Fix it if you can" may be unrealistic but its pretty much what open-source is. Contribute if you know how, or deal with the issues until someone else can. If FS and GWMicro made it so that it absolved them of any liability and left it up to the community, than that's on them; that's not the open-source ideology at all. The original authors should continue maintaining the software, even if the community helps out a little. But the hole point of open-source is to make software freely open source so that anyone can modify it, which is why I submitted the "If you want it fixed, try to contribute" idea above in prior posts; you don't need to modify the entire OS to get android braille support to work. I also diverged, though, from said mentality and did post helpful resources that might solve your problem. I'm not a braille user on the phone that often, so cannot attest to its liability, but since its the same drivers that power Linux braille support, there's a pretty good chance that its good. Getting spot-on braille is hard, especially when you've got braille tables to deal with.

"On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament!]: 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out ?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."    — Charles Babbage.
My Github