FW: Next team meeting date/time.

[Jason Grieves]

Replied under yours

-----Original Message-----
From: Henrik Nilsen Omma [mailto:henrik at ubuntu.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, December 21, 2005 8:41 AM
To: Jason Grieves
Cc: ubuntu-accessibility at lists.ubuntu.com
Subject: Re: Next team meeting date/time.

Jason,

I think it reads well. I guess you have plans to add more content about 
the applications (firefox, OOo, etc.).

Some general thoughts:

 - Is it possible to take screenshots of split mode or the full mode 
(where I understand there were some issues with some panels). It might 
help developers see the issues you are referring to and would also be 
good for a general audience to actually see how it works (we are 
planning to post this up on OSnews or somewhere when it's done right?).

yep I can use vmware if the print screen seems to goof up.  On my TODO


 - You mention ZoomText for Windows. I wonder if you could do a bit more 
on comparing gnome-mag and zoomtext. When configured perfectly (and/or 
with the soon to be improved new xorg functionality) how far off is 
gnome-mag from the state of the art? (think of the way reviewers in HiFi 
or Auto magazines take critical look at competing options, pretending 
for a moment that we are not free software advocates).

That is a good idea.  I believe I will get some help with this from a
veteran Zoomtext user.  We can probably work not this comparison this week.

- How does it actually do the zooming? Does it just interpolate up the 
screen image or does it actually render the fonts in a larger size 
(which I guess is what ZoomText does in Office). The latter would 
obviously yield a sharper result.

I actually thought it interpolated the screen image.  That is the need for
smoothing of the images.  I haven't had a lot of time in the code but I was
under the impression it used some of X zoom to just magnify.  Composite
definitely renders everything off screen and builds it.  This will allow for
say changing gnome-themes on the fly.  Very cool stuff.

 - Dual head: You mentioned that most people don't have two graphics 
cards, but a growing number of cards now have two outputs, one digital 
and one analog VGA. I happen to have an LCD screen with a digital input, 
so I can run that along with an older CRT, both connected to the same 
card. Even without that, you can get a digital to VGA converter for 
about £5 so you could run two regular screen off one newish card. You 
briefly mention that two displays might be the best option; Is that 
worth looking at more closely? Is the advantage mainly that it would be 
easier to set up (since you could have at least one display always 
working), or are two screens better in daily use as well? If someone 
with low vision is planning a new computer setup is this something they 
should plan for? Does X and gnome-mag have any advantages over the 
Windows/ZoomText setup in this regard?

Will work on this issue more.  Perhaps you can do some testing with your
idea?  I will be working with my Zoomtext vet to see how well it handles
multiple screens.  The sun folks shared that using 2 vid cards takes some of
the load off (though I personally feel the real load is in memory/cpu since
they aren't using composite)  this will require further testing.  Perhaps
some graphs?

- Henrik


Thanks for the valuable input

- Jason