Screen Readers and post trimming (was: Cannon [Camera] Support)

[Avi Greenbury]

On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 09:45:56 -0500 (EST)
"Accessys at smart.net" <accessys at smart.net> wrote:

> 
> even firefox doens't reliably put the ">" in front of all lines of
> quoted text.
Where would you expect it to? I've not used Firefox in a little while,
but I wasn't aware of it containing a mail reader.
 
> as I have preached for years it is a WORLD wide web and it is for
> everyone not just those with the latest or greatest equipment. and one
> company (who shall remain nameless) seems to go out of their way to
> make software that intentionally doesn't work or even breaks other
> software.

Is this the same company that popularised top-posting?

> and programmers routinely ignore the concepts of universal usability.
> eyecandy is more important than content in far too many cases.

Surely the people who are programming the screenreaders are doing so in
the name of universal usability?
 
> if you want to try it "turn on Orca" and turn off your monitor and try
> reading the mail on this or any list.

I believe you. I'm not trying to argue that it works.
I'm simply trying to point out that the broken bit is the screen
reader, not the email author. Or, more reasonably, the more reliable
fix is to alter the behaviour of the screen reader than to attempt to
alter the behaviour of half the internet.

If the screenreader were to treat email quotes as distinct from the
rest of the email body, then it would surely not matter where the reply
and the quote in the email was. This is obviously a better solution to
pretending that at some point we will have a situation where everybody
writes their emails in the same way.
The kind of people who trim and bottom-post are also the kind of people
who send in plain text. Certainly the lists that mandate one tend to
mandate the other. I've not come across anyone using anything other
than > to denote a quote in a plain text email.


For as long as a sizeable proportion of the users find it easier and
more logical, and at least for as long as the rules of the list mandate
it, you are going to find that the large bulk of emails to this list
are bottom posted. Hopefully trimmed, too.

--
Avi Greenbury
http://aviswebsite.co.uk ;)
http://aviswebsite.co.uk/asking-questions