This is a page for the programs I'm working on to make Mac computers easier to use for visually impaired users. And of course, everyone else may find them useful as well.
This is a program for bookport and bookcourier users. It's called UBT, and is compatible with both ppc and intel macs. You'll need to compile it, but there should be no problem once it's compiled. The main page for the ubt tool is: http://www.nfbcal.org/~buhrow/ubt/, but we're providing it here for convenience. ubt-0.93.tar.gz
Here is a list of programs known to work with voice over. A dditions, corrections and comments should be mailed to the address on the programs page. List of programs compatible with voice over
A small list of games for the mac (and their downloads) are listed on the games page.
A list of some unix programs I have compiled for use on the mac (and their downloads) are located on the unix page.
A list of scripts (applescript, perl, and so forth) are located on the scripts page.
Current softcon programs and their versions are:
For more information, you can read the Softcon dvd player readme here.
softcon audio burn allows you to burn audio cds w/o building an image or creating a directory to hold the files first. It will handle mp3, wav, aiff, m4a, and raw pcm formats automatically, and convert them to the format required for building redbook compatible cds that will play in any audio cd player. Using this program prevents the need to rename your tracks to get them in the right order on the cd as is necessary when using the OSX built-in audio burn feature.
Softcon Pdf Viewer is a program that allows voice over users to read a pdf file from end to end, without having to stop after every page, hit next page, then begin reading again. Visually, there's very little difference between Softcon Pdf Viewer, and the preview app provided by Apple, as far as displaying pdfs go anyway. There are differences in interface elements, but all the functions are there.
Unfortunately, voice over users cannot (yet) access all the functionality such as annotations, links and the like. This release is mainly to provide vo users the automatic reading of pdfs, which is not possible using preview under tiger.
Softcon Data Burn is a program that allows building of data discs containing multiple file systems if desired. I.E. you can have both a juliet file system for dos, and a iso9660 file system for unix machines. It supports iso, iso9660, HPFSPlus, and juliet. The program allows configuration of each file system separately. Each file system can have either the same files on the other ones, or completely separate files, it's up to you.
Softcon data burn doesn't support dvd formats for movies, but it can put files on a dvd, treating it as a very large cd, so you don't have to span those large backup files over multiple cds, just put them on a single dvd disc.
Softcon Yahtzee is an implementation of the game Yahtzee. It's played by rolling 5 dice, and trying to get certain number combinations for point values. Obviously, the higher the final score, the better. The code for this program was taken from Apple's accessibility demo dicey game, which you can find on apple's site http://developer.apple.com/samplecode/Dicey/ in case you'd like to have a look at how to make accessible games for OSX.
Softcon News Reader is an rss news reader that is 100 percent voiceover compatible, and can work in conjunction with your existing news reader such as mail or safari to read those rss feeds.If there are any additional scripts or applications you'd like to see here, please let us know, and we'll see what we can do to get them placed here.