THE CODE FACTORY BLOG

On behalf of Code Factory, Mark Taylor will host the first TalkLive Code Factory show. The show is entitled “Get Going With Mobile Geo 2.5”. It is scheduled for Saturday, June 5, 2010 at 10:00 AM US Pacific time (7.00 PM Central European time).

To listen now to the audio promo of the show, click here

The show is being hosted on the TalkShoe.com service. To go to the show’s episode page, click here. Anyone can join TalkShoe for free and, after doing so, may log into the live show in one of several different ways that are described during the sign-up process.

Here are the dialing instructions for non-TalkShoe.com listeners:

A.

From any telephone, no sooner than 15 minutes before the scheduled start-time of the show, dial +1-724-444-7444.

B.

A voice prompt will ask for the show’s ID number followed by the # (Pound sign). Enter 83353#

C.

A voice prompt will ask for the caller’s TalkShoe member number/ID. Members will enter their number followed by the # (Pound Sign). Non-TalkShoe members are instructed to enter the number 1 followed by the # (Pound Sign).

Enjoy the show!

The web experience has become an integral part of our lives. It is hard to imagine life without the Internet, and especially on our mobile devices. So, Mobile Accessibility provides easy to use and powerful access to web content with an accessible Web browser, allowing you to navigate web pages in the way you are used to with your desktop screen reader.

Let’s understand how to work with the Mobile Accessibility Web Application. To start browsing the web, go to the Mobile Accessibility home screen, and navigate to the web application using the arrow keys or the touchscreen. Then activate the browser by either double tapping on the screen or pressing the center of the trackpad or the enter key of your phone keyboard.

Once launched, the Mobile Accessibility web app will load the home page. The default page is code factory’s home page. If you want, you can change the default home page in the web settings dialog.

While a page is loading, the mobile accessibility web app announces your download progress in percents, i.e. 44 percent. Once a page is fully loaded, a page summary with the number of frames, headings, elements and links will be spoken. At this point, you can begin to navigate the page using Mobile accessibility’s web commands.

You can navigate a web page using Mobile Accessibility navigation commands. To make the interface simple, Mobile Accessibility uses navigation modes. You can change the navigation mode and then use the Navigate To Previous Element or Navigate To Next Element commands to explore the web page. Use the long press of the menu key to toggle navigation modes. The default navigation mode is navigation by links, so if you want to navigate to the next link, you would use the swipe right gesture or press right arrow, which is the navigate next element command. If instead, you want to navigate to the next heading, you would long press the menu key once to change the navigation mode to navigate by headings and then swipe right or press right arrow to Navigate to the next element.

Similar to other Mobile Accessibility apps, another important feature of the Mobile Accessibility Web App is that you can press the menu key or triple tap to bring up a quick menu to change some options and issue a few commands that are not available using gestures.

Please keep in mind that you will need an Internet connection in order to use the Mobile Accessibility Web application. If you do not connect via Wi-Fi, please check the data plan of your operator so that you know exactly what charges are involved with downloading Internet data.

To read more about how to use the Web app of Mobile Accessibility visit http://www.codefactory.es/MA/en/ma_1_0_manual.html#_Toc286743672

Listen to the following demo: Web app of Mobile Accessibility by Carlos Palomino

To follow Carlos, visit his blog at http://www.carlospalomino.com

In addition to his suite of 10 accessible apps, Mobile Accessibility is a powerful screen reader similar to TalkBack or Spiel and is capable of rendering audio prompts when you navigate in the phone’s menu or in other application.

Listen to Ana demoing Mobile Accessibility screen reader functionality. To follow Ana visit her blog at http://accessibleandroid.blogspot.com/p/submissions-suggestions-and-tips.html

If you start navigating in the phone’s menu, Mobile Accessibility will announce the menu icons and upon activating the focused icon, it will read the controls of the application. In order to navigate in the phone menu or in applications, one must use the track pad or arrow keys available on the phone. To read the currently focused element, one can use a short press of the search button on the phone. Keep in mind, when using Mobile Accessibility as your screen reader, the touch screen of the phone will be used for normal functions of the touch screen. It is important to note that as of now, Mobile Accessibility does not provide an accessible touch interface to navigate or control the touch screen of the phone. Phones that include a trackpad or dedicated arrow keys will work best when using applications outside of Mobile Accessibility.

Mobile Accessibility works with a wide variety of third-party applications available from the Android market. To ask about specific applications, consult the Mobile Accessibility mailing list or simply download an app from the market to try it for yourself.

In addition the following things should be noted and will prove helpful when using Mobile Accessibility as a screen reader outside the Mobile Accessibility window.

To activate options in a menu, to activate buttons in an application or to check or uncheck check boxes, you must use the trackpad or keyboard Enter key.

To navigate one step backward use the back button on the device. The back button is also used to exit an application. For some applications, you should use a Long press of the back key to exit the application.

To silence Mobile Accessibility speech, tap the proximity Sensor. The proximity sensor is located on the top of the screen and is near to the ear piece. To know the exact position of the proximity sensor, check the phone user guide. Note this option will only work if you check the option “Stop Speech when tapping the proximity sensor” under Mobile Accessibility > Settings > Audio and Vibration.

To read text in edit boxes, use the system wide virtual keyboard navigation keystrokes. Note, you can use the volume down key to toggle navigation modes when the virtual keyboard is active and can use slide right / left to read the next or previous block of text based on your navigation settings (characters, words, or sentences).