W3 Access for Blind People - User's Manual
V1.0
Introduction
'W3 Access for Blind People' is intended to make life easier to blind
people when they want to surf on the World-Wide Web (W3). In this
manual we assume that you are familiar using a screenreader and
working with a W3 browser. If you are not, please consult your
manuals. We also assume that you already know how to use W3. (If not,
what are you doing right now?)
Configuring your Browser
If it's possible, disable in your browser options like:
- Show Toolbar
- Show Bitmaps
- Show Images
In the following you have to know the addresses and ports of the
proxies. For the moment, you can use our proxy. This may change
sometime. As soon as we know about other places, we will add a list to
this document.
(If you don't know, what a proxy is, don't worry. It will probably work
anyway.)
Configuring Netscape
In the menubar "Options->Preferences...->Proxies"
set:
FTP Proxy: ea.ethz.ch Port: 8080
Gopher Proxy: ea.ethz.ch Port: 8080
HTTP Proxy: ea.ethz.ch Port: 8080
Configuring Mosaic
In the menubar "Options->Preferences...->Proxy"
set:
HTTP Proxy Server: ea.ethz.ch:8080
FTP Proxy Server: ea.ethz.ch:8080
Gopher Proxy Server: ea.ethz.ch:8080
Configuring WinWeb
In the menubar "Options->Proxy Server..."
set:
Multiple Proxy Server
http: ea.ethz.ch:8080
ftp: ea.ethz.ch:8080
gopher: ea.ethz.ch:8080
After having configured your browser, make sure that your browser's
cache is flushed. Otherwise you may receive documents not transformed
by the 'W3 Access for Blind People' because they are taken out of your
own cache.
Getting started with 'W3 Access for Blind People'
When you load a HTML-document via our proxy-server the document you
receive has three parts: The document itself, and additionally a
linklist and a hierarchical list of all the titles. The lists give
you an overview over the document and allow you to navigate easily
through it.
List of Links
After loading a document you can jump to the linklist to have an idea
of which links are available. When a link seems to be interesting you
can activate it directly from this list.
Let's look at this concept a little closer: At the top of each
document you find a link to the linklist. This link is named 'Ref to
Linklist'. Activating this link, the top of the linklist will appear
at the top of the browser's window. The first entry of this list is
not a link but it indicates you how many links there are in the
list. Following this you find the document's links. The last link in
this list that is named 'Ref to Top' brings you back to the top of the
document. The linklist is terminated by the words 'End of linklist'.
The List of Titles
Most HTML-documents have a hierarchical title structure: There are
titles of level one (maintitles) containing in most cases titles of
level two (subtitles) which may have subtitles of level three and so
on. When you load a document you can get a quick overview just by
browsing through the titlelist of level one. In fact, the titles in
this list are references to the real titles in the text. When you find
a title in the list that seems to be interesting you can either jump
to the appropriate title in the text or go down the hierarchy to find
all titles of level two belonging to this title. If there are more
levels you can go on climbing down the hierarchy. You also can climb
up again. The titlelist is terminated by the words 'End of
titlelist'.
Jumping from the text to the titlelist:
To jump to the first titlelevel just use the 'Ref to title level
1'-link at the top of the document just after 'Ref to Linklist'.
Doing this, the number of titles of level one will appear at the top
of the browser's window followed by the titlelist. It is a general
concept that after each title in the text you find a reference to the
appropriate titlelist of all its subtitles.
Navigating in the titlelists:
After a title in the titlelist (which is in fact a reference to the
title in the document) you can find a link labelled 'Lower level'. Use
this link to jump to the list of subtitles belonging to this title. If
there are no more subtitles this reference will not appear in the
list. If you are at a lower titlelevel than level one there will also
be a link 'Upper level' at the end of the titlelist. Use this link to
go up by one level - you jump to the title in the titlelist to which
the current titlelist belongs.
Jumping from the titlelists back to the text:
You can directly jump to the text belonging to a title by using the
title which is in fact a reference to the appropriate text. At the
end of a titlelist you always find the links 'Back to Text' and 'Top
of Document'. 'Top of Document' jumps to the top of the
document. Using 'Back to Text', the title to which the current
titlelist belongs will appear at the top of the window. For example if
you are in a titlelist of level two (belonging to the level-one-title
"Activities") the title "Activities" will be at
the top of the window when you use 'Back to Text'.
Other features
The keywords 'Image', 'Radiobutton', 'Checkbox', 'Editfield', 'Button'
and 'Combobox' are printed before the appropriate elements in the
text. If your screenreader doesn't identify these non-textual elements
you are at least informed that these elements do appear.
Searching
In the text of a document the keyword 'link' is inserted before each
link. So you can use some "find"-commands which are provided
by your browser or screenreader to browse through the document without
using the linklist. Similarly you can use the keywords 'title level'
to jump from one title to the next. There are some other keywords
that are self-explanatory: 'Image', 'Radiobutton', 'Checkbox',
'Editfield', 'Button' and 'Combobox'. Use these keywords in the
"find"-command to see if there are such elements and to jump
to these positions.
Summary
When you load a document, a linklist and hierarchical titlelists are
added to the document's text. These lists serve you to get an overview
over the document. You can also use these lists to navigate quickly
through the document and to follow some links. The titlelist has a
hierarchical structure (like a tree). You can browse through this
structure simply using the links 'Lower level' and 'Upper level'. To
return to the text use the links to the titles or the links 'Top' or
'Back'. 'Back' brings you to the position in the document's text from
where you can jump to the current titlelist.
Contact:
We would like to hear you suggestions, ideas, opinions and comments on
this project. Feel free to send email.
Louis Perrochon,
Andrea Kennel
Institut für Informationsysteme
ETH Zentrum
8092 Zürich
+41 1 632 7282
perrochon@acm.org,
kennel@inf.ethz.ch
[ CS-Department
| Up
]
ETH Zürich: Department of Computer Science
Comments to
webmaster@inf.ethz.ch.
June 15, 1995
This page is
<http://www.inf.ethz.ch/department/IS/ea/blinds/user_man.html>.