Would more documentation on external switches be helpful? #486
Comments
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Hi Anna. That would definitely be a welcome change. The more documenting we
have the better. As you say finding good info can be very difficult and
makes a huge amount of difference.
…On Mon, 30 Jul 2018, 01:30 Anna Kirkpatrick, ***@***.***> wrote:
OptiKey gives users the option to select keys with a mouseclick or
keyboard key press. This feature allows the use of many access switches as
a trigger mechanism. (The switches get lots of different names: access
switches, adaptive switches, accessibility switches, and probably some I'm
forgetting.) I have personally found this to be a really useful feature.
Using an external switch (instead of the dwell selection mechanism) has
probably tripled my typing speed with OptiKey.
These features are mentioned in the documentation, but only basic
information about where to find these settings is included. See
https://github.com/OptiKey/OptiKey/wiki/Change-selection-method
Through some recent conversations with other people with disabilities,
I've come to realize that information about assistive technology can be
really hard to find, even inside of disability communities and even when
speaking to professionals who serve people with disabilities.
I think this is true of access switches. Many people with disabilities
won't know what they are, what types are available, where to find them, how
to connect them to the computer, or how to configure the switch interface
to work with OptiKey. I know I had to do a fair bit of digging to figure it
out, and I'm a professional researcher (graduate student) from a family of
engineers!
I know the existing documentation is limited in large part because Julius
does not own these devices and have not had personal experience with them.
Well, I do own some of these devices, and I do have a lot of experience
using them. :-)
If we think it would be helpful, I could write a "Guide to Access Switches
for OptiKey" or something like that, covering what access switches are,
what types are on the market, what are switch interfaces, physical hardware
set up, software configuration (for at least one common switch interface),
and finally the relevant OptiKey settings. Basically, I'd like to write the
guide that I wish had existed when I was getting started with OptiKey and
switches.
@JuliusSweetland <https://github.com/JuliusSweetland> I would definitely
appreciate your input on whether this would be helpful. Thoughts from
others are of course appreciated, too. Thanks!
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@annakirkpatrick Hi Anna - nothing to do with this issue, but you might be interested to know that I'm adding a (test) API endpoint to OptiKey which allows you to give OptiKey instructions. Initially it will just let you set the suggestions. The use case is for a Visual Studio to generate a set of Intellisense suggestions and have a VS addin push these back to OptiKey to replace the dictionary suggestions. Kirsty thought this might be useful to you, so if you want to check it out I pushed it to a new branch last night called: service-endpoint Hope it's useful... |
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@JuliusSweetland Thanks for letting me know about the project. Your use case does sound quite useful. I regularly do use the suggestions generated by several different IDEs when using OptiKey, but it would definitely be more efficient to be able to view and select suggestions in OptiKey (as opposed to needing to press tab, arrow keys, enter, etc.). The visual distance can also be an aggravating factor; it takes time and effort to look between OptiKey and the IDE. Have you / are you planning to write the Visual Studio plug-in as well? When the whole system is ready to go, I will absolutely give it a test run! (And if it's cool enough, maybe I'll get motivated to write a plug-in for one of the other IDEs / editors I work in regularly..., but that's new territory for me, so no promises.) |
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@JuliusSweetland And as for the actual issue here, I apologize for my silence. I'm working on some documentation, but it will take some time. One question that has come up: do you have preferences/a policy on mentioning specific products? (For example: switches, USB switch interfaces.) I think it would be pretty much impossible to avoid mentioning a specific switch interface when giving documentation, but I will have to make some choices when discussing the switches themselves. My current thought is to list general categories of switches and provide a few examples of each category when I know of relevant products. Does that sound acceptable? |
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Someone else is actually creating the VS add in. I'll let you know when
it's ready to test!
…On Thu, Aug 16, 2018 at 8:12 PM Anna Kirkpatrick ***@***.***> wrote:
@JuliusSweetland <https://github.com/JuliusSweetland> Thanks for letting
me know about the project.
Your use case does sound quite useful. I regularly do use the suggestions
generated by several different IDEs when using OptiKey, but it would
definitely be more efficient to be able to view and select suggestions in
OptiKey (as opposed to needing to press tab, arrow keys, enter, etc.). The
visual distance can also be an aggravating factor; it takes time and effort
to look between OptiKey and the IDE.
Have you / are you planning to write the Visual Studio plug-in as well?
When the whole system is ready to go, I will absolutely give it a test
run! (And if it's cool enough, maybe I'll get motivated to write a plug-in
for one of the other IDEs / editors I work in regularly..., but that's new
territory for me, so no promises.)
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@JuliusSweetland Awesome! |
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No please feel free to reference whatever you want.
…On Thu, Aug 16, 2018 at 8:18 PM Anna Kirkpatrick ***@***.***> wrote:
@JuliusSweetland <https://github.com/JuliusSweetland> And as for the
actual issue here, I apologize for my silence. I'm working on some
documentation, but it will take some time.
One question that has come up: do you have preferences/a policy on
mentioning specific products? (For example: switches, USB switch
interfaces.) I think it would be pretty much impossible to avoid mentioning
a specific switch interface when giving documentation, but I will have to
make some choices when discussing the switches themselves. My current
thought is to list general categories of switches and provide a few
examples of each category when I know of relevant products. Does that sound
acceptable?
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OptiKey gives users the option to select keys with a mouseclick or keyboard key press. This feature allows the use of many access switches as a trigger mechanism. (The switches get lots of different names: access switches, adaptive switches, accessibility switches, and probably some I'm forgetting.) I have personally found this to be a really useful feature. Using an external switch (instead of the dwell selection mechanism) has probably tripled my typing speed with OptiKey.
These features are mentioned in the documentation, but only basic information about where to find these settings is included. See https://github.com/OptiKey/OptiKey/wiki/Change-selection-method
Through some recent conversations with other people with disabilities, I've come to realize that information about assistive technology can be really hard to find, even inside of disability communities and even when speaking to professionals who serve people with disabilities.
I think this is true of access switches. Many people with disabilities won't know what they are, what types are available, where to find them, how to connect them to the computer, or how to configure the switch interface to work with OptiKey. I know I had to do a fair bit of digging to figure it out, and I'm a professional researcher (graduate student) from a family of engineers!
I know the existing documentation is limited in large part because Julius does not own these devices and have not had personal experience with them. Well, I do own some of these devices, and I do have a lot of experience using them. :-)
If we think it would be helpful, I could write a "Guide to Access Switches for OptiKey" or something like that, covering what access switches are, what types are on the market, what are switch interfaces, physical hardware set up, software configuration (for at least one common switch interface), and finally the relevant OptiKey settings. Basically, I'd like to write the guide that I wish had existed when I was getting started with OptiKey and switches.
@JuliusSweetland I would definitely appreciate your input on whether this would be helpful. Thoughts from others are of course appreciated, too. Thanks!
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