It has been exactly a month since the new winbuilder generation was released and I already see a screenshot of the software on the most recent edition of the Com! magazine.
Kudos for the editorial team that works so fast! :-)
The next step already in progress is to add support for visually impaired users, following the feedback from users it was possible for me and Peter to make sure that the next editions of winbuilder can be used by users who cannot see.
The choice of using Java has really helped out to make this possible with minimal effort on our side, there was already available a bridge for Windows workstations that allows to tie up directly with the accessibility features. To test, I have installed NVDA on my own computer and simply closed my eyes to get into the skin of those who cannot rely on vision to use a computer. It is not easy, users that struggle with this problem every day have my utmost respect and admiration.
The NVDA software reads out loud what is happening on the screen to the end-user. Since wb is distributing its own version of Java, it was possible for us to slipstream the files required to make the bridge connection work. This way we make winbuilder easier to be interpreted by NVDA.
Things have been so busy recently that I haven't had as much time as desired to do all the things that are needed. Over the past month I've changed the default theme of official website to a MSDOS theme: http://winbuilder.net and then updated some of the content. There is still the need for a big overhaul and to write proper documentation. It is kind of convenient to publish no documentation for the moment since it helped to refrain the motivation of developers to write plugins for a not-yet stable platform, allowing us to make the needed changes/corrections with minimal impact to both developers and end-users.
Packed inside winbuilder is also the phenomenal support for creating VHD archives out-of-the-box, but I've got really no time to go ahead and write projects that demonstrate this feature to create VHD based boot disks. Anyone available to volunteer for the task?
On a side note, UBCD4win has no longer a forum. This was kind of sad to see. Anyone knows what happened?
Lots of work, let's move my friends! :-)
No comments:
Post a Comment