{"id":22,"date":"2008-02-08T07:47:12","date_gmt":"2008-02-08T11:47:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jfciii.com\/blog\/2008\/02\/08\/the-fire-vox-firefox-extension-is-a-free-screen-reader\/"},"modified":"2012-01-01T11:18:51","modified_gmt":"2012-01-01T15:18:51","slug":"the-fire-vox-firefox-extension-is-a-free-screen-reader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.jfciii.com\/blog\/2008\/02\/08\/the-fire-vox-firefox-extension-is-a-free-screen-reader\/","title":{"rendered":"The &#8220;Fire Vox&#8221; Firefox extension is a FREE screen reader"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Over a month ago I downloaded the <a href=\"http:\/\/firevox.clcworld.net\/\" target=\"_blank\">Fire Vox<\/a> Free screen reader extension for Firefox that acts like a screen reader and was created by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.clcworld.net\/\" target=\"_blank\">Charles L. Chen<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>I found that it was of great use and I assume it simulates most of the major functions that screen readers like <a href=\"http:\/\/www.freedomscientific.com\/fs_products\/software_jaws.asp\" target=\"_blank\">JAWS<\/a> or <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gwmicro.com\/Window-Eyes\/\" target=\"_blank\">Window-Eyes<\/a> can do, since I have never used either one of those.<\/p>\n<p>Here is a little more information about the two screen readers I mentioned earlier and information about there cost.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.freedomscientific.com\/fs_products\/software_jaws.asp\" target=\"_blank\">JAWS<\/a> &#8211; free trial (shuts off machine every 40 minutes) and $900 &#8211; $1100 to purchase a full version .<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.gwmicro.com\/Window-Eyes\/\" target=\"_blank\">Window-Eyes<\/a> &#8211; 60 day trail $39 or $900 to purchase a full version.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Fire Vox does not have all the bells and whistles that the other two have. I have not been able to find how to increase or decrease the speed of the speaking voice.<\/p>\n<p>Some uses for the Fire Vox Firefox screen reader extension.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>To see how your website will be to someone that uses a regular screen reader for someone with visual issues.<\/li>\n<li>Now close your eyes and listen to your website to see if you can navigate and find information. You should be able to, since you created the website.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>After awhile of using Fire Vox you might want to turn off the auto speaking function. All of the commands for Fire Vox on at least a PC are done with CTRL + SHIFT + some default key. To get to the list of functions you have to use CTRL +SHIFT + M to get the pop-up menu and un-click the &#8220;Speak Events&#8221; and &#8220;Echo Keys&#8221; checkboxes. This will then only allow the screen reader to be activated when you use the following key strokes CTRL +SHIFT + A or when a pop-up window occurs. This allows someone that needs these functions to still be able to get them to work.<\/p>\n<p>For a full explanation please read the post on the <a title=\"turn off speaking all the time from the Accessify Forum\" href=\"http:\/\/www.accessifyforum.com\/viewtopic.php?t=2987\">Accessify Forum on how to turn off speaking all the time<\/a>. To get Fire Vox to stop reading\/speaking you can hit any key on the keyboard.<\/p>\n<p>Here are some of the functions that Fire Vox does have are their default settings.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Auto Read &#8211; CTRL + SHIFT + A<\/li>\n<li>Read Previous &#8211; CTRL + SHIFT + D<\/li>\n<li>Read Next &#8211; CTRL + SHIFT + F<\/li>\n<li>Repeat &#8211; CTRL + SHIFT + E<\/li>\n<li>Say Selected Text &#8211; CTRL + SHIFT + O<\/li>\n<li>Spell Out &#8211; CTRL + SHIFT + S<\/li>\n<li>List of Headings &#8211; CTRL + SHIFT + H<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>There are a great bunch of <a title=\"Fire Vox Tutorials\" href=\"http:\/\/firevox.clcworld.net\/tutorial\/tutorial.html\">Fire Vox tutorials<\/a> on their website that will explain a lot more. There is no point of repeating all that information here.<\/p>\n<p>Here is the links to the exercises from the Fire Vox tutorial page.<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/firevox.clcworld.net\/tutorial\/tut1.html\">Reading Text and Navigating Web Pages<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/firevox.clcworld.net\/tutorial\/tut2.html\">Getting Additional Information<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/firevox.clcworld.net\/tutorial\/tut3.html\">Working With Forms<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/firevox.clcworld.net\/tutorial\/tut4.html\">Working With Live Regions<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>So please download the <a href=\"http:\/\/firevox.clcworld.net\/\" target=\"_blank\">Fire Vox<\/a> free screen reader extension for Firefox and try it out. Tell me what you think.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Over a month ago I downloaded the Fire Vox Free screen reader extension for Firefox that acts like a screen reader and was created by Charles L. Chen. I found that it was of great use and I assume it &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jfciii.com\/blog\/2008\/02\/08\/the-fire-vox-firefox-extension-is-a-free-screen-reader\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,23,92,91,113,89,100,101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-22","category-accessibility","category-adpative-technology","category-charles-l-chen","category-fire-vox","category-firefox","category-jaws","category-window-eyes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jfciii.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jfciii.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jfciii.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jfciii.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jfciii.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.jfciii.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":131,"href":"http:\/\/www.jfciii.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22\/revisions\/131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jfciii.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jfciii.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jfciii.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}