melling@cs.psu.edu (Michael D Mellinger) (04/26/91)
Can the fonts in the menus, etc. be enlarged for the visually impaired? -Mike
madler@nntp-server.caltech.edu (Mark Adler) (04/26/91)
In article <4x2G5z-y1@cs.psu.edu> melling@cs.psu.edu (Michael D Mellinger) writes: >Can the fonts in the menus, etc. be enlarged for the visually >impaired? Or for the next-hooked-up-to-pretty-bad-video-projector-impaired, for that matter. Mark Adler madler@pooh.caltech.edu
cnh5730@maraba.tamu.edu (04/26/91)
In article <4x2G5z-y1@cs.psu.edu> melling@cs.psu.edu (Michael D Mellinger) writes:
Can the fonts in the menus, etc. be enlarged for the visually
impaired?
have you tried the app Magify, which is on the archives?
--
"Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster,
and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."
-Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzschescott@texnext.gac.edu (Scott Hess) (04/27/91)
In article <CNH5730.91Apr26113504@maraba.tamu.edu> cnh5730@maraba.tamu.edu writes: In article <4x2G5z-y1@cs.psu.edu> melling@cs.psu.edu (Michael D Mellinger) writes: Can the fonts in the menus, etc. be enlarged for the visually impaired? have you tried the app Magify, which is on the archives? Only a partial solution at best. If people who can't see so well have to spend all their time dragging a box to what they want to see, they probably won't enjoy the NeXT too much! Besides, Magnify magnifies the pixels. If you've 12-point Helvetica, you'd much rather look at 24-point Helvetica than 2x magnified 12-point . . . The answer to the original question is: No, not so far as I can tell. Apparently, the sizes of the fonts on menus and window titlebars is hardwired into the AppKit. That's bad if you don't see so well anymore, but it makes it alot easier to arrange the stuff. For instance, if the default font size were changed (from 12-point Helvetica to something else), that would skew all the carefully arranged buttons and windows and browsers and Info Panels because they'd all now need more space/cell. That basically means that I don't see a good solution anytime soon. Except maybe a bigger monitor . . . Later, -- scott hess scott@gac.edu Independent NeXT Developer GAC Undergrad <I still speak for nobody> "Simply press Control-right-Shift while click-dragging the mouse . . ." "I smoke the nose Lucifer . . . Banana, banana."
cmac@gehenna (Chris MacAskill) (05/01/91)
In article <4x2G5z-y1@cs.psu.edu> melling@cs.psu.edu (Michael D Mellinger) writes: > Can the fonts in the menus, etc. be enlarged for the visually > impaired? This is a good and important question. We went to a conference on technology for the disabled a few weeks ago to learn what we should be doing to make the machines more accessible, and we heard this suggestion a few times. You can customize the font size and style in the File Viewer, making it easier to read. We set the font at 18 point Helvetica bold at the conference and it seemed to help. We're working on customized font sizes for the menus as well. There are many considerations, as Scott Hess mentioned in an earlier posting, and I can't say for sure what release will have this feature, if any (standard disclaimer), but we do think we're working towards a good solution. Finally, applications like Magnify, (from a developer at Stanford) allow a low vision user to inspect other areas of the screen that don't necessarily lend themselves to resizable fonts (details about icons, dialog boxes, etc.). Currently this app does not support color, but the sources can be obtained by anonymous ftp from cs.orst.edu. I doubt if it would require much work to make it work on the color products. As a personal aside, it was gratifying to see so many vendors willing to work together at the conference for the disabled to help make all computers more accessible. There were really great people there giving their own time to develop innovative and useful technologies. Chris MacAskill cmac@next.com (I will be away from email for the next two days.)