From: Rich <richtone_at_vnet.net>
Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2007 01:22:14 -0500

<linus_at_haxx.se> on Thursday, 3-22-07, 2:48 AM polled blind users:
> Would it be helpful if the menu title is spoken when you enter a menu
> which is not directly selected by a menu item?

Yes. Excellent Linus, you are on the right track. Thank you for initiating
this dialogue. That brings several related topics to mind as well.

Some users have indicated they are already comfortable with the amount of
verbosity as is. The others may find that after using the additional
verbosity that you are suggesting for a while, that they will no longer want
it.

After surviving years and years of overly verbose tools, (outside of Rockbox
you understand) it's very appealing to maintain the ability to make things
more cryptic when desired. Why not make verbosity level a user definable
menu item? It's there when you need or want it, and gone when it isn't.

On the topic of what is playing:
Currently If I press Menu to reach the menu from the WPS, my RB says "Now
playing". It surely would be nice to be able to select "now playing" and
have the file name MP3 clip spoken. As far as I can tell at this point, the
only way I can discover the track name of the currently playing item is to
stop playback and go to the files menu, that is if I have all the settings
set properly for that. Of course if adding that to "Now playing" is too big
a pain, I'd be happy to have some other simple button sequence for that.

On another important topic, there are times when I can't tell if the machine
has turned off, if the battery has died or I've fallen into one of those
dreaded speechless holes. Seems like an audible prompt to indicate start up
and shut down would help clarify that a lot. It could be a unique curtacy
tone or spoken prompt that would play at the beginning of start ups and shut
downs. They would just be audio analogs to the visual screens which sighted
users rely upon. Again, these prompts could be selectable and their status
added to the user preferences.

I certainly hope all of you developers who have done so much hard work on
Rockbox understand that the suggestions made here are in no way a criticism
of the incredible fruits of your labors. Without talking Rockbox, there's a
huge number of us who would have very very limited access to MP3 players, if
at all.

I'm also very appreciative of your patience with our technical ignorance and
willingness to help point us in the right direction.

I've enjoyed hundreds and hundreds of great hours of very enjoyable
navigation and portable MP3 listening over the last couple years because of
Rockbox. Thank you. I look forward to figuring out how to best
reciprocate.

Ever grateful,

Richard
***
Received on 2007-03-23