Winamp 5.2 Media library not accessible with screenreaders
 

Hi. I've been a huge supporter of Winamp since version 2.09, so I've been around a while. I'm visually impaired and I use the JAWS For Windows screenreader to access Winamp and other windows applications. I downloaded Winamp 5.2 yesterday, and was pretty disappointed to discover that I'm no longer able to use the features in the ML, particularly the online services like Shoutcast radio. In earlier versions like 5.13 and earlier, and even in the public betas in the 5.2 cycle, I was able to use the keyboard to access the controls to search for and play a lot of the online radio stations. In 5.2 final release however, things are a lot different. Using that version, I'm no longer able to find one and play it using the keyboard as I could before. I was able to find one, but it was a lot more difficult, and I didn't even know which one I was playing, because the text would not speak using my screenreader. Is there something that can be done to improve keyboard suppport and accessibility with screenreaders like JAWS For Windows and Window-eyes? If what I'm saying isn't making a whole lot of sense, I would be willing to produce a short demonstration of the differences in the accessibility of version 5.13 and earlier, and the lack of it in the new 5.2. Please understand that I'm happy with everything else, all the other features work just as they should, and the playlist and everything else is accessible. But this new interface for the online services in the ML is a real problem and I hope something can be done to improve accessibility for the new version. Winamp has a large user base that is either completely blind or visually impaired, so a lot of people are effected here. Thanks for any assistance you guys can give.

Re: Winamp 5.2 Media library not accessible with screenreaders
 

Good Morning everyone;
I've been also using winamp for who knows how long, and am also a blind user.
I cannot believe what's been done to the winamp ml in the public release of winamp 5.2.
I'm going to put it bluntly, something needs to be done to fix these issues, it was working perfictly fine in the public beta's, and now keyboard accessibility in the online section of the winamp ML is just hnot there!
Other then this problem, the rest of the program works great using all the major screen readers, window eyes, JAWS, and HAL.
Thanks.
Shane Davidson
va3duk

I'm not sure if you're aware, the new Online Services section in the Media Library is a collection of IE webpages, for the most part all text. We plan on setting the title= (title equal) field for each element. Will this help JAWS and other screenreaders? If not, please let us know how we can go about tagging the elements within the pages that will support you. We have no desire to alienate anyone from using winamp.

Howdy Tag
This is ssupurb news!JAWS and other screenreaders, to some degree anyway, rely on alt text associated with a link so that when you press the tab key on the keyboard, the link text is spoken. As long as the alt attribute is there in the link, there's a damn good chance it'll be read. These screenreaders use what is called a "virtual buffer" to present a webpage in a way that is easier for us to use. It appears normally on the screen, but it changes how it is presented to make it easier to read. So in order for this to work, you'd need to give the html some alt text on each link so that we can move around and at least know what station we're on. I only know very basic html so I probably wouldn't be able to help much accept to let you know what works or not, but as of right now, we're pretty much locked out. We can get the different links to speak but there's no way to reliably navigate around and search for stations. If you're going to use html, you'd need to make it an actual website very much like that of the Shoutcast.com type of page. That one is farely easy to read. That's probably asking a lot, but for screenreaders to work with the browser, it'd need to be more standard, like something you'd use in Firefox or Internet Explorer. But maybe there are other options I haven't thought of yet? All I know is that the interface you guys were using in earlier versions was sooo much easier to use because it used standard windows controls. Anyways, hope what I'm saying made some kind of sense. Thanks for being so understanding!

sounds interesting, if these are supposedly I.E. pages, then why, preytell don't you make them come up in internet explorer, or the default browser on the computer in question?

Just my two sense worth.
Shane

Triton the rendering engine of IE is integrated into the media library using some sort of system calls.

Because its most likely to reduce potential security risks. For simple browsing, there is no use for the rest of IE. Only its rendering engine. So its probabaly why they went in the direction they did.

Hello, winamp developers, I am a blind person who uses a screen reader, and personall
 

exactly, but looks like we've got something going here, let's see what comes of it, I hope something is done about this issue.

Hi tag, I too am a blind person, and have used Winamp since the version 1 days. It's heartening to get your reply and to know you're monitoring the thread.

I've just taken a look at the Media Library in 5.2. A number of other applications use the IE engine internally, such as realPlayer and Replay radio, and these are accessible with a screen reader. I thought that perhaps left clicking on an area of the Guide that wasn't a link would give focus to that part of the guide, have the screen reader recognise that it was in an HTML document, and cause its virtual buffer to kick in. this isn't happening and I don't fully understand why. There are a couple of issues though, firstly there does need to be some sort of keyboard command that takes focus away from the treeview that allows you to select the part of the Library you want to work with, and gives focus to the web page bit. But then there is the business of why screen readers aren't seeing it as an HTML document, and I have no clue about that, but would be happy to work with anyone on it.

i find the shoutcast TV section of winamp 5.2 completly unuseabel its hard to read and hard to navigate hard to spot new/interesting streams so i prefer the former listing way

so ive reverted to winamp 5.13 i refuse to use 5.2 just ofr that reason.

and it looks like they put way to much effort into flashy gfx/looks this time

Well now this is an interesting thought. Could Nullsoft give us the old treeview look and feel with the classic skin? I'd far rather have that than this new HTML interface. By the sounds of it, some sighted people would appreciate that too.

I, too, would be happy to help try and sort this out with regards to screenreader access. I currently only have JAWS version 7 installed, so I wouldn't be able to speak for the way things go with other screenreaders. I also did what others have tried, but didn't get very far either. It is good that the developers are sympathetic to our cause. Let's hope we can sort this soon.

Good morning;
I have installed both HAL and window eyes, so I can help out in that department as welll.
Thanks to the winamp developers for being so responsive and sympithetic to our cause.


shane davidson

So does Winamp 5.x work with Supernova 5? Because I was under the impression it didn't? Whereas Winamp 2.x worked fine. Just trying to get a blind friend of mine to upgrade, but it's not going to happen if it doesn't work at all!

Hi, Shane Davidson said he was using window-eyes and Hal, so Hal should be working with winamp 5.2.

i agree, the ML needs to go back to the pre 2.0 ML (whatever version number was before this one)

theres been alot of changes to it, none of these changes i like. mainly becasue the ML already bogged my computer down while opening the ML. its even worse now with all these extra things like fancy icons.

in the last version of the ML it would run not too bad and i was happy with it. there should be atleast some way to revert back to use the older ML

Mr_Sako: Hmm, I don't understand. Are you using some old p233 or something?

Re: Screenreaders
We tested JAWS, and it works fine.

my computer is slightly old, its not that old

1.8 amd gig of ram

its not that my computer can't handle it, its that winamp isnt the only thing im running. for instance if im playing a game and inbatween a round i decide i want to change up my playlist that means opening up the media library and finding whatever i need. in the older version of the media library this was slightly slow/problemous but i could deal with it. now it's alot worse and i try to avoid opening the ML at times like that.

maybe instead of letting us revert back to the older ML version, implement options to let us change ML settings that could affect how fast it comes up. IE scanning of files.

Again, I don't understand. Regarding the Local Media views and stored playlists, absolutely nothing's changed in that respect (assuming that's what you were referring to?)

Maybe the problem's being caused by some 3rd-party plugin or cpu/memory intensive modern skin that you're using? Lord knows, heh.

im using the classic skin.
i take really good care of my computer and make sure theres no excess crap i dont need running in the background, no spyware etc.



it WAS working fine until this new version of the ML. usualy what causes this kind of stuff i find is extra fluff and such (ie all the special buttons)

the media library in 5.2 is actually more light weight than in previous versions because online media was moved to a seperate plugin. I have no idea what it is you are complaining about, placebo effect maybe?

Hi, I'm using a windows 98 se system, and to my knowledge, I have no ad ware, or spyware, and I do registry cleans often, and winamp 5.13 works fine here, but I think that we should be able to search all the stations in the shoutcast library, if we're having so many problems with winamp 5.2, and not just the 600 that are listed in shoutcast radio, because if the nullsoft servers were overloaded with previous library users, then the same thing would hold true with winamp 5.2, one would think. Maybe we might just have to use shoutcast.com.

Winamp 5.2 works fine here too. 5.13 is no longer supported.