Introduction

Websites exist thanks to multiple layers of technologies where every layer is dependent on all layers below. This stack of technologies make it possible to send a website from a remote server to a users computer, and display the information in that webpage. Each layer of this stack has a highly specialized role, and attempts to misuse a layer of the stack will result in a poor user experience, heightened security risks, and poor performance. In order to show a person with disabilities a webpage and make the experience as useful as possible, it is necessary to use each layer of the technology stack for the purpose it was built.

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For a hobby project, I will likely need to build a COM interface, for a screen reader integration, and doing so in python would be annoying to say the least. I therefore decided I might take a stab at implementingn it in rust for personal development, and rust seems more interesting than c++. I recently ran into an annoying issue trying to configure vscode debugging and running on windows. Here is how to get up and running and avoid a major pitfall.

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Why more?

In early 2021, I wrote a blog post about smart canes, why they usually are hipe, and why canes have design elements that make them so versatile. This blog post got a couple orders of magnitude more traffic than I expected, and based on the feedback I have received, it was educational for many people. It has been posted on many peoples blogs, and even Hacker News. I want to make sure the positive reception of my article is used to guide the industry in an appropriate direction, and generate new useful technologies, instead of being synical and bashing anyone who may have the thought to attach something to a cane.

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over the last few years, many attempts have been made at creating a smart cane. None of them have successfully lead to a market transforming technology that's actually used by any substantial users.

I saw a recent example of a smart cane getting news coverage, and it deserves particular attention because of a particularly egregious argument used within. I've seen this argument, or variations therein, made in several posts about smart canes. I will address this below, and lay out why this argument does not present a solid case in favor of a smart cane. I will then lay out several design and engineering constraints that must be met before I would ever be able to recommend a smart cane to another blind person.

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In this first article, I will begin doing a deep dive into NVDA's design. I will explain the most base object common to many components, and how it is used. I assume you have familiarity with the NVDA development Guide, and the Design overview.

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Youtube was recently updated, and several voiceover changes were put in. At first, you may do what I did. "oh, damn, it, google, stop, breaking, things!!!" It turns out that google actually fixed a lot of things in this version, making the user experience more streamlined and much more efficient. They did seem to break one thing though.

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