[ros-dev] Google summer code

[Mgr. Janusz Chmiel]

Dear core developers of Reactos,

    I would like to inform YOu about my findings related to screen readers support while
using Wine emulator, because as i understood, Wine and Reactos are sharing crucial
information to make those tools as much Windows compatible as it is possible.

    1. NVDA is not able to run in The Wine, which can be downloaded from PCLINUXOSS
repositories, NVDA is only plaing a welcome gong and then i Am receiving series of error
messages, one related to winmm.dll and also other related to MSAA support. oleacc.dll very
probably.

    When i tried one Czech very little screen reader based on using API hooks and API
calls, program is written by using Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 professional edition and
crucial helper dlls are written in Microsoft visual C++ but not Express 2005 edition,
older release of this programming language has been used.

What are mi findings?

Algorithms used for generating synthesizet speech are working ammazingly in Wine. but
other algorithms for fetching names of buttons, objects and for getting textual
information are not working.

But i Am afraid, that implementing reliable MSAA support is so much complex for core
developers of Wine or Reactos, that it will never been possible to reach this goal.

Many of us are very intelligent and professional developers, who are even able to use
Assembler while compiling and developing Reactos core components, but i think, that
without access to Windows MSAA source code developing reliable MSAA support will be only
big dream, which would never been come true.

    Reactos is in general very stable and reliable operating system and i believe, that in
future, also many device drivers will work with Reactos.

If also MSAA support would be added in future, this would be very positive for many
handicapped users, because MSAA is being used not only by screen readers, but also while
using other assistive technology, which are based on MSAA calls.

BUt i think, that Microsoft will not want to reveal The MSAA source code, the modified
source code of oleacc.dll, user32.dll and others. Accessing source code is fortunately
possible, but i read about this, that some fee must be paied to Microsoft to get access to
their source code repository, and i think, that there will be very restricted conditions.