Tag Archives: plans

Minutes from the meeting held on 11th July, 2011

A second meeting of the team was held on 11th July in Room 3005

Attending

Fadwa, E.A. Mike, Seb, John and Magnus attended the meeting with apologies from Mashael and Eedres (my fault as the email did not go out)

 Translation

Question  – Should AT Bar logo remain the same? – It was decided until there is a discussion with the  Mada Center that the logo would remain the same.

ATbar Arabic layout

Layout in reverse with Arabic wording for the javascript tool tips. Fix the web heart will be removed

The individual icons were discussed and it was decided to leave them as they are for the moment whilst we await an evaluation from Qatar.  Seb is going to set up a web page with ATbar story board with Arabic text

Fadwa has made 2 versions of tooltips – with and without diacritic marks – A decision needs to be made as to which system is to be used for the entire project.  The lack of or inclusion of diacritic marks has an impact in different ways on different disabilities – which is preferred – with or without?

arabic menu with diacritics

There is a case for only having the diacritic marks on the important letters  – this has been shown to help users with the hidden short vowels.
arabic menu without diacritics

No diacritic marks

Workpackages

– Discussion around each task for Phase One.

FR-IW-01 – Begin work behind the scenes

FR-IW-02 – Fix the Web heart – Remove but consider for Arabic speaking volunteers in the future

FR-IW-03 – Text magnifier – no change

FR-IW-04 – Font changer – Fadwa has read papers on the subject of the best fonts for those who have reading difficulties – these will be added to the blog and we will reduce the number available to users based on the research findings.

FR-IW- 05 – Style Changer can be completed

FR-IW-06 – Spell Checker – Google appears to be closing their freely available services – this needs to be investigated

FR-IW -07 – Dictionary – see above – Wiktionary possibility with additional work

FR-IW -08 – Information for use – will be translated at a later date

FR-IW -09 – Restore Webpage – can be completed

FR-IW -10 – Close ATbar – can be completed

FR-IW -11 – ALT Tags – translation available above.

FR-IW -12 – ATbar information regarding bug tracking, fixes to be on GitHub.

FR-IW -13 – x64 bit installer – Due to be rebuilt with ATKit.

Follow up discussion with David Banes on 25th July

Next meeting to be confirmed due to holidays.

Welcome to ATbar

Image of atbar

The ATbar is a browser based option to aid accessibility of websites with the option to change the look and feel of webpages through text only enlargement, font style and colour changes plus increased line spacing.  There are also features for text to speech, a dictionary and spell checking.

The original toolbar was funded by JISC TechDis as an open source BSD licensed plug-in.  Fix the Web collaboration allowed for an additional element to be added to the toolbar – a small heart logo to the right of the ATbar logo.  Users of websites can report any issues with accessibility to the Fix the Web team for further checking so contact can be made with the developers.

To date the ATbar has had over 5 million uses with downloads occurring all over the world.  This has resulted in requests for versions in different languages and this blog is going to track the way the toolbar is being adapted to suit the Arabic language thanks to a grant from The Qatar Assistive Technology Center (Mada).