using Less commands

[Steve Holmes]

Well, I'm probably not the best one to respond here as I am somewhat
of a geek and don't mind digging around a bit or maybe a lot to figure
things out.  Yes, the "run of the mill" office style applications are
probably confined to the X Windows environment and I would think that
seriously today a sighted person using X Windows could slide right in
and get down with a linux environment if they would only give it a
chance.  For us blind folks, its still another matter.  X Windows
accessibility is still in the early primative stages and not really
ready for prime time.  So in the mean time, we stick with character
based applications where we need to learn those funky commands like in
emacs and vi.  I should say though, sc, the spreadsheet app, has been
fairly easy for me to use.  Please look over the online help; you can
get at it with the question mark (?) key.  IE: type the = key before
any numeric entry and put a '<' before left justified text, '>' before
any right justified text and I forget the character for centered
text.  Again, the help screen told me this.  The man page lists all
the possible formulas available.  I use sc on a regular basis to
manage a budget as I blow through my paychecks:).  It even maintains
automatic totals like all good spreadsheet programs do.

So I would say some utils like mutt, pine, lynx and even sc are (I
feel) easy enough to learn with little effort.  Emacs is an extremely
powerful editor but therefore requires a steep learning curve.  I'm
learning it and am playing around with Emacspeak as we speak and I see
a lot of potential there.  I've heard others say and now I agree, a
combination of Speakup for the strait console and Emacspeak for
various emacs applications really puts you in the driver's seat and I
would say, probably more efficient than working in windows with their
advanced screen readers that sell for around a thousand dollars!  I
think another herdle for starting up in linux is the setup phase.
Getting thing setup just the way you want is probably a lot harder
than many windows apps but once in place, it is stable and will run
forever without breaking!

On Wed, Jan 28, 2004 at 11:38:06AM -0500, Ed Thurston wrote:
> 
> 
> hello Alex,
> 
> When I first tried using  Linux several years ago, I tried to learn  emac
> with emac speake and was  completely lost and gave up the whole  process.
> 
> I am making a second stab at  it with Speakup running slackware.  My
> purpose is use  Linux  as a end user. I. e, To have someone set up Linux
> and then I will use  applications on it.  
> 
> I am doing quite well with mutt using  joe as its editor and lynx, but Joe
> is just that, an editor and not a  word processor.
> 
> If Linux is to take a real bite out of Microsoft, it will have to be user
> friendly.  The operating system is great now, but the applications are not
> ready for  universal use.  For example if an employer wanted to hire a
> secretary, he might be prepared to train her in using a user friendly word
> processor, something equivalent to wp51 but not Emac with its hundreds of
> command line commands. Also a user  friendly  spreadsheet such as Lotus for
> dos should be  developed.  I have ttried to use SC as my spreadsheet and so
> far have gotten nowhere with it.  I have yet to figure out how to even key
> in numerric values, much less set up a complete  spreadsheet.  
> 
> I do hope that there are some  programmers out there busily  keying  many
> lines of code developing such  types of applications, so as to make  Linux
> a real contender in the home as well as in the market place environment.   
> 
> 
> Do you feel that such  programs are in the works?
> 
> Thanks for listening to my ramblings,

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