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NVDA, the free and open source Screen Reader for Microsoft Windows
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Support Baum Pronto! and VarioUltra connected via Bluetooth #3717

Closed nvaccessAuto closed 8 years ago

nvaccessAuto commented 10 years ago

Reported by pavel.kaplan on 2013-12-13 21:33 Pronto is a wellknown notetaker from Baum. that supports a braille terminal mode. There are models with 18 and 40 cells with braille keyboard. i know that generally there are 2 ways to connect baum braille displays to NVDA. 1. by using internal driver for APH/Baum/Humanware devices. 2. by using BRLTTY. i tried both options but had no results. i tried all posible options. first i tride to connect pronto to NVDA as braille display by using usb to com, then via bluetooth. in last versions of the pronto's firmware the support for USB HID Tecknology was also added. although i know that currently this option is only working with CEbra screen reader, i tried also this variant. when i so that i wasn't able to conect pronto as a braille display to NVDA i asked Baum about the possibility to do this and got the following answer: Unfortunately neiterh the driver in NVDA nor the BRLTTY support the connection of Pronto! 18 V3 as Braille Display in any way. Only with Pronto! 40 you can connect via Bluetooth using BRLTTY, because with this driver combination the support of BAUM VarioConnect 40 Braille Display also allows to sent the braille information to the braille display of Pronto! 40.

The new USB HID connection technology in Pronto bases on agreements of the Open Braille Consortium but is until now only implemented in COBRA. Somebody should have to modify the NVDA braille driver or create a new NVDA braille driver to use this connection type.

As NVDA is an open sorce project it should be possible to modify the driver. so i would like to have such a driver wich will allow to use pronto as a braille display.

nvaccessAuto commented 10 years ago

Comment 1 by jteh on 2013-12-13 23:35 I assume the display supports a USB com port when OpenBraille/HID isn't enabled? If so, try using the NVDA Baum driver with the port set to the correct com port for the display, rather than setting the port to automatic. You can also try the same thing with Bluetooth.

If that works, we can look at detecting that display. I'll need information from Baum to make that work well.

Failing that, we'll need technical documentation and access to a device to have any chance of supporting it.

nvaccessAuto commented 10 years ago

Comment 2 by jteh on 2013-12-13 23:38 Btw, despite the name OpenBraille, none of the documentation or code has ever been released to the public, which is one reason we don't support it. The other reason is that we don't have access to a device that supports it.

nvaccessAuto commented 10 years ago

Comment 3 by pavel.kaplan on 2013-12-14 09:55 I tried to do this ofcause but it didn't work. yet, also people from Baum say that this driver doesn't provide support for pronto. i asume thay tryied evreything before writing this conclution to me. as for the documentation you may get help from Volker Bijewitz which is responsible in Baum for creating drivers for baum's devices alowing them to work with other screen readers such as Cobra and Jaws. please contact him by email: v.bijewitz@baum.de he wrote to me that he could be able to provide some documentation. Volker wrote: Yes, I had some contacts with the NVDA people. But I do not have more information for you. I do not know who is the maintainer of the NVDA drivers for our displays. For the HID connection someone has to implement a complete new interface that would be nice for SuperVario2 to. To do this a experienced python programmer is needed. Maybe you find someone via the NVDA developer mailing list. If you find someone, I can provide help like c++-sourcecode and interface-descriptions.

nvaccessAuto commented 10 years ago

Comment 4 by jteh (in reply to comment 3) on 2013-12-15 00:38 Replying to pavel.kaplan:

I tried to do this ofcause but it didn't work. yet, also people from Baum say that this driver doesn't provide support for pronto.

You noted that it works via Bluetooth with BRLTTY. Since BRLTTY doesn't have any specific support for Pronto, this suggests that it uses a similar protocol to other Baum devices when in serial mode, which is why I thought it should work with NVDA via Bluetooth/serial also.

I do not know who is the maintainer of the NVDA drivers for our displays.

I am, but I only have one (older) display to work with.

For the HID connection someone has to implement a complete new interface that would be nice for SuperVario2 to. To do this a experienced python programmer is needed. Maybe you find someone via the NVDA developer mailing list. If you find someone, I can provide help like c++-sourcecode and interface-descriptions.

That is not enough. We need access to a device in order to develop it properly. If Baum are willing to loan me a device, I will be able to implement support. Otherwise, this will have to wait for another experienced developer who has access to a device.

nvaccessAuto commented 9 years ago

Comment 5 by jteh on 2015-06-17 06:22 I do have some documentation from Baum now. Even after reading that, I still don't understand why this doesn't work via Bluetooth when you explicitly specify the COM port. I've reached out to Baum for some assistance with that.

nvaccessAuto commented 9 years ago

Comment 6 by jteh on 2015-10-19 04:57 Morphing to specifically cover Pronto! and VarioUltra via Bluetooth. I'll file a follow up for USB, since this will need to be done separately in the future. Changes: Changed title from "creating driver for braille notetaker Pronto from Baum" to "Support Baum Pronto! and VarioUltra connected via Bluetooth" Milestone changed from None to 2015.4

nvaccessAuto commented 9 years ago

Comment 7 by James Teh <jamie@... on 2015-10-19 04:58 In commit d9462c13235d5b73ef346b4f4b088982b0f373b0: Merge branch 't3717' into next

Incubates #3717. Changes: Added labels: incubating

nvaccessAuto commented 9 years ago

Comment 8 by James Teh <jamie@... on 2015-10-20 23:41 In commit 82c7072a73106d76a2fd97fa680545f01448de73: Merge branch 't3717' into next: Automatically detect Pronto! 18V3 via Bluetooth.

Incubates #3717.

nvaccessAuto commented 8 years ago

Comment 9 by James Teh <jamie@... on 2015-11-01 22:35 In commit 3cd9dc03040b0427bfe05a6a08a4804fbd6421e0: Support for the Baum Pronto! and VarioUltra braille displays when connected via Bluetooth.

As part of this, make the Baum initialisation probe simpler and possibly more reliable. Fixes #3717. Changes: Removed labels: incubating State: closed