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Color Changes in Mac OS X for the Visually Impaired?
drdink asks: "I am an avid FreeBSD and Windows user. This semester for a class I'm having to use MacOS X for the first time, and I've also been pondering jumping into the Apple scene anyway. However, I am also visually impaired and I can't seem to find a way to do specific color theming in a way similar to Windows, KDE, and GNOME. I want to be able to say 'Text is white, backgrounds are black, but EVERYTHING ELSE is its normal color.' The only options I've found that are similar is using 'White on Black' in the Universal Access control panel. However, this results in me losing all display colors and my machine looking monochrome. I don't want to use a $2,000+ machine just to have no colors. Is there anybody out there who has actually managed to get Mac OS X to use the normal colors but have high contrast white on black dialog boxes? I am interested in the Apple platform, but I can't use it for useful things, if I have no color."
" OSX also features the ability to speak to the user the text under cursor, dialogue and so on, software which costs $2500 AUD when I asked the RBS of Australia for an equivalent software package for windows"
Windows Key + U, select "Microsoft Narrator". Works on Windows 2000, XP, or 2003.
"Using the existing electronics to alter colour profiling on the screen is not new (certainly before 2001, when nvidia gave out glossy images stating that digital vibrance control did more than up the contrast to unusuable levels.)
"Both these responses sound like windows zealots urinating some territory rather than actually addressing the initial question.
P.S. For your windows flame, OSX is already standardised on features than windows users won't see until long after 2005 has passed."
Wow... don't you feel mature using words like "urinating". And what exactly do you mean by "standardised on features than windows users won't see until long after 2005 has passed"? I think that you're saying that OS X has features that XP won't have for some times. Of course it does. And XP has features that OS X will NEVER have - DirectX, Windows Media Player 9, Internet Explorer (not the crappy Mac version). Now, does OS X have equivelents to these features? Yes, of course it does. But they're still features that OS X "lacks".
What's new in Panther? Fast user switching, an encrypting filesystem, share synchronization. Three features that XP already has. Oh, and a new finder - it's metal now. Amazing. Oh, and a chat client with video. Sounds like XP. About the only really new feature is expose. Wow. Now I can get little previews of all my windows. XP's powertoys includes a nice little plugin that adds image previews to ALT+TAB. Or you could just look at the taskbar - it gives you nice descriptive text labels.
You're visually impaired? That's too bad, because then you can't look at this.
Yowzers!