Multi-dimensional information processing with Emacs and Emacspeak: a blind man's perspective

Arkadiusz (Nuno) - https://swietnicki.dev

Format: 30-min talk ; Q&A: IRC Etherpad: https://pad.emacsconf.org/2026-emacspeak
Etherpad: https://pad.emacsconf.org/2026-emacspeak
Status: Waiting for video from speaker

Description

Emacs is a tool that is extremely suitable to be operated by a fully blind person. In this talk I would like to demonstrate one of its strongest features, which is audio font locking. Using this mechanism the user can get information in two dimensions, that is: "Information snippet" as well as its metadata, carried by the font. In this talk, I would like to briefly compare how blind people retrieve information versus how the sighted do it, then briefly compare Emacs to other traditional tools. At the end I am going to showcase a couple of practical points: messages management with Telega, file navigation with Dired and retrieving contact data with BBDB, all while using only speech and sounds.

Questions or comments? Please e-mail emacsconf-org-private@gnu.org

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