Introducing NonvisualDevelopment.org

Date: Tue, 18 Mar 2008 09:41:44 -0500 (EST)
From: Jamal Mazrui
To: programmingblind@freelists.org
Subject: Introducing NonvisualDevelopment.org

As you know, the web page of EmpowermentZone.com has not been updated for
years after I began focusing on software projects. I knew the site needed
a redesign, but wanted to work on Windows GUI development, so left it
there as a community service for whoever still found it useful, and
instead posted direct links to program or documentation files that I added
to the site. Inthane, Jeff Bishop, and others gathered some of these
links on pages of their sites in order to ease finding them --
collaboration I appreciate.

Last year, I agreed to take over a community project, begun by Chris
Hofstader, to develop a C# tutorial for JAWS users. I expanded the scope
to any .NET language and any screen reader, naming the project Nonvisual
Development with .NET. List members suggested a wiki as a vehicle for
collaborating on the tutorial, and for months, Pratik Patel and I have
been investigating how best to do this.

Recently, I concluded that the content management system (CMS) called
Drupal, available at http://drupal.org has the optimal balance of power
and friendliness among free, open source choices of a CMS at this time. I
decided to try to achieve multiple objectives in a Drupal-based site that
provides a complete directory of programs and documentation I have posted,
and promotes collaboration on
developing nonvisually with various languages and tools. With
encouragement from Jim Homme, webmaster of BlindProgramming.com, I am now
introducing a site called Nonvisual Development, located at
http://NonvisualDevelopment.org

The site is under construction, and your collaboration is sought to help
make it as valuable a community resource as possible. So far, its design
is by me, but its coding is by a blind developer, Chetan Bakhru, whose
services I have hired and would recommend to anyone interested in working
with PHP, Drupal, or other web technologies. Chetan is the webmaster of
http://blind-planet.com

At present, the content of NonvisualDevelopment.org is primarily either
mine or links I have collected. I intend to build ways for other
developers to add content and collaborate. We are working within the
capabilities and constraints of Drupal 6.1 and the Zen theme. Feedback,
suggestions, and other contributions can help move this project forward.

Jamal