Winboard 4.5 Accessible Chess for the Blind and Quadriplegic

[apogee22]

Hello I am a development team member for the free, windows based, open source "Winboard 4.5 Accessible Chess", also know as "Winboard 4.5 for JAWS and NVDA". JAWS and the free NVDA are screen reader products for the blind unconnected to Xboard/Winboard. The program is a modification of the XBoard/Winboard Chess GUI and Internet Chess Server Client (ICS) all under the GNU license. This Chess program serves the blind, partial sighted and anyone who can not use a physical mouse such as C5 level Quadriplegics.

Essentially the program is completely keyboard operable and the JAWS or NVDA's speech synthesis relays Chess moves, current board conditions, ICS server output and chat in real time. Low sighted players may adjust piece, square and font sizes and colors or use high contrast mode. Initial program release was Sept. 2009. The program occupies 1.5 megs as a download and 3.5 setup.

Winboard 4.5 Accessible Chess has all of the functions of regular Winboard and so represents the state of the art among chess GUIs. It uses and creates standard Chess and Chess Variant game and position files including PGN, FEN and EPD. The program interfaces free and commercial component Chess engines such as the Super Grand Master class "Houdini" and the free Super GM class "Stockfish" among many many more and comes installed with one regular and 2 variant Chess engines. Alone is Winboard's ability to play many different Chess variants including Shogi, Chinese Chess (XiangQi), Capablanca, Atomic etc. Languages are English, German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch and Russian. This program is mostly the work of Harm Gert Muller; Physicist, Master Programmer and Author of  world class minimalist and variant Chess engines. Find his fascinating site here: http://home.hccnet.nl/h.g.muller/max-src2.html

Please spread the word, contribute to the project or use the newest upgraded versions of Xboard (nix) and WinBoard as your own Chess GUI/ICS client and I'll catch you at FICS (Free Internet Chess Server) where I play occasionally as "tunguska". Best Regards, Apogee22

Downloads and Info;
Sourceforge Home: https://sourceforge.net/projects/winboard45forja/?source=directory
Winboard Home: http://www.open-aurec.com/wbforum/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=51528&start=1
Newest 'Regular' Winboard Downloads: http://www.open-aurec.com/wbforum/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=51528

[mouser]

That's awesome 

[TaoPhoenix]

While not handicapped myself, I am a modest fan of text to speech devices, and I dunno if this is in there.

But it would be cool to have different voices selectable on server chat vs the program reading moves.

[apogee22]

The program has no speech synthesis within it and communicates with the screen readers in text through a 'pipe'. JAWS and NVDA have selectable voices, male and female, and qualities and speeds for these voices. Thanks for your ideas. Best Regards, Apogee22

[apogee22]

Oh! You mean a different personality of voice for each different category or kind of announcement?