Perhaps try Harpoon in paper rules?

Or get Harpoon in paper rules to get a better understanding of the game system and possibilities?

Or get Harpoon in paper rules to get a better understanding of the game system and possibilities?

If I could get the paper rules in digital form, I'd totally love to see them. I've only seen supplements available from places like WargameVault, however. The publisher's site is a bit lacking on that score.

So, I've had the opportunity to make a few more observations…

 

Much of the problem with my playing this game is that a lot of information is only conveyed visually. For instance, I can't figure out whether a contact is an actual fix, or has a large zone of uncertainty, or the like. Also, figuring out the way contacts are heading, or where likely destinations might be, is an exercise in tedium with the bearing calculation dialog. This compounds on my inability to set a course for anything to make life very difficult.

 

I believe that something can be done to make this game accessible. THere's a lot of information which could also be represented in text form. More popups for messages about weapons fire, for instance, would be helpful in figuring out if enemy salvos are getting through. but the visual map aspect is the most pressing for the moment, I believe. I realize this could be difficult to convey meaningfully, but trust something can be done.

 

Thanks for all your help and support.

Hi All,

 

Just a quick update to say that I tried another screen reader, which lets me control the mouse more exactly. I'm able to add new course legs, though I can't figure out what area I'm in aside from generally guessing that the top of the map corresponds with North. I managed to run a ship aground, which while it certainly wasn't my intension is more than I've accomplished movement-wise to date.

For the curious, the program in question is Window-Eyes, and it's available to anybody with a copy of Microsoft Office for free. I basically used the "Mouse down" command to move into the map. It didn't give me any speech feedback, but I figured a few presses was sufficiently north-ish. It ended up taking me about 315 degrees, which is... kind of what I had in mind. All this was in the EC2000 scenario "Wrath."

 

So I'm glad this aspect isn't totally inaccessible to me, though I might wish for better navigation information in future.

Hi All,

 

So I was wondering if there was anything I should do in terms of the Issue Tracker to make sure my observations are kept on the to do list, so to speak? Is this thread enough? I just want to make things as easy for TonyE as I may.

I've done QA testing of games and other programs before, and I know the value of individual bug reports.

 

Thanks much!

My suggestion is to start a wishlist at http://harpgamer.com/harpforum/index.php?/forum/35-wish-lists/. The concept is one wishlist per person. Compose it of your own desires as well as copy and pasting the ideas of others. In your wishlist put a link back to this thread exactly for the reason you stated, so that it doesn't get lost.

 

I would prefer the issue tracker come into play once I've added a capability and you find that it doesn't work at all like you had hoped.

 

I also appreciate your desire to make it as easy for me as possible, many players don't understand this is a hobby and that every minute I spend building a concise test-case for their issue is a minute I'm not fixing or otherwise addressing that issue; constant education .

Hi,

 

Done. It's at http://harpgamer.com/harpforum/index.php?/topic/25601-accessibility-wishlist/

 

Sorry for the big picture nature of most of the items. It's hard to explain how exactly I'd like a lot of this stuff to work, since I'm not sure how the game is coded internally. These are just some initial things i've noticed i can't really do well, and I'll doubtless add to it as the situation changes.

 

If there's anything I can go into more detail about, or what have you, I'm happy to do so. I want to see this game accessible if its at all possible, and I realize it's a big project. I feel like 90% of things are already pretty good.

 

Hope we can work something out.

Plenty of interesting things happening here recently I see

I'm assuming you're playing with the standard game engine from the installation? Why I ask is that one of the many advances that Tony has given us in the various betas is the ability for us to write external library files that are mini external programs. Some of the features I've written in my 'toolbox.dll' could be further massaged to carry out some of your needs, but I think I'd need to streamline some aspects and house them in a new library.

Specifically:

surface groups can be automatically brought together and joined, then continue on one of the groups original course ( I currently do it only for air groups);

an air group (such as an ASW group) can be given a spiral type search pattern centred on a point being a known submarine contact - this point could be altered to be related to an uncertain fix or a distance bearing;

While toolbox doesn't do it I'm certain:

a group course could be built up using bearing/ distance instead of mouse clicks;

when filtering through enemy contacts the group ID could be used even when no exact fix is given and data could be presented to indicate the size of the contact uncertainty region and something like distance and bearing from your closets group.

This would need you to install say the latest beta upgrade (available from this forum) and I would have to improve the switching from the main game to the library controlled features (I might need guru help there)
I'll start toying with what I have and see how I go and let you know if it seems worth your while installing the beta upgrade.

Maybe some of it can actually just be new information pop ups running in the game?

This sounds very promising indeed!

Please keep us posted on how things go. I was vaguely aware of the library options, but didn't know they were so extensive.

If you need somebody to test the UI or what have you I'm happy to do so as well.

Thanks!

I've not done much (other things happening) but have started and got to the stage where I needed to know more about your interface. I thought I'd down load your program but I don't use microsoft office so it looks like no point.

My first question is if you navigate around using the tab key do you get a verbal of button text, my main hang up at the moment is that I can't see a way of doing key board shortcuts.

Don

I'm listening closely too, wanted to get 2015.027 out, now I can put a little (unfortunately very little) effort into this.

I've not done much (other things happening) but have started and got to the stage where I needed to know more about your interface. I thought I'd down load your program but I don't use microsoft office so it looks like no point.

My first question is if you navigate around using the tab key do you get a verbal of button text, my main hang up at the moment is that I can't see a way of doing key board shortcuts.

Don

 

Yeah, if the button has a label it should be read when using Tab. That generally applies in dialog boxes. Same holds for other controls.

There's a 40-minute demo of a couple of different screen reader's available,along with an open-source one at www.nvda-project.org. They're not all quite as suitable for playing Harpoon, but they might give you ideas about how the general interface is read and so forth. Tab works like you'd expect. Keyboard shortcuts are nice, but I don't need them to use most controls.

 

Hope this helps, and happy to answer any more questions.

Plenty of interesting things happening here recently I see

 

Don

Don,

 

What area are you tackling? Most of my thought has gone into the setting of a course as heading, speed, altitude, distance/time. Distance comes into play so that the player can be notified when the destination is reached (via the no course Staff Assistant message).

 

It looks like I'm already swamped through the holidays but I'll see about mocking up a UI for that. Do you see value in doing the same for what you are pondering?

Hey All,

 

I was just reminded of this thread, and Harpoon, recently, and wondered if there had been any progress made on the accessibility front since I last looked? I haven't kept up with things as well as I could have, being distracted by real-life concerns. But I'm hopeful to be able to play a proper game of this at some point.

 

Just wanted to ping this thread and see if it was still alive. Thanks for keeping the game going.