PictureHelper program
PictureHelper is a simple program which makes it easy to create informative pictures. The program can be downloaded by following the instructions at the bottom of this page. You can use PictureHelper to associate text to regions on a picture. When viewing this annotated picture in a browser, as you move the cursor over the different regions, a screen reader can read the text associated with the region.
To try out sample pictures that were created with the PictureHelper program, click here.
The PictureHelper program is a work in progress. While it may be of use to you today, there are a number of changes that need to be made to the program before it will be considered complete.
Developers please note:
The Picture Helper program is now an open source project! This means any software developer can improve the program. The program's source code is available at http://www.CodePlex.com. If you do improve the program, you don't have to make your changes available to everyone, but please do consider incorporating your changes back into the Picture Helper source code at CodePlex so that everyone can benefit from your work. If you have any questions regarding how you can help, please contact Barker@Herbi.org. Thank you!
Using the PictureHelper program
When the PictureHelper program is run, click the Open button to select the picture that you want to work with. After you've done that, the image will appear in the PictureHelper window. For example, the image below shows a map of South America.
The next step is to draw out a region in the picture that you want to annotate. In the image below, the border of Brazil was drawn around with the pen. After the region is drawn and the pen is lifted, a box appears which asks for some text to be associated with that region. In this example, the text "Brazil" was entered.
When you hit OK, the color of the ink around the region changes from red to green. You can then continue to add more regions, as shown in the image below.
To add some "default" text to be the alternate text for the image when the cursor is not over a specific region, tap anywhere on the image. The window that appears after doing that has the title "Set the default text for the picture". For example, in the example shown above, you might add default text of "South America". After you've added the default text, a light green border is drawn around the picture, to indicate that some default text has been added, (as shown in the image below.) You can add the default text whenever you want.
At any time, you may want to check what text you've already added. You can do that by checking the "Show All Annotations" check box. When you do that, the text for a region is drawn in the center of the region. If two regions are very close together, the text may overlap as shown in the image below. The default text is shown at the bottom right corner of the picture.
If you want to change some annotation text after you've added it, check the "Select" check box. After doing that, you can click on some ink to select it and the window containing its annotation text will appear, (as shown in the image below.) You can then change the text and click OK. If you want to delete a region, cancel the annotation text window that appears, and press the Delete key while the region of interest is still selected.
To change the default text, make sure the "Select" check box is not checked, and simply click anywhere on the picture. The "Set the default text for the picture" window will re-appear, and you can change the text as necessary.
Once you've added all the regions you want, click "Save As HTML", to save the file as an HTML file which can be viewed in a browser. A browser uses tooltips to present the text that you added, and depending on your system settings, tooltips can appear with a large font. They can also be read out by a screen reader.
You can re-open an HTML file that was previously created in PictureHelper to continue adding annotations. That functionality is not yet complete at this time however.
Export a link to your annotations to Microsoft Office OneNote
If you're a OneNote user, you may want to automatically create a OneNote page which contains a link pointing to the annotated HTML file. This is easy to do in with PictureHelper program, by clicking the "Export to OneNote" button after you've made your all your annotations. When you do this, the same Save window will appear as if you'd clicked the "Save as HTML" button, because in both cases you need to provide the name of an HTML file in which the annotations will be saved.
Once you've provided the name of the HTML file, a new OneNote page called "PictureHelper" will be added to a your OneNote notebook. The new page will be added in a section called "PictureHelper". At the top of the page, a link is added to the HTML file that contains your annotations. If you click on the link in OneNote, a message appears asking you to confirm that you really want to view the target HTML page. If you click Yes to the message, your browser will open to show the original image with the annotations appearing as tooltips over the image. Beneath the link on the OneNote page the original image is also inserted.
If OneNote was not already open when you export the link form PictureHelper, OneNote will open. If OneNote was already open, then it will stay open, (and will not be brought into the foreground.)
The image below shows a OneNote page containing the link and image exported from PictureHelper.
If there are particular changes you'd like to have made to PictureHelper to make it easier for you to use, send your feedback to Barker@Herbi.org.