Ventana software support forum

I have been looking at using Vensim for a distance learning course on ecosystems both to teach students about modelling and possibly to create some more complex models for them to play with. It looks perfect in almost every way except for the fact that, as far as I can see, it lacks any keyboard accessibility i.e. apart from the standard alt+? keyboard shortcuts, you can do nothing with the standard tab, enter and space bar keys which those who can't use a mouse rely on. My initial thought was that perhaps the idea of using the keyboard to create models was too daunting but it looks as if even the slider controls which students would use to play with parameters are not standard windows controls and are not therefore accessible. If there's no keyboard accessibility, I won't be able to use this fantastic program on our course so please someone tell me that I have got it wrong. Thanks.

For model building it is true that you can't get away with just the keyboard. For using models though there are enough shortcuts that it a lot can be done. In regular SyntheSim mode the right and left arrow keys will move the automatic sliders and the tab key will move between them - getthing the focus in the window is a bit hit and miss, but it does work (eg leave Vensim and Return). The input output object sliders will not work so those need to be avoided.

Still, it is sort of haveway there. To really conform accessibility standards you might want to build a menu driven front end for models in another language - it seems like that would work.