NVDA 2024.4 Beta 2 is now available. Changes from Beta 1:

• The stability of NVDA’s Poedit support has been improved with the side effect that the minimum required version of Poedit is now version 3.5.

• NVDA is no longer as sluggish when arrowing up & down through large files in VS Code.

• NVDA no longer freezes while checking for add-on updates.

• Updates to translations.

Please go to https://www.nvaccess.org/post/nvda-2024-4beta2/ for the full what's new & to download.

#NVDA #NVDAsr #Beta #FOSS #ScreenReader

I’ve been using full screen magnification on computers since Windows 7 came out. I could have been doing it earlier on macOS, but there you go.

The problem

Since then, I’ve had my settings locked in: using the mouse or trackpad to pan, not allowing the zoom window to follow keyboard focus, because the snapping makes me dizzy.

I was rewarded for my efforts with a generally comfortable desktop computer experience, and chronic wrist pain that stopped me from really learning the guitar or playing serious FPS games. Mind you, the closest I’ve gotten to a diagnosis for this is “oh, that does make sense, maybe that’s why.”

I’ve been trying to get used to using keyboard focus following, but it just hasn’t worked for me. Until today, that is.

The solution?

Did you know on macOS you can adjust the speed at which the zoomed in screen follows focus? And that you can have it only move when the cursor reaches the side of the screen? I sure didn’t!

I already have a collection of ergonomic mechanical keyboards, but I already have to complement them with a trackpad. I’ve considered throwing even more money at this problem and getting a trackball. I guess I don’t have to?

Next steps

I’m going to try to get used to this on my personal computer. I may need to create new keyboard macros or adjust settings further. I’ll have to get used to a whole new workflow that’s very different from what I’ve been using for 15 years, but the potential advantages are huge.

I need to be as quick navigating the computer this way as I am with the trackpad, but I always use a lot of typing for actions - Spotlight search, Raycaat, the command palettes on VS Code and Rider - so I think it’s doable.

Takeaway

I, at least, accept that there are takeoffs when accommodating for and dealing with my disability. In this case I’ve practically been accepting developing a new disability in exchange for being able to work with one I already have. Gotta keep that shareholder value ticking up.

You may or may not be doing the same, but chances are you’ve figured out what works for you and gotten into a local maximum of efficiency, like I did. Alternatives similar to this are worse, so I that this was as good as it got. I had to experiment with what I knew wouldn’t work for me to have the opportunity to find something that works even better. Maybe that’ll be an absolute maximum in efficiency for me or maybe I’ll learn something better later on.

The bottom line is experimenting and trying different approaches is always a good idea. Worst case scenario, you confirm you’re doing the best thing for you.

Do you have any experiences like this? Finding out your perfect setup wasn’t so perfect after all?

(Sorry I was a bit slow posting here - nothing new for those who have seen the beta announcement elsewhere this week - although one thing I'll try differently here and would appreciate feedback on - instead of making a completely new post for every subsequent beta - I'll make the announcements replies to this post. Please do let me know what you think of that or how you find it)

Beta1 of NVDA 2024.4 is now available for download and testing. For anyone who is interested in trying out what the next version of NVDA has to offer before it is officially released, we welcome you to download the beta and provide feedback using our issue reporting process.

Read the full details and download from: https://www.nvaccess.org/post/nvda-2024-4beta1/

Highlights This release includes a number of improvements in Microsoft Office, braille, and document formatting.

In Word or Excel, it is now possible to double-press the comment gesture to read the comment or note in a browsable dialog. You can now use the review cursor selection command to select text in PowerPoint. NVDA also no longer brailles garbage characters when showing row or column header text in tables in Word when using the object model.

NVDA can now be configured to report font attributes in speech and braille separately.

A new setting has been added to configure the timeout to perform a multiple press gesture, such as the report time/date command.

You can now configure how NVDA shows text formatting in braille, and set NVDA to show the start of paragraphs in braille. NVDA can now speak the character at the cursor when performing a braille cursor routing action. Cursor routing reliability has been improved, and support for routing keys in PowerPoint has been added. All lines of cells will now be used when using a multi-line braille display via HID braille. NVDA is no longer unstable after restarting NVDA during an automatic Braille Bluetooth scan.

eSpeak NG has been updated, adding support for the Faroese and Xextan languages.

There have also been a number of fixes, including to mouse tracking in Firefox, and the on-demand speech mode.

So I'm trying out some Rayband glasses, and I have some questions about the AI for any blind people that use it:

* Is it best to just say "look and describe" or ask for specific questions? I tried asking about lighting in a room "look and tell me if the lights are on" but it said no when the switch was flipped both ways. Could be AI issues, could be that the controllable light was set too dimly.
* What have y'all found them useful for as far as describing?
* Any specific way to prompt it that you use, like "look and describe" or "look and describe in detail" that you use?

#RayBand #accessibility #blind @main

Good morning everyone,

NV Access is pleased to announce that version 2024.3 of NVDA, the free screen reader for Microsoft Windows, is now available for download. We encourage all users to upgrade to this version. Highlights below; the full information and download links available from: https://www.nvaccess.org/post/nvda-2024-3/

Highlights The Add-on Store will now notify you if any add-on updates are available on NVDA startup.

There are now options to apply Unicode normalization to speech and braille output. This can be useful when reading characters that are unknown to a particular speech synthesizer or braille table and which have a compatible alternative, like the bold and italic characters commonly used on social media. It also allows reading of equations in the Microsoft Word equation editor.

Help Tech Activator Pro braille displays are now supported.

Unassigned commands have been added to scroll the mouse wheel vertically and horizontally.

There are several bug fixes, particularly for the Windows 11 Emoji Panel and Clipboard history. For web browsers, there are fixes for reporting error messages, figures, captions, table labels and checkbox/radio button menu items.

LibLouis has been updated, adding new Braille tables for Cyrillic Serbian, Yiddish, several ancient languages, Turkish, and the International Phonetic Alphabet. eSpeak has been updated, adding support for the Karakalpak language. Unicode CLDR has also been updated.

The Release Candidate (RC) of NVDA 2024.3 is now available for download and testing.

We encourage all users to download this RC and provide feedback.

Unless any critical bugs are found, this will be identical to the final 2024.3 release.

Read more & Download: https://www.nvaccess.org/post/nvda-2024-3rc1/

Highlights of NVDA 2024.3:

The Add-on Store will now notify you if any add-on updates are available on NVDA startup.

There are now options to apply Unicode normalization to speech and braille output. This can be useful when reading characters that are unknown to a particular speech synthesizer or braille table and which have a compatible alternative, like the bold and italic characters commonly used on social media. It also allows reading of equations in the Microsoft Word equation editor.

Help Tech Activator Pro braille displays are now supported.

Unassigned commands have been added to scroll the mouse wheel vertically and horizontally.

There are several bug fixes, particularly for the Windows 11 Emoji Panel and Clipboard history. For web browsers, there are fixes for reporting error messages, figures, captions, table labels and checkbox/radio button menu items.

LibLouis has been updated, adding new Braille tables for Cyrillic Serbian, Yiddish, several ancient languages, Turkish, and the International Phonetic Alphabet. eSpeak has been updated, adding support for the Karakalpak language. Unicode CLDR has also been updated.

#NVDA #NVDAsr #ScreenReader #Beta #PreRelease #FOSS #A11y

Shout out today to one of our illustrious moderators @rumster - who recently acquired NVDA Expert Certification!

I must admit I am not sure of all the other mods so apologies if I've missed anyone else out there :)

NVDA Expert Certification is an online exam you can sit, which tests your knowledge of the NVDA screen reader. The exam is free for anyone to sit, with a cost if you wish to purchase the certification - purchasing gets you a certificate you can print, a badge you can put on your email or other online presence, and a warm, fuzzy feeling from helping us continue to provide NVDA for free to anyone, anywhere in the world!

If interested, find out more at: https://certification.nvaccess.org - and in any case, know that we have a wonderful, knowledgeable and supportive community here, so thank you!

Hi everyone,

NVDA 2024.3 Beta 6 is now available! Since Beta 5 the main change is that we fixed a bug with Unicode character normalization - and we updated some more translations. Do please download and test it and keep letting us know of any issues! Read the full details on NVDA 2024.3 and the new beta here: https://www.nvaccess.org/post/nvda-2024-3beta6/

Count the dots to guess the word in Brailliance, a unique puzzle game which combines braille, spelling, and simple arithmetic into an experience you can't find anywhere else. No knowledge of braille is required to play, though you will certainly learn some as you go.

Brailliance is beautiful and addicting, consisting of a fun daily puzzle and over 1,500 levels with increasing challenge. Additionally, the game can be played if you're blind! Brailliance supports all screen readers and refreshable braille displays. But whether you're blind or sighted, figuring out the braille alphabet is exciting along the way.

Brailliance is available right now for free on the Apple App Store, Google Play, and on the web at ThemisGames.com.

iOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/brailliance-learn-braille/id6478794947

Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.exceptionullgames.brailliance

Web: https://www.themisgames.com/brailliance/menu

Communities like this (rblind.com) and r/blind are focused on serving the blind and visually impaired community, including friends and family. They’re also valuable as an opportunity for people outside the community to learn about the blind experience.

That brings us to the question: sighted friends, what have you learned that you’d like to share?

Beta3 of NVDA 2024.3 is now available for download & testing. Changes from Beta2 include Add-on update notifications no longer appear when running the NVDA installer & updates to translations. Read more & download from: https://www.nvaccess.org/post/nvda-2024-3beta3/

Highlights of 2024.3 include notification of add-on updates, Unicode normalisation options, Help Tech Activator Pro display support, mouse wheel scrolling commands, bug fixes for emoji panel & browsers

#Beta #NVDA #NVDAsr #ScreenReader #PreRelease #FOSS

NV Access is pleased to invite you to participate in the NVDA Satisfaction Survey 2024.

At NV Access we are always interested in understanding the satisfaction of our NVDA users.

Plus, we like to understand clearly what is important to you and also identify what we can do more effectively.

As in previous years, it is a simple, 3-question survey. It is open to NVDA users and testers around the world. We encourage everyone to complete the NVDA Satisfaction Survey 2024. You can find the survey at: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeKimQWY1UGBfZkg2a8cpgo790DjyUefRy0GCKNdqXYUwMmYQ/viewform

As with last year, the survey is on Google Forms however you do not need to have a Google account to submit the form.

Completing the survey questions will assist us with improving the NVDA user experience. Please do participate, and share with others, thank you!

NV Access are very pleased to announce the release of NVDA 2024.2! Please download from: https://www.nvaccess.org/post/nvda-2024-2/

Highlights include Sound Split, numerous new keystrokes, new Braille mode & other features, updates to eSpeak, LibLouis & other dependencies & programs.

#NVDA #NVDAsr #ScreenReader #A11y #Accessibility #New #Release #FOSS #Update #NewVersion

There doesn’t seem to be much going on in this forum. I wonder if one reason is that the UI UX is a bit clunky. At least I’m finding it challenging to use NVDA with it. I’m used to having a learning curve for NVDA use on practrically all new websites I visit. But this forum seems more challenging than even Reddit (and that’s saysing a lot) and groups.io. The main screen is easy enough. H gets me going through the thread titles just fine. But when I open a thread I H to get to the top of the thread content, but then I have to do about 9 downarrows to get to the the content. Then getting to the next post is okay, but once again tetting to the content of the post requires lots of k and downarrowss in just the right sequence. Seems like a real pain. And then there is the fact that credentials go stale immediately upon leaving. I always have to log back in. Again, more priction. Am I just missing something here?

Hello,

I'm trying to help my Dad talk to his brother (my Uncle).

Can you recommend a voice calling app that:

• works on Android and iPhone
• supports Siri "Call [contact] using [voice calling app name]"
• supports VoiceOver two finger double tap Magic tap to answer or end a call
• does not require an actual phone number
• bonus points if it supports video

Long winded background follows...

Uncle lives in UK and can see just fine, but does not like Apple or Facebook so he's got an Android phone. Dad is in Canada and has an iPhone. He's pretty good with Siri and making good progress with VoiceOver. He does not have a phone plan so no phone number.

If my Mum is around my Uncle sets up Zoom calls and they can talk. If my Mum is not around Dad can call Uncle's regular phone number using a VOIP client "Hey Siri, call Uncle using GroundWire." However for some bizarre reason the UK reverted to 1990's phone rates after Brexit so these Canada-UK calls cost $0.4361/min vs the Can-US VOIP rates of 0.01/min. $25/hr feels egregious, although it does work very well.

I thought Signal was the answer, but Dad won't be able to register since he doesn't have a phone number and even then Signal doesn't support Siri.

I looked at Discord but it seemed pretty cluttered and complicated.

This looks like the replacement for BGT. For those of you who haven't heard of BGT, it was a game engine for creating audiogames that was developed throughout the early 2010's. It's possible to migrate old BGT games to NVGT with just a little bit of work. Here's hoping that NVGT brings on a new golden age of cross-platform audiogames.

Life is hard - for everybody, but in many ways more so for blind and visually impaired folks. It’s also awesome though, so let’s talk about that.

What did you recently succeed in and want to talk about? Work, relationships, travel… something else?

Hi everyone,

As part of a school course, I am currently conducting a survey for our product "Color Sense." This project is specially designed to help blind or visually impaired individuals choose their clothes independently using tags that integrate braille and a QR code. Your participation in this survey would be extremely valuable in helping us improve our product and better meet your needs.

Link to the survey: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd-ShxAK5tcA4lYLcq9AyD5EHNvY1zNvGvM-VELhZoG0n3K7A/viewform?usp=sf_link

If you have difficulty answering the survey yourself, please feel free to ask someone to help you complete it.

Thank you in advance for your participation and valuable assistance!

I was looking into linux distros for blind users and was curious what distros the blind linux community prefers.

I found one called Accessible-Coconut which seemed promising though you still have to click on the installer without a prompt from the screen reader.

It also has a desktop background which might be considered bloatware for the fully blind.

This week's In-Process is out, featuring all you need to know about copying text in Word, using Browse mode in Word, getting help in NVDA, and a special thanks to our friends at ISCB! All online now: https://www.nvaccess.org/post/in-process-6th-may-2024/

#NVDA #NVDAsr #ScreenReader #Accessibility #Microsoft #MicrosoftOffice #Office365 #Office #Keyboard

hi all I want to trade my hearthstone account, with a lot of grinded time and resources for a suggestion of an other tcg game the best suggestion wins, it's on forum audiogames.net too. https://forum.audiogames.net/topic/53175/trading-out-my-hearthstone-account-for-any-other-interesting-tcg/ I'll aggregate all replies from everywhere, don't worry. blizzard do'es really bad decisions, and I am fed up with that, but if someone wants the account they can participate, if you aren't interested, you can stil give suggestion, by just saying that you don't participate.

Join the Brailliance native app beta!

iOS TestFlight: https://testflight.apple.com/join/PSwzeHVM

Android Beta: https://play.google.com/apps/testing/com.exceptionullgames.brailliance

We are testing app versions of Brailliance, our new game where you count braille dots to guess the word. This version incorporates a ton of your feedback from the web version of the game, all while benefiting from the advantages of being a native app.

To download the beta on iOS TestFlight, download Apple's TestFlight app on the App Store. Once you do, you can follow the link above and TestFlight will allow you to register for early access. Once you do, you can find a download button for Brailliance directly within the TestFlight app.

To download the beta on Android, so long as you have Google Play, follow the link above and tap "Become a Tester." After a moment, you'll see a link to access Brailliance on the Google Play store.

We're particularly interested in the impressions of VoiceOver and TalkBack users on phones and tablets. Brailliance supports a lot of ways to play, from standard web-style navigation to Perkins input via braille displays and the on-screen braille keyboard. The game also supports keyboards on most devices.

HOW TO PLAY:

Type a word to make a guess. The correct word will contain the number of braille dots shown.

As you make guesses, you will be told which letters are in the word and which letters are not. These "green" letters can be anywhere in the word.

Try to guess the word in as few guesses as possible. However, you get unlimited guesses. Also, you can guess any word up to the correct number of dots, but not over it.

Use your math skills to figure out which letters are likely to be in the answer. For instance, if you know all of the correct letters except one, and that you need three more dots to complete the word, that last letter must be a three-dot braille letter.

NV Access is pleased to announce that version 2024.1 of NVDA, the free screen reader for Microsoft Windows, is now available for download. We encourage all users to upgrade to this version.

Highlights

• “on-demand” speech mode
• Native selection mode in Firefox
• Bulk actions in the Add-on Store Many more updates and fixes. Please see the release announcement for all the info and download links: https://www.nvaccess.org/post/nvda-2024-1-released/