[nvda] Re: NVDA, Now The Screen Reader Of Choice?

I think that NVDA users must realize that NVDA is still being developed, and
will not and can not for the moment, do what some of the commercial screen
readers can do.  I believe that until there is a way to implement video
hooks at some point, we're stuck. I think there is going to come a time when
NVDA will have to use video intercept, just as the commercial screen readers
have to, to get around certain problems

But for the most part, NVDA works like a charm!

Mike



-----Original Message-----
From: nvda-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:nvda-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf
Of Simon Jaeger, Laptop Edition
Sent: Monday, October 26, 2009 11:20 PM
To: nvda@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [nvda] Re: NVDA, Now The Screen Reader Of Choice?

I'm responding to this a little late, but I have a few things to say.

1. I have used window eyes, not extensively, but a little in its earlier 
stages. I think it works, but I wouldn't pay for it.

Jaws in my opinion is the only screen reader that can do everything I want 
it to. There are a few things that NVDA still hasn't managed to do, such as 
reading certain menus and being as flexible in configuration as jaws is. I 
can use NVDA for hours at a time and barely notice, but then something will 
happen that pretty much requires me to load up jaws. Skype 4.1, which is the

version I'm using right now, absolutely refuses to work properly with NVDA. 
For one, I don't seem to be able to scroll through the users in a conference

and right click on one, say to add them to contacts or remove them from the 
group call. And if I ever were to manage this, all of the context menus are 
not spoken properly with NVDA. There is also the fact of some edit fields 
such as the input area in windows live messenger being difficult to use with

NVDA. And my last issue with it, is that it seems to have a problem echoing 
words as they're typed, causing me to be a little more worried about my 
typing. For instance, in that last sentence, the word "more" was spoken as 
"moe", and I had to go back to check to make sure it was written correctly. 
This is a problem on every computer I've used with NVDA. There's also a bug 
in some programs such as outlook express, which I've written about several 
times now. When I compose a message, NVDA doesn't seem to realize that I've 
pressed the backspace key on a letter. So let's say I compose a message and 
write the word "procrastinate", but accidentally write an extra o and want 
to erase it. So I'd write, p, r, o, then another o, realize my mistake and 
hit backspace once, then continue writing from where I left off. When I 
would press space, NVDA would clearly say "proocrastinate". This isn't 
necessarily a good example since some synthesizers pronounce both the same 
way, but I think you get the idea. This all comes back to NVDA not being my 
totally usable preferable screen reader, though I wouldn't complain in the 
slightest if I had to use it, and I think if it continues development the 
way it is, Freedom Science fiction is going to go out of business, or be 
forced to lower the price of JAWS significantly.

2. I agree with what others have said about JAWS upgrades. If I were to pay 
for one, it would be 10, because I want to have a propper copy of that 
instead of only being licensed up to 9. But I think that most of the 11 
features sound like desperation to me. Freedom science fiction wanted to put

out a release that did something really cool and useful, so they shoved in 
this research it feature, and changed around a bunch of keystrokes that have

been the same since version 4.0. Good job, but try putting something 
worthwhile out, and at least make it worth my money. I'm not paying $200 
just because i'm too lazy to type something into google and sort through a 
couple of results. Hell, if fs can retrieve this info, I certainly can as 
well.

Regarding JAWS crashing frequently, I have not had this issue since version 
7.1, which was a ridiculously unstable version anyway. Jaws 10 works fine 
for me, and the only time I've seen it crash was when I pulled out the USB 
soundcard while it was speaking, and set to that device. You really have to 
try to crash 10. Having said that, NVDA seems just as stable, especially 
now. I'm impressed with how far it's come in the last few years, and 
although it's still got a ways to go, so does JAWS.



Simon

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To post messages to the list send email to
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To modify your NVDA Email settings go to:
http://www.freelists.org/list/nvda
Thank you for your continued support of Nonvisual Desktop Access, an open 
source free screen reader for Microsoft Windows:
http://www.nvda-project.org/
To get the latest NVDA snapshot:
http://www.nvda-project.org/snapshots/
Report bugs or make feature requests at:
http://trac.nvda-project.org/
Message Archive:
http://www.freelists.org/archives/nvda

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