NVDA 2017.3 isn’t due to be released for another two months but I wanted
to take a look at what was happening on their “next” branch as their
blog had mentioned some new features that I wanted to see. Hopefully,
most of the features in this test release will make it into the next
release. Here’s what I know.
· One of the additions they are adding hasn’t been mentioned in
their changelog and this is a setting to control the speaking of
numbers, something which I’ve wanted to see for a long time. In Voice
settings, you now have four options for how numbers should be announced:
digits, full numbers, double digits and triple digits.
· NVDA has introduced new earcons that are generated when
switching from browse mode to focus mode. They are much quieter and
quicker. I personally feel that the sound for going back into browse
mode is actually too quiet and I’m wondering if this has generated any
comments in their Github. Fortunately, these are just .wav files which
you can swap out if you know where to look but there’s no place in the
UI to easily change them.
· Also not mentioned in the changelog is an option to choose how
cell borders are announced, which you’ll find in Document Formatting
settings under the Table Information group. The combo box offers choices
of Off, Styles with the last option being Colors and Styles.
· In the Object Presentation dialog is yet another item not yet
mentioned in their changelog, a checkbox for playing a sound when
auto-suggestions appear. Not sure what this applies to as of yet
although we can make some educated guesses.
· In Microsoft Outlook, NVDA can now report if a message has
been flagged.
• From the changelog: In Microsoft Powerpoint, the exact type of a shape
is now reported when editing a slide (Examples include: triangle,
circle, video, arrow), rather than just 'shape'.
· From the changelog: Mathematical content (provided as MathML)
is now supported in Google Chrome.
· The changelog has a reference to supporting new OneCore voices
in Windows 10. I’m not familiar with these voices, unless this includes
some of the new Narrator voices, such as Mark for U.S. English. I
definitely plan to experiment with this feature on my Win10 machine at home.
From the changelog, here’s a list of the bug fixes.
• Editable div elements in Chrome no longer have their label
reported as their value while in browse mode. • Pressing end while in
browse mode of an empty Microsoft Word document no longer causes a
runtime error.
• • Browse mode is now correctly supported in Microsoft Edge
where a document has been given a specific ARIA role of document.
• In browse mode, you can now select or unselect to the end of the line
using shift+end even when the caret is on the last character of the line.
• If a dialog contains a progress bar, the dialog text is now updated
when the progress bar changes. This means, for example, that the
remaining time can now be read in NVDA's "Downloading Update" dialog.
--
David Goldfield, Assistive Technology Specialist Feel free to visit my
Web site WWW.DavidGoldfield.Info
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