Hello, I am quoting the following source from < www.blindprogramming.com> For further information visit the blindprogramming november archives. Hi all,
Today I put up revision 164 of Nonvisual Desktop Access to the website: http://www.kulgan.net/nvda/ For those of you who have not yet heard of this project, Nonvisual Desktop Access (NVDA) is a free and open-source screen reader for the Microsoft Windows operating system. There have been many free and open-source screen readers written for Linux and other operating systems, but not for Windows. Screen readers can cost up to $2000, but I would like to try my hardest at making a screen reader that is both free and open-source (meaning any one can contribute to the development of it). NVDA is still not tested in all situations, and the feature list is far from complete, but currently I believe that NVDA is starting to get quite usable for general use. The main advantages NVDA does have over other screen readers is: *Its free *No special video intercept drivers need to be installed on the computer you run it on (including when it is run from a USB key) *It is written by blind people and anyone can make suggestions or implement improvements In this update, There are as usual many changes and improvements and bug fixes. I am happy to say that now NVDA is starting to be stable enough so that I am pretty confident that most parts of it should work on most people's computers (as long as they are running Windows XP, not sure about 2000 yet). Please download it and try it out. Currently there is still no installation program, just unzip it and run it from where ever you like, and, this does include running it off a USB key! NVDA now has basic support for Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel and Internet Explorer. It has say all functionality. It has a usable (but some what not totally feature rich) user interface. It works ok, with Outlook Express. Of course it works with all other general windows programs, and even works quite well with dos console windows. A part from Sapi4 and Sapi5, NVDA now also works with the IBM Viavoice synthesizer (if you have it). This is the same voice as Eloquence, though you do need the actual IBM Viavoice package that includes ibmeci50.dll. Following are all the changes since Rivision 82 (released in september): *Added support for the automatic speaking of font, style, page number etc of documents. *Fixed many small bugs to do with navigating documents by character, word and line. *Added support for Microsoft Word: -Navigating by character, word and line -Finding out current font, page number, style, whether you are in a table *Added support for Microsoft Excel: -Navigating around cells -Finding out current font, coordinates, whether it has a formular *Much improved support for dos console windows: -Fixed bug that would crash NVDA when dos console windows close -More responsive reading of new text (now watches for MSAA console events rather than checking over and over until it changes) -No longer speaks new text if the new text is a character that the user has just typed *Re-written virtualBuffer support: -Now you can use the normal arrow keys to navigate like an edit field -insert+space changes to focusInteractionMode so that key presses such as the arrows go straight through to the object with focus. (Used with Internet Explore to interact with certain form fields). *Support for Internet Explorer document windows: -Works both in and out of Internet Explorer itself (example: html messages in outlook express) -Gives you the ability to navigate the document with the arrows (character, word and line) -Detects links, form fields, headings etc. *A new synth driver for IBM Viavoice has been added as "viavoice" (Works with versions that hav ibmeci50.dll). *Improved sapi5 synth driver to include changing the voice *When reading by character, pitch of speech goes up to denote capital letters if the synth supports it *Improved overall responsivness by implementing MSAA support directly in to NVDA rather than using the pyAA (python Active Accessibility) library *Added a keyboard help mode (insert+1) *Included some minimal documentation in to the stand alone version of NVDA when it is built *Added the ability for appModules to register and unregister their own NVDA objects and virtual Buffer objects *Synth drivers now are stored in the synthDrivers directory, rather than in the base directory *Added a toggle speech script (insert+s) to temporarily turn off speech *Improved text processing before sending it to the synth so that words that have entirely capitalized sections such as in "NVDAObjects" are read correctly. Also so it handles the reading of words ending in numbers properly. *Added support for reading plaine/rich text messages in outlook Express. (Together with the internet explorer support for HTML messages, this means all messages should be able to be read). *NVDA now by default asks the operating system for the names of control roles and states, but the defaults can be replaced in the NVDA dictionaries *A say all script has been added for edit fields and documents (insert+downArrow) *Increase and decrease rate scripts (insert+pageUp and insert+pageDown) have been added. *The GUI has been changed so that there is an NVDA window. If closed, NVDA will exit. It also has a menu bar with menus to control NVDA: -NVDA menu, exit -Preferences menu, synthesizer... -Help menu, about... Please send any bugs or suggestions to me, and remember to include helpful info like the version of Windows you are running, the version of any applications you were using at the time etc. Also if you are interested in helping out with testing or further development, please contact me. Please even email me just with your experience of using it, good or bad. So I can track how well it is working on different setups. Mick To unsubscribe send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the subject unsubscribe. To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please visit the list home page at http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in
