I should also ask will we see improvements regarding edit boxes as part
of forms on web pages? As you know in the past Window-Eyes struggled to
see text in edit boxes. In severe cases you could be typing when all of
a sudden the web page refreshed and browse mode was turned back on.
Christopher Hallsworth
On 19/10/2012 16:09, [email protected] wrote:
This is good news indeed. One element We struggled with was list boxes
on web pages. Sometimes a developer decides to use a list box instead of
a combo box. We is OK with the latter, but struggles with the former. We
doesn't like to read the items after pressing alt+down arrow to expand
the list as it does when the element is a combo box.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*From:* [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]
*Sent:* Friday, October 19, 2012 9:58 AM
*To:* [email protected]
*Subject:* Guess What? Window-Eyes 8.0 Beta 1 Has a New Browse Mode!
Oct-19-2012
/Disclaimer/
*The following message includes information regarding Window-Eyes 8.0
Beta 1. Please note that Window-Eyes 8.0 Beta 1 HAS NOT been released at
this time. We are, however, providing you with some small glimpses into
the features that Window-Eyes 8.0 Beta 1 will contain. We are currently
not answering any questions regarding the functionality of the beta. The
only things we're going to talk about will be what we have included in
our Guess What series, which will continue up to the beta release date.
We will answer all questions at that time. Please be patient; you will
be rewarded.*
If you're subscribed to the GW Micro or Guess What podcast feed, you'll
automatically receive this Guess What in MP3 format. Check out
www.gwmicro.com/podcast for more information. If you want to download
the MP3, read this article online, or view more Guess What articles
(when they are released), please visit www.gwmicro.com/beta.
Enjoy!
--
Welcome to GW Micro's Guess What series, an introductory look at the
highly anticipated release of Window-Eyes 8.0 Beta 1.
We’ll be covering a new feature in Window-Eyes 8.0 Beta 1 until its
release, so stop by our web site daily (www.gwmicro.com/beta) to make
sure you don't miss any of the exciting new features.
Since the start of the Guess What series, many of you have been asking
Browse Mode. The time has finally come to showcase all of the hard work
GW Micro has been doing to improve your web browsing experience.
/New Supported Web Browsers/
While it has not yet been officially released, GW Micro is leading the
pack with support for Internet Explorer 10! This includes IE the
program and IE the modern app when using Windows 8. So, for those of
you who are using Windows 8, you will be able to use IE 10 with the
power of Window-Eyes 8.0 Beta 1. Window-Eyes continues to support
Mozilla Firefox and we have greatly improved support for both browsers
by making web pages load much faster and field names read much better in
both browsers.
The Tab and Shift-Tab keys are now sent directly to the web browser
regardless of whether you are in or out of Browse Mode so that dynamic
content that appears will be simple to access. In previous versions of
Window-Eyes, the Tab and Shift-Tab keys were intercepted, but this new
implementation will help ensure much better access to dynamic content.
/Auto Browse Mode/
One of the most noticeable differences you will find while browsing the
web with Window-Eyes 8.0 Beta 1 is that Browse Mode will automatically
turn off when you Tab or Shift-Tab to a form control that requires
Browse Mode to be off. Instead of hearing "Browse Off," you will now
hear a sound that indicates whether Browse Mode is on or off. If you Tab
or Shift-Tab away from the form control, you will be notified with a
sound that Browse Mode is back on, but you can continue to easily
navigate the page without the entire Browse Mode buffer re-loading. An
example of this would be www.google.com. Google.com puts focus in the
edit box as soon as you are on the page. You will hear the sound
indicating that Browse Mode is off. If you press Tab until you are not
on a form control, Browse Mode comes back on, but you can continue to
navigate without being back at the top of the page. You will know
Browse Mode is on or off by the new Browse Mode sounds, which can be
adjusted in the Windows Control Panel.
You can choose to have sounds for Auto Browse Mode when Browse Mode
turns on or off, you can have Window-Eyes say "Browse Mode On or Off,"
you can have both, or you can turn both of them off. So, if you are a
Braille user, you will still be able to easily tell when Browse Mode is
on or off by selecting the "Indicate with Speech" setting. If you
prefer to use Browse Mode the way it worked in previous versions of
Window-Eyes, you can turn off Auto Browse Mode. This option is called
"Allow Automatic Form Interaction When Browse Mode is Enabled" under the
Verbosity then Browse Mode then Autoload Settings.
Auto Browse Mode will also help when using the mouse to navigate web
pages. When sighted users try browsing the web with Window-Eyes, they
often have difficulty understanding why text is not placed in an edit
box once they click in it. This is no longer an issue with Window-Eyes
8.0 Beta 1 because when the mouse is clicked inside a form control,
including edit boxes, Browse Mode will automatically turn off.
When trying to communicate with sighted users about a web page, it has
often been difficult for sighted users to understand exactly where
something is located on the screen. This can make it difficult for
screen reader users to communicate important information on a web page
to a sighted user. Window-Eyes 8.0 Beta 1 ensures that the text that is
spoken is always visible on the screen. Additionally, in both Internet
Explorer and Firefox, the route mouse to focus hotkey (Insert-Numpad
Plus) works 100% of the time and can visually route your mouse to what
you are looking at on the web page. This will make it very easy for you
to communicate to your sighted peers.
In past versions, you had to press Enter on a form control to ensure
focus would remain on that control. You now have the option to press
Enter or Control-Shift-A and focus will remain on that form control.
This gives you more control over how you interact with web pages. You
can also press Esc to turn Browse Mode on at any time.
/ARIA Support/
Window-Eyes 8.0 Beta 1 now includes support for ARIA! What is ARIA? ARIA
stands for Accessible Rich Internet Applications. What does this mean?
It means that most of today's dynamic web pages and applications which
have been designed to take advantage of ARIA that did not function in
older versions of Window-Eyes now work beautifully in Window-Eyes 8.0
Beta 1! In essence, dynamic web pages work much better with Window-Eyes
8.0 Beta 1 than ever before. ARIA is now supported outside of Browse
Mode in both Internet Explorer and Firefox. Note that Internet Explorer
10 provides more support for ARIA than previous versions of Internet
Explorer.
An example of ARIA would be on www.yahoo.com. This machine is running
Internet Explorer 10 on Windows 8. As soon as you access www.yahoo.com,
you hear the new Browse Mode sound that indicates Browse Mode is off.
This is because focus is automatically in the edit box. Let's type
"GW." Once we type "GW," you hear that there are suggestions available
and the ARIA support included by Yahoo even tells you how to navigate to
those suggestions.
A web developer can set different ARIA elements to either be off,
polite, or assertive. This means that Window-Eyes 8.0 Beta 1 will read
ARIA elements differently depending on how the web developer created the
page. For example, if the web developer made something assertive, then
speech will be interrupted.
Several good examples of ARIA are located at
http://test.cita.uiuc.edu/aria/live/index.php. After we are on this
page, we will activate the Live 3 Static Reader link. The new page
begins reading and you can hear it says "You have new mail." Then, it
says, "You have new messages" followed by "There are new news feeds."
All of this is content that is updating dynamically on the screen.
Window-Eyes 8.0 Beta 1 is handling all of this with ease.
Now, we will activate the Example 4 link. This is a page keeping score
of a game. You can hear that the scores are being updated dynamically
as each person or team scores.
As you can see, Browse Mode is greatly improved and is ready to support
the next generation of the web.
These exciting features are just a few of what we have in store for you.
As you can see, Window-Eyes continues to lead the way in new technology!
We hope today's "Guess What?" has given you a glimpse into the power of
Window-Eyes 8.0 Beta 1, and its innovative new support for the web.
Stay tuned for Monday's "Guess What?" to learn more about Window-Eyes
8.0 Beta 1!
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