Guess What? Window-Eyes 8.0 Beta 1 Has a New Browse Mode!Hi jeremy and all GW Staff,
I really appreciate the work everyone has put in to the new browse mode of W-E. That's been my biggest challenge with information on computers and the new browse mode sounds like it will vastly improve our access to ever changing web page formats. Bob, K8LR, [email protected] ----- Original Message ----- From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Sent: Friday, October 19, 2012 10:58 AM 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! If you reply to this message it will be delivered to the original sender only. 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