NVDA (Non visual desktop access) a popular free and open source screen reader by
NV Access has released its beta version of 2012 series, NVDA 2012.1 Beta 1.
It is intended for those who are interested in testing and evaluating the upcoming NVDA
2012.1 release, but is not recommended for production use. Testers are encouraged to report any bugs found while using this beta.
Note that some translations may not yet be updated. They will be updated by the time of the final 2012.1 release.
What’s new:
Highlights of this release include features for more fluent reading of braille; indication of document formatting in braille; access to much more formatting
information and improved performance in Microsoft Word; and support for the iTunes Store.
New Features
• NVDA can announce the number of leading tabs and spaces of the current line in the order that they are entered. This can be enabled by selecting report
line indentation in the document formatting dialogue. (
#373)
• NVDA can now detect key presses generated from alternative keyboard input emulation such as on-screen keyboards and speech recognition software.
• NVDA can now detect colors in Windows command consoles.
• Bold, italic and underline are now indicated in braille using signs appropriate to the configured translation table. (
#538)
• Much more information is now reported in Microsoft Word documents, including:
◦ Inline information such as footnote and endnote numbers, heading levels, the existance of comments, table nesting levels, links, and text color;
◦ Reporting when entering document sections such as the comments story, footnotes and endnotes stories, and header and footer stories.
• Braille now indicates selected text using dots 7 and 8. (
#889)
• Braille now reports information about controls within documents such as links, buttons and headings. (
#202)
• Support for the hedo ProfiLine and MobilLine USB braille displays. (
#1863,
#1897)
• NVDA now avoids splitting words in braille when possible by default. This can be disabled in the Braille Settings dialog. (
#1890,
#1946)
• It is now possible to have braille displayed by paragraphs instead of lines, which may allow for more fluent reading of large amounts of text. This is
configurable using the Read by paragraphs option in the Braille Settings dialog. (
#1891)
• In browse mode, you can activate the object under the cursor using a braille display. This is done by pressing the cursor routing key where the cursor
is located (which means pressing it twice if the cursor is not already there). (
#1893)
• Basic support for web areas in iTunes such as the Store. Other applications using WebKit 1 may also be supported. (
#734)
• In books in Adobe Digital Editions 1.8.1 and later, pages are now turned automatically when using say all. (
#1978)
• New braille translation table: Portuguese grade 2. (
#2014)
• You can now configure whether frames in documents are reported from the Document Formatting preferences dialog. (
#1900)
• Sleep mode is automatically enabled when using OpenBook. (
#1209)
• In Poedit, translators can now read translator added and automatically extracted comments. Messages that are untranslated or fuzzy are marked with a star
and a beep is heard when you navigate onto them. (
#1811)
• Support for the HumanWare Brailliant BI and B series displays. (
#1990)
Changes
• Commands to describe the current character or to spell the current word or line now will spell in the appropriate language according to the text, if auto
language switching is turned on and the appropriate language information is available.
• Updated eSpeak speech synthesizer to 1.46.02.
• NVDA will now filter out extremely long (30 characters or greater) names guessed from graphic and link URLs as they are most likely garbage that gets
in the way of reading. (
#1989)
• Some information displayed in braille has been abbreviated. (
#1955,
#2043)
• When the caret or review cursor moves, braille is now scrolled in the same way as when it is manually scrolled. This makes it more appropriate when braille
is configured to read by paragraphs and/or avoid splitting words. (
#1996)
• Updated to new Spanish grade 1 braille translation table.
Bug Fixes
• In Windows 8, focus is no longer incorrectly moved away from the Windows Explorer search field, which was not allowing NVDA to interact with it.
• Major performance improvements when reading and navigating Microsoft word documents while automatic reporting of formatting is enabled, thus now making
it quite comfortable to proof read formatting etc. Performance may be also improved over all for some users.
• Browse mode is now used for full screen Adobe Flash content.
• Fixed poor audio quality in some cases when using Microsoft Speech API version 5 voices with the audio output device set to something other than the default
(Microsoft Sound Mapper). (
#749)
• Again allow NVDA to be used with the "no speech" synthesizer, relying purely on braille or the speech viewer. (
#1963)
• Object navigation commands no longer report "No children" and "No parents", but instead report messages consistent with the documentation.
• When NVDA is configured to use a language other than English, the name of the tab key is now reported in the correct language.
• In Mozilla Gecko (e.g. Firefox), NVDA no longer intermittently switches to browse mode while navigating menus in documents. (
#2025)
• In Calculator, the backspace key now reports the updated result instead of reporting nothing. (
#2030)
• In browse mode, the move mouse to current navigator object command now routes to the center of the object at the review cursor instead of the top left,
making it more accurate it some cases. (
#2029)
• In browse mode with automatic focus mode for focus changes enabled, focusing on a toolbar will now switch to focus mode. (
#1339)
• The report title command works correctly again in Adobe Reader.
• With automatic focus mode for focus changes enabled, focus mode is now correctly used for focused table cells; e.g. in ARIA grids. (
#1763)
• In iTunes, position information in certain lists is now reported correctly.
• In Adobe Reader, some links are no longer treated as containing read-only editable text fields.
• The labels of some editable text fields are no longer incorrectly included when reporting the text of a dialog. (
#1960)
• The description of groupings is once again reported if reporting of object descriptions is enabled.
• The human readable sizes are now included in the text of the Windows Explorer drive properties dialog.
• Double reporting of property page text has been suppressed in some cases. (
#218)
Changes for Developers
• There is now a remote Python console for situations where remote debugging is useful. See the Developer Guide for details.
• The base path of NVDA's code is now stripped from tracebacks in the log to improve readability. (
#1880)
• TextInfo objects now have an activate() method to activate the position represented by the TextInfo.
◦ This is used by braille to activate the position using cursor routing keys on a braille display. However, there may be other callers in future.
• TreeInterceptors and NVDAObjects which only expose one page of text at a time can support automatic page turns during say all by using the textInfos.DocumentWithPageTurns
mix-in. (
#1978)
• Several control and output constants have been renamed or moved. (
#228)
◦ speech.REASON_* constants have been moved to controlTypes.
◦ In controlTypes, speechRoleLabels and speechStateLabels have been renamed to just roleLabels and stateLabels, respectively.
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