Hello,

"For the new job I started this year, I can only use NVDA, because JAWS
will crash when I log into the web interface I am required to use."

I had this same experience when applying to a call centre job last year.  Hopefully your employer puts something into nvda on your behalf, since it seems to be useful in these situations.  It shouldn't matter which screen reader you use to access web databases, but I and others have experienced that nvda as a baseline works while jaws does not.

"However, I agree with Gene. JAWS is more easily configurable by the
user. You can label graphics, you can assign window classes and see if
that makes a program work more smoothly with NVDA, you can assign
application specific hotkeys. I am not so sure if the JAWS frames
feature still works so well under Windows 10. I just tried it recently
without success.
"

This is one area where I disagree.  Not that jaws has the features or that they are useful, but that they belong in NVDA.  I believe that it is the responsibility of developers to label their graphics and controls, draw and class their windows and controls properly, and build keyboard/touchscreen support for their apps properly.  This is increasingly required by law, imposed by societal change, taught as programming best practice, and demonstrably beneficial beyond the needs of disability communities.  Unfortunately, it's not all there yet, but within the next three years, it will become legally and socially inacceptable to build software without regard for accessibility standards, just as you wouldn't build out with no regard for UI, performance, security, and other common standards and best practices.  I believe the development philosophy of NVDA is based on this.  A screen reader should read the screen, conveying the information already provided in accessible format, doing as little interpretation as possible.  There's a school of thought on the list that says we should go to any length to bash information into shape: install and try to use every screen reader on the market for it's best task, build out features like rendering images of text into passably readable format, and so on.  I miss the days of hitting a button and getting graphics labeled myself, but in the current legal, social, and economic situation, it just makes more sense to push developers into programming best practice rather than re-invent the old, expensive, not quite totally effective, way of doing things.

"Also, for me the question is not only can I do something with a screen
reader, but also how quickly can I do what I need to do. One example for
me is the text analysing feature of JAWS in MS Word. I think it helps a
lot when writing a document and checking the formatting. I can do this
with NVDA, too, but it takes a lot longer. The JAWS text analyser or
whatever they call it just checks the document for me and allows me to
see where unexpected formatting or characters have been found. I then
can check whether they are intended or not and make corrections. And it
is so much quicker to do it that way than to read the entire document
with NVDA reporting all attributes selectable in the document dialogue
of NVDA. And additionally, the latter method is so monotonous that there
is the risk of not catching all of the formatting problems."

I have to agree with you here.  I am starting in on a computer programming diploma, and having to build visually appealing user interfaces.  It would be fantastic to have an add-on that would do some intense format, layout, style, information presented in a way that I could quickly make sure certin things look proper  Maybe I'll take this on as we're coming into python in winter semester.  To me, this is a perfect example of the kind of thing a screen reader should do.

"What would be the legal status for NVDA extensions written by a third
party to make a specific program more accessible? If the would they be
allowed to sell them? probably not, because NVDA is free. What would be
the incentive for them to develop these extensions for rarely used
software if they can only bill the hours once?"

I am not a lawyer and I haven'tttt read the developer documentation, but I don't see why enterprise developers couldn't charge for add-ons.  In fact, now that I think of it, many of the voice synthesizer add-ons are paid products. 

"I'm just

wondering if this could be
another reason why JAWS is chosen for the workplace more often than NVDA.

"

No, I think it has more to do with politics and the old paradigm than anything else.  When I was testing accessibility for that call centre job last year, I was told that the company had python programmers in house.  They seemed to be willing to script their own bolt-ons in house.  I'm guessing this represented a huge cost savings, as I've heard quotes for jaws scripting from $150 per hour up to $150 per line of code.

Now suppose that this call centre approached an old paradigm so called access technology specialist company and asked for consulting on how to accebilitize their IT infrestructure.  What would the specialist say?  "install NVDA for free and pay us $150 per hour to write python"?  or, "install a floating licence of jaws for five grand, then pay us $150 per line for proprietary scripts.  Then buy future proofing to keep your at and it's scripts up-to-date"  I think the second is more likely.  The first is more stable, more long term sustainable, less proprietary, and cheeper, but the second is in line with the self-interest of the AT consultant.

"I think thanks to object navigation, NVDA could have a superior feature
to JAWS' being able to read frames. It would be cool if we were able to
specify a screen object, and then tell NVDA what we want it to do with
the object: read it whenever content changes, leftclick or rightclick it
and probably more. Frames in JAWS only worked if screen resolution
didn't change. If the actions were tied to an object and not a frame
thus not dependent on its dimensions on the screen, the configuration
could work for different people with different screen resolutions.
"

Right again, although this might already be possible.  If not, it should end up in an add-on one of these days.  But again, for the vast majority of things, we expect the developer to develop and the screen reader to read the screen.  Reading specific sections of busy screens at a touch would be super handy, but if your developer did their keyboard support properly, there would be few if any instances of requiring some one to access features exclusively with a mouse.

Best

Sandra

Am 23.12.2017 um 23:52 schrieb Gene:
> You can't label graphics, you can't create frames and there is no
> adjustment of the screen echo.  There is also no way to skip baqck and
> forward by line when the screen echo is set to all or when using read
> to end and have speech continue.  If these abilities were present, as
> far as I know, that would make NVDA as user configurable as JAWS and
> Window-eyes.  These are important lacks in NVDA.
> Gene
> ----- Original Message -----
> *From:* Adriani Botez <mailto:adriani.botez@...>
> *Sent:* Saturday, December 23, 2017 2:34 PM
> *To:* nvda@nvda.groups.io <mailto:nvda@nvda.groups.io>
> *Subject:* Re: [nvda] I'm dissappointed
>
> This is not correct. NVDA is well adjustable, even much easier than jaws.
>
>
>
> Von meinem iPhone gesendet
>
> Am 23.12.2017 um 03:47 schrieb Gene <gsasner@...
> <mailto:gsasner@...>>:
>
>> You can't do what I could do when I used Pine with a shell account a
>> long time ago.  I didn't need to create any frames or scripts.  All I
>> had to do was set the screen echo of JAWS to all, open a message, and
>> then use the jaws skip line wile reading feature, right shift, to
>> very quickly jump to the start of the message body.  Even if NVDA
>> reads such material when it appears on screen, you either listen to
>> everything or nothing and use the tedious read by line screen review
>> option.  Hardly a convenient or reasonable way to go through thirty
>> e-mails.
>> Like it or not, NVDA isn't user definable.  You can't label graphics
>> and you can't create frames.  These are serious deficiencies even if
>> many of us don't need such options.
>> And you can't set the screen echo to all and then do what I did, as I
>> described.  This may be an important ability for some users.
>> Gene
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> *From:* coffeekingms@... <mailto:coffeekingms@...>
>> *Sent:* Friday, December 22, 2017 7:16 PM
>> *To:* nvda@nvda.groups.io <mailto:nvda@nvda.groups.io>
>> *Subject:* Re: [nvda] I'm dissappointed
>>
>> Hi
>>
>> I concur. I  firmly believe that NVDA can do most, if not all, the
>> things more expensive programs can do. With some very rare
>> exceptions. There are still some apps that require jfw with specific
>> scripts to be usable, but as time goes on those apps will dwindle
>> until there are none left. But for 99 percent of people, NVDA can
>> work for them, either alone or in combination with narrator, which
>> has gotten quite good. I don’t really set much store by such
>> presentations, as the few I’ve bothered to listen to gloss over the
>> free options as if they’re not there, are not worth mentioning or
>> aren’t good enough. This applies to NVDA as well as open source
>> operating systems like Linux. I have not listened to the presentation
>> people are talking about, so I don’t want to ruffle any feathers, but
>> as a rule I don’t listen to them. They tend to unilaterally insist
>> that only the paid apps are worth using. Except for the NVDA
>> podcasts. Those are great, although I don’t follow those either. I’m
>> just a user. I use NVDA on a daily basis and have found very little
>> that it can’t do. If it can’t navigate an app by the usual methods,
>> tab, shift tab, arrows, then it can by either touch, if you have a
>> touch screen or object navigation.Even when I was using Linux full
>> time I would keep up with NVDA’s progress, and NVDA is what
>> eventually brought me back to using windows again.
>>
>> Thanks
>>
>> Kendell Clark
>>
>> Sent from Mail <https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=550986> for
>> Windows 10
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> *From:* nvda@nvda.groups.io <mailto:nvda@nvda.groups.io>
>> <nvda@nvda.groups.io <mailto:nvda@nvda.groups.io>> on behalf of Don H
>> <lmddh50@... <mailto:lmddh50@...>>
>> *Sent:* Friday, December 22, 2017 6:18:54 PM
>> *To:* nvda@nvda.groups.io <mailto:nvda@nvda.groups.io>
>> *Subject:* Re: [nvda] I'm dissappointed
>> I think that NVDA is just as good or better than any other screen
>> reader.  I think the issue for businesses is the fact that NVDA is open
>> source thus in their minds less secure.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>

Yes sir, i am facing in all type of web site not only in chrome. I tested with firefox also. But there also same problem.
Shree



On 1 January 2018 1:25:16 PM "Brian's Mail list account via Groups.Io" <bglists=blueyonder.co.uk@groups.io> wrote:

Does this only happen in specific web sites, or all over? Did it always work
before, Try to work out what has changed.
It could be an update to windows or Chrome, or the website it its site
specific.
Might be time to try a different browser. I would always keep at least two
different ones handy as increasingly you find sites have not been fully
tested of access by some browsers.
Brian

bglists@blueyonder.co.uk
Sent via blueyonder.
Please address personal email to:-
briang1@blueyonder.co.uk, putting 'Brian Gaff'
in the display name field.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Narayan" <krishnashree1221@gmail.com>
To: <nvda@nvda.groups.io>
Sent: Monday, January 01, 2018 2:50 AM
Subject: Re: [nvda] Problem facing in google-chrome

Yes. I am using google chrome v 63.0 whith Nvda 2017.4.
Shree



On 1 January 2018 7:04:06 AM "Adriani Botez" <adriani.botez@gmail.com>
wrote:

Do you use the last crome and the last nvda version?

Best
Adriani


Von meinem iPhone gesendet

Am 31.12.2017 um 23:10 schrieb Narayan <krishnashree1221@gmail.com>:

Hi group members, I am using google chrome with NVDA screen reader. but,
i am facing a problem in this. from 2-3 days some contents are not
displayed properly in google chrome.I cannot navigate paragraphs in
website using arrow keys correctly. if i navigate using tab, there only
links are displayed. I cannot access all the contents in the page using
arrow keys. please help me providing solution. thanks in advance.

Shree

Hello again:
In response to Rick's reply, I will need helpful tutorials to re-set
the connection between file types and programs in order to open my
files.
I don't know how to do it.

On 12/31/17, ely.r@comcast.net <ely.r@comcast.net> wrote:

Ibrahim
Not sure just how this has happened, but the tile associations for Word have
been reassigned to Media Player. The computer looks at the file type, the
letters that follow the file name, and uses the program that is set to open
that file type. You will need to reset that connection between file type and
program to open it. Will you need help doing that? If so, post back to the
list.
Rick

-----Original Message-----
From: nvda@nvda.groups.io [mailto:nvda@nvda.groups.io] On Behalf Of Ibrahim
Ajayi
Sent: Sunday, December 31, 2017 5:17 PM
To: nvda@nvda.groups.io
Subject: [nvda] My Documents Opening In Windows Media Player

Hello:
I am having another unusual and odd problem.
But this problem has nothing to do with NVDA, although I use the
screenreader.
Actually, many of my documents are now opening in windows media player. The
documents were created by me in microsoft word, and wordpad, but now they
open in windows media player.
I am also having the same problem with some materials Emailed to me.
The attachments are in word document,, but when I attempt to open them, they
open in windows media player.
I just can't figure out what this problem is all about.
Please has anyone ever had this problem at any time? how did you resolve
it.
Hope to read your response.
Ibrahim.

Ibrahim
Not sure just how this has happened, but the tile associations for
Word have been reassigned to Media Player. The computer looks at the
file type, the letters that follow the file name, and uses the program
that is set to open that file type. You will need to reset that
connection between file type and program to open it. Will you need
help doing that? If so, post back to the list.
Rick

-----Original Message-----
From: nvda@nvda.groups.io [mailto:nvda@nvda.groups.io] On Behalf Of
Ibrahim Ajayi
Sent: Sunday, December 31, 2017 5:17 PM
To: nvda@nvda.groups.io
Subject: [nvda] My Documents Opening In Windows Media Player

Hello:
I am having another unusual and odd problem.
But this problem has nothing to do with NVDA, although I use the
screenreader.
Actually, many of my documents are now opening in windows media
player. The documents were created by me in microsoft word, and
wordpad, but now they open in windows media player.
I am also having the same problem with some materials Emailed to me.
The attachments are in word document,, but when I attempt to open
them, they open in windows media player.
I just can't figure out what this problem is all about.
Please has anyone ever had this problem at any time? how did you
resolve it.
Hope to read your response.
Ibrahim.

Hi all.

I'm looking for accessible postgresql GUI Client for my work. I tried using dbeaver. NVDA can read most but could not get result query tab read by NVDA. I also tried pgadmin but it just refused to work in my system.

So far I'm using command line tools but it's quite difficult to handle large sql code.

My system is Windows 10 x64

Any help would be appreciated.

Does this only happen in specific web sites, or all over? Did it always work
before, Try to work out what has changed.
It could be an update to windows or Chrome, or the website it its site
specific.
Might be time to try a different browser. I would always keep at least two
different ones handy as increasingly you find sites have not been fully
tested of access by some browsers.
Brian

bglists@blueyonder.co.uk
Sent via blueyonder.
Please address personal email to:-
briang1@blueyonder.co.uk, putting 'Brian Gaff'
in the display name field.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Narayan" <krishnashree1221@gmail.com>
To: <nvda@nvda.groups.io>
Sent: Monday, January 01, 2018 2:50 AM
Subject: Re: [nvda] Problem facing in google-chrome

Yes. I am using google chrome v 63.0 whith Nvda 2017.4.
Shree



On 1 January 2018 7:04:06 AM "Adriani Botez" <adriani.botez@gmail.com>
wrote:

Do you use the last crome and the last nvda version?

Best
Adriani


Von meinem iPhone gesendet

Am 31.12.2017 um 23:10 schrieb Narayan <krishnashree1221@gmail.com>:

Hi group members, I am using google chrome with NVDA screen reader. but,
i am facing a problem in this. from 2-3 days some contents are not
displayed properly in google chrome.I cannot navigate paragraphs in
website using arrow keys correctly. if i navigate using tab, there only
links are displayed. I cannot access all the contents in the page using
arrow keys. please help me providing solution. thanks in advance.

Shree

I tried CDex and couldn't get it to work.



-----Original Message-----
From: nvda@nvda.groups.io [mailto:nvda@nvda.groups.io] On Behalf Of Brian's
Mail list account via Groups.Io
Sent: Saturday, December 30, 2017 11:43 PM
To: nvda@nvda.groups.io
Subject: Re: [nvda] trying to find the tutorial for ripping CD's using NVDA

Is there a reason why you want to use Windows Media player? I use CD-EX for
this task. its made for it in fact.
 Its also free!
 No messing about, just get your wav or mp 3 files and it even seems to be
able to use cddb and cd text to get info too.
 Brian

bglists@...
Sent via blueyonder.
Please address personal email to:-
briang1@..., putting 'Brian Gaff'
in the display name field.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Rosemarie Chavarria" <knitqueen2007@...>
To: <nvda@nvda.groups.io>
Sent: Saturday, December 30, 2017 11:36 PM
Subject: [nvda] trying to find the tutorial for ripping CD's using NVDA

Hi, everyone,



I'm trying to find the tutorial for rippping CD's with windows media 
player
using NVDA but I forgot what page it's on on the accessibility central 
site.
I looked on the audio tutorials page but couldn't find it. What could I be
missing?



Thanks for your help in advance.



Rosemarie

Yes. I am using google chrome v 63.0 whith Nvda 2017.4.
Shree



On 1 January 2018 7:04:06 AM "Adriani Botez" <adriani.botez@gmail.com> wrote:

Do you use the last crome and the last nvda version?

Best
Adriani


Von meinem iPhone gesendet

Am 31.12.2017 um 23:10 schrieb Narayan <krishnashree1221@gmail.com>:

Hi group members, I am using google chrome with NVDA screen reader. but, i am facing a problem in this. from 2-3 days some contents are not displayed properly in google chrome.I cannot navigate paragraphs in website using arrow keys correctly. if i navigate using tab, there only links are displayed. I cannot access all the contents in the page using arrow keys. please help me providing solution. thanks in advance.

Shree

Espeak is rubbish.

-----Original Message-----
From: Shaun Everiss
Sent: Sunday, December 31, 2017 6:56 PM
To: nvda@nvda.groups.io
Subject: Re: [nvda] help wanted in porting espeak fixes over to windows

To be honest, and I know all the devs will shoot me down for this, but I
have sceen no real reason that we shouldn't drop back to the last real
version of espeak by default, have espeak ng as an optional or include
both synths they have seperate directorys for data and so I see no real
reason we can't have both installed, true espeak ng's espeak.dll will
have to be espeakng.dll or something but to be honest.

The espeak ng screwups don't worry me that much but I do know for bidden
is not fir bidden.

pir cent is not purcent.

or whatever it is.

Its almost like spaces in some words are being added when they were
coded in.

At any rate, mr espeak robot is not to be understood.

Its a crappy low powered synth used for admin work and other generalness.

If I wanted my voices understood I'd use my slow good quality but
resource hungry synth I have about.

Its not a big issue but the fact the list is growing.

They have fixed most of the accent issues but even so.

I really do hope that things continue to work.




On 31/12/2017 8:51 p.m., Brian's Mail list account via Groups.Io wrote:

I had always understood that the engine in nvda is updated regularly to take account of fixes, but recently there seem to have been a number of nasty bugs and silly mispronunciations added during code clean up. I'm speaking about UK English here and so have gone back to Speech Player in Espeak add on to get to an older version of Espeak which does not have these issues.
In my view there seems to be a focus in the team to attempt to make the code understandable, by moving stuff about. I guess this makes sense if they want to understand it, but its not really doing anything to fix crashes inimogees, bad pronunciations or other strange funnies, in fact its already broken language dictionaries and some other bits on the latest nvda meaning that Nvda team had to make work around to help them use the latest code.
Brian

bglists@blueyonder.co.uk
Sent via blueyonder.
Please address personal email to:-
briang1@blueyonder.co.uk, putting 'Brian Gaff'
in the display name field.
----- Original Message ----- From: <coffeekingms@hotmail.com>
To: <nvda@nvda.groups.io>
Sent: Sunday, December 31, 2017 4:18 AM
Subject: [nvda] help wanted in porting espeak fixes over to windows


Hi all
I maintain a repository of espeak fixes. That is, pronunciation fixes for the US English language for words and names espeak ng mangles, for Linux based operating systems, located at http//GitHub.com/coffeeking/espeak-en-us. I’ve been wanting to for some time port these over to windows and NVDA, as well as making them available to anyone using the sapi5 version of espeak ng. I don’t have the coding skills to do this though and need help. I’ve tried to get help on the espeak ng mailing list and no one seems interested. The biggest issue is writing a script to compile the fixes into espeak ng. I don’t know enough coding to do this. The other big problem is that to be able to compile the fixes, which are just text tfiles into the binary dictionary format espeak ng needs, you have to have installed espeak ng into whatever OS you use, I don’t think you can do it with just NVDA’s built in copy. I’d love to be able to get rid of this step if at all possible, since it would drastically increase the ease of new users being able to use and contribute to my fixes. My goal is to eventually become part of espeak ng’s development itself by helping reece dunn with US English, although I haven’t managed it yet. My fixes are occasionally added to espeak ng itself, but only when reece has time to comb through them and fix any I get wrong. Is anyone interested in helping me make it possible to use these with NVDA? I don’t know where NVDA looks for espeak ng’s dictionary files, so in addition to being able to compile the files, you have to copy them to wherever it is NVDA looks for them so it can pick up on them. I’m not sure about the sapi 5 version of espeak ng, but I’d like to make it possible for people to use my fixes regardless how they use espeak ng or what they use it on, right now it’s limited strictly to Linux or unix OSes since I had help with the bash script which compiles and copies them.
Thanks
Kendell Clark

Sent from my Vizio Ultrabook





.

Ibrahim
Not sure just how this has happened, but the tile associations for Word have
been reassigned to Media Player. The computer looks at the file type, the
letters that follow the file name, and uses the program that is set to open
that file type. You will need to reset that connection between file type and
program to open it. Will you need help doing that? If so, post back to the
list.
Rick

-----Original Message-----
From: nvda@nvda.groups.io [mailto:nvda@nvda.groups.io] On Behalf Of Ibrahim
Ajayi
Sent: Sunday, December 31, 2017 5:17 PM
To: nvda@nvda.groups.io
Subject: [nvda] My Documents Opening In Windows Media Player

Hello:
I am having another unusual and odd problem.
But this problem has nothing to do with NVDA, although I use the
screenreader.
Actually, many of my documents are now opening in windows media player. The
documents were created by me in microsoft word, and wordpad, but now they
open in windows media player.
I am also having the same problem with some materials Emailed to me.
The attachments are in word document,, but when I attempt to open them, they
open in windows media player.
I just can't figure out what this problem is all about.
Please has anyone ever had this problem at any time? how did you resolve
it.
Hope to read your response.
Ibrahim.

Hi, David

Thanks for the feedback. One thing more I noticed I am using the latest master snapshot of nvda, then, when I am about to enter my password I could not hear echoing as I typed into the field though my keys were set echo on in the settings. Is this should be normal for not hearing to announce when typing? Or, did I missed out some thing to get it work. But, when I shifted to used narrator I have no problem I could hear the focus as I tabbed around in the password panel.

Robert Mendoza

For me Windows Mail loads faster than any other   mail app though I do have 4 times the ram at 16GB which may make   a difference.

Normally I  use NVDA with Mail.  I am doing so at  the moment. One thing I do notice is that Mail may lock up with NVDA if there is anything processor intensive happening in the background. If I switch temprorarily to Narrator whilst this is happening   mail suddenly comes back to life.

It may be worth trying mail with Narrator if it  is unresponsive with NVDA as they works quite nicely together.

David Griffith

My Blind Access and Guide dog Blog
http://dgriffithblog.wordpress.com/
My Blind hammer Blog
https://www.westhamtillidie.com/authors/blind-hammer/posts

 

From: Robert Mendoza
Sent: 30 December 2017 13:25
To: nvda@nvda.groups.io
Subject: Re: [nvda] Using Win10's Mail App

 

Out of curiosity I tested awhile ago for the first time the Mail apps to

my Windows 10 machine, I noticed when opening the mentioned apps took me

so long to loads or open. Though, I never had experience this to other

third-party applications like Thunderbird, and etc. Or, is this really

normal as it was supposed to be?Again, this happen although none

application is running in the background. I am currently using a Dual

Core processor 5th generation with 4GB RAM. Not sure what exactly could

cause of this. I appreciate your advice. Thanks.

 

 

Robert Mendoza

 

On 12/30/2017 10:39 AM, Rosemarie Chavarria wrote:

> Hi, Pauline,

> 

> David Moore has a great tutorial on how to use the mail app. It also covers the calendar and the people app.

> 

> Hope this helps.

> 

> Rosemarie

> 

> 

> 

> -----Original Message-----

> From: nvda@nvda.groups.io [mailto:nvda@nvda.groups.io] On Behalf Of Pauline Smith

> Sent: Friday, December 29, 2017 5:44 PM

> To: nvda@nvda.groups.io

> Subject: [nvda] Using Win10's Mail App

> 

> Good Evening,

> 

> Are any instructions for using Win10's Mail app with NVDA?  Thanks and an early wish for a happy new year.

> 

> Pauline

> 

> 

> 

> 

> 

> 

>

> 

 

 

 

 

Dear NVDA add-ons community,

First, happy 2018 to everyone. May this year be filled with blessings and great things.

Second, believe it or not, 2018 is our fifth anniversary (well, technically sixth). It’s been more than five years since first community add-ons hit the air. Back in 2012, we had Vocalizer Direct, OCR, Systray List and a few others. In September 2012, the preliminary version of community add-ons website hit the air, followed by the official opening on January 23, 2013. The mailing list was established on May 12, 2013, and since then, the community went through changes to guidelines, review processes, and ever expanding list of add-ons. As of start of 2018, there are at least 52 add-ons (including five that are under development or marked as such) on our official community add-ons website, and counting ones all over the internet, the number of NVDA add-ons is at least a hundred or more.

As the current NVDA add-ons director/rep/spokesperson, an author, and an add-ons reviewer, I’m proud of how much we the community has accomplished in the past five years. I’m especially proud of the fact that add-ons have made a huge impact on the global NVDA community in various avenues:

• NVDA add-ons are leading the way in enterprise acceptance of NVDA for use in interesting scenarios: recognize text in graphics more accurately, a technician working remotely to diagnose problems and provide remote training, a host of speech synthesizer options, and making computers more usable through dictation.
• Others pushed NVDA’s capabilities to its limits and succeeded in making the screen reader more appealing: bringing place marker functionality, clipboard management, weather lookup, text translations, and pioneering support for new technologies and operating system features.
• Serving as a bridge for people coming from different screen readers: listing icons on the system tray, virtualizing the current window, a way to manipulate mouse via keyboard and much more.
• Enhancing support for aps: VitalSource Bookshelf, GoldWave, TeamTalk, a host of Windows 10 universal apps and others.

And much more.

But our work is not done: we have things to do as a community, including a much more transparent system for update announcements and update procedure, revamping the add-ons website, making add-on discovery easier and so on. We cannot forget the needs of enterprise users who uses business applications for their work, and add-ons will play a big part in making NVDA more appealing in professional environments such as schools, government offices, corporations and what not. We need to seek out and train future add-on authors and reviewers, as well as work toward a climate where add-ons, authors, users, and the community can thrive for years to come, especially a climate where new users and authors feel themselves home and current users and authors can get fresh ideas to upgrade the add-ons experience.

Again, I’m proud of what we’ve done so far: making NVDA add-ons a part of lives of thousands. I think this time (2018) is a good opportunity for us to reflect on our progress and plan ahead for the next five years. I hope that, by our own tenth anniversary (2022), we can look back and say that working on NVDA add-ons was the best thing we have done for the global NVDA community in making NVDA flexible, appealing, and truly community driven.

Thanks.

Happy New Year,

Joseph

Dear NVDA add-ons community,

First, happy 2018 to everyone. May this year be filled with blessings and great things.

Second, believe it or not, 2018 is our fifth anniversary (well, technically sixth). It’s been more than five years since first community add-ons hit the air. Back in 2012, we had Vocalizer Direct, OCR, Systray List and a few others. In September 2012, the preliminary version of community add-ons website hit the air, followed by the official opening on January 23, 2013. The mailing list was established on May 12, 2013, and since then, the community went through changes to guidelines, review processes, and ever expanding list of add-ons. As of start of 2018, there are at least 52 add-ons (including five that are under development or marked as such) on our official community add-ons website, and counting ones all over the internet, the number of NVDA add-ons is at least a hundred or more.

As the current NVDA add-ons director/rep/spokesperson, an author, and an add-ons reviewer, I’m proud of how much we the community has accomplished in the past five years. I’m especially proud of the fact that add-ons have made a huge impact on the global NVDA community in various avenues:

• NVDA add-ons are leading the way in enterprise acceptance of NVDA for use in interesting scenarios: recognize text in graphics more accurately, a technician working remotely to diagnose problems and provide remote training, a host of speech synthesizer options, and making computers more usable through dictation.
• Others pushed NVDA’s capabilities to its limits and succeeded in making the screen reader more appealing: bringing place marker functionality, clipboard management, weather lookup, text translations, and pioneering support for new technologies and operating system features.
• Serving as a bridge for people coming from different screen readers: listing icons on the system tray, virtualizing the current window, a way to manipulate mouse via keyboard and much more.
• Enhancing support for aps: VitalSource Bookshelf, GoldWave, TeamTalk, a host of Windows 10 universal apps and others.

And much more.

But our work is not done: we have things to do as a community, including a much more transparent system for update announcements and update procedure, revamping the add-ons website, making add-on discovery easier and so on. We cannot forget the needs of enterprise users who uses business applications for their work, and add-ons will play a big part in making NVDA more appealing in professional environments such as schools, government offices, corporations and what not. We need to seek out and train future add-on authors and reviewers, as well as work toward a climate where add-ons, authors, users, and the community can thrive for years to come, especially a climate where new users and authors feel themselves home and current users and authors can get fresh ideas to upgrade the add-ons experience.

Again, I’m proud of what we’ve done so far: making NVDA add-ons a part of lives of thousands. I think this time (2018) is a good opportunity for us to reflect on our progress and plan ahead for the next five years. I hope that, by our own tenth anniversary (2022), we can look back and say that working on NVDA add-ons was the best thing we have done for the global NVDA community in making NVDA flexible, appealing, and truly community driven.

Thanks.

Happy New Year,

Joseph