Screen Reader Support

[Marrauder]

Hello again. been a long time since my last post, I was having issues passing keystrokes from my screen reader program called JAWS. We finally determined it was the way JAWS passed the key commands was different to the way voice attack was doing it. Well I am not sure how or who changed something, but the commands from JAWS are now working via voice attack.

But sorry after all that, I will now explain the actual reason behind this post. I do have a little sight left and can use voice attack with my magnifier, but right now voice attack does not work with my screen reader at all. I wanted to help some of my blind friends get voice attack and set it up. So this way they could set some of the more tedious keyboard commands to a voice command, but right now it is impossible. I am just asking if it is possible to make voice attack work with screen readers or is there another reason it does not. The main screen readers are JAWS, NVDA and Narrator. Thanks in advance for any response regarding this.

[Marrauder]

Sorry did I forget to mention I am an idiot LOL, By voice attack not working with my screen reader I mean when I am on the voice attack main window etc I cannot move around and hear what items I am highlighting etc.

[Gary]

Thank you for bringing this to my attention.  There was a large push to get this going some time back, but it seems to have fallen by the wayside.  I will move this up in priority.

Again, thanks for the heads up.

[Marrauder]

Thank you for bringing this to my attention.  There was a large push to get this going some time back, but it seems to have fallen by the wayside.  I will move this up in priority.

Again, thanks for the heads up.

Much appreciated, glad to hear it was planned.

[Marrauder]

So after posting about this, I thought I would do a little testing for how much of VA works with my screen reader JAWS.
I was surprised to see that quite a bit of VA already works quite well with JAWS.
The main window for VA unfortunately does not work with JAWS at all.
But when I use my magnifier to find the Edit Profile Icon and go into the next screen to edit the profile. Most of this window works with JAWS, there are a few minor problems where it just says Button when I highlight some elements.
Also when I create a new command or edit a command, this works quite well with JAWS.

I guess what I am trying to say in this post, is that quite a bit of VA already works with JAWS, I will do more testing with NVDA just to stem my curiosity. But if you would like me to post if it is the same or worse then JAWS, I can, otherwise I will refrain from posting my findings LOL.

[Pfeil]

Perhaps worth pointing out that VoiceAttack does accept input from its own commands when interacting with the GUI.

E.G. you could have an "edit VoiceAttack profile" command that presses Alt-E while targeting VoiceAttack itself, to edit the current profile.

Pressing Alt-E on your physical keyboard would of course perform the same underlying function, but perhaps a spoken command is more practical for you than a keyboard shortcut.


Most of the buttons on VoiceAttack's GUI have keyboard shortcuts as well, E.G. with the "Edit a Profile" window open, "Alt-N" would initiate the creation of a new command.

[Marrauder]

OMG, I am glad I pointed out in my second post in this thread that I am an idiot
I never even thought of key commands in VA lol. I do that many now with this screen reader my mind is turning to mush trying to remember them all lol.

Thanks Pfiel for pointing me in this direction