Category: Geeks r Us
Hey people.
I finally have a home computer! But I'm having some big screenreader problems. The computer is a refurbished desktop from TCVI, it runs Windows XP Pro, and I have my Internet through Comcast. The comp came with a demo version of Window Eyes, which I knew was supposed to be on there, and NVDA, which was a surprise. Oddly, they both use the same synthsizer. I'm leaving Window Eyes alone, because I have very little experience with the program and it's a demo anyway. Problem is, NVDA's driving me crazy! I have even less experience with it than with Window Eyes, and it's just lucky that it's very similar to JAWS. The voice is difficult to understand, and right now, it's reading back every effing word I type when I hit the space bar or punctuation. Furthermore, every time I hit an arrow key, it calls out the key I hit before reading the text, which wastes valuable time. Is there any way to turn these nuissances off? It doesn't wrap to the top of the page when I run out of form fields, either. Is there any way to change that? Does anyone else find that pages load more slowly when using NVDA? What's the command to list links? Finally, when I get JAWS on here (which will be soon, please gods, lol), can I install it using NVDA? Sorry for the onslaught of questions, but any help would be very much appreciated.
Thanks,
Becky
Hi there. I'm an NVDA user so will try to help you as best as I can. Everything is accessible through the NVDA menus. Once you turn it on, it'll bring you to the window with the menu. You can then set it to use capslock as a command key, like the JFW key. if not, I believe insert works but not sure. In any case, capslock n or insert n is how you get into the menus. To change it to capslock, go into the menus and arrow down until you hear "preferences". Hit enter on that and then go down to "keyboard settings". Tab until you hear "use capslock as an NVDA modifier key" and check that box. Even if you don't want to do this, you'll find the options you want in that particular menu. s you tab, you'll hear "speak typed characters". You'll want to uncheck that box so it doesn't read everything. I usually keep "speak typed words" on but if you'd like you can uncheck that as well. Make sure that the "speak command keys" box is unchecked so that it won't read things like arrow keys.
Some of the voices can be annoying. But I've found that the Michel voice, with pitch at 40 and inflection at 75 works nicely. To change the voice, go into preferences and arow down to "voice settings". Then tab until you hear "varient". arrow down until you hear Michel, or whichever voice you like. Then tab to change the rate, pitch and inflection to whatever you like and then tab to okay. There's also a language option before the varient so that you can change that if you wish. Don't forget to save your settings after any changes made. Do this by going into the NVDA menu and simply arrowing down to "save configuration". Hit enter and you're done.
There are many other changes that you can make with the menus. I always hated how JFW would wrap to the top of a page after getting into and out of forms mode. this option, to my knowledge, is not available in NVDA. However, you can simply use the ctrl and home keys to get to the top of a document and control end to get to the bottom. To navigate forms fields, hit f for the next field and shift-f for the previous. same with buttons. Use b and shift-b and for radio buttons use r and shift-r. I haven't yet found a links list command. Yes, you can install JFW using NVDa or even narrator. I'd actually recommend narrator, since it's difficult to turn NVDA off when JFW is running. If you have any other questions, feel free to post them here or ask me privately.
Eleni
To get links list in nvda is exactly the same as jaws. It is either insert+f7 or capslock+f7 or both. Deppents which modifier you chose for nvda but you can have all of them checked in the keyboard preference.
This is very interesting. I have mine set to use caps lock but it won't work as links list when I hit f7 with it. Insert f7 doesn't work either.
So what happenes if you press capslock+f7? Do you get anything on the screen? NVDA will say elements list and not links list but links will appear in this list unless if you change the radio buttons.
You can get headings and landmarks as well.
But if you don't get anything at all by pressing capslock+f7 then it is very strange.
Also make sure you are running the latest if you don't already.
The latest version is 2010.1
Opa! Bravo re. that was it. I'm running 2009.1. Going to update. Btw, it did nothing when I hit capslock f7.
Jaws has a self installer, or talking installer. All screen readers should be disabled when installing it.
Thanks guys. I now have JAWS 11 Pro running, but I might keep NVDA on here for a back-up and in case I decide I want to play with it more. I couldn't get Insert or Caps Lock f7 to work either, and even control home didn't do anything. For now, I think I'll stick to what I'm familiar with until I have time to learn NVDA.
While we're on the subject of screenreaders, how do I get JAWS to automatically run at start-up?
Becky
To get jaws to run at startup hit insert j, this will bring up the jaws menu. Then arrow down until you hear options submenu and press enter. Arrow down until you hear bascis, press enter, tab around until you hear the checkbox that says start jaws autamadically and check it, tab to ik and press enter. After this jaws should start at the windows logon screen. Hope this helps.
with jaws 11 this is slightly different as it takes in to account for win vista and 7. instead of a checkbox it is a dialog. start jaws at the log on screen checkbox, check if you want jaws talking while at the log on screen, useful if you have more than one account on the computer, or need to enter a password.
always start jaws for all users, i'd leave this unchecked in case you ever have to make another account on the computer.
Start jaws for this account, if you know you'll always be using jaws with this account set this to always, otherwise it defaults to the all users setting.
good luck.
By the way, run the jaws startup wizzard, you can configure your startup options from in that as well i think.
Just curious, why do you have jaws 11 if your running XP? I mean, you can use whatever you like, but wouldn't jaws 8 or 9 do it just fine? I can see if you were on 7 to have it, but XP?
11 actually has some nice things under xp as well, research it for one which can be quite useful.