Microsoft has made a lot of progress with Narrator. Now there is even support for Braille displays. I would recommend switching to another browser. Internet Explorer is dead and some new applications won't work with it. Your best bet is to use Firefox and Chrome. I can't recommend Edge right now as Microsoft is in the process of rewriting it and calling it something else. I read an article about that the other day but the name of the browser escapes me.
Dan
Dan
-----Original Message-----
From: Visually Impaired Computer Users' Group List <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of Harry Brown
Sent: Wednesday, January 16, 2019 3:04 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [VICUG-L] the good and the bad, about Narrator
Hi all,
Well, it's taken me 4 days to do it, but I put Narrator through it's paces.
There are 50 things that they have done, that are fantastic. Now some of them, were things that they already fixed, in past versions, but many, were not, and they've done a great job, indeed, so far!!!
First, you'll see the 50 things, below, then, below that, I'm going to mention 1 thing, but it's a big one, that they need to fix, as far as reading documents is concerned.
Things that have been implemented:
1. They have made Narrator easy to exit, by just hitting windows key enter, so that's great!!!
2. They changed the Narrator key from capslock to insert, and that is fantastic!
3. They changed the time date command from capslock c to insert f12 key, which is fantastic.
4. In the Narrator settings window, and everywhere else as well, in all different programs, the shift tab command does work great, great job fixing it 5. In Narrator, you can press alt f4 to close a program, or, save a document, so that's great!
6. They fixed it so when you press the letter e, it goes to the edit field on a web page, which is fantastic!
7. You can now press the tab key on a web page, after typing what we want in the edit field, to go to the search button, and that is great!
8. the insert f2 command is great!
9. They have given us very familiar commands such as:
control shift right arrow to select text, word by word.
shift right arrow to select text, letter by letter.
shift down arrow to select text, 1 line at a time.
h to go to the next heading.
shift h to go to the previous heading.
tab to go to the next link.
shift tab to go to the previous link.
10. the Narrator quick start window can be out of the way, by pressing tab till it says don't show this again, and it's a checkbox, and you check it with spacebar, which is fantastic!
11. You can read the window title with Narrator key and the letter t, which is great!
12. It is wonderful that control stops Narrator from reading!
13. It is fantastic that insert down arrow begins reading from where you are, to the end of the document or web page!
14. Narrator key w is fantastic for reading a window.
15. They have the commands to read by character, which is read next character is right arrow, and read previous character is left arrow, and that has been implemented, which is great.
16. They implemented the read next word command to control right arrow, which is great!
17. They changed read previous word command to control left arrow, which is great!
18. They changed read next line command to down arrow, which is great!
19. They changed read previous line command to up arrow, which is great!
20. They changed read next heading to h, which is great!
21. They changed read previous heading to shift h, which is great!
22. jump to next link is tab, and that has been implemented, and that is great!!!
23. jump to previous link is shift tab, and that has been implemented, so that is great!!!!
24. They Fixed it to where Narrator says the word link before the name of the link, and that is fantastic!
25. They fixed Narrator so when internet explorer is launched, that you can press control o for the address bar so you can type in a web page address.
26. Fix control home so it goes to the top of a document, or, to the top of a web page.
27. fix control end so it goes to the bottom of a document or web page.
28. They Fixed Narrator so you can open word pad, and start typing, and not have to press any other keys, which is great.
29. They fixed Narrator to say the selected character when shift right arrow is pressed, which is fantastic!
30. They fixed Narrator to speak words, when selecting words, when control shift right arrow is pressed, which is fantastic!
31. They Fixed Narrator so it speaks selected text from where curser is to the beginning of the line with shift home, and that is great!
32. Fix Narrator so it says the text from where the curser is to the end of the line by pressing shift end, and that is fantastic!
33. They fixed Narrator so when you press home the 1st character at the beginning of the line is spoken.
34. The key command Narrator key up arrow which reads the current line of text is fantastic!
35. Narrator key 1 is the same command for keyboard help as in Jaws, but Microsoft calls it input learning, which is fantastic! If you want to turn it off, press Narrator key 1 again.
36. Narrator key f7 takes you to the link list, just like in Jaws, which is fantastic!
37. They fixed Narrator so you only have to press b to go to the next button, and shift b to go to the previous button.
38. They fix Narrator so you only have to press c to go to the next combobox and shift c to go back to the previous combobox, which is fantastic!
39. They fixed Narrator so when you press Narrator key k twice quickly that it will spell the current word, and that is fantastic!
40. They fixed Narrator so the home key takes you to the first character in a line of text. You don't need to use the Narrator key at all for this, and that is great!
41. They fixed Narrator to say letters phonetically,
such as alpha for a, bravo for b, charlie for c, and that is fantastic!
42. They fixed Narrator so it will say the top line of text in a document window just by using control home, so that's great!
43. They fixed Narrator so it speaks the bottom line of text in a document window by pressing control end, which is great!
44. They fixed Narrator so it says selected multiple items in a list such as files control space bar 45. Narrator reads great in a list of files in a folder!
46. Alt f4 can now be used to close any program, or, any document 47. Users can now find key commands for Narrator, just by pressing Narrator key f1 and a text box pops up. The User can type just a part of a command name, if they cannot remember the entire name of the command.
For example, I typed the word read in the search box, and Narrator gave me a list of all the read commands when I started to down arrow.
48. Narrator now lets the user choose how much punctuation that will be spoken, by pressing a combination of keys!
49. Narrator now Has a verbosity setting, and it will allow the user to increase or decrease verbosity!
50. Narrator now works with the calculator in Windows, which is fantastic!
Now, the 1 thing they desperately need to do, and that is, the lag time when reading documents if you're using the down or up arrow key, is terrible, about 1 second.
They need to really speed that up, and get rid of the lag time.
Now when you're down arrowing through the list of commands after you press Narrator key f1, that is fantastic, no lag time at all, arrowing through that list.
We'll see what happens, and I'm hopeful, Microsoft will do something about it, and yes, I submitted a feedback to them about it.
As we all know, the Eloquence Reid voice has no lag, and that's the kind of response they need. If someone's going to use Narrator, when at work, or when they have time deadlines, and they have to read through documents, line by line, and get it done, quickly, it's going to have to be very fast.
There are more things needed, but I just focused on the first one that I just mentioned. I wish Microsoft implemented the Reid voice into Windows.
However, the 1core voice is very nice sounding.
Also, by the way, Narrator now has, built into it, it's own feedback hub, and when you're using Narrator, and you want to give a feedback about Narrator, just press alt Narrator key f, and when I say Narrator key, it is the insert key.
But they're goign in the right direction, and I hope someday, I'll be able to send a message saying to everybody, Yours truly is using Narrator for my full time screen reader, wouldn't that be wonderful, huh? It will be wonderful when all of us Windows users can do that.
Harry
VICUG-L is the Visually Impaired Computer User Group List.
Archived on the World Wide Web at
http://listserv.icors.org/archives/vicug-l.html
Signoff: [log in to unmask]
Subscribe: [log in to unmask]
VICUG-L is the Visually Impaired Computer User Group List.
Archived on the World Wide Web at
http://listserv.icors.org/archives/vicug-l.html
Signoff: [log in to unmask]
Subscribe: [log in to unmask]
|
