The NVDA Add-On Store

Narrator:
Shaun of the Shed, an AMI original podcast.

Shaun Preece:
Hello and welcome to another episode of Shaun of the Shed. I am Shaun Preece, and yeah, I am sat in a garden shed and this is the show where I tell you all about the technology that could be so useful to us as blind or visually impaired people. Today I want to talk to you about NVDA, that's Non-Visual Desktop Access. It's a screen reader that I absolutely love. It's the one that I use. Now, if you don't know what a screen reader is, specifically NVDA, but any screen reader, then why not go back to some of my earlier episodes of Shaun of the Shed where I talk about how we, as blind people, use computers in the first place. Either on audio or on YouTube, just take a browse through the earlier episodes. It will help you out.

Shaun Preece:
What I specifically want to talk about today is a new feature that's just been added to NVDA called the NVDA add-on store. Add-ons are extra little bits of software that you can add to the screen reader that gives it more functionality. For example, there may be something that makes the app Outlook, for your email, easier to use or give you extra keyboard shortcuts to do specific things. You may have a favourite feature on a different screen reader, such as JAWS, which is another amazing one by the way. There may be a feature on there that isn't built in natively to NVDA, but you may be able to find a feature similar to it in the add-on store.

Shaun Preece:
So anyway, before the NVDA add-on store feature was added in a recent release to NVDA, you had to go to a website, the MVDA directory, to browse these add-ons and install them manually. Now you can do it all inside the screen reader itself. If you don't have MVDA, firstly, why not? And secondly, you can get it by going to the website, which is nvaccess.org. That's N-V-A-C-C-E-S-S.org. To start off, we need to go to the NVDA menu. To do this, you hold down your NVDA modifier key, which in my case is caps lock, but it could be insert on your keyboard. But in most cases, it's probably caps lock. So hold down the caps lock key and press the letter N.

Screen Reader:
NVDA menu.

Shaun Preece:
There it is, beautiful. Now you can use the cursor keys to go up or down through this list of items. Let's try that out.

Screen Reader:
Preferences, sub menu P. Tools, sub menu T.

Shaun Preece:
That's actually where you'll find the add-on store, in the tools. But let's keep going.

Screen Reader:
Help sub menu H.

Shaun Preece:
I'm just pressing the down arrow here.

Screen Reader:
Configuration profiles.

Shaun Preece:
You get the idea. You know how menus work. Let's just do the quick nav version to jump to the tools menu. I'm just going to hit T.

Screen Reader:
View log, V.

Shaun Preece:
We're in there now. Now to jump to the NVDA add-on store, it's just the letter S.

Screen Reader:
Add-on store. Installed add-ons. All dialogue NVDA global commands extension description. This module has been developed with the participation of Daniel [inaudible 00:03:27].

Shaun Preece:
Okay, I just hit the Control key there to stop the screen reader from speaking. So we're now in the NVDA add-on store, now because I've already got add-ons installed on my computer, it's taken me to the installed add-ons list. So here I can again use the up or down arrows to go through all the add-ons I've currently got on my computer. As you heard it did start reading out the first one, but let's just arrow down again.

Screen Reader:
Outlook Extended, installed version 2.2. Channel, stable.

Shaun Preece:
It gives you all the details of that add-on. Now if you don't have add-ons installed already, this is your first time maybe of running the add-on store, then instead of the installed add-ons page, you will see the available add-ons. Which will give you a huge list of all the add-ons you can install, but we'll get to that in just a second. Again, let me just arrow down one more time.

Screen Reader:
WhatsApp Plus, installed version 2.0.0.

Shaun Preece:
Okay, so there's my WhatsApp add-on. Now I can get more information simply by tabbing through further details. Let me just hit the tab key here.

Screen Reader:
Description, edit read only. This add-on adds many hot keys for quick navigation through the main elements of the window.

Shaun Preece:
It does?

Screen Reader:
Convenient interaction with chat messages and also adds many minor.

Shaun Preece:
Minor what? I could arrow down to read the rest of that, but let's just hit the tab key again.

Screen Reader:
Actions button, ALT plus C.

Shaun Preece:
Actions. So what do I want to do with this add-on. There's various options in that. In fact, let's take a look right now. Let's hit space or enter on that.

Screen Reader:
Context menu.

Shaun Preece:
And just arrow down

Screen Reader:
Disable, D.

Shaun Preece:
I could disable that add-on. Maybe I don't want to use it currently, but I don't want to uninstall it so I can just disable it. Arrow down again.

Screen Reader:
Remove, R.

Shaun Preece:
Now I definitely don't want it. Let's get rid, I can remove it.

Screen Reader:
Help, H.

Shaun Preece:
I want help. How do I actually use the WhatsApp? What's the keyboard commands? That's how I find out.

Screen Reader:
Homepage, M.

Shaun Preece:
I can go to the homepage of the developer. Arrow down.

Screen Reader:
Disable, D.

Shaun Preece:
And we're back up to the top. So there's the actions menu button. Just going to hit escape to get rid of this menu.

Screen Reader:
Add-on store, installed add-ons.

Shaun Preece:
And now let's just hit tab one more time.

Screen Reader:
Other details. Edit read only, ALT plus [inaudible 00:05:49].

Shaun Preece:
And there's some extra details. I think that's it. Let's hit tab one more time.

Screen Reader:
Install from external source button, ALT plus X.

Shaun Preece:
Ah, that's right. Install from external source. Now let's say you are creating your own add-on, and it's not already in the NVDA add-on store. Obviously, you can just install it from your own computer, just install the file. And maybe someone will send you an add-on file, you can install it using that button. Let's hit tab one more time.

Screen Reader:
Close button.

Shaun Preece:
And there's close to close down the add-on store. So there you go, that's the installed add-ons on my computer. But hey, what if you're coming to this fresh, what's available? There's easy way to tell. Now this NVDA store is split into three main sections. Let's hit Control, Tab to jump up to the tabs at the top. Control, Tab.

Screen Reader:
Tab control, panel.

Shaun Preece:
Now the first thing you hit is panel. Now I'm going to come back to this because it's slightly strange. So I will come back to this, but for now, let's just hit Control, Tab again.

Screen Reader:
Available Add-ons tab selected.

Shaun Preece:
There we go. Available add-ons. So now it's showing me on the screen a list of every add-on available. We will take a look in just a second, but let's continue to Control, Tab. Which, by the way, is a system keyboard shortcut which will always switch you between tabs. If you are in the property dialogue box, for example in Windows, Control, Tab will switch the tabs that you're in. Let's hit Control, Tab.

Screen Reader:
Installed incompatible add-ons tab selected.

Shaun Preece:
This will show me a list of all the installed add-ons I've got which are currently incompatible with the current version of MVDA. Sounds complicated but it really isn't. Some add-ons were created for a very early versions of MVDA and aren't compatible with the later versions. So you will find these here. Let's Control, Tab again.

Screen Reader:
Installed add-ons tab selected.

Shaun Preece:
This is where we started, installed add-ons, a list of every add-on I've got on this computer. Let's do it one more time.

Screen Reader:
Updatable tab selected.

Shaun Preece:
Updatable add-ons, so maybe the WhatsApp add-on I've got on my computer has a new release, a new update. You will find it here. If it doesn't, which most of them already do, automatically update. Let's Control, Tab one more time

Screen Reader:
Available add-ons tab selected.

Shaun Preece:
And we're back to available add-ons. Now if you want to jump quickly back to the list of ... no matter what tab you're on, maybe it's installed add-ons or available add-ons, simply press ALT-A.

Screen Reader:
Available add-ons list, 10-D2 application module.

Shaun Preece:
And there we are at the top of the list of available add-ons. Let's quickly jump back to the tabs again. So again, Control, Tab.

Screen Reader:
Tab control, panel.

Shaun Preece:
There's that panel, which I will come back to.

Screen Reader:
Installed add-ons tab selected.

Shaun Preece:
And installed add-ons. Keep going.

Screen Reader:
Updatable add-ons tab, available add-ons tab selected.

Shaun Preece:
Available add-ons. Right, so we have the list of add-ons, that's the first area. Then we have the tabs to choose what add-ons we see, which we're currently in. And the third area, if I press tab ...

Screen Reader:
Channel, combo box, stable, collapsed, ALT plus N.

Shaun Preece:
It's the list of filters, basically. So this first one is a combo box. You can ALT down arrow to open this up.

Screen Reader:
Expanded.

Shaun Preece:
And if I just down arrow through this.

Screen Reader:
Channel list, beta.

Shaun Preece:
So I can see only the add-ons which are currently in beta. So are ready for testing, maybe not quite ready, they'd have a few bugs in them. They're not ready for the big time yet, but you can test them out if you want. Let's arrow down again.

Screen Reader:
Dev.

Shaun Preece:
The Dev channel. Now this is for developers, early adopters, people that are maybe testing out features of beta MVDA screen reader program and they're testing out specific add-ons. So only for developers, really. Let's arrow down again.

Screen Reader:
External.

Shaun Preece:
External, okay. A list of only external add-ons. So in my case, WhatsApp for example, is an external add-on. So it would just show me external add-ons. And that's the last in the list, let me just arrow up to the top.

Screen Reader:
Dev, beta, stable.

Shaun Preece:
Stable, now this is the one that most of you are going to want to use. It's the one that I always use. So it will only show you the add-ons which have been officially released. They've been tested with the latest version of NVDA. Okay, so I'm going to hit enter on that. Now let's hit tab again.

Screen Reader:
Add-on store, available add-ons, stable. Dialogue 10-D2 application module description.

Shaun Preece:
Ah, it's jumped me down to the list. So let me quickly jump back. Now there is a keyboard shortcut to take you directly to that channel filter box, and that is ALT N.

Screen Reader:
Channel, combo box, stable, collapsed, ALT plus N.

Shaun Preece:
There we go. Now let's hit tab.

Screen Reader:
Include incompatible add-ons, checkbox, not checked, ALT plus I.

Shaun Preece:
So maybe you want to see incompatible add-ons if you want, currently that's unchecked. Let's hit tab again.

Screen Reader:
Search, edit, ALT plus S, blank.

Shaun Preece:
And a search box. So maybe you've heard of an add-on that you want to install, and that's what I'm going to test this out in just a minute. So you can just search for a specific add-on in the list. Again, that's got its own keyboard shortcut, which was ALT S. So actually let's try that out while I'm here. Now I've heard of an add-on called Place Marker. Now this allows you to mark certain locations on webpages and jump to them directly. For me, this could be really useful. Anyway, I'll give a more detailed explanation when I install it. So I'm in the search box. I'm going to type place markers.

Screen Reader:
P-L-A-C-E M-A-R-K.

Shaun Preece:
Placemark should be enough. Now you don't have to hit enter on that all we need to do is jump back to the list, remember ALT-A.

Screen Reader:
Available add-ons list. placeMarkers, available version 34.0.0. Channel, stable. Publisher, [inaudible 00:12:14].

Shaun Preece:
Okay, just control to shut that up for a minute. So that's the one I want. Perfect. Now let's hit tab. Remember when I was in my installed add-ons list, I got extra details. So let's try and see what we've got here. So if I hit tab ...

Screen Reader:
Description, edit read only add-on for setting place markers on specific virtual documents.

Shaun Preece:
Okay, nice. Let's hit tab again.

Screen Reader:
Actions button, ALT plus C.

Shaun Preece:
More actions. Tab again.

Screen Reader:
Other details, edit read only, ALT plus O publisher

Shaun Preece:
And tab again.

Screen Reader:
Install from external source button.

Shaun Preece:
So the same options we had in the other list. So let's go back to that actions button.

Screen Reader:
Actions button, ALT plus C.

Shaun Preece:
I'm just shift tabbing to go back. And let's hit enter on that.

Screen Reader:
Context menu

Shaun Preece:
And arrow down.

Screen Reader:
Install, I.

Shaun Preece:
Install.

Screen Reader:
Homepage, M.

Shaun Preece:
This will take to the homepage of the developer.

Screen Reader:
License, L.

Shaun Preece:
Oh, license. Do you need to pay to use this? Probably not.

Screen Reader:
Source code, C

Shaun Preece:
To go to GitHub, to see the actual source code. Very nice.

Screen Reader:
Install, I.

Shaun Preece:
And back up to the top, install. You know what? I'm going to do it, let's hit enter on install.

Screen Reader:
Add-on store, available add-ons, stable. Dialogue, placeMarkers, description.

Shaun Preece:
And it's done it. As simple as that. Now it didn't give you much of a variable feedback there, but it did do it. So we're going to check that out in just a second, but before we do, let's hit Control, Tab one more time.

Screen Reader:
Tab control, panel.

Shaun Preece:
Panel, now I said I would come back to it and I didn't forget for once. Now this is strange because it seems to be like a separator between the tabs, installed add-ons, available add-ons. And the filters, such as channel or show incompatible or the search. If I press the arrow up key while I'm in the panel.

Screen Reader:
Installed incompatible add-ons tab selected.

Shaun Preece:
It takes me to the tabs and I can simply left or right through them.

Screen Reader:
Available add-ons tab selected. Updatable add-ons tab selected.

Shaun Preece:
Let's go back to the Place Marker add-on I've just installed. So we will find that obviously in the installed add-ons tab. Let's go back, Control, Tab.

Screen Reader:
Tab control, panel.

Shaun Preece:
No. Control, Tab.

Screen Reader:
Installed add-ons tab selected.

Shaun Preece:
Ah, we are already there. Okay, back to the list, ALT A.

Screen Reader:
Installed add-ons list, NVDA global commands extension, installed version.

Shaun Preece:
Okay, so let's arrow down through my list of installed.

Screen Reader:
Outlook Extended, WhatsApp Plus installed.

Shaun Preece:
What? It's not there, what's going on? Well, there's a reason for that. We need to restart NVDA for it to show up. So to do that, all we need to do is hit the escape key to shut down the NVDA add-on store. Let's hit escape.

Screen Reader:
Restart NVDA dialogue, changes were made to add-ons. You must restart NVDA for these changes to take effect. Would you like to restart now?

Shaun Preece:
Yes, I would. So now NVDA has restarted, let's go back to the store. Remember, let's hold down caps lock or your NVDA modifier key, and press the letter N.

Screen Reader:
NVDA menu.

Shaun Preece:
T for tools.

Screen Reader:
View log, V.

Shaun Preece:
S for store.

Screen Reader:
Add-on store, installed add-ons.

Shaun Preece:
Now let's arrow down and see if placeMarkers is now there.

Screen Reader:
Outlook Extended, placeMarkers.

Shaun Preece:
There it is. So there is placeMarkers, but how do I actually use it? Because if I tab here to the description ...

Screen Reader:
Description, edit read only add-on for setting place markers on specific virtual documents.

Shaun Preece:
Well that doesn't tell me a whole lot. So let me just Shift, Tab to go back to the title

Screen Reader:
Installed add-ons list, placeMarkers.

Shaun Preece:
Now, of course, I could tab through to the actions button. But actually, you don't need to. You can just hit enter.

Screen Reader:
Context menu.

Shaun Preece:
Now let's arrow down.

Screen Reader:
Disable, D. Remove, R. Help, H.

Shaun Preece:
Help. Now this is incredibly helpful, funnily enough, but you're going to want to remember this. So let's go to the help page.

Screen Reader:
placeMarkers 34.0.0, personal. Microsoft Edge window.

Shaun Preece:
So this opens up a web browser and I'm just going to jump through the headings here.

Screen Reader:
Key commands, heading level two.

Shaun Preece:
That's exactly what I want. What keyboard commands do I need to know to use this add-on? So let's just arrow down from here.

Screen Reader:
List with 11 items. Bullet control plus Shift plus NVDA plus F opens a dialogue with an edit box that shows the last saved search in this.

Shaun Preece:
Wow, that's quite a keyboard shortcut. That's not actually what I'm looking for so let's arrow down.

Screen Reader:
Dialogue, you can also select the previous string from the history using a checkbox.

Shaun Preece:
Yeah, keep going.

Screen Reader:
Be added to the buttons between ... case sensitive ... bullet control plus Shift plus NVDA plus Y saves the current position as a place marker.

Shaun Preece:
That's what I'm interested in. So if I press the NVDA modifier key, again caps lock in my case, Shift, Control, and the letter Y, it will mark wherever I am as a place marker. This means whenever I go back to that website or that document, I can simply jump directly to that same position, that same location, without having to navigate all the way through. But how do I do that? Well, let's arrow down again.

Screen Reader:
For this place marker, bullet control plus Shift plus NVDA plus Delete deletes the place marker corresponding to this position.

Shaun Preece:
Ah, well that's good to know.

Screen Reader:
Bullet NVDA plus Y moves to the next place marker.

Shaun Preece:
NVDA key plus Y allows me to jump through all the place markers, because you can have more than one apparently. If I press NVDA, Shift, and Y, it will jump back through the list of place markers. Anyway, I think that's enough for now. Of course, you can take some more time and read more descriptions and more keyboard bindings there, but for now, that's enough for me to get started. So let's close this down. ALT F4.

Screen Reader:
Add-on store, installed add-ons.

Shaun Preece:
And we're back to the add-on store. Actually, I don't need this anymore. I'm going to simply try using this new add-on. Let's go to a website. Let's open up Edge, Windows key to bring up the start menu.

Screen Reader:
Start window, search window.

Shaun Preece:
And type Edge.

Screen Reader:
E, Microsoft Edge.

Shaun Preece:
Enter.

Screen Reader:
Loading complete.

Shaun Preece:
Okay, so where should we go? Let's go to, why not AMI? Let's go to AMI.ca. Enter.

Screen Reader:
Loading page, loading complete.

Shaun Preece:
Okay, so now that's done. Let's jump through, I don't know, the headings for example. I'm going to hit H

Screen Reader:
Banner landmark, primary navigation heading level two.

Shaun Preece:
Let's tab through that menu.

Screen Reader:
Primary navigation, featured visited link. Watch, get familiar with our selection of video shows.

Shaun Preece:
Okay, you know what? Let's use that as a place marker. So if I can remember the keyboard shortcut, which was the NVDA key, remember mine is caps lock, and the Shift key and the Control key and the letter Y.

Screen Reader:
Saved position at character 99.

Shaun Preece:
So now I've marked that as my saved location. So anytime I come back to this website, that will be available to me. I could jump directly there. At least I hope so if this add-on works. So let's navigate away from the watch item there. Let me just jump through some headings.

Screen Reader:
[inaudible 00:19:48].

Shaun Preece:
There we go. And arrow down, just so we're far away from that. Now I want to jump back up to that position, NVDA plus Shift plus Y.

Screen Reader:
Out of list banner landmark, primary navigation. Navigation landmark list with six items, link watch.

Shaun Preece:
And I've jumped directly back to that place marker. So that works really well. And as far as I can tell, and what people have told me, you can set multiple place markers on multiple websites. Absolutely great and exactly what I wanted. So there you go, that is the NVDA add-on store. How cool is that? Now I will say I do feel the navigation of the NVDA add-on store, that control panel thing, I'm not entirely sure why that's there and the navigation does feel a little bit excessive. But hey, this is the first release of the NVDA add-on store and I'm sure it could get tweaked. And even if it doesn't, you know what, it's still perfectly usable as I think I've just shown.

Shaun Preece:
Either way, there's no denying for the first-time user or someone who's interested in add-ons but not used them before, it is much friendlier than having to go out to a website and install them manually. So well done NVDA, I think this is very nice. Now, with all that said and all the love I've given NVDA and NVDA add-ons, I must say that please remember that these are made by the community. NVDA add-ons could potentially have access to your data or your personal data. They can be pretty powerful. Use your common sense when downloading add-ons. All the ones in the store, look, I've never had an issue but it's only fair for me to say just be careful what add-ons you install. Just ask around, see if they're recommended by anyone else, and check out the homepage and the website, et cetera.

Shaun Preece:
Anyway, there you go. I hope you found that useful. And if you didn't, don't worry there's always the next episode. I'm sure there'll be something for you. If you did like this video, please hit that like button. And if you want to see more, tap that subscribe button. If you want to get in contact with me, if you've got a recommendation, a suggestion, or a question, then email Shaun, that's S-H-A-U-N, Shaun@doubletaponair.com. Thank you so much for watching, really appreciate it, you take care. And also, I've got to say thanks to Georgia for helping me record the screen in an accessible way. You are a genius. Thanks guys, see you next time.