NVDA Community Addons/ addons/ Control Usage Assistant

Control Usage Assistant

  • Author: Joseph Lee, Noelia Ruiz Martínez

Use this add-on to find out how to interact with the focused control. Press NVDA+H to obtain a short help message on interacting with the focused control, such as checkboxes, edit fields and so on.

Go to NVDA's menu, Preferences submenu, Settings dialog, Control Usage Asistant category to configure add-on settings:

  • Automatic messages for focus: Checked by default.
  • Type the message to be used when an object can be activated: You may include a short message indicating the default or your configured gesture to know if the current object has an associated action when pressing a gesture like NVDA+enter in object navigation.
  • Select output modes for automatic messages: This list of checkboxes allows to select speech and braille.
  • Pitch change for automatic messages: This spin box allows to set the pitch change when NVDA reads automatic messages (from -30 to +30).

Version 20240324.0.0

  • Improved support for edit controls and suggestions.

Version 2023.02.19

  • The message configured for clickable objects will be reported after other properties.
  • Compatible with NVDA 2023.1.

Version 2022.07.10

  • Added ability to set a message for object navigation, to announce if the current object can be activated.

Version 2022.03.27

  • Requires NVDA 2022.1 or later.

Version 22.01

  • Added support for automatic messages.
  • Improved support for requested messages in browse mode.

Version 21.10

  • NVDA 2021.2 or later is required due to changes to NVDA that affects this add-on.

Version 20.10

  • Help messages are announced in languages other than English.

Version 20.06

  • Resolved many coding style issues and potential bugs with Flake8.
  • NVDA will no longer appear to do nothing or play error tones when trying to obtain help for certain browse mode controls.

Version 20.01

  • NVDA 2019.3 or later is required.

Version 3.0/19.11

  • Version scheme is now year.month.
  • When NVDA+H is pressed, a help screen will be displayed instead of a flash message being shown.

Version 2.5

  • Compatible with Python 3.

Version 2.1

  • New and updated translations.

Version 2.0

  • Help messages for more controls added, including terminal windows.
  • Added help messages for working in some areas of applications, such as Microsoft Excel and Powerpoint and Windows 8 start screen.
  • Added help messages for working with forms in both browse and focus modes in virtual buffer documents (Internet Explorer, Adobe Reader, Mozilla Firefox, etc.).
  • New language: Danish.

Version 1.0

  • Initial version.