|
NonVisual Desktop Access (NVDA) is a free, open source, portable screen reader for Microsoft Windows. The project was started by Michael Curran in 2006. The latest stable version is 2011.3 NVDA is programmed in Python. It currently takes advantage of video intercept techniques in favour of working with accessibility APIs such as Microsoft Active Accessibility, IAccessible2 and the Java Access Bridge. It is licensed under the GNU General Public License.
NVDA uses eSpeak as its integrated speech synthesizer, and also supports SAPI synthesizers.[1] Output to Braille displays is supported officially from Version 0.6p3.
Besides general Windows functionality, NVDA works with WordPad, Notepad and Internet Explorer. It supports the basic functions of Outlook Express, Microsoft Word 2000/XP/2003 and Microsoft Excel 2000/XP/2003 [1]. Support for the free office suites LibreOffice and OpenOffice.org requires the Java Access Bridge package. NVDA also supports Mozilla Firefox (version 3 or higher). Firefox version 3 is the recommended web browser for maximum barrier-free web browsing by the NVDA developers; several accessibility issues were introduced with version 4 of the browser, which will be fixed in the upcoming version 10 release.
Since early 2009, NVDA supports the WAI-ARIA standard for Accessible Rich Internet Applications, so that in the future, web applications can be better used by blind users.[2][3]
Support for email is provided with Mozilla Thunderbird version 3 or higher.
With the 2010.1 release, NVDA supports 64-bit editions of Windows, the login screen and User Account Control (UAC) screens, and has full support for Internet Explorer. It also has a newer version of the E-speak speech synthesizer
Release 2010.2, from October 2010, added greatly simplified object navigation; virtual buffers for Adobe Flash content; access to many previously inaccessible controls by retrieving text written to the screen; flat review of screen text; support for IBM Lotus Symphony documents; reporting of table row and column headers in Mozilla Firefox; and significantly improved user documentation.
The current release is 2011.1.1, which adds automatic reporting of new text output in mIRC, PuTTY, Tera Term and SecureCRT; support for global plugins; announcement of bullets and numbering in Microsoft Word; additional key bindings for braille displays, including keys to move to the next and previous line; support for several Baum, HumanWare and APH braille displays; and reporting of colors for some controls, including IBM Lotus Symphony text controls.