accessibility with screen readers

[doolhoofd]

Hello Ahmed,
A previous user did manage to control the sliders with the NVDA reader using his mouse, but contacted us because he had trouble saving presets.
He sent this message:

I just grabbed FXSound just a few hours ago.
Totally dig this package.
Can’t figure out how to save a preset.
When I expand the Save Preset menu item,
my screen reader that I use (NVDA - NonVisual Desktop Access) does not read the submenu items underneath.
So I won’t know where to save modifications I’ve done.

I do like being able to use the mouse to manipulate sliders,
but would prefer better if they were included in the tab order along with the other controls in the dialog box.
That way, Windows keyboard handling then honors the arrows/Home/End/PageUp/PageDown.

This was the response of FxSound’s lead audio engineer:

@bvijay

This is a valid requirement and we need to make FxSound more accessible to visually challenged users.
I can look at improving the keyboard traversal and tab order of the UI controls
to improve the usability and accessibility.
Regarding the save preset menu option, once Save New Preset menu option is selected, it brings up a text box with the hint text “Enter your preset name”, but NVDA is not reading this text. Also, through keyboard the focus is not shifting from “Save New Preset” menu option to the preset name edit box. I will look into the fix for this.

@bvijay

I have made the UI change in the context menu, so that the preset name edit box automatically gets focused. The edit box has the hint text “Enter your preset name”, but still NVDA doesn’t say it. It just says “edit blank”.
After the release is done with this change, we can probably report it this issue to NVDA.

The bug regarding saving presets with NVDA was subsequently addressed in v1.1.17.0:

@james

• Added language support for Hungarian, Dutch, and Thai
• Translation corrections for Vietnamese, Chinese, and Turkish
• New icon
• Notifications on Windows 11 can now be disabled in the OS settings
• Fixed bug power consumption bug in sleep
• Bug with NVDA screen reader fixed
• Accessibility fixes for keyboard focus and hint text in preset save

However, the change regarding the control of the sliders was never made.
So I will send another message to the team in order to address this properly.
In the meanwhile, feel free to add any other information you wish to share on this issue.