We’re flying through October already! The weather is busy starting to heat up or cool down, depending on which hemisphere you’re in. We’ve got a few things to cover this week too, so let’s dive right in:
Open source opens the way
We published a story last week on one of our users and his experience getting NVDA installed at work. It involves a great outcome for users! Plus, an important discussion on the benefits and security of Open Source software. It’s not too long and is well worth checking out. Read Open Source Opens the Way here. We’ve had great feedback on it so far, including from users who are inspired to lobby for NVDA’s inclusion on their company’s PCs. Have you got a great story about NVDA? We’d love to hear from you!
Would you like help approaching a company about installing NVDA? Our Corporate and Government page is full of information for IT departments. And if you need some support, we’re happy to talk with your IT department to ensure they have all the information they need as well. Feel free to get in touch with us.
NVDACon call for topics
NVDACon is fast approaching! Happening in early December, it would be great to have you involved. NVDACon is the premier, yearly, online conference dedicated to NVDA. It is organised and run entirely by the amazing NVDA community we have all around the world!
The NVDACon planning committee have just put out the NVDACon Call for Topics. So it’s time to start thinking about what you might like to present. Presentations don’t have to be technical, just of interest to the NVDA community. Past presentations have included:
- Developers discussing their add-ons
- Case studies of using NVDA at work
- Demonstrating Braille displays
- Learning foreign languages with NVDA
…And much more!
Have a think about what you can share, and submit your topic on the NVDACon Call for Topics
Checking for updates issue
We are aware of an issue some users are facing checking for NVDA updates and we have identified the issue. Our certificate provider has updated the security certificate we use. Unfortunately, this has not propagated to everyone.
There are several workarounds for this. The easiest is a simple add-on which automatically fixes the issue when you install it. Download the NVDA Certificate Patch Add-on. Thanks to Mazen428 and Joseph Lee for their help with this issue also. We couldn’t be happier with our great community! Thank you for always being willing to help track down and resolve issues.
Note (Edit): If you use Joseph Lee’s Add-on Updater, you can update to Add-on Updater 21.10 or later manually, From the Add-on Updater page. It includes the same fix as our patch, and saves you downloading something extra.
Note: If you check for updates with NVDA+n, then h, then c, and there is no error, then you are not affected, and do not need the add-on.
Windows 11 accessibility webinars from Microsoft
Microsoft’s Disability Answer Desk run informative webinars. They have a pair of webinars coming up for those interesting in learning about Windows 11. The first session is an overview of Windows 11 Accessibility on October 27. Following this will be a screen reader-focused webinar on November 17.
Find out more and register at the Microsoft’s Accessibility Learning Webinars page
Switching from Jaws to NVDA guide updated
Finally today, in response to a user query, we made a small update to the Switching from Jaws to NVDA guide. The update mentioned how you can switch from focus mode to browse mode in Word. We have covered Focus and Browse modes previously on In Process. Most users are familiar with switching between these modes on the web. In Browse mode you can press keys like H for heading, D for landmark or F for form field. In Focus mode, you can type into a form without letters like those jumping the focus around. The same functionality is possible in Microsoft Word. While NVDA is generally in Focus mode in Word, you can press NVDA+spacebar to switch to Browse mode. In Browse mode you can press those navigation keys previously mentioned. You can also press A to jump to annotations, or NVDA+f7 to open the elements list. To get back to focus mode to edit the document, press NVDA+spacebar again.
That’s all for this week. We’ll be back in a couple of weeks. Until then, start thinking about NVDACon, and do check out those Microsoft Webinars!