Posts for the month of November 2009

NVDA 2009.1 Released

We are extremely pleased to announce that NVDA 2009.1 has finally been released. This release has been declared stable, which means it is suitable for production use and is recommended for most users.

Major highlights of NVDA 2009.1 include support for 64 bit editions of Windows; greatly improved support for Microsoft Internet Explorer and Adobe Reader documents; support for Windows 7; reading of the Windows logon, control+alt+delete and User Account Control (UAC) screens; and the ability to interact with Adobe Flash and Sun Java content on web pages. There have also been several significant stability fixes and improvements to the general user experience.

Changes from 2009.1rc1 to 2009.1:

  • Minor documentation and translation updates.
  • NVDA no longer freezes in Save As dialogs on Windows XP and Vista systems with the Platform Update installed.
  • The title of the Windows Logon screen is now always read in Windows Vista and Windows 7.
  • Fixed a problem with the report date and time command (NVDA+f12). Previously, date reporting was truncated on some systems. (#471)
  • Fixed the issue where the system screen reader flag was sometimes inappropriately cleared after interacting with secure Windows screens. This could cause problems in applications which check the screen reader flag, including Skype, Adobe Reader and Jart. (#462)
  • In an Internet Explorer 6 combo box, the active item is now reported when it is changed. (#342)
  • Dynamic updates in Adobe Reader documents (e.g. changes to form fields) are now properly reflected by NVDA. (This used to work, but regressed a few months ago.)
  • NVDA now behaves correctly when an Adobe Reader document is scrolled by other means (e.g. pressing control+pageDown) before NVDA has itself scrolled the document in response to movement of the virtual cursor.

Download links and change log:

NVDA 2009.1rc1 Released

NVDA 2009.1rc1 has just been released. This is a release candidate, which means that unless any critical issues are found, this will be almost identical to the final 2009.1 release. The major change since the beta which should be tested is that installed copies can now fully access applications running as administrator in Windows Vista and Windows 7. This is not possible for portable copies.

Note that there may be some minor updates to some translations (particularly of the what's new document) in the final release.

Changes from beta1 to rc1:

  • Updates to translations.
  • Fixes to documentation.
  • Fixed an issue which caused embedded objects not to be rendered in Mozilla Firefox 3.7 nightly builds.
  • Fixed issues when pressing upArrow or downArrow in the password field of the Windows XP logon screen.
  • Fixed an issue where NVDA would fail when navigating certain documents in Adobe Reader.
  • The report text selection command (NVDA+shift+upArrow) now gracefully reports that there is no selection in objects which do not support text selection.
  • The Save As dialog in the NVDA Log Viewer no longer causes NVDA to freeze in Windows 7. (#439)
  • Fixed broken reporting of text under the mouse in many editable text controls and Windows command consoles.
  • Fixed the issue where pressing the enter key on certain Miranda-IM buttons or links was causing NVDA to freeze. (#440)
  • The current line or selection is now properly respected when spelling or copying the current navigator object.
  • Fixed the issue where NVDA was sometimes not terminated properly on secure desktops when fast desktop switches occurred. This could cause the Windows control+alt+delete screen to fail to appear or multiple copies of NVDA to run at once on the Windows logon and shutdown screens. (This was fixed previously, but regressed a few days before beta1 was released.)
  • Worked around a Windows bug which was causing garbage to be spoken after the name of link controls in Windows Explorer and Internet Explorer dialogs. (#451)
  • NVDA can now fully access applications running as administrator in Windows Vista and later. You must install an official release of NVDA for this to work. This does not work for portable versions and snapshots. (#397)
  • The NVDA error sound is no longer played in release candidates and final releases. Note that errors are still logged.

Changes in the build process for official releases:

  • Python optimisations are enabled.
  • All main executables are signed with the NV Access code signing certificate.

Download links and change log: