NVDA Python Console

The NVDA Python console emulates the interactive Python interpreter from within NVDA. It is a development tool which is useful for debugging, general inspection of NVDA internals or inspection of the accessibility hierarchy of an application.

Usage

The console can be activated in two ways:

• By pressing NVDA+control+z. If activated in this fashion, a snapshot of the current state of NVDA at the time the key was pressed will be taken and saved in certain variables available in the console. See Snapshot Variables for more details.
• By selecting Tools -> Python console from the NVDA system tray menu.

The console is similar to the standard interactive Python interpreter. Input is accepted one line at a time. The current line is processed when enter is pressed. You can navigate through the history of previously entered lines using the up and down arrow keys.

Output (responses from the interpreter) will be spoken when enter is pressed. The f6 key toggles between the input and output controls.

Closing the console window simply hides it. This allows the user to return to the session as it was left when it was closed, including history and variables.

Namespace

Automatic Imports

For convenience, the following modules and variables are automatically imported in the console: sys, os, wx, log (from logHandler), api, queueHandler, speech, braille

Snapshot Variables

Whenever NVDA+control+z is pressed, certain variables available in the console will be assigned according to the current state of NVDA. These variables are:

• focus: The current focus object
• focusAnc: The ancestors of the current focus object
• fdl: Focus difference level; i.e. the level at which the ancestors for the current and previous focus differ
• fg: The current foreground object
• nav: The current navigator object
• mouse: The current mouse object
• brlRegions: The braille regions from the active braille buffer