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Re: remote desktop program question with screen reader

for

From: Weston Thayer
Date: Aug 28, 2020 4:02PM

Thanks for sharing that Jeffrey, I wasn't aware of it. I think this is
the whitepaper
for Serotek Remote Incident Manager
<http://www.serotek.com/rim-whitepaper.html>;. Pretty neat! If I'm
understanding correctly, it works by running Serotek's own screen reader,
System Access, in the event no screen reader is running on the remote
computer. If a different screen reader is running (they cite JAWS and NVDA
as examples), they relay the speech output to the client (unclear if
they're sending the full audio channel over the wire or scraping the speech
synthesizer and having System Access on the client read it). So if NVDA was
running, you'd have to switch to NVDA keyboard shortcuts to use it.

On Fri, Aug 28, 2020 at 2:01 PM Jeffrey (JDS) < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
wrote:

> Serotek used to have a remote access option too ... called remote
> incident... that was cross screen reader...
> It worked rather well.
> I've used it or system access to support JAWS users and NVDA users.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: WebAIM-Forum < <EMAIL REMOVED> > On Behalf Of
> Weston Thayer
> Sent: August 28, 2020 1:25 PM
> To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
> Subject: Re: [WebAIM] remote desktop program question with screen reader
>
> Hi Tyler,
>
> No, unfortunately remote desktop protocols like RDP and VNC do not transmit
> accessibility API calls. For example, if you are on a Windows PC running
> Narrator and use the built-in Remote Desktop app to connect to another
> Windows PC, Narrator will communicate the remote connection as a "window"
> with input capture, but nothing about its contents. This is also true if
> attempting to use RDP from a Mac to connect to a PC, VoiceOver only knows
> about the window containing the remote connection.
>
> This isn't something an individual application can fix. There are a few
> options to try though:
>
> 1. Start a screen reader on the remote machine and turn off your
> local screen reader. Since all of your keyboard and mouse input is being
> sent to the remote machine, and the remote machine's audio is being sent
> back, this generally works, but lag or latency can be a major annoyance.
> It
> should be possible to set up physical ATs connected via USB with the
> remote
> computer as well via USB forwarding
> 2. Use a screen reader native remote protocol. For example NVDA has
> https://nvdaremote.com/. Your local copy of NVDA can connect to a copy
> of NVDA running on the remote computer, and forward commands and speech
> output. I believe JAWS has a similar offering. There shouldn't be much
> lag
> at all here, but it does require that the remote machine is
> pre-configured
> with NVDA
> 3. Microsoft Remote Desktop services do have a feature called RemoteApp
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_Desktop_Services#RemoteApp>,
> where
> a single remote application acts like a normal application window. This
> would only work in the PC-to-PC case, and I've never tested it, but
> there's
> a small chance the accessibility APIs would work (I doubt it though,
> since
> RDP does not support them)
>
> I think this is an area that deserves focus and innovation. I'd love to see
> more AT-native remote protocols like in option 2, maybe even cross-OS
> protocols, so that VoiceOver could remotely connect to Narrator, etc.
>
> Best,
> Weston
>
> On Fri, Aug 28, 2020 at 9:11 AM Tyler Shepard < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
> wrote:
>
> > Hi all,
> > If I use either NVDA or JAWS while navigating a computer and I need to
> > open a program that is remote on another computer will my local screen
> > reader read what is on the local remote computer?
> > If not, what fixes should i.t implement?
> > I hope to hear from you soon.
> >
> > Yours sincerly,
> > Tyler Shepard
> > > > > > archives at http://webaim.org/discussion/archives
> > > >
> > > at
> http://webaim.org/discussion/archives
> >
> > > > >