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Thread: Screenreaders for programming?

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From: Laurie Kamrowski
Date: Sun, Sep 20 2020 12:48PM
Subject: Screenreaders for programming?
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Hi everyone!

I am taking some programming classes right now, and a method that I use to
help me study is by using a screen reader to help me focus on what I'm
reading as I go. (I have a TBI and focus is a massive problem for me.) The
problem is the screen readers that I have used either don't function well
with the site (runestoneacademy.com) or don't read the code correctly
(skipping " and - ), which is jarring.

I've used NVDA and a screen reader add on for chrome, but neither are doing
great.

Any recommendations?

Thank you so much for your help!

Laurie Kamrowski
She/Her/Hers
Accessibility Specialist
Mid Michigan College

From: glen walker
Date: Sun, Sep 20 2020 1:38PM
Subject: Re: Screenreaders for programming?
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Have you changed the verbosity setting in NVDA? By default, NVDA won't
read punctuation characters, which makes sense when reading "normal" text.
But with code, symbols are very important.

With NVDA running, press Ins+N to bring up the context menu then select
Preferences then Settings. In the "Speech" category (the second item in
the "Categories List"), there's a punctuation setting (you can use Alt+L to
get there quickly).

Since you probably don't want punctuation on all the time, you can use
Ins+P to cycle through the four punctuation settings without having to go
into the settings dialog. That way you can listen to normal punctuation
(which I think is set to "some") on most of the page but when you get to a
block of code, you can press Ins+P to change to "most". When done, you can
press Ins+P three times to get back to "some".


On Sun, Sep 20, 2020 at 12:48 PM Laurie Kamrowski < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
wrote:

> Hi everyone!
>
> I am taking some programming classes right now, and a method that I use to
> help me study is by using a screen reader to help me focus on what I'm
> reading as I go. (I have a TBI and focus is a massive problem for me.) The
> problem is the screen readers that I have used either don't function well
> with the site (runestoneacademy.com) or don't read the code correctly
> (skipping " and - ), which is jarring.
>
> I've used NVDA and a screen reader add on for chrome, but neither are doing
> great.
>
> Any recommendations?
>
> Thank you so much for your help!
>
> Laurie Kamrowski
> She/Her/Hers
> Accessibility Specialist
> Mid Michigan College
> > > > >