Window-Eyes 3.0 Revision History

Document Layout

This document is laid out as follows:

Each heading level 1 represents one major version of Window-Eyes.
Each heading level 2 represents one minor version of Window-Eyes
Each heading level 3 represents a category of new features under each version of Window-Eyes.

3.1

Released: 6/4/1999

Many enhancements have been made to Internet Explorer 5.0. The following items describe many of those changes. Please read appendix F in your Window-Eyes 3.1 manual for a complete description of MSAA mode.
We now allow you to access the information in our MSAA buffer as we are loading it. Window-Eyes will now say “loading page” when a page starts loading and allow you to issue MSAA commands as the page loads. The control-shift-s key will add the words “loading page” to the end of the report of lines and frames if the page is still loading. If you attempt to use commands to access the MSAA buffer before Window-Eyes says “loading page” it will beep and say “downloading page.” If you attempt to access information on the page that hasn’t yet been loaded in to the MSAA buffer Window-Eyes will alert you to this by saying “loading page.” Finally the feature that allows Window-Eyes to return to your last location on a page depends upon the entire page being loaded so if you want to be left where you were last you have to wait until Window-Eyes says load done before accessing the MSAA buffer.
Also, when a new page comes up on the screen there are potentially three locations you may want to start from. The first line of the web page, the first visible line on the screen or the last location you were on when you last visited this page. Window-Eyes now gives you the ability to go to all of them. After the page has finished downloading, Window-Eyes will say “loading page” and your pointer will be on the first line of the web page. If the first line of the web page is not visible on the screen Window-Eyes will then say “looking for visible line.” Once the first visible line is found Window-Eyes will say “visible line found” and your pointer will be on that line of the web page. If after loading the entire page Window-Eyes determines you have already visited this page and it has not changed, Window-Eyes will say “previous position found” and your pointer will be on that line of the web page. However, if you start arrowing through the web page (which you can do at any point after Window-Eyes says “loading page”) Window-Eyes will not adjust the invisible pointer from that point on. So if you want to start at the first line that is visible, you must wait for the message “visible line found.” If you want to wait for the previous position, you must wait for the entire page to be loaded. Then Window-Eyes will say “previous position found.” If Window-Eyes says “load done” but not “previous position found” then Window-Eyes determined you have either never been to this site or the site has changed since you last visited it.
Window-Eyes will no longer leave MSAA mode on for IE dialogs such as the find or help about dialogs.
We cleaned up our presentation of links in MSAA mode. Sometimes Window-Eyes would put in two links for the same thing and other times it would merge redundant information in to one link for graphical links so that you would get both the URL and the alt tag.
We fixed several OSM issues with IE 5.
We fixed problems that would cause Window-Eyes to go out of MSAA mode on its own incorrectly when you went to certain web pages.
We fixed problems where we would always think that the page was being downloaded and remain in MSAA mode when IE would pop up a dialog over the web page such as the dialogs telling you that you needed to download a pluggin to view the page.
Window-Eyes should now read correctly when cursoring between radio buttons in IE.
Window-Eyes now identifies the titles of frames in MSAA mode. We have eliminated the “ascii 160” characters from MSAA mode which should eliminate a lot of lines where Window-Eyes is silent when you cursor to them. Window-Eyes handles anchors much better in MSAA mode. Previously we would duplicate anchor information and sometimes miss the children of the anchor which would cause the MSAA buffer not to have all of the information from the page.
We should do a better job of reading field names in IE 5 and hopefully other applications.
Window-Eyes will now say “visited link” for links that you previously visited. You can use alt-control-shift up and down arrows to move between visited links in MSAA mode.
We fixed some stability problems that could cause things to go in to the twilight zone if you tried accessing the MSAA buffer while Window-Eyes was still loading data in to it.
The alt-home and alt-end keys for moving to the top and bottom of a frame in MSAA mode now also work when you are on the beginning and ending lines of the frame.
We now do a better job of trying to go back to where you were on pages with frames.
We were not forcing punctuation to be on for the character, prior character, and next character hotkeys in MSAA mode. This has been corrected.
We no longer reload a web page when activation leaves and then returns to Explorer.
Pressing Ctrl-Alt-Home will move your pointer to the previous line visited for the current web page when it was last left. When you come back to a web page Window-Eyes will start you at the last position you were at if you wait for the entire page to load. If at any time you wish to return to this previous position, simply press Ctrl-Alt-Home.

Following are changes in no particular order.

We made more stability improvements.
If you had Window-Eyes setup to load before startup and you were using Windows 95 you could not use the clipboard in Windows Explorer. This is actually a bug in the operating system and does not exist in Windows 98. However, we have resolved the problem for 95.
Cleaned up a problem with the help in Office 2000.
It is possible that some graphic labels that worked in 3.0 and before will not work in 3.1. This is because we fixed a bug that invalidates the way that we got some graphics in to the OSM.
We resolved problems that would cause Window-Eyes to use the wrong set file when going in and out of menus while the WP 8 find dialog was up.
We fixed a problem that would cause the voice to remain off if you went in to the Window-Eyes control panel, turned the general voice on, and then exited the control panel.
We made a change for Ruby. If you have a set file for a window with the general voice off and a child of this window attempts to load a new set file Window-Eyes will continue to use the parent set file to keep the voice off.
We fixed a problem that prevented Window-Eyes from identifying radio buttons and check boxes in MSAA controls if you had the window type first box unchecked in the focused verbosity settings.
Window-Eyes now says “disabled” when you go to a MSAA control that is disabled.
Window-Eyes should now work with the custom class that Install Shield uses for a list view. Note that the graphics must be labeled for the checked and unchecked states of items in this control and we have included these labels in the graphic.gra file.
We fixed a blow up that could occur when exiting Window-Eyes.
We fixed a problem that prevented any cursor key defined at index 31 in the list from working.
We fixed problems that could cause blow ups and instability when you exited DOS boxes.
We now recognize tool tips from Visual Basic programs in the auto speak tool tips function.
We now send numpad keys when we are supposed to when we simulate keyboard input. Previously we would send extended keys all of the time which prevented Ruby from seeing the numpad insert when we were running.
We made OSM improvements that eliminate OSM corruption in Ruby. These problems would show up if you scanned multiple pages and used WE to read them you would get text left over from the previous page.
We improved the way that we handle activation when you pop up Window-Eyes dialogs while you are in the WE control panel.
We now only speak field names for tab controls if you have defined them with the label field name hotkey.
Window-Eyes now reads relative to the physical mouse correctly when you have the WE cursor turned on.
MSAA combo boxes should now speak with the correct pitch and they should also speak and spell correctly with speak summary.
We reduced a GPF in Outlook 98 that would occur when you closed a HTML message when Word was set to be your mail editor. This happens due to a bug in Outlook and we can’t work around it completely.
We fixed problems that would cause Window-Eyes to get in a weird state when you clicked on its icon to pop it up.
We fixed a problem that prevented the dictionary contents list box for all dictionaries not to have items in it until you tabbed to the current dictionaries list box.
We now recognize the “pull down” description for most MSAA menus. The exception we have found so far is Office 97 which doesn’t implement MSAA correctly.
Speak summary now honors verbosity settings for MSAA menus.
Window-Eyes should no longer say “list view” more than once per focus. For example previously if a list view got focus Window-Eyes would say “list view blah x of y” and then when you arrowed it would say “list view” again before reading the item that you arrowed to. We noticed this in ftp explorer Windows Explorer, and Network Neighborhood.
We resolved the problem of Window-Eyes not always reading the contents of the selected item in Eudora list boxes.
Window-Eyes should now recognize strings of spaces in Lotus Notes and Word 2000.
Window-Eyes should be a little faster and more stable.
We fixed a problem that would cause Window-Eyes to say nothing when moving by clip over a top level menu bar.
We have fully tested this version with Windows 98 Second Edition and it is compatible with this operating system.

3.0

Released: 1/11/1999

Cost: $75

The following lists the major enhancements and bug fixes. This should not be considered a comprehensive list of changes. Please refer to the Window-Eyes 3.0 manual for a complete description of Window-Eyes version 3.0.

General feature enhancements:

Window-Eyes 3.0 now comes on a CD. If you are using Windows 9x and have a compatible sound card, the installation of Window-Eyes will be voiced requiring no sighted assistance.
Full support for Windows 98
Set file selection option has been added to the file menu. This allows you to restore any or all of the factory set files. See section 7.12.
Window-Eyes now persists when you log out and log back in as a new user under Windows 9x. If you do log in as a different user, Window-Eyes will remain allowing you to key in the new user information. However, once you do this you will have to unload and reload Window-Eyes if you want Window-Eyes to show up in the control-alt-delete list.
Resolved incompatibilities with Lotus Notes 4.5 and 4.6.
Beginning of focus window plus/minus constant and End of focus window plus/minus constant have been added to the float window options.
Several hotkeys have been added. These include:
Save Set
Numbers Toggle
Signal Caret Position Toggle
Word Mode Rotor
Line Filter Status Rotor
Format Alert Toggle
Capitalization Alert Rotor
Label Field Name
Read Status Line which defaults to control-insert-s. Pressing this hotkey will cause Window-Eyes to automatically locate and read the status line of an application.
Voice modification which includes the following four hotkeys:
- Voice selection rotor hotkey which defaults to insert-right arrow and rotors through screen, keyboard, mouse, and all voices. This value isn’t saved and it defaults to screen each time Window-Eyes is started.
- Voice parameter rotor hotkey which defaults to insert-left arrow and rotors through rate, volume, tone, and pitch.
- Voice up rotor hotkey which defaults to insert-up arrow. This will increase the parameter selected with the voice parameter hotkey for the voice selected by the voice selection rotor.
- Voice down rotor hotkey which defaults to insert-down arrow. This does the opposite of the voice up rotor.
Support for Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.01 has been added. You must install the latest QFE (update) from Microsoft.
Support for Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.x has been added.
The MSAA application mode has been greatly enhanced. Better support for Internet Explorer 3.x, 4.01, and 5.x. Other applications which support the new HTML format are also supported. See appendix F.
The ability to manually associate a field name to a control has been added. See section 8.19.
The ability to manipulate the character, key label, and exception dictionaries from within Window-Eyes has been added. See section 16. Several new options allowing you to save these dictionaries has been added to the file menu.
Stability has been greatly increased.
Responsiveness has been greatly improved.
The blank lines option on the screen menu has a new option (read to end off) which will cause Window-Eyes to say “blank” for blank lines accept when you are using the read-to-end feature.
You can now type in multiple letters in the hotkeys dialog to quickly go to a hotkey.
The redraw hotkey now initializes the synthesizer as well as redrawing the screen.
Full support for Microsoft SAPI 3.0 and 4.0. In supporting SAPI, the dedicated FlexTalk driver has been replaced with a generic SAPI option. If you are using a SAPI synthesizer you should select SAPI during the install and tab to the SAPI engine list box to select the engine you wish to use.
GPF dialogs and the control/alt/delete dialog will now be voiced. Note that you will not have any hotkeys or reviewing capability while you are in these dialogs. This feature only works in Windows 9x and doesn’t work with software or SSIL synthesizers.
The rate, pitch, tone, and volume dialogs now use scroll bars that give immediate feedback on the changes you make in these dialogs. Previously you had to key in a value in an edit box.
A check box in the capture pointer dialog has been added which allows you to save system pointers locally with an application rather than saving them globally. This is useful for applications such as Internet Explorer that use system pointers for different than normal purposes. IE uses the “app starting” pointer to indicate that a web page is being loaded. Now you can cause Window-Eyes to say “loading web page” for IE and “app starting” for all other applications. This check box is disabled for local application pointers.
A combo edit box has replaced the previous standard edit box in the find dialog. This allows you to cursor through the last 10 entries that you searched for. These entries are per session and they are not saved when you restart Window-Eyes.
The voice on/off option for the screen, keyboard, and mouse menus has been added to the global menu.
Window-Eyes now only reads all of the information in a list view if that list view is setup for detail view. Previously Window-Eyes also read this information if the list view was setup in list mode.
Improved performance in list views and multi-selection list boxes. This is especially noticeable with large lists toward the bottom of the list when using speak summary or when selecting multiple items.
Window-Eyes now says “top” and “bottom” instead of “top index” and “bottom index.”
Window-Eyes no longer says “selected” for selected items in multi-selection list boxes and list views. It will say “unselected” if an item isn’t selected.
Window-Eyes no longer says “0 of 0” for list boxes rather it just says “no selected item.”
We removed the word “index” from the current index feature so instead of saying “index x of y” Window-Eyes now just says “x of y.”

General bug fixes:

The FlexTalk control panel and WordPerfect address book now read correctly.
Window-Eyes no longer acts strange when winamp is running.
Window-Eyes now reads the graphics for the status of messages in Eudora 4.x list boxes.
Window-Eyes does a better job of reading field names in IE 4.x and 5.
Resolved incompatibilities with Excel 97.
The problem where Window-Eyes was unable to route the mouse to some track bars such as the ones in the advanced settings for a port in device manager has been resolved.
Window-Eyes would GPF if you had a graphic larger than 32 K which could happen in 32-bit true color with the default maximum graphic size or if you increased the value above the default of 100. This has been corrected.
Read-to-end should work much better. It shouldn’t abort early.
Window-Eyes will no longer say “unknown” in list views when you arrow around in cases where speak summary reads correctly.
Window-Eyes does a better job of recognizing field names from programs created by Visual Basic.
Window-Eyes does a better job of knowing the window name which should help when associating set files.
Window-Eyes now works correctly if you swap the meaning of the mouse buttons. The hotkeys always perform their intended function so if you have the mouse buttons swapped Pressing the right button hotkey will issue a left click which performs the function of the right button and the left button hotkey will send a right click which performs the function of the left button.
Fixed a case where Window-Eyes could hang in an infinite loop when trying to determine the number of radio buttons in a group. This was seen to happen at the end of many installs using InstallShield when it put up the screen with radio buttons allowing you to restart Windows now or later.
Corrected a problem that prevented the control or alt interruptability setting from working in Microsoft Word and probably other MS Office programs as well.
Solved some cases where speak windows didn’t work in edit boxes even when the allow speak windows in edit boxes feature was turned on.
Fixed a GPF that could occur if your date was set later than the year 2037.
Fixed a problem that could cause the left caret and mouse, top caret and mouse, right caret and mouse, and bottom caret and mouse hotkeys to read beyond the position of the mouse or caret.

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