Braille indication of font attributes using dots 7/8

[JordyDew]

It would be fine if NVDA indicates bold, italic, underlined, ... text in braille, as it does in speech output.
Something like JAWS, where all those things are underlined with dots seven and eight, would be very nice.
And regardless of which braille table is used. It's difficult for me to use the UEB tables, becaus I never learnt to read literal braille correctly. I usually use the German 8 dots braille table, but there, we don't have any options to see formatting in braille.
I, and others, need this in several: studying, preparing a paper, writing an official letter, telling a story,...

[josephsl]

Hi, looks like a duplicate request from the past? Thanks. From: Jordy [mailto:notifications@github.com] Sent: Monday, April 24, 2017 11:55 AM To: nvaccess/nvda <nvda@noreply.github.com> Cc: Subscribed <subscribed@noreply.github.com> Subject: [nvaccess/nvda] Feature request: braille indication of lay-out (#7097) It would be fine if NVDA indicates bold, italic, underlined, ... text in braille, as it does in speech output. Something like JAWS, where all those things are underlined with dots seven and eight, would be very nice. And regardless of which braille table is used. It's difficult for me to use the UEB tables, becaus I never learnt to read literal braille correctly. I usually use the German 8 dots braille table, but there, we don't have any options to see formatting in braille. I, and others, need this in several: studying, preparing a paper, writing an official letter, telling a story,... — You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#7097> , or mute the thread <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AHgLkJVIYVBP5ES3vgFi5AgrkSu1-v8fks5rzPALgaJpZM4NGkbY> .

[LeonarddeR]

cc @dkager

The following issues seem to be relevant here:

• Separate formatting configuration for speech and braille #1885 and referenced issues in there
• Indicate spelling errors in braille #3022
• Add Keyboard layout setting to the Welcome dialog #6868

It somehow turns out that this is a duplicate of #538, but I agree with @JordyDew and @gregjozk that the fix in #538 is far from ideal.

@josephsl: I do not see a valid reason to close this

[dkager]

There is an underlying issue, liblouis doesn't currently support augmenting cells with certain dots for certain attributes.

A few more things to consider:

• Dots 7 & 8 are already used to indicate selection, so this could get confusing.
• Just dot 8 is another popular option.
• We'd need a way to map attributes to dots.
• It would probably be useful to have a command to report the formatting under the braille cursor routing key being pressed. Jsut seeing dots 7 & 8 still doesn't tell you if it's bold, italic, etc.

[josephsl]

Hi, another way, although risky, might be to use emphasis opcode and dot definitions for these. Thanks. From: Davy Kager [mailto:notifications@github.com] Sent: Tuesday, April 25, 2017 6:40 AM To: nvaccess/nvda <nvda@noreply.github.com> Cc: Joseph Lee <joseph.lee22590@gmail.com>; Mention <mention@noreply.github.com> Subject: Re: [nvaccess/nvda] Feature request: braille indication of lay-out (#7097) There is an underlying issue, liblouis doesn't currently support augmenting cells with certain dots for certain attributes. A few more things to consider: * Dots 7 & 8 are already used to indicate selection, so this could get confusing. * Just dot 8 is another popular option. * We'd need a way to map attributes to dots. * It would probably be useful to have a command to report the formatting under the braille cursor routing key being pressed. Jsut seeing dots 7 & 8 still doesn't tell you if it's bold, italic, etc. — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#7097 (comment)> , or mute the thread <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AHgLkAZeBN7gEDQi07Vgjnk84IOiWa-uks5rzfe9gaJpZM4NGkbY> .

[derekriemer]

What about using braille weight to do emphasis?

…

On Tue, Apr 25, 2017 at 7:41 AM, Joseph Lee ***@***.***> wrote: Hi, another way, although risky, might be to use emphasis opcode and dot definitions for these. Thanks. From: Davy Kager ***@***.*** Sent: Tuesday, April 25, 2017 6:40 AM To: nvaccess/nvda ***@***.***> Cc: Joseph Lee ***@***.***>; Mention < ***@***.***> Subject: Re: [nvaccess/nvda] Feature request: braille indication of lay-out (#7097) There is an underlying issue, liblouis doesn't currently support augmenting cells with certain dots for certain attributes. A few more things to consider: * Dots 7 & 8 are already used to indicate selection, so this could get confusing. * Just dot 8 is another popular option. * We'd need a way to map attributes to dots. * It would probably be useful to have a command to report the formatting under the braille cursor routing key being pressed. Jsut seeing dots 7 & 8 still doesn't tell you if it's bold, italic, etc. — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub < #7097 (comment)> , or mute the thread <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ AHgLkAZeBN7gEDQi07Vgjnk84IOiWa-uks5rzfe9gaJpZM4NGkbY> . — You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#7097 (comment)>, or mute the thread <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AFGivQ2PnZANHcwpH46qIwhNB6eHcdgbks5rzfgPgaJpZM4NGkbY> .

-- Derek Riemer: Improving the world one byte at a time! - University of Colorado Boulder Department of computer science, 4th year undergraduate student. - Accessibility enthusiast. - Proud user of the NVDA screen reader. - Open source enthusiast. - Skier. Personal website <http://derekriemer.com>

[jcsteh]

@leonardder commented on 25 Apr. 2017, 5:27 pm AEST:

It somehow turns out that this is a duplicate of #538, but I agree with @JordyDew and @gregjozk that the fix in #538 is far from ideal.

I'd still argue #538 is the correct "default" behaviour. Underlining emphasis is not part of any braille standard; it's a convention. It's also ambiguous. Still, happy to accept that people might want this to be configurable for efficiency and for tables which don't support emphasis.

@dkager commented on 25 Apr. 2017, 11:40 pm AEST:

There is an underlying issue, liblouis doesn't currently support augmenting cells with certain dots for certain attributes.

True enough, though we can work around this like we do for selection I think.

• We'd need a way to map attributes to dots.

I don't quite follow this. Can you elaborate?

• It would probably be useful to have a command to report the formatting under the braille cursor routing key being pressed. Jsut seeing dots 7 & 8 still doesn't tell you if it's bold, italic, etc.

Agreed. From an implementation perspective, I think we'd need to add a method to get a TextInfo from a routing index. Duplicating formatting reporting code in both globalCommands and braille sounds ugly to me. That said, this should probably be split into a separate piece of work.

@derekriemer commented on 26 Apr. 2017, 3:08 am AEST:

What about using braille weight to do emphasis?

I know some displays can change braille weight, but I think it's across the entire display, not for individual cells. Regardless, many cells don't have configurable weight at all.

[JordyDew]

If someone can code it for the community, would there be acceptance for it?

[jcsteh]

Sure. If we weren't willing to accept it, I would have closed the issue. My point was that this should not be the default behaviour; it must be configurable.

[dkager]

We'd need a way to map attributes to dots.

I don't quite follow this. Can you elaborate?

First you'd need a way to define which attributes are shown, e.g. only bold or bold and italic, etc. Second, I believe some screen readers also offer dot 8 as an indicator, e.g. for reporting the accelerator key for menu items. So maybe someone could set italic to dots 7 & 8 and bold to dot 8? Just a thought, this is definitely not standard behavior.
If there is some kind of standard behavior, it could be nice to add that to computer braille tables in liblouis so that more people benefit. But as Jamie said I don't think such a standard exists.

[jcsteh]

Ug. Allowing attributes to be individually customised is going to make for a pretty complicated UI. Are we only talking about bold, italic and underline or are there others we'd want this configuration for?

[dkager]

Hah, just trying to scope this. :)

Most other attributes (links, editor revisions) can be dealt with using start/end indicators. This is more consistent anyway. Related: #6785.
Spelling errors could also be shown with start/end indicators, however I believe @LeonarddeR wants to underline them. This makes sense if only part of a word can be marked as spelling/grammar error. I don't know if that's possible. If not, I'd say underlining should be reserved for font styles only.
In that case it's probably enough to have an underline on/off toggle. You then configure what you want to see in the document formatting settings.

[gregjozk]

Hi, when I wrote about this feature, I thought, that NVDA would incorporate solution from other screen readers. These programs underlined (used dots 7 and 8) for every atribute and made t.i. atribute mode. User has switched to this mode, when she/he wanted to know which atribute is in use. As I wrote years ago, this feature is important, because many liblouis tables do not have emphasis opcodes. And as I wrote, when a line is underlined, you know, that this text is important. If you use an emphasis opcodes you can quickly miss this information. In braille settings there can be a box where user can check which atribute can be shown on display (which text should be underlined with dots 7 and 8). On the other hand atribute mode can show atributes of characters instead of characters themselves. If characters have more then one atribute (a character is bolded and italicised), display would circle between "b" and "i". Thanks for your good work. regards, Jožef 2017-04-26 11:24 GMT+02.00, Davy Kager <notifications@github.com>:

…

Hah, just trying to scope this. :) Most other attributes (links, editor revisions) can be dealt with using start/end indicators. This is more consistent anyway. Related: #6785. Spelling errors could also be shown with start/end indicators, however I believe @LeonarddeR wants to underline them. This makes sense if only part of a word can be marked as spelling/grammar error. I don't know if that's possible. If not, I'd say underlining should be reserved for font styles only. In that case it's probably enough to have an underline on/off toggle. You then configure what you want to see in the document formatting settings. -- You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub: #7097 (comment)

[albzan]

Hi,
If anyone is interested to test or improve it, I've developed an addon for myself that implements braille attributes with dots 7 and 8.
More info at:
https://github.com/albzan/attribra/
It does not provide a comfortable GUI and so it is a bit rough to configure for a normal user (you have to edit an ini file).
Maybe someone could find it interesting or want to contribute on it.
Regards,
Alberto

[LeonarddeR]

I think demand for this issue has become less now braille extender by @Andre9642 has become a quite popular add-on. I believe the code for this is also based on the add-on by @albzan.

Still, I think that this functionality belongs in core as long as the liblouis way of presenting formatting information to the user is the default and the preferred method.

NVDA's braille support has been heavily improved over the past few years, and because of this, this issue is getting more and more prominent on the list of features people would like to see.

[zstanecic]

Hi, about braille extender, it is an essential addon to use braille effectively. Some of its features can be, or should be integrated into it, so that we no more rely on liblouis. the example is reporting of grammar errors.