Rui, thank you for everything you have done for the NVDA community - a prolific add-on author, translator, community moderator, to name a few. Your sudden passing over the weekend was a shock to me and the community. You will be missed. Rest in peace, colleague.
Announcement on Rui Fontes' passing (source: NVDA add-ons forum, posted by a member of the NVDA Portuguese localization team):
https://nvda-addons.groups.io/g/nvda-addons/message/27975
Remote
Joseph Lee
@joslee@mastodon.world
mastodon 4.7.3A researcher+grad student during the week, a tech observer+accessibility advocate in the weekends. A blind 1.5-gen Korean American graduate student working at the intersection of organizational communication, technology, and disability studies, I constantly look for ways to learn about how people and organizations define, discuss, and practice accessibility.
Certified NVDA Expert, member of Cal State LA, CU Boulder, NVDA screen reader, and Windows Insider communities
89 Followers
4 Following
28 Posts
Joined November 28, 2022
Pronouns:
He/his/him
Keywords:
Organizational communication, communicating technology design, disability studies and accessibility
Languages (human and computing):
English, Korean, Python, C++
The year: 2007. A blind high school student and an access tech guru met to discuss geeky stuff about tech. The teen, a BraileNote enthusiast, asked, "so, what is the programming language KeySoft is written in?" The guru, who happened to be the creator of KeySoft, said, "C++". The teenager was me, and the guru was none other than Jonathan Sharp. 1/
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@ppatel@mstdn.social @serrebi@serrebiradio.com At the moment the add-on store submission process is experiencing issues with GitHub's GraphQL API (GitHub CLI's gh pr command). As for vibe coded add-ons, the international add-ons community is split on that (my view is that vibe coded add-ons should be accompanied with notes from authors on what their add-ons do (written without use of AI) and prompts list and/or agentic AI instructions document for replication).
For #NVDASR users: notice on Joseph Lee's add-ons and NVDA 2026.1 requirement (July 2026 update):
https://nvda-addons.groups.io/g/nvda-addons/message/28058
TL:DR:
* Affected add-ons: AudioScreen, Braille Essentials, Enhanced Touch Gestures, Event Tracker, GoldWave, ObjPad, Resource Monitor, StationPlaylist, Zoom Enhancements (Windows App Essentials was included initially but excluded later).
* You must be running NVDA 2025.3.3 or later to receive add-on updates. Please update to NVDA 2026.1.1 and later if possible.
1/
Now that NVDA 2026.1 release candidate is here, expect to see stable add-on updates compatible with the upcoming NVDA release.
To start with, the following add-ons were updated: AudioScreen, Enhanced Touch Gestures, Event Tracker, GoldWave, ObjPad, Resource Monitor, StationPlaylist, Windows App Essentials, Zoom Enhancements. All of these will now require NVDA 2025.3.3, the last 32-bit NVDA release.
More info at: https://groups.google.com/a/nvaccess.org/g/nvda-users/c/LAmnJPUNr3o
#NVDASR
Guide: porting NVDA add-ons to 64-bit NVDA (2026.1): https://nvda-addons.groups.io/g/nvda-addons/topic/guide_how_to_port_add_ons_to/117685297
TL:DR: check the add-on code, look for 64-bit dependencies if needed, test the add-ons, then publish it (hopefully to the add-on store).
Reason: add-ons are crucial part of the NVDA experience. Porting add-ons to 64-bit NVDA keeps them and NVDA relevant. The greatest thing that can happen to the community in 2026 is discovering the joys of using add-ons once again in the midst of celebrating NVDA's 20th anniversary.
Hmmm, should I bring back an NVDA add-on just to address issues with latest WebView2 based Microsoft Copilot? The latest Copilot release (147.0.x.y) is essentially a gateway to Copilot web interface, meaning browse mode will be engaged once a prompt is entered. One can then use browse mode commands to review the generated output (presented as a live region). This is the exact same mechanism used by Copilot app back in 2024. #A11Y
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Anyone wishing to write app modules for WebView2 apps should also keep an eye on the following NVDA add-ons list thread: https://nvda-addons.groups.io/g/nvda-addons/topic/whatsapp_and_loom/116821158
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FAQ 3: can you turn off speech on the BNE? Yes in two ways: one temporary, one permanent.
- Temporary: NVDA let you cycle between four speech output modes: talk, beep, on-demand (similar to speech on request mode), and off. It is also possible to exclude certain speech output modes.
- Permanent: NVDA does have a "no speech" speech synthesizer option. 6/
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FAQ2 cont: GitHub issues:
- Braille is not reporting Excel cell column headers: https://github.com/nvaccess/nvda/issues/6901
- Reporting column headers before content in speech: https://github.com/nvaccess/nvda/issues/4629 The first issue is a bit geeky as it discusses some technical background. As this is an implementation discussion for NVDA, HumanWare may not be the right entity to resolve this (this is a cross-device problem, not unique to BNE). 5/
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FAQ 4: is BNE using proprietary braille code for input and output?
Answer: NVDA uses liblouis (open-source) braille translation module. This means the available braille tables will depend on which liblouis version is used at a given moment (remember, NVDA receives updates several times a year). 7/
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TL:DR (final):
- Think things through, show responsibility, and interact with community members before, during, and after the add-on store submission process.
- Remember: NVDA add-ons can do all sorts of things, including changing a screen reader user's computing reality through global change of NVDA behavior and accessing things beyond a user's computer(s).
Conclusion: add-on authors, let's work together on improving the NVDA add-on ecosystem, both in numbers and quality.
5/
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TL:DR (cont):
- When submitting add-ons, have the source code handy, including a readme file describing what the add-on does (it serves as add-on documentation).
- Community members volunteer their time and energy to review and comment on add-on submissions. Acknowledge their work by responding to comments.
- Do NOT modify an add-on package of the same version while it is undergoing submission review. Editing package content can create problems such as SHA256 value mismatches.
4/
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TL:DR (cont):
- Add-on authors including those not subscribed to NVDA communities have a stake in improving the add-on store both in numbers and quality.
- This is because add-ons can do anything NVDA can and thus creates security implications.
- Before or while developing add-ons, do a search of the add-on store, check license and copyright, read NVDA documentatoin, and prepare the add-on source code for public availability (GNU GPL terms).
3/
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TL:DR:
- The NV Access add-on store has seen increases in add-on submissions in recent days, including incomplete ad-dons or ones with questionable quality.
- Some community members left comments on these submisisons, including license and copyright, source code availability, coding stye, duplicaoitns, hotkey conflicts, to name a few. 2/
Calling braille users of JAWS and/or NVDA or folks thinking about exploring BrailleNote Evolve:
While reading recent topics on the BrailleNote Evolve mailing list (a subgroup of BrailleNote mailing list), I realized that, for some, BNE is the first ever exposure to braille support features from screen readers. I would like your help answering some braille+screen reader questions on this thread:
https://braillenote.groups.io/g/evolve/topic/discussion_and_q_a/120558459
Dear NVDA community, use the following PR as an example of what NOT to do (thank the PR writer for admitting the procedure used):
https://github.com/nvaccess/nvda/pull/20633
Please remember: when you submit NVDA issues/PR's dealing with web accessibility, testing changes on real (hopefully live) websites is crucial. NVDA issues on web accessibility with no code or real website example(s) brings headaches to developers.
Sincerely,
A concerned NVDA contributor
Replying to on mastodon.stickbear.me
@GamingWithEars@mastodon.stickbear.me @ppatel@mstdn.social @amir@dragonscave.space @NVAccess@fosstodon.org Actually, no. Based on the initial description, it changes the browse mode rendering logic to separate non-link text that follows a link text onto its own line. This is not the case with NVDA at the moment once screen layout is turned off.
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@GamingWithEars@mastodon.stickbear.me @ppatel@mstdn.social @amir@dragonscave.space @NVAccess@fosstodon.org Screen layout on mode (both NVDA and JAWS) presents web content closer to what sighted people would encounter, at least when a website or modern apps like WhatsApp is rendered visually. HOwever, screen readers still employ browse mode rendering logic, so a screen reader will see a "modified" view of the content they are interacting with. 4/
Replying to on mastodon.world
FAQ 2: in Excel, can you change the column header/content annoucement? Curretly NVDA reorts cell content, cell coordinates (if told to do so), and then column header (column heades reporting must be configured).
Answer: not without additional work. Currently NVDA is not brailling Excel cell column headers, so this must be resolved (issue is open on GitHub). Once this is done, a setting may need to be added to swap column header/content announcement. 4/
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@ppatel@mstdn.social That's an interesting framing. After all, we (screen reader devs) are using whatever tools developed to access operating systems to "fix" accessibility issues like wrong labels...
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@ppatel@mstdn.social @serrebi@serrebiradio.com At least the prompts list can tell us what vibe coders were thinking. On add-on design and coding, I always tell new ad-on authors to treat add-on creation as writing essays (teaching them to structure their code and make it readable to ease long-term maintenance).
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@serrebi@serrebiradio.com I wish every NVDA code contributor took the time to test their own code (including AI assisted writings) manually at some point before submitting PR's and document their findings more thoroughly. The bit about letting an unsupervised AI system admit that no manual testing was done pushed me over (sorry for the anger-laden phrasing).