22.1.5

• Updated to work with NVDA 2022.1.

Developer toolkit 20.06

• Updated to work with NVDA's new control types library.

Developer toolkit 20.05

Updated Developer toolkit to work with the newest version of NVDA.

Developer toolkit 20.04

Developer toolkit (DTK) is an NVDA add-on that helps blind and visually impaired developers independently create visually appealing user interfaces and web content. It provides gestures that enable you to navigate through objects and obtain information about them, such as their size, position, and characteristics. To begin using DTK, place focus on a control, then press ALT+WINDOWS+K. To disable it, press ALT+WINDOWS+K again. When on the web, press NVDA+SPACE to put NVDA in Focus Mode and press NVDA+SHIFT+SPACE to disable Single Letter Navigation.

What's new?

• Added a gesture (home) that gives the ability to move to the defined relative parent.

Notes

• When using home or any modified version of the home key, using the numpad home key fails because NVDA will send the numpad7 keypress instead of a numpadHome keypress. Other keyboard add-ons that attempt to reassign numpad7 to the home key will fail in this add-on.

Developer toolkit 20.03

Developer toolkit (DTK) is an NVDA add-on that helps blind and visually impaired developers independently create visually appealing user interfaces and web content. It provides gestures that enable you to navigate through objects and obtain information about them, such as their size, position, and characteristics. To begin using DTK, place focus on a control, then press ALT+WINDOWS+K. To disable it, press ALT+WINDOWS+K again. When on the web, press NVDA+SPACE to put NVDA in Focus Mode and press NVDA+SHIFT+SPACE to disable Single Letter Navigation.

What's new?

• Added a gesture (ALT+R) that obtains the currently focused object's control type. Examples include button, listitem, list, checkbox, and section.
• Added a gesture (SHIFT+S) that obtains the currently focused object's control states. Examples include focused, focusable, selected, checked, pressed, and readonly.
• Removed support for IAccessible's unique ID because it is not reliable in most contexts.
• Abbreviated the version number to xx.yy where xx is the last two digits of the current year, and yy is the update number for the current year. Thus 20.03 is the third major update in 2020.

Developer toolkit 2020.2

Developer toolkit (DTK) is an NVDA add-on that helps blind and visually impaired developers independently create visually appealing user interfaces and web content. It provides gestures that enable you to navigate through objects and obtain information about them, such as their size, position, and characteristics. To begin using DTK, place focus on a control, then press ALT+WINDOWS+K. To disable it, press ALT+WINDOWS+K again. When on the web, press NVDA+SPACE to put NVDA in Focus Mode and press NVDA+SHIFT+SPACE to disable Single Letter Navigation.

What's new?

• Starting DTK retains the cursor’s current position in web content. If the object under the caret can’t gain focus, DTK will place focus on the first available ancestor.
• Removed legacy support for unicode strings.
• Removed the enable/disable Developer toolkit features setting from Developer toolkit settings dialog found in NVDA menu>preferences>settings. Users can still enable/disable features by pressing alt+windows+k.
• The formatting attributes obtained by pressing 'f' when Developer toolkit is enabled is now configurable in preferences>settings>Developer toolkit.
  • Add new formatting attributes by pressing the 'new attribute' button. Type in a name of a valid formatting attribute, press tab to put it in the list, then press escape to leave edit mode.
  • Remove an attribute by selecting it in the list, then pressing the 'delete attribute' button.
  • Rename an attribute by pressing the 'Rename attribute' button, typing a new name, pressing tab to put it in the list, then pressing escape to leave edit mode.
  • Move an attribute up in the list by selecting it and pressing the 'Move up' button. Repeat this until it reaches the desired location in the list.
  • Move an attribute down in the list by selecting it and pressing the 'Move down' button. Repeat this until it reaches the desired location in the list.
• Users now have the ability to change the way color values are displayed while obtaining formatting information. The setting is found in preferences>settings>Developer toolkit, then choosing a color display format. The color display format can also be changed by pressing control+c while Developer toolkit features are enabled.
  • RGB - Red/Green/Blue value. Defines a color through a red, green, blue color combination. Good for graphic art, especially non-web safe colors.
  • Hex - string starting with a '#' and followed by 6 characters consisting of 1-0 and A-F. Usually good for web content.
  • Name - The human readable value for the color. Good for general purpose usage and verifying other color value formats.

Notes

• The Edge web browser is not supported.
• Until NVDA provides font information from more sources, font information is only available in web content.

Known issues

• Users are not automatically notified of the enabled or disabled state of features when switching between configuration profiles. This is an expected behavior, and this notice will be removed in the next version.
• The customizable list of font attributes found in Developer toolkit settings may be cumbersome to use. This is a limitation found in NVDA's user interface library.

Developer toolkit 2020.1.1

Developer toolkit (DTK) is an NVDA add-on that helps blind and visually impaired developers independently create visually appealing user interfaces and web content. It provides gestures that enable you to navigate through objects and obtain information about them, such as their size, position, and characteristics. To begin using DTK, place focus on a control, then press ALT+WINDOWS+K. To disable it, press ALT+WINDOWS+K again. When on the web, press NVDA+SPACE to put NVDA in Focus Mode and press NVDA+SHIFT+SPACE to disable Single Letter Navigation.

What's new?

• Improved unicode support.

Notes

• DTK does not support the Edge web browser.
• Font information is only available in web content. This should be fixed in a future version.

Known issues

• DTK does not automatically notify you of the enabled or disabled state of its features when switching between configuration profiles.
• The font information when pressing F is messy, and will get fixed in a future version.

Developer toolkit 2020.1.0

Developer toolkit (DTK) is an NVDA add-on that assists blind and visually impaired developers with independently creating visually appealing user interfaces or web content. This is done by enabling DTK, navigating around the user interface or web content, then performing gestures to obtain information about the appearance, location, and size of the focused control. To enable or disable DTK, press alt+windows+k on your keyboard. To continue using the computer normally, disable DTK before performing normal tasks.

What's new?

• Developers now have the ability to focus on smaller areas of their user interfaces by pressing control+p to set a relative parent. Use a relative parent as a reference point when obtaining size and location information. To use this feature, enable DTK features, navigate to the object to use as a relative parent, then press control+p. Then, return to your work as usual.
• Press the letter p while working in DTK to obtain the relative parent's name. Press twice quickly to copy to the clipboard.
• Use shift+b to obtain the distance between the focused object's bottom edge and the relative paren'ts bottom edge. DTK features must be enable to use this feature.
• Use shift+r to obtain the distance between the focused object's right edge and the relative paren'ts right edge. DTK features must be enable to use this feature.
• DTK now gracefully handles configuration profile switches.
• Removed '-preview' from the version number to avoid version number problems with add-on updater.

Notes

• When using the relative parent feature, DTK will set the relative parent to the desktop under the following conditions.
  • The focused object and the relative parent are the same.
  • The relative parent is not a direct ancestor of the focused object.
• Edge is not supported.
• Font information is only available in web content. This should be fixed in a future version.

Known issues

• Users are not automatically notified of the enabled/disabled state of the add-on's features when switching between configuration profiles.
• The font information when pressing F is messy, and will get fixed in a future version.

Developer toolkit 2020.0-preview

Developer toolkit (DTK) is an NVDA add-on that assists blind and visually impaired developers with independently creating visually appealing user interfaces or web content. This is done by enabling DTK, navigating around the user interface or web content, then performing gestures to obtain information about the appearance, location, and size of the focused control. To enable or disable DTK, press alt+windows+k on your keyboard. To continue using the computer normally, disable DTK before performing normal tasks.

What's new?

• Changed version number to 2020.0 preview to reflect the impending switch to Python 3.
• Added Python 3 compatibility.
• Added a new gesture, "n" that speaks the object's name. If one is not assigned, speaks the word 'None' as the object's name.
• DTK no longer adds duplicate settings panels in the NVDA settings window when reloading add-ons.

Notes

• DTK helps developers create user interfaces. This add-on is not an analytical tool for third-party user interfaces.
• Edge has not been completely tested. Therefore, anything reported by the add-on should be considered with care.

Known issues

• Users are not automatically notified of the enabled/disabled state of the add-on's features when switching between windows.
• There is no way to restrict DTK to a specific content type or application window.
• The font information when pressing F is messy, and will get fixed in a future version.
• Font information is only available in web content. This should be fixed in a future version.

2019.1.2

Developer toolkit (DTK) is an NVDA add-on that assists blind and visually impaired developers to independently create visually appealing user interfaces or web content. This is done by enabling DTK, navigating around the user interface or web content, then performing gestures to obtain information about the appearance, location, and size of the focused control. To enable or disable DTK, press alt+windows+k on your keyboard. To continue using the computer normally, disable DTK before performing normal tasks.

What's new?

• DTK will now report size and position values if they are 0.
• Navigation now honors the detailed messages setting.
• Made reporting of size/position information more concise.
• Stability improvements.

Gestures

The following gestures are available when DTK is enabled.

• Alt+windows+k – Enable or disable DTK features.
• Left arrow – Move to previous sibling.
• Right arrow – Move to next sibling.
• Up arrow – Move to parent.
• Down arrow – Move to first child.
• Control+home – Move to top-most parent.
• A – In web content, speak HTML attributes. Press twice quickly to copy to the clipboard.
• B – Speak the position of the object’s bottom edge. Press twice quickly to copy to the clipboard.
• C – Speak the number of children contained inside the object. Press twice quickly to copy to the clipboard.
• Control+d – Enable or disable detailed messages.
• F – In web content, speaks the object’s font and formatting information. Press twice quickly to copy to the clipboard.
• H – Speak the object’s height. Press twice quickly to copy to the clipboard.
• L – Speak the position of the object’s left edge. Press twice quickly to copy to the clipboard.
• R – Speak the position of the object’s right edge. Press twice quickly to copy to the clipboard.
• S – Speak the number of siblings relative to the object. Press twice quickly to copy to the clipboard.
• T – Speak the position of the object’s top edge. Press twice quickly to copy to the clipboard.
• V – Speak Developer toolkit version. Press twice quickly to copy to the clipboard.
• W – Speak the object’s width. Press twice quickly to copy to the clipboard.

Notes

• DTK helps developers create user interfaces. This add-on is not an analytical tool for third-party user interfaces.
• When using Chrome, not all web elements will appear in the accessibility tree. To force an element to appear in the accessibility tree, give it a title attribute.
• When using Firefox, phantom elements may appear in the accessibility tree. For example, a text frame may appear as a text block’s container. These phantom elements are a part of Mozilla’s implementation of the accessibility tree.
• Edge has not been completely tested. Therefore, anything reported by the add-on should be considered with care.
• In web content, everything except a text block is a container. For instance, a paragraph (p tag) may have multiple elements inside.
• div tags are reported as a section in HTML5.
• To avoid names of web elements appearing as "None", always give elements a title attribute.
• Font information is only available in web content. This should be fixed in a future version.
• The add-on does not teach a user proper user interface/web content design concepts.

Known issues

• Users are not automatically notified of the enabled/disabled state of the add-on's features when switching between windows.
• The margins of a control are only available in web content, and are browser dependent.
• The border and padding attributes are not available. This is a long-standing issue.
• There is no way to restrict DTK to a specific content type or application window.
• The font information when pressing F is messy, and will get fixed in a future version.