Unknown cursor is announced whenthe mouse pointer chagnestohand ona link.

[nvaccessAuto]

Reported by sumandogra on 2013-09-12 08:03 When report mouse shape changes check box is selected in the mouse settings dialog, on using NVDA+NUMPAD DEVIDE on a link, unknown cursor is announced. In other words, if a mouse pointer is taken to a link; unknown cursor is announced when the cursor changes to a hand on a link.

Steps to reproduce:

1. Go to NVDA menu>Preferences>mouse settings dialog.
2. Select the check box- report the mouse shape changes.
3. Open a web page with links.
4. Move to a link.
5. Press NVDA+NUMPADDEVIDE.
6. NVDA reads the linked text and then announces unknown cursor.

[LeonarddeR]

Thanks for the clear str, this can still be reproduced easily.

[Adriani90]

I can reproduce it either. But I don't know exactly what NVDA should actually report. I guess there are names or descriptions for shapes of mouse cursor which are not delivered by the accessibility API. I wander if NVDA reports shapes when using this in MS Word with UIA enabled?

[Adriani90]

the only cursor shape which is properly reported by NVDA is standard cursor.

[Adriani90]

@Qchristensen I feel like this could be already covered in the issue #5836. Maybe the mouse shapes are defined in Windows and are standardized for every application. So I guess this is the same issue we see in MS Word. Enablind UIA in MS Word also reports unknown on mouse shapes. Right?

[Qchristensen]

The two issues are similar, but possibly slightly different:

• This issue #3519 occurs when the mouse pointer changes to the standard Windows "Link Select" cursor. If you open the start menu, type MOUSE, and open Mouse settings, then go to "advanced options" which brings up the old control panel mouse options and press CONTROL+TAB, the focus should be in "pointers". On this screen is a list of mouse pointer shapes (normal, help select, working in background, etc) which are used across the board, including "link select", which is the cursor used when the mouse hovers over a link on a web page. NVDA should be able to identify this. If you move to an edit field on a web apge and press NVDA+numpad divide, NVDA should report "Edit cursor". So I think the problem is either that the "Link select" cursor name or label is missing from that cursor, or Windows isn't exposing the link select cursor in the same way, or we aren't reporting it properly for some reason.

• Issue #5836 is about custom mouse pointers which are specific to Word. You won't find those in the mouse control panel options. It's possible that they have provision for names or labels in the same way as the standard mouse pointers, in which case again, it might be that Microsoft never set names for them, it could be that Word is not reporting that properly, or it could be that we aren't looking for the names in Word.

So, they might be the same, or they might not be. Because this one involves a standard Windows cursor and the other issue involves a custom Word cursor, I'm inclined to leave both open, until we confirm what causes each.

[Adriani90]

@Qchristensen as a sighted person, is it usual to use these different mouse shapes in the day to day work with a computer? I am not sure most people know what they mean at all. Or is it very obvious from a visual point of view? If there is an use case for them to be interpreted, then I think we should let both issues open. Otherwise i would question if this setting in NVDA makes sense at all?

[Qchristensen]

The mouse cursor does often change shape and this is useful for sighted users. The most common example is probably that while the standard mouse pointer (arrow) is generally used, when the mouse is over an edit field (like this comment edit box), it changes to an i-beam shape (and NVDA reports "Edit cursor". If the mouse is over say the edge of a (non-full screen) window then the mouse pointer changes accordingly to indicate that is possible (and NVDA reports this correctly currently as well). So yes, for sighted users, these visual indicators are useful.

So, the question is when and where are these useful for an NVDA user? It will vary between users, probably the most likely situation is for users with some sight who use both NVDA and the mouse still. For non-mouse using users, the only thing I can think of is if you are moving the mouse pointer, maybe with Golden Cursor or mouse keys, to something which can only be accessed with the mouse, and where hovering over that control will change the mouse pointer.

Back to this issue, the question would still be whether NVDA can determine WHAT the new cursor shape is. NVDA seems to be able to determine many of the standard cursor shapes, so I'm not sure why the link select cursor isn't correctly reported.