Start NVDA on logon screen with a keyboard command

[nvaccessAuto]

Reported by jteh on 2014-02-10 04:52 In some environments (e.g. schools or universities), blind/vision impaired users need to be able to access the logon screen, but it's not reasonable to have NVDA running on the logon screen all the time. In these cases, it would be useful to be able to start NVDA on the logon screen with a keyboard command.

It's not possible to launch apps with keyboard shortcuts on the logon screen, so we'd still need to have a process running. I think we'd just put the code in NVDA itself and have it wait for the key press before launching fully.

[nvaccessAuto]

Comment 1 by briang1 on 2014-02-10 10:29 Assuming that you can get and act on keypresses in this mode, presumably you only need the equiv of no speech, and default synth to be selectable?

With no speech the default

[LeonarddeR]

@michaeldcurran: is this still something that should be concidered, and if so, how should such a thing be realised?

[michaelDCurran]

I think we should still consider it in future. In short, Something would need to run at windows logon which simply watched for a particular key press, and let all other keys through. Detecting this key press it would then start the full NVDA. I think we could add this functionality to nvda_eoaProxy.pyw

[Qchristensen]

This has come up a couple of times recently and I think is still worth pursuing.

Currently, as a workaround, you could set NVDA to start on the logon screen, and set that profile to use "no speech" - that way instead of pressing control+alt+n to start it on the logon screen, you could press NVDA+S. Edit: I realised that this does not work as NVDA+S is a temporary change.

If there was a way of listening for control+alt+n on the logon screen, that would be more logical for users and easier for admins to setup.

[lukaszgo1]

It is worth pointing out, that CTRL+ALT+n conflicts with some keyboard layouts, so we have to either make the shortcut configurable, or choose one which generates no conflicts if it is possible.

[Qchristensen]

This is still a requested feature. Mostly updating though as I realised my previous suggested workaround does not work - setting the synthesizer to "no speech" could potentially work but comes with many drawbacks and I would not recommend it.

[Adriani90]

In Windows 10 and higher it seems Narator can be enabled on the logon screen with ctrl+windows+enter and after logon Narator is turned off automatically. Is it still required to have the same feature for NVDA, given that support for Windows 8.1 or earlier has been ended completely since many years?

[CyrilleB79]

In Windows 10 and higher it seems Narator can be enabled on the logon screen with ctrl+windows+enter and after logon Narator is turned off automatically. Is it still required to have the same feature for NVDA, given that support for Windows 8.1 or earlier has been ended completely since many years?

Given that the logon screen is quite simple, the possibility to use Narrator makes this issue less critical. But it's still a nice-to-have for people (including myself) who prefer NVDA. I do not know of any real-life blocking situation, but I can imagine that NVDA may be preferred in some unusual situation if the user is used to NVDA's TTS, shortcut keys, etc. E.g.:

• Update screen

• Connexion to WiFi network

• Connexion to VPN

[Adriani90]

@CyrilleB79 the narator tts works actually quite well in the logon screen and it is quite easy to adapt to it since there are not a lot of complex things to do in this screen. Is it worthy to dedicate development time to this specific use case given the alternative we have for now? Would NVDA bring significant improvements to the current user experience?

[lukaszgo1]

While we don't know of any real life situations, it is possible that there are languages for which there is support in eSpeak, but not in OneCore, so Narrator is not an option. There is also a case of Braille only users, who may need a specific Braille display to login into Windows. In short while this is low priority, I see no reason to close this issue.

[CyrilleB79]

@Adriani90 unless anyone exhibits a real-life blocking situation, NV Access does not need to prioritize it or to fix it themselves.

But as written in my previous comment, this issue still remains a nice to have. When possible, I prefer using NVDA's shortcut, TTS and even add-ons than Narrator. It's a matter of habit, nothing blocking.