Categories and items

Opening the settings panel

1. Press the NVDA menu key (usually NVDA + N)
2. Choose Preferences, then Settings
3. In the category list on the left, find Dial

This is where you'll do all your configuration. Changes are saved when you click OK.

The item types

Website

Opens a URL in your default browser. The URL must start with http:// or https://.

Folder

Opens a folder in Windows Explorer. Use the Browse button to pick a folder rather than typing its path.

Pressing twice quickly tells you what is in the folder instead of opening it: how many files and folders it holds, and the name and age of whatever arrived most recently. So a folder you use for downloads will answer "has it come through yet" without a window opening or your focus moving. Anything Explorer hides, such as desktop.ini, is left out of the count, so what you hear matches what you would have seen.

File

Opens one file in whatever program Windows normally opens it with: a text file in your editor, a spreadsheet in Excel, a PDF in your reader. Use the Browse button to pick the file rather than typing its path.

Pressing twice quickly tells you about the file instead of opening it: how big it is and when it last changed. That answers "has the export finished" or "is this the version I edited this morning" without a program starting or your focus moving. An empty file says so, and a file that has been deleted or moved says it is not there.

Application

Launches an executable program. You can either type a simple name like notepad.exe or calc.exe for built-in Windows programs, or use Browse to find a specific .exe file on your computer.

You hear a short tick the moment you press, and the program starts a third of a second later. An application has nothing on a second press, so pressing twice quickly opens nothing at all and tells you so. That is the same rule as a website or a folder: two quick presses never opens the thing you are on.

Radio station

Plays an internet radio station. Use Pick from list to choose from the built-in catalogue, where you can tick as many stations as you like and get one item for each, or Custom station to paste a stream address of your own. This is the only item type that shows no fields until you have pressed one of those two. Activating the station starts it, and activating it again turns it off. Pressing twice quickly, while it is playing, sets the sleep timer or cancels one already running. See Internet radio.

Snippet

Text you want on tap: an email address, a postal address, a reply you send often. Activating it copies the text to the clipboard. Instead of a target you get a multi-line box, so a snippet can be several lines long. See Clipboard history and snippets.

Clock

The time somewhere else in the world. Unlike every other type, a clock reads itself out as you turn onto it: you hear the name you gave it and then the time there, so turning through a category of clocks reads the world in one pass. Activating it adds the date and how far that clock is from yours, for example "New York, 10:05 AM, Saturday 22nd August, 5 hours behind". The time is read in whatever format Windows is set to use, so a 24 hour clock says 10:05 and yours may differ from that example. Pressing twice quickly copies that whole line to the clipboard.

Use Choose zone and type the city you mean. Windows only names one or two cities per time zone, so Dial carries about 150 more of its own to search: Toronto, Boston, Los Angeles and Mumbai are in none of Windows' names but are all findable here, and picking one offers the city as the item's name. Daylight saving is handled by Windows, so a clock follows the local clocks in that place without you touching it.

NVDA command

One of NVDA's own commands, run from the dial. Anything in NVDA's Input Gestures list can be an item: toggle speech mode, cycle punctuation level, save configuration, toggle audio ducking, report the window title, open the log viewer. Use Choose command and type part of the name or its category to find it.

This exists for the commands you use but never bound, because the keyboard has run out of chords. A category called Quick toggles holding eight or ten of them is reachable by turning, with nothing to memorise.

Dial says nothing of its own when you press one, on purpose: NVDA's commands announce their own result, so you hear "speech mode off" and not Dial saying the name first. There is no second press, so pressing twice quickly runs nothing at all and tells you so, which matters most for a toggle: a double press cannot leave it flipped twice and looking like nothing happened.

What is stored is the command itself, never a keystroke, so an item keeps working if you rebind your keyboard, and it works for commands that have no key at all. Some commands only exist in certain places, such as inside a document or in one particular application; pressing one from somewhere it does not apply says "that command is not available here" rather than doing nothing.

Workspace

A special type that contains a list of other items. When you activate a workspace, every item inside it opens, one after another, with a small pause between each. See Workspaces for details.

Adding a category

1. In the settings panel, press Add category
2. Type a name and click OK
3. The new category is selected automatically, ready for you to add items to it

Adding items to a category

1. In the category list, press Enter on the category you want. The settings panel shows that category's items instead of the category list, and the item list is labelled with the category's name so you can hear where you are. Everything on that screen acts on that category
2. Click Add item
3. Choose the item type - this decides which fields the rest of the dialog shows. It opens on whichever type you added last, so adding three applications in a row means choosing the type once. The list is alphabetical
4. Type a friendly name - this is what you'll hear when navigating. Radio station is the exception: press Pick from list and the stations name themselves
5. Fill in what that type needs: a URL, a folder, file or application path (Browse helps with those three), a time zone (Choose zone finds it), or the snippet text. The label on the field says which, and what it expects
6. Click OK

Working in the two lists

The settings panel has two tabs: Categories and items and Add-on Settings. The first shows one of two screens, the category list or the items inside one category, and Enter on a category is how you go from the first to the second. Backspace, or the Back to categories button, is how you come back.

Both lists say which row you are on, such as "3 of 7", so you can tell how far down a long category you have got, and moving an item with Alt and an arrow says its new position as it lands. The same is true of the time zone and NVDA command pickers, and of the items inside a workspace.

A category in the category list is read out as its name alone, unless it holds nothing, in which case you hear "empty" after the name. Only the empty case is marked: it is the one that changes what you do next, and every extra word is heard on every arrow press through the list.

Each screen keeps only the buttons that have no keyboard equivalent, because NVDA's own OK button sits after them and a long row of buttons is a long walk to confirming a change. Everything else lives in the More actions menu, which opens from its button or with the Applications key while you are in the list. Every command in that menu names its own shortcut key, and typing one letter jumps to it.

When focus lands on either list you hear its name, the row you are on and your position in the list, and two keys: Enter, which is the main thing you came to do, and the Applications key, which reveals everything else. The other keys are not said, on purpose. They would be read out on every arrival, including every time you come back from a dialog, so they are listed here and in the menu instead.

So you can do all of it from the list itself:

• Delete removes what you are on, and Alt + Up or Down moves it. Both work the same in either list.
• Applications opens More actions in either list, which holds everything else and names its own shortcut keys.
• Enter shows a category's items, and edits an item.
• F2 renames a category, and edits an item.
• Backspace goes back to the categories from the item list, and does nothing in the category list.

An arrow key that cannot move says the row again rather than doing nothing, so Up on the top row, or Down on the bottom one, repeats where you are. That is worth knowing in a category holding one item, where there is nowhere to move at all.

Delete always asks first, and the question starts on No, so pressing Enter on it cancels. The same is true of resetting to the defaults and of clearing the clipboard history.

Escape is NVDA's own Cancel on this dialog, so it closes the settings without saving rather than going back a screen. Nothing you do in here is written until you press OK, so that means losing every change you have made, not just the one on screen. If you have made any, Escape now asks you first, and the question starts on No. With nothing changed it closes as it always did. To go back one screen, use Backspace or the Back to categories button.

The order of items in a category is the order you will cycle through them with Shift and the dial, so put your most-used things at the top.

Duplicate, in the More actions menu, is for making a similar item or category. It copies everything, including all the items and sub-items in a category, so you can change only the parts that differ.