Getting started

If you would rather listen than read, there is a spoken walkthrough of all of this at slightperception.com/nvda/dial: four recordings, about thirty five minutes altogether, covering an overview, control with a dial, control from the keyboard, and the settings.

What this add-on is for

This add-on was designed for keyboards with a physical volume dial, the rotating dial that you turn to raise or lower the system volume, and press (or click) to activate. It gives that dial a second job: navigating and launching your own custom lists of websites, folders, files, applications, radio stations, text snippets, world clocks, NVDA's own commands and multi-launch workspaces. It also puts your clipboard history on the dial, on the Control key.

If your keyboard doesn't have a physical dial but does have separate volume up, volume down, and mute keys, those work just as well. The dial is the most natural way to use it, but it isn't required.

If you have neither, you are still covered. NVDA + Applications turns on Dial mode, where the arrow keys, Enter and Space do everything the dial does. The rest of this page describes the dial, and every part of it has a keyboard equivalent on that page.

The basic idea

There are two layers: categories (the top level, like "Radio" or "Websites") and items (the things inside a category, like a website, folder, or application). Holding the NVDA key while turning the dial cycles through your categories. Holding Shift while turning moves through the items inside the active category. When you reach the item you want, press the dial (with Shift held) to launch it.

You can turn the dial in either direction at any time. Turning up moves forward through the list. Turning down moves backward. Both work for categories and items alike.

What you start with

Dial comes with eight categories so there is something to turn through on the first day: Radio, Websites, Folders, Applications, Workspaces, NVDA Commands, World Clock and Snippets. They are only a starting point. Change any of them, rename them, delete the ones you do not want, and add your own in NVDA Settings, Dial.

The folders and the programs are found on your own computer when Dial first runs, not written down in advance, so Downloads points at your Downloads wherever it really lives, even on another drive or inside OneDrive. If your computer does not have one of them, that item is left out rather than being added and then failing when you press it.

Try it now

1. Hold NVDA and turn the dial up. Each turn moves forward to the next category. You'll hear a short beep and the category name plus how many items it contains, for example "Websites, 6 items."
2. Hold NVDA and turn the dial down to go back to the previous category. You can move in either direction at any time.
3. When you hear the category you want, stop turning. You're already in that category, no extra press needed.
4. Hold Shift and turn the dial up to move forward through the items in that category. Turn down to go backward. Each item's name is announced as you land on it.
5. When you hear the item you want, hold Shift and press the dial. The website, folder, or application opens. (If your dial does not press, use the Mute or Play/Pause key next to it instead. See How you control Dial.)

Pressing twice

Most kinds of item do a second thing if you press twice quickly.

• A website puts its address on your clipboard, and does not open the page.
• A folder tells you what is in it, and does not open it: how many files and folders, and which one arrived most recently.
• A file tells you how big it is and when it last changed, and does not open it.
• A snippet pastes itself into what you are typing.
• A radio station that is playing sets the sleep timer, or cancels one already running.
• A workspace tells you what it holds instead of opening it.
• A clock copies its reading, the time, the date and how far that clock is from yours, to the clipboard.

Where a press holds anything back, you hear a short tick the moment you press, and then a third of a second passes before Dial commits to what you meant. TWO QUICK PRESSES NEVER OPENS THE THING YOU ARE ON, anywhere in Dial, so for a website, folder, file, application, help page, station or workspace nothing at all happens until that wait is over. An application, a help page and an NVDA command have nothing on a second press, but they still wait, so that the rule holds everywhere and you are never opening something, or running an NVDA command, by accident when you meant to ask a question. Copying is different, because copying and pasting are not opposites: a snippet or a clipboard entry is copied immediately and only the announcement waits, which is why a double press there says "Pasted" rather than "Copied" cut off by "Pasted".

A clock works the same way. It reads itself out the moment you press, so the time you hear is the time you pressed at, and only the announcement waits.

The NVDA + press reminder

If you ever press the dial while holding the NVDA key, the add-on will announce the current category name, how many items it has, and a reminder to use Shift + turn to browse items. This stops the system from muting and gives you a useful audio landmark instead.

Your clipboard, on the Control key

Holding Control and turning moves through the things you have copied, newest first. Control and a press copies one back; press twice quickly and it pastes where your cursor is. It is not a category, so you can reach it without leaving what you are typing. See Clipboard history and snippets.

The audio cues

• Short beep on each category turn: confirms you moved to a different category
• High beep: you turned past the last item and wrapped back to the first
• Low beep: you turned past the first item and wrapped back to the last
• Short tick: a press was heard, and Dial is waiting a third of a second to see whether you press again

The Audio cues dropdown in Add-on Settings chooses which of these you hear. The first three options are about the beeps above that go with turning the dial, and all of them keep the press tick. Only No beeps at all silences the tick as well. Nothing depends on hearing it: with the beeps off, a press behaves exactly the same, it just does so quietly.

Speech is cancelled before each announcement

You can turn the dial quickly without announcements queuing up. Whatever you land on is what gets announced, no lag, no backlog.