Development Build

What's Changed

• Upgrade bundled TactileDisplayAPI library to v1.0.37 by @bramd in #10
• ci: stop rebuilding nvda-misc-deps in the lint job by @bramd in #11
• fix: correct the store description typo and its trailing tab by @bramd in #9

New Contributors

• @bramd made their first contribution in #10

Full Changelog: 0.9.90...latest

0.9.90

All changes since the last stable release

Changes destined for the next release.

Added

• Support for NVDA 2026.1 and later (64-bit).
• Installing the add-on now offers to enable automatic detection of the Dot Pad, which NVDA disables by default. The question is asked once; the setting can be changed later in NVDA's braille settings under "Displays to detect automatically".
• Long press gesture support: gestures held for 1.5+ seconds produce longPress(keys) format, preventing accidental display refreshes during battery status checks.
• Table mode: configurable automatic navigator movement after scrolling. Users can choose to move the navigator to the first visible cell, center cell, or leave it unchanged (default).
• Table mode: force table presentation when on a table cell, with deep parent scanning to find tables that aren't auto-detected. Shows table content with active cell marking.
• Table mode now supports tables in virtual documents (TreeInterceptors) such as Google Docs by using the review cursor position to access underlying table structures.
• Chart improvements:
  • Dynamic Y-axis calculation that adapts to data range and display size.
  • Honors Excel's axis step values when they fit, with automatic fallback.
  • Active bar marker shows which data point is currently focused during chart navigation.
  • Horizontal trace line from active bar to Y-axis for easier value reading.
• D3 hardware support: DotPad 320X with D3 modules automatically uses hardware-based auto-refresh; software auto-refresh is disabled and settings controls are greyed out when D3 device is connected.
• Display clearing on termination: display is now guaranteed to be cleared before the driver closes, preventing sensitive data from remaining visible on the physical display.
• Advanced setting to use the system-installed TactileDisplayAPI library instead of the bundled DLL. When enabled, the addon activates the system-registered COM server at driver initialisation; if the system COM server is absent the addon falls back to the bundled DLL and logs a warning. The setting remains compatible with future vendor library updates that add new methods to the interface. The setting is off by default and can be found in the Advanced group at the bottom of the DotPad settings panel.
• Tools-menu toggle for the bundled TactileDisplayAPI library's on-screen viewer (NVDA → Tools → Dot Pad display viewer). Toggles a sighted-friendly window mirroring the tactile graphic display's content — useful for sighted developers, QA, demos, and remote-support scenarios. State persists across NVDA restarts via a new [dotPad] viewerOnScreen config option. Blocked in secure mode. Modeled on NVDA's existing "Braille viewer" item.
• NVDA-aligned per-language braille abbreviations on the multi-line tactile area: when library mode is active and a non-text control is focused, the multi-line area now shows NVDA's standard abbreviations for control types (e.g., btn, chk, rbtn, tltip) instead of the JAWS-style ones (bt, rbt, tip) the vendor ships. Non-English NVDA installations have access to translated abbreviations through the bundled per-locale ini files — 27 languages generated initially. The addon also calls SetThreadLocale / SetThreadPreferredUILanguages on its library worker thread to match NVDA's currently-configured UI language. See Known Issues for the current library-side limitations on locale selection and Unicode braille rendering.
• Selectable multi-line braille source: a new Dot Pad settings option chooses how the multi-line tactile area gets its braille content. The default is "TactileDisplayAPI library" — the bundled library tracks the focused control directly and produces richer rendering (structured control info for non-text widgets, attribute marking, the library's own pannability) but follows focus only. The alternative "NVDA review cursor" mode is the previously-shipping behaviour — the addon reads NVDA's review/navigator state and renders multi-line braille that follows the navigator, supporting review-mode exploration. The 20-cell text braille display is unchanged in both modes. When library mode is selected but the library isn't ready (initialisation failure, hardware issue), the addon falls back to NVDA-driven rendering and announces this once per driver lifetime.
• Tactile graphic mode: when focus lands on a Role.GRAPHIC object (images on web pages, embedded figures in documents) with a valid screen location, the addon automatically activates the library's built-in graphic mode. The library follows UIA/MSAA cursor events autonomously and updates the tactile area without the add-on supplying screen coordinates. When the NVDA review cursor is routed away from system focus (e.g. reading a web page in a virtual document), the add-on detects the divergence and falls back to bounding-box rendering using the navigator object's screen coordinates instead. The 20-cell text braille display continues to show NVDA's braille text in parallel. A manual "force graphic" gesture also exists; see docs/keymap.md.
• Tactile graphic viewport controls: while a graphic is rendered, the F-key grid drives the library's viewport — single-key short-press for page-step pan in four directions, long-press for edge jumps, plus zoom in / out and recenter chords. See docs/keymap.md for the complete current binding list.
• Tactile graphic image inversion: while a bitmap graphic is displayed, pressing F1+F2+F3+F4 simultaneously inverts the tactile image — raised dots lower and lowered dots raise — providing an alternative reading of the same content without leaving the current view. A second press restores the original orientation. Calls the TactileDisplayAPI InvertLastTactileImage operation (code 20, v1.23). Effective for bitmap content rendered via DrawImage or DrawScreenRegion; result for library-driven graphic mode is library-defined.
• Per-presentation gesture bindings: Presentation now inherits from baseObject.ScriptableObject, so each presentation declares its own @script-decorated handlers. The driver's getScript delegates to the active presentation first, then falls through to its own scripts — adding presentation-specific gestures no longer requires driver-side glue. (Architectural change introduced to support tactile-graphic mode's viewport controls.)
• Hybrid print + braille mode: a new opt-in setting ("Show print and braille together (hybrid mode)", under the "Multi-line braille" group in DotPad settings; off by default, applied on save) exposes the bundled TactileDisplayAPI library's hybrid print-and-braille rendering. In testing it currently takes effect in fields with a text cursor (documents, edit boxes), where the multi-line tactile area shows the actual letter shapes as tactile print — similar to graphic mode — rather than braille. NVDA continues to drive braille on the DotPad's separate 20-cell text display.
• Multi-line braille line spacing: a new "Multi-line braille line spacing" combobox (under the "Multi-line braille" group in DotPad settings, applied on save) controls how braille lines are spaced on the multi-line tactile area. Three options are available: Auto (default) — 8-dot braille with one dot-row between lines, fitting the maximum number of lines; Max Line Count — six-dot braille (dots 7 and 8 unused, yielding ten rows of six-dot cells per display height), also library-only; Double Line Spacing — 8-dot braille with three dot-rows between lines, for users who prefer more gap between lines. Auto and Double Line Spacing use 8-dot cells; Max Line Count engages ForceSixDotBraille and is effective only when "Multi-line braille source" is "TactileDisplayAPI library". Changes take effect immediately; no NVDA restart required.

Changed

• Upgraded the bundled TactileDisplayAPI library to v1.0.34 (from v1.0.23). Math graphs are more accurate (logs, Euler's e, exponents, nth roots, clearer tick marks) and keep their axis labels while panning; a misspelled word no longer marks its whole paragraph with dots 7 and 8; caret tracking while editing Excel cells and the Outlook classic folder tree are fixed; and Scintilla-based editors such as Notepad++ no longer crash.
• NVDA 2026.1 is now the minimum supported version (64-bit). NVDA 2024.x and 2025.x are no longer supported. The multi-line braille, tactile graphic and viewer features already required 64-bit NVDA 2026.1, so nothing that worked before is lost. The add-on download is also several MB smaller.
• f1+panLeft and f4+panRight gestures now simulate upArrow and downArrow respectively, instead of shift+tab and tab.
• Screen capture mode scrolling: now uses page-based scrolling without overlap, maximizing display usage.
• Screen capture line calculation: optimized to calculate actual parent line count instead of estimating, and applies trailing spacing optimization to fit more content when possible.
• Screen capture object numbering: now uses NVDA's native positionInfo instead of manual sibling counting, improving performance for objects that provide position information.
• Multi-line tactile area now uses the running NVDA's own liblouis and braille tables instead of copies bundled with the addon. Braille on the tactile area stays consistent with NVDA's other output and automatically picks up NVDA's table updates, and the addon download is several MB smaller. (On startup the addon points the bundled library's per-locale ini at NVDA's liblouis; on read-only/portable installs where that can't be written, braille still renders via NVDA's translation.)
• Braille on the multi-line tactile area now always matches NVDA's translation exactly — including any custom or non-default braille table configured in NVDA's settings. The library (v1.18+) calls back into the addon for every translation request; the addon delegates to NVDA's own braille pipeline, th...