Treat tables with 1 col or 1 row as layout tables in Outlook message …

…viewer (#12857)

Microsoft Outlook uses a Microsoft word document control to present emails when both reading and composing. NVDA is in the process of switching to using UI Automation to access Microsoft Word document controls due to major performance advantages, and also due to Microsoft no longer maintaining the Office object model.
However, in the UI automation implementation exposed by MS Word document controls, it is impossible to identify the difference between a data table and a layout table. Thus, NVDa reports all layout tables when reading, which is extremely annoying, as the majority of HTML emails use many nested layout tables.

Description of how this pull request fixes the issue:
Tables are now classed as layout tables in MS Word document controls if the app is Outlook, and the table is read-only (Outlook is in message reading view) and the table only has either 1 column or 1 row.

source/NVDAObjects/UIA/wordDocument.py

@@ -199,6 +199,19 @@ def _getControlFieldForUIAObject(self, obj, isEmbedded=False, startOfNode=False,
 				or field.pop('name', None)
 				or obj.name
 			)
+		# #11430: Read-only tables, such as in the Outlook message viewer
+		# should be treated as layout tables,
+		# if they have either 1 column or 1 row.
+		if (
+			obj.appModule.appName == 'outlook'
+			and obj.role == controlTypes.Role.TABLE
+			and controlTypes.State.READONLY in obj.states
+			and (
+				obj.rowCount <= 1
+				or obj.columnCount <= 1
+			)
+		):
+			field['table-layout'] = True
 		return field
 
 	def _getTextFromUIARange(self, textRange):

user_docs/en/changes.t2t

@@ -43,7 +43,8 @@ If you need this functionality please assign a gesture to the appropriate script
 - More dialog text is automatically read in LibreOffice Writer, such as in confirmation dialogs. (#11687)
 - Reading / navigating with browse mode in Microsoft Word via UI automation now ensures the document is always scrolled so that the current browse mode position is visible, and that the caret position in focus mode correctly reflects the browse mode position. (#9611)
 - When performing Say all in Microsoft Word via UI automation, the document is now automatically scrolled, and the caret position is correctly updated. (#9611)
--
+- When reading emails in Outlook and NVDA is accessing the message with UI Automation, certain tables are now marked as layout tables, which means they will no longer be reported by default. (#11430)
+ -
 
 
 == Changes for Developers ==