Office 2010 with UIA: Name for combo boxes in Options dialog are not announced

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Reported by nvdakor on 2014-04-07 00:25
Hi,
Names of combo boxes in Outlook 2010 are not announced. Specifically, when the user is focused on a combo box in Options dialog, the combo box name is not announced.

Steps to reproduce:

1. From Outlook 2010, press Alt+F, then T to open Options dialog.
2. From General category, go to the first combo box, which presents a list of color schemes for Outlook.
   Expected: NVDA announces the name of the combo box.
   Actual: Only the value is announced.

Technical:

• Navigator info says None for the name of the combo box, with the correct string for the value field.
• One can obtain the name of the combo box by pressing NvDA+Numpad 4 while focused on the combo box itself. This implies that the name of the combo box is the left sibling of the combo box itself.
  Thanks.
  Blocking #4071

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Comment 1 by nvdakor on 2014-04-07 00:54
Hi,
This problem does not occur in Outlook 2013.

A patch is available for review at the following branch:

• URL: https://bitbucket.org/nvdaaddonteam/nvda
• Branch: t4056
• Commit ID: 405a222]

Tested in Outlook 2010 under Windows 8.1. Thanks.

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Comment 2 by jteh on 2014-04-11 00:29
Changes:
Milestone changed from None to next

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Comment 3 by nvdakor on 2014-04-12 01:54
Hi,
Further testing shows that this is an MS Office thing - not just Outlook, but also observed when focused on combo boxes in Word and Excel options dialogs. I'll come back with another ticket to address problem for other Office apps.
P.S. Could someone with other Office versions (2003, 2007) test to see if NVDA does or does not read combo box names? Thanks.

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Comment 4 by nvdakor on 2014-04-13 02:15
Hi,
A better solution that fixes combo box name announcement bug for Office programs is ready:

• Branch: MSOfficeComboBoxNames
• Commit ID: 6a0b5b81328
  The try build is at:
  http://community.nvda-project.org/try/MSOfficeComboBoxNames/nvda_snapshot_try-MSOfficeComboBoxNames-9972,6a0b5b8.exe
  I'll come back with another ticket on UIA's issue with combo boxes in Office apps.

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Comment 6 by jteh on 2014-04-13 23:04
This is certainly weird. MSAA gets the correct name for combo boxes, but UIA does not. I'm leaning towards just force disabling UIA for controls in these dialogs.
Changes:
Changed title from "Outlook 2010: Name for combo boxes in Options dialog are not announced" to "Office 2010 with UIA: Name for combo boxes in Options dialog are not announced"

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Comment 7 by jteh on 2014-04-13 23:12
Joseph, can you please push MSOfficeComboBoxNames to Bitbucket? (It's not enough to push to try; that repository is only for automated builds and the branches there get deleted as soon as the build is complete.)

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Comment 8 by nvdakor on 2014-04-13 23:19
Hi Jamie,
It's up now:

• URL: https://bitbucket.org/nvdaaddonteam/nvda
• Branch: MSOfficeComboBoxNames
  Thanks.

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Comment 9 by jteh on 2014-04-14 03:46
Thanks for the patch. This will work nicely, but after some discussion with Mick, I'm thinking we'll disable UIA for controls in those dialogs. If that breaks anything, we'll revert to your idea.

Some code review regardless:

• The docstring for a class or function needs to go inside the class/function, not before it.
• Why do you call _get_previous, _get_name, etc.? It should be safe to call .previous, .name, etc.

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Comment 10 by James Teh <jamie@... on 2014-04-14 04:29
In [4f4a245]:

In Microsoft Office 2010 Options dialogs, the labels of combo boxes are reported correctly.

These seem to be exposed correctly by MSAA, but not by UIA. This suggests the UIA implementation is once again broken, so I've disabled it for controls in these dialogs. Hopefully, this won't break something else.
Re #4056.

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Comment 11 by James Teh <jamie@... on 2014-04-14 04:29
In [6653f13]:

Merge branch 't4056' into next

Incubates #4056.

Changes:
Added labels: incubating

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Comment 12 by James Teh <jamie@... on 2014-04-29 06:31
In [22921af]:

In Microsoft Office 2010 Options dialogs, the labels of combo boxes are reported correctly.

These seem to be exposed correctly by MSAA, but not by UIA. This suggests the UIA implementation is once again broken, so I've disabled it for controls in these dialogs. Hopefully, this won't break something else.
Fixes #4056.

Changes:
Removed labels: incubating
State: closed

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Comment 13 by jteh on 2014-04-29 06:31
Changes:
Milestone changed from next to 2014.2

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Comment 14 by blindbhavya on 2014-10-03 12:22
Hi.
Do remove the keywords needscodereview since they don't seem to be neede now.