Have ability to show line number of document on Braille display

[Qchristensen]

It is possible to have NVDA read line numbers in Word and other documents, however this information is not displayed on a connected Braille display and there is currently no setting to allow this information to be displayed. (Feature request).

[josephsl]

Hi,

@dkager: Any ideas on what we can do? Thanks.

[shevetonline]

hi
happy to find some help at last
it can be related to pref. document reporting
as a marked V
please please support this feature
noelia from nvda addons suggested that
perhaps modifying two functions of brailleHandler this can be reported automatically
using a flag from pref. document reporting

[shevetonline]

its already 7 years avilable in jaws so no reason not to add this.
in jaws it just adds the line number to the beginning of the line
like a seeing person would see in notepad++ like so:
1 blah blah some code and very long line even
2 another line of code funny you reading it
3 well guess whats its more code hope this was enought
4 just kidding this is it i guess you got it

[dkager]

I expect NVDA can figure out line numbers in some way. So in that sense it can be done, though doing it only because another screen reader can do it is probably not good enough. For example, I find that I can get along by checking what line I'm on in Notepad++ through the status bar.

Technically it should be possible by extending braille.TextInfoRegion. It may require some work to make this compatible with braille.Region.focusToHardLeft, because presumably the line number should be visible at the very start of the line without being part of the text.

[nvdaes]

Hi Ilan and participants, I meant that perhaps these two functions of braille.py can be modified:
getBrailleTextForProperties and getControlFieldBraille.
This would be to report line numbers automatically.
Though imo it would be better to give the possibility of ask this information on request, for instance pressing NVDA+f twice, since other formatting changes can be useful too, or information as page numbers.
Thanks.

[shevetonline]

hi

imagine asking every time what is the line number
your mind goes nuts because you loose focus
its not possible to create anything like that

i mentioned jaws because thats what i'm used to as a programmer .
its hard to read and program code while using debugger
if you cant read the line number while coding i need to search for it
imagine if you will that as a blind person you would not be able to hear nvda say the line number while coding.
or as a seeing person seeing one line at a time not knowing where you are
and as general debugger can jump through huge ammount of lines
back and forth its impossible right??
so thats my point

[nvdaes]

When I'm programing, I'm not looking at the line number each time.
I think it's not difficult to implement, or it seems not to be difficult.
If it's not implemented in NVDA, I don't know if it is so much risk
developing an add-on monkey patching the mentioned functions.

El 10/05/2016 a las 17:56, shevetonline escribió:

hi

imagine asking every time what is the line number
your mind goes nuts because you loose focus
its not possible to create anything like that

i mentioned jaws because thats what i'm used to as a programmer .
its hard to read and program code while using debugger
if you cant read the line number while coding i need to search for it
imagine if you will that as a blind person you would not be able to hear
nvda say the line number while coding.
or as a seeing person seeing one line at a time not knowing where you are
and as general debugger can jump through huge ammount of lines
back and forth its impossible right??
so thats my point

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#5941 (comment)

[dkager]

Back when I used a screen reader that showed the line numbers in Notepad++ if enabled, I actually disabled them because it got in the way. So my question was if there are people who do want to see all line numbers all the time, or if it would be enough to manually query for this. If you personally find this useful then I would welcome the additional functionality.

[jcsteh]

Let's simplify here.

If "Report line numbers" is enabled in Document Formatting preferences, line numbers get spoken at the start of the line (if the application supports retrieving this info). I don't personally find this useful--even as a programmer myself, I prefer to query the line on demand in the status bar--but the point is that it is included as an option for speech. We should just present the same information in braille depending on the same setting. The only change I'd suggest is that we should just braille the number with no "line" prefix as we have for speech.

Addressing a specific point:

Technically it should be possible by extending braille.TextInfoRegion. It may require some work to make this compatible with braille.Region.focusToHardLeft, because presumably the line number should be visible at the very start of the line without being part of the text.

IMO, we shouldn't worry about focusToHardLeft for this. Those that want this probably do always want to see the line number without having to scroll back. It also gets ugly when you scroll to the next or previous line: should we skip the line number or not? And scrolling back is even worse, since it'd be very asymmetric.

[nvdaes]

Hi, replying to Jamie, imo your suggestion makes sense since it
simplifies things and makes code consistent.
I don't like looking this on status bar since they can contain other
info or be different between programs.
I don't know if the scope of this issue should be changed to cover page
numbers, and include mor information in browseable message when pressing
NVDA+f twice.
Hope this can be implement.
Thanks.

El 11/05/2016 a las 0:40, James Teh escribió:

Let's simplify here.

If "Report line numbers" is enabled in Document Formatting preferences,
line numbers get spoken at the start of the line (if the application
supports retrieving this info). I don't personally find this
useful--even as a programmer myself, I prefer to query the line on
demand in the status bar--but the point is that it is included as an
option for speech. We should just present the same information in
braille depending on the same setting. The only change I'd suggest is
that we should just braille the number with no "line" prefix as we have
for speech.

Addressing a specific point:

Technically it should be possible by extending
braille.TextInfoRegion. It may require some work to make this
compatible with braille.Region.focusToHardLeft, because presumably
the line number should be visible at the very start of the line
without being part of the text.

IMO, we shouldn't worry about focusToHardLeft for this. Those that want
this probably do always want to see the line number without having to
scroll back. It also gets ugly when you scroll to the next or previous
line: should we skip the line number or not? And scrolling back is even
worse, since it'd be very asymmetric.

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#5941 (comment)

[jcsteh]

Let's keep the scope narrow here, since this seems to be quite important to the original reporter and broadening scope introduces more complexity.

[nvdaes]

OK, I can create a branch for this if it would be faster, not instead.
I don¡t know when to ask this, for instance, when regio isMultiline or
when obj.role == controlTypes.ROLE_DOCUMENT.
Thanks.

El 11/05/2016 a las 7:43, James Teh escribió:

Let's keep the scope narrow here, since this seems to be quite important
to the original reporter and broadening scope introduces more complexity.

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#5941 (comment)

[jcsteh]

You don't need to worry about isMultiline or the like, since this applies to any TextInfoRegion. It's actually a FormatField attribute, not a ControlField attribute, so you'll want to do this in getFormatFieldBraille. There's a snag, though: you only want to do it for the first format field on the line. getFormatFieldBraille doesn't currently know about that, so that'll require an additional argument.

[nvdaes]

Hi, thanks for the explanation. I'm looking this.

El 11/05/2016 a las 8:12, James Teh escribió:

You don't need to worry about isMultiline or the like, since this
applies to any TextInfoRegion. It's actually a FormatField attribute,
not a ControlField attribute, so you'll want to do this in
getFormatFieldBraille. There's a snag, though: you only want to do it
for the first format field on the line. getFormatFieldBraille doesn't
currently know about that, so that'll require an additional argument.

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#5941 (comment)

[nvdaes]

Hi, unfortunately, I can't test this at home since I don't have a
braille display.
Taking care to your comments, I have added a cormatConfig parameter to
the function, so:

def getFormatFieldBraille(field, formatConfig):
linePrefix = field.get("line-prefix")
if linePrefix:
return linePrefix
if formatConfig["reportLineNumber"]:
return field.get("line-number")
return None
After, I have added the argument to this other function of
TextInfoRegion class. The function is
_addTextWithFields
Thanks.

El 11/05/2016 a las 8:12, James Teh escribió:

You don't need to worry about isMultiline or the like, since this
applies to any TextInfoRegion. It's actually a FormatField attribute,
not a ControlField attribute, so you'll want to do this in
getFormatFieldBraille. There's a snag, though: you only want to do it
for the first format field on the line. getFormatFieldBraille doesn't
currently know about that, so that'll require an additional argument.

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#5941 (comment)

[nvdaes]

Hi, finally I have designed the code as follows, and it works for me:

1. In the getFormatFieldBraille (field) function, I have added a textList variable to hold the line number when the reporting of this is activated in document format settings, and then the line prefix. This is based on getBrailleTextForProperties, where a textList is used too.
2. In the TextInfoRegion class, I have added a self._skipFormatWithTextFields variable, set to false in the update function, and to True when the first format field is found, in _addTextWithFields. When True, text is set to None. This is based on self._skipFieldsNotAtStartOfNode variable.
   I have tested this in Notepad++, Word and other programs.
   I think we don't need to document this in the user guide; just in What's new.
   If there are no objection, I will create a pull request soon.
   Thanks.

[nvdaes]

Hi, I have created a pull request for this at
#5980
I have updated copyright years ( don't know if my name should be added or if it's better or worse with this kind of code), and a code simplification using continue instead of settign text to None when self._skipFormatWithText is True.