musescore / musescore/MuseScore

Reinstate/Optimise Speech to remove verbosity with Screen Reader

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accessibility P2 regression MS3
Dominant language
C++
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Description

Issue type

Accessibility issue (e.g. for keyboard-only or screen reader users)

Description with steps to reproduce

There have been some recent improvements in adding the reporting of both status measure numbering and displayed measure numbering which is brilliant. But these additions plus some others have made the speech very verbose and take a long time to wait to hear what you need. MuseScore 3 only stated navigation items (bar, beat, stave) that had changed. Could this be re-introduced.

For example:
First announcement:
C5 minim (half) bar 1 beat 1 stave 1
Now if I arrowed right:
E5 crotchet (quarter) bar 1 beat 3. And if actual bar number and display number were different might say bar 2 displayed beat 1.

Preference to decrease verbosity would be:
E5 crotchet (quarter) beat 3
Notice that the bar number and stave were not announced because they haven't changed.
Arrow right again and ideal would be:
G5 crotchet (quarter) beat 4
And arrowing right once more ideal would be:
B4 dotted crotchet (quarter) bar 2 beat 1.
Notice here the bar is restated because it has changed.
Now Alt + Down to move to the next stave:
D4 quaver (eighth) stave 2
Notice the bar and beat number are not announced because they haven't changed.

Notice also the double speak of minim (half note) when using non US time value names. Would be nice to only have minim.

Supporting files, videos and screenshots

N/A

What is the latest version of MuseScore Studio where this issue is present?

4.4.3

Regression

Yes, this used to work in MuseScore 3.x and now is broken

Operating system

Windows 11 with NVDA

Additional context

No response

Checklist
  • This report follows the guidelines for reporting bugs and issues
  • I have verified that this issue has not been logged before, by searching the issue tracker for similar issues
  • I have attached all requested files and information to this report
  • I have attempted to identify the root problem as concisely as possible, and have used minimal reproducible examples where possible

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by reproducing the issue in MuseScore Studio 4.4.3 on Windows 11 with NVDA, then compare the announcements with MuseScore 3.x. Verify that navigation items are announced only when they change and that non-US note-value names are not spoken twice.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
cpp
Domain
accessibility, desktop
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
45/100

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