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NVDA does not read members of distribution lists in at least Outlook 2007, 2010 and 2013 #2767

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nvaccessAuto opened this issue Oct 31, 2012 · 10 comments
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app/microsoft-office bug p4 https://github.com/nvaccess/nvda/blob/master/projectDocs/issues/triage.md#priority

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@nvaccessAuto
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Reported by RobertSpangler on 2012-10-31 18:59
Hello,

As part of my job, I must create and manage distribution lists in Outlook 2007 for mass emailing. I am able to create them just fine but if I go into my contacts and press enter on the distribution list, then hit tab once it appears to get to the list of contacts in that list, I am unable to up/down arrow to go through the list. I am thinking this may be a Microsoft bug, as the list contains no child objects for each list item but I figured I would file it here just in case it could be fixed on the NVDA side. Thank you.

@nvaccessAuto
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Comment 1 by Marcia.Yale (in reply to comment description) on 2012-12-04 05:34
This is also a problem in Outlook 2010.
Replying to RobertSpangler:

Hello,

As part of my job, I must create and manage distribution lists in Outlook 2007 for mass emailing. I am able to create them just fine but if I go into my contacts and press enter on the distribution list, then hit tab once it appears to get to the list of contacts in that list, I am unable to up/down arrow to go through the list. I am thinking this may be a Microsoft bug, as the list contains no child objects for each list item but I figured I would file it here just in case it could be fixed on the NVDA side. Thank you.

@nvaccessAuto
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Comment 3 by nvdakor (in reply to comment 1) on 2014-07-24 17:21
Replying to Marcia.Yale:

This is also a problem in Outlook 2010.

Replying to RobertSpangler:

Hello,

As part of my job, I must create and manage distribution lists in Outlook 2007 for mass emailing. I am able to create them just fine but if I go into my contacts and press enter on the distribution list, then hit tab once it appears to get to the list of contacts in that list, I am unable to up/down arrow to go through the list. I am thinking this may be a Microsoft bug, as the list contains no child objects for each list item but I figured I would file it here just in case it could be fixed on the NVDA side. Thank you.

Hi,
Confirmed at least in Outlook 2010 (will try it in 2013).
Technical: This is because the entries are directly written to the screen. When we use obj.displayText, it gives us the entry we're focused on.
For reference, here's the developer info for an entry in contact group (distribution) list:

name: u'Members List'
role: ROLE_PANE
states: STATE_FOCUSABLE, STATE_FOCUSED
isFocusable: True
hasFocus: True
Python object: <NVDAObjects.IAccessible.IAccessible object at 0x04B0EDD0>
Python class mro: (<class 'NVDAObjects.IAccessible.IAccessible'>, <class 'NVDAObjects.window.Window'>, <class 'NVDAObjects.NVDAObject'>, <class 'baseObject.ScriptableObject'>, <class 'baseObject.AutoPropertyObject'>, <type 'object'>)
description: None
location: (113, 315, 1406, 536)
value: None
appModule: <'outlook' (appName u'outlook', process ID 6544) at address 48f1e70>
appModule.productName: u'Microsoft Outlook'
appModule.productVersion: u'14.0.7113.5000'
TextInfo: <class 'NVDAObjects.NVDAObjectTextInfo'>
windowHandle: 854958
windowClassName: u'SUPERGRID'
windowControlID: 4513
windowStyle: 1350631424
windowThreadID: 5256
windowText: u''
displayText: u'Name E-mailMy email 2 joseph_lee22590@yahoo.comMy email address joseph.lee22590@gmail.com'
IAccessibleObject: <POINTER(IAccessible) ptr=0x72cbea8 at 4a75530>
IAccessibleChildID: 0
IAccessible event parameters: windowHandle=854958, objectID=-4, childID=0
IAccessible accName: u'Members List'
IAccessible accRole: ROLE_SYSTEM_CLIENT
IAccessible accState: STATE_SYSTEM_FOCUSED, STATE_SYSTEM_FOCUSABLE, STATE_SYSTEM_VALID (1048580)
IAccessible accDescription: None
IAccessible accValue: None

The ideal solution is to create an overlay class for contact group entries and use COM to get individual entries as we arrow through them. But we want to make sure that the class name and control ID is unique, otherwise we may run into exceptions (as in what happens in ticket #4305 with journal entries mistaken for calendar views).
Thanks.

@nvaccessAuto
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Comment 4 by nvdakor on 2014-07-25 11:19
Hi,
Confirmed in Outlook2013 as well. Probing COM objects didn't help much, although there is a way to see if we're focused on contact group (distribution list). Because one cannot use arrows to navigate members list for distribution lists, one needs to use screen review mode to view members (which isn't ideal).
Thanks.

@jbrm
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jbrm commented May 17, 2017

I am still being bothered by this problem in that I cannot read contents of a distribution lists.

@bhavyashah
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Sounds like the reported issue has been confirmed by an NVDA developer, experienced by multiple NVDA users, persists with more than one version of Microsoft Outlook, and has professional usage cases and thus impacts employment.

@LeonarddeR LeonarddeR changed the title NVDA does not read members of distribution lists in Outlook 2007 NVDA does not read members of distribution lists in at least Outlook 2007, 2010 and 2013 Oct 12, 2017
@LeonarddeR
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I'd like to suggest a p3 for this one.

@feerrenrut feerrenrut added the p4 https://github.com/nvaccess/nvda/blob/master/projectDocs/issues/triage.md#priority label Oct 23, 2017
@britechguy
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Just curious as to whether there has been any movement on this, as it appears to be an issue with Office/Outlook rather than the screen reader. It's still happening as of today, March 27, 2019, under Outlook 2016, when dealing with Contact Groups.

If Microsoft isn't going to fix the issue is there any possibility of an in-NVDA code tweak to make the screen reader follow movement up/down through the member list?

@Qchristensen
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Just confirming I can also repro this with Office 365. I have also previously reported this to Microsoft.

Several very imperfect workarounds in the interim:

  • Use next / previous object commands to have NVDA read the list. The command will report "selected" for the currently selected contact. As the focus is not correctly following to begin with, using object navigation here always behaves as if "focus moves navigator object" is off.

  • After using the arrow to move through the list, press ALT twice to move to the ribbon and back. The problem is the focus does NOT return to the list, it goes back to the list name, so you need to press TAB to then move back to the list, but then the last item with focus is reported.

@Qchristensen
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Minor update - Narrator has exactly the same issue in this situation. Interestingly if you arrow through the list and back, when you get back to the original item with focus, Narrator simply reports "Selected".

@britechguy
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britechguy commented Mar 27, 2019 via email

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