Attachment patch.diff added by deep.3997 on 2014-07-24 02:47
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patch.diff.zip

Comment 1 by deep.3997 on 2014-07-24 02:48
Here's a patch which enables you to get the line number you're currently at and the total number of lines in the document. Hotkey is "control+alt+r"
Changes:
State: closed

Comment 2 by nvdakor (in reply to comment 1) on 2014-07-24 03:44
Replying to deep.3997:

Here's a patch which enables you to get the line number you're currently at and the total number of lines in the document. Hotkey is "control+alt+r"

Hi,
A small suggestion: I'm reopening this ticket because this issue isn't solved yet. I'd like to kindly ask that, in the future, whenever you submit a patch, please don't close the ticket as though it is solved. Also, hopefully NVDA+Delete in upcoming 2014.3 should provide a similar fix to what this ticket is asking.
Thanks.

Changes:
State: reopened

Comment 3 by jteh on 2014-07-28 07:26
What's the use case for this? Users who don't use a screen reader don't have any such facility, so why do screen reader users need it?

Comment 4 by blindbhavya on 2014-08-04 17:08
Hi.
I have a general comment to make James Sir. I am simply expressing my opinion/thoughts.
Non screen reader users in certain cases have an advantage over screen Non screen reader users can perform some tasks more quickly than screen reader users.
For example in grid view (or the default Desktop icons arrangement) if the first letter of the desired icon is unknown and there are 50 icons on the screen it becomes very time consuming to get to the icon.
P.S. I know there are flaws in this example and please dont point them. I am just trying to make a general statement.
So, there should be situations where blind people have quicker access to stuff as well.
If screen reader users had the System Tray to know the battery and time why were NVDA Shift B and NVDA F12 introduced? Because they were beneficial.
Similarly, screen readers should according to me have all the possible features that would make information retrieving quicker, navigation easier. In some cases I don't think one should look if the functionality should be in the screen reader or not.
I know that my writing is not very convincing but I was just expressing my personal opinion. Sorry if I was harsh.

Comment 6 by jteh on 2014-08-04 22:01
Obviously, issues like this have to be considered on a case by case basis. However, in all of the examples you've provided, sighted users can already achieve this equivalently (they can type ahead on the Desktop; that's not screen reader specific) or more efficiently (they can glance at the system tray without moving focus there), so they are well supported use cases.

Regardless of this, a good use case hasn't been provided as to why this particular feature is useful for screen reader users as compared to any other user or how it provides an essential efficiency boost to a screen reader user.

Comment 7 by cannona on 2014-09-07 17:09
I'll give this a shot: If a sighted user is using a fixed-width font, they may be able to guestimate how many characters they are from the left edge simply by looking at the position of the cursor, particularly if they know where other characters are at in other lines. One could argue that an NVDA user could also approximate this by looking at the distance from the left edge, but I would submit that doing reckoning such as this is probably much more easily done visually.

That being said, I don't think that NVDA will be seriously lacking without this feature, but I can see it being useful in certain circumstances.

Comment 9 by vgjh2005 on 2014-09-12 03:01
Hi:
I think this feature is very very useful. For making search/Translating document etc lines number is important. I have to select reading line number when I need. But I however need it one time. It is very trouble to select it then unselect. I know where I am, use to jump in most Editors. Thanks!

@feerrenrut In response to @jcsteh's request for a use case for the requested feature in #4251 (comment), an individual we have lost contact with in #4251 (comment) and @vgjh2005 in #4251 (comment) have provided seemingly convincing answers. Is this feature request sufficiently well-defined in order to be labelled as a feature? If so, please also add the NeedsCodeReview label with reference to the patch attached in #4251 (comment).

How does announcing the number of characters on a line in Word help when the tab character is 0.5 inches by default, but can be changed. A space is different in width from a capital M as well. I think this is similar to #1939, but I would find it most useful to have NVDA+Delete speak the horizontal and vertical position in a Word document as shown on the rulers. If a sighted user has the vertical and horizontal rulers enabled they can quickly see exactly where a given piece of text will be located on the printed page.

@ThomasStivers, Let's not confuse the issue, knowing the line and character number may have a different use case from knowing the exact location of a character when printed (logical vs printed position). On the other hand, you are hinting at something important here: Why is this function wanted? What is the use-case for this? It may be, that what you propose is a better solution, but first we need to understand the problem in order to gauge that.

User cannona doesn't really elaborate on why it would be handy to know the number of characters from the left, only that sighted users are able to estimate it.
User vgjh2005 suggests that it would be used while doing search/translation. Guessing a little at the meaning of the comment, I would interpret it this way "Being able to report the current line and character number allows one to remember them and to be able to jump back to specific locations". However, the last part of this comment, "I know where I am, use to jump in most Editors", makes me worry that they did not realise this request was Microsoft Word specific.

If there are any translators who read this issue:

• Do you use Microsoft Word for your translation efforts? If not what software do you use?
• Would this feature be helpful to you?

@feerrenrut I am one of the translators and am also working with MS Word at work every day. In my opinion reporting the current character number is not really useful. But reporting the current line number would indeed be useful in some Editors. Personally I am not using MS Word for translations but there are many People using it for this purpose.

The line number and column can (certainly in newer versions of Word) be placed on the status bar, so it could be possible to read the status bar. One of the first comments on this issue suggested using NVDA+delete and I tend to agree with that - the current functionality of that command tells you exactly where the caret is on the page (eg 3.43 cm from left edge of page, 5.27cm from top edge of page - replace cm with inches etc as per your setup). Adding the page / line / column information to that command would add that extra info for those who want it.