Accessibility for blind users in MuseScore 4
Hi everyone,
as a blind MuseScore user, I'm very happy that accessibility is such a high priority here for the developers, I know this is not always the case.
However, I'd like to ask some questions about MuseScore 4.
On Windows, I wasn't able to create a new score, since I couldn't find any way to select the corresponding instrument - or template using the keyboard. This looks like a new bug, because in MuseScore 3 I didn't have such problems. Also, in the MuseHub, I couldn't find anything that looked like a download progress, I just had to wait until the button "Launch MuseScore" appeared - until that I had to hope it would come at some time.
Since my laptop is dual booted, I use both Windows and Linux. However, on Linux, MuseHub isn't accessible at all. No matter which key I pressed, the Orca screenreader showed no reaction.
I will continue to test the keyboard navigation in MuseScore, and would be happy if one of the developers could already be looking at those points.
Comments
Hello! You can definitely select instruments using the keyboard. What specifically goes wrong when you try? The process is indeed different than MuseScore 3, but it does work. After navigating to an instrument you want to add, simply hit Enter. You can then add more instruments the same way. To see the instruments you've added, navigate to the third column (first is instrument families, second is available instruments, third is instruments already added).
Muse Hub accessibility is indeed less robust and I can confirm limited success with Orca.
In reply to Hello! You can definitely… by Marc Sabatella
Hello!
thank you for your explanation. This helped me to figure out how to do it, but now I know what were the things that confused me.
It is right that I can select the instruments with enter (or spacebar works as well). However, my screenreader (now testing with NVDA) still shows them as unselected, both by speech and on the Braille display, so I thought the keys had no reaction. But now that you told me about the 3rd column, it got clear to me that the instruments indeed got selected.
Second thing that confused me, was to find the "next" button: Now I found out how to focus it with the keyboard. First you press tab until you reach the cancel, and then you need the right arrow to reach next. I didn't expect this, since in MuseScore 3 every button in the instrument selection could be reached using tab.
I'm sorry for my mistakes here, indeed it is doable by the keyboard - just in slightly a different way.
As for the MuseHub: What would be the best place to report this and/or create an issue for it? I'm always happy to help improving the software.
In reply to Hello! thank you for your… by fcnjd
Sorry it has taken a while to get back to you! I saved your message for this week when I'm about to produce some new accessibility tutorials, so hopefully soon now I'll have those ready.
The short answer to your question about Muse Hub - the place where they are tracking issues is musehub.zendesk.com. I understand.
Also, a quick note about navigation in MuseScore - yes, it is a bit odd seeming at first that Tab isn't the only key used anymore. F6 is the top level, navigation, moving between different panels. Tab moves between groupings within a panel, then the cursor keys move between individual controls within a grouping. It's designed to be more efficient but it does require a bit of trial and error to get used to.