14 DAY TRIAL // The first Beta build of the upcoming Orca 3.18 open-source screen reader and magnifier software, which is used in numerous GNU/Linux distributions by default, has been made available for download and testing.
Looking at the release notes attached at the end of the article, Orca 3.18 Beta 1 is here to update the build-in spellchecker component with support for LibreOffice's script, multiple fixes for the chattiness issues, as well as the ability to perform normal WhereAmI at the end of a WhereAmI spellcheck.
The integrated Gecko support has been updated as well with new features like support for handling Gecko-specific text attribute names for misspelled words, better ignoring of object:selection-changed events, the ability to treat lists as text block elements for web content, and better Etherpad support in Firefox.
Furthermore, there's better support for the Mozilla Thunderbird email and news client, as Orca comes now with a fix for traceback, which will no longer get into Thunderbird's preferences, objects that contain numerous embedded objects will no longer be treated as text "chunks," and Orca is now capable of handling input type="number".
A bug in the line navigation of MathML content has been addressed, ancestors will no longer be generated beyond the MathML math element, empty text block elements will no longer be included in structural navigation, and lists are now being treated as text block elements for web content.
Moreover, document-loading messages will no longer be repeated due to multiple "busy" events, anchors are now being skipped when searching for the next or previous caret context, and the app now makes sure that object mode navigation displays only content from a single object. Several issues in the LibreOffice support were fixed as well.
Many other issues have been fixed
The first Beta build of Orca 3.18 major release fixes many other bugs reported by users since the previous version of the software. For example, multiple issues in the _generateUnselectedCell() function have been addressed, desktop file translations have been repaired, various false positives have been eliminated in the isLayoutOnly() function, and many typos were fixed in translator comments.
Additionally, gi.require_version is now used to address PyGIWarning, support for jumping to and specifying a caret offset has been added to navlist, label visibility is no longer a priority for status bar notifications, the text-attribute-related code saw some cleanup, and availability for list items will no longer be generated. Some other small bugs have been addressed as well.
Last but not least, the Czech, Norwegian Bokmal, German, Lithuanian, Portuguese, Greek, and Spanish translations have been updated. While Orca 3.18 Beta 1 is distributed as part of the GNOME 3.18 Beta 1 desktop environment release, you can also download its sources right now from Softpedia. However, please try to keep in mind that this is pre-release software, not suitable for production use.