SuperNova Magnifier & Screen Reader 23.02

What's New in SuperNova 23.02

The update to SuperNova 23.02 includes a range of improvements - including essential fixes - to ensure SuperNova remains compatible with the latest updates to Office 365.  

Please note: The fixes and improvements listed on this web page are available in SuperNova Magnifier & Screen Reader version 23.02. Some fixes and improvements are not available across all SuperNova editions. 

Microsoft Office 365

The 23.02 update includes a range of improvements to delivering accessibility support for Microsoft 365 rolling updates. 
 

General Microsoft 365 improvements  

NEW: Maps and Scripts. The 23.02 update includes a series of new maps and scripts for using SuperNova with Office 365. The new maps and scripts are all created using UIA - the latest technology from Microsoft. This ensures the assistive technology you use continues to work seamlessly with rolling updates to Office 365 applications.  

FIX: Magnification. Improvements to the clarity of text when using True fonts in the Outlook 365 inbox, Calendar and in Microsoft Excel. This provides sharper text and clarity at all magnification levels.  

Improvements for Microsoft Excel, Outlook and Word

• FIX: Microsoft Excel.  Column and row coordinates in Excel spreadsheets are now announced correctly by the speech when using different speech synthesisers.
• FIX: Microsoft Excel. The speech now announces the sheet name correctly after using CTRL + PAGE UP / DOWN to move between sheets.   
• FIX: Microsoft Excel. The speech now announces the index of sheets (e.g. 1 of 3) when using CTRL + PAGE UP / DOWN to move between sheets.  
• FIX: Microsoft Excel. The shortcut Dolphin Key + Quote now correctly toggles the option to announce Capital letters in spreadsheets ON and OFF.  
   
• FIX: Microsoft Outlook. Content from emails is no longer skipped when using Dolphin cursor to read emails in Outlook.    
   
• FIX: Microsoft Word. The speech no longer announces ‘space’ when using the Speak Word Hotkey (NUMPAD 5) to listen to the spelling of a word.
• FIX: Microsoft Word. Text in the Microsoft Word context menu (when you perform a right click) is now displayed clearly when True Fonts is enabled.  
• FIX: Microsoft Word. The magnification and speech is now faster to respond when using SuperNova with Microsoft Word on laptops with low-powered CPU cores.

Improvements for Microsoft Teams

• NEW: Shortcut Keys. New hotkeys added to make it easier to use Microsoft Teams:   
  • Dolphin Key + Shift + M: Announces the microphone status  
  • Dolphin Key + Shift + O: Reads the current camera status  
  • Right Alt + 1 – 9: Announces the last 1 - 9 chat messages  
  • Right Alt + Right Shift + 1 – 9: Moves the focus to the last 1 - 9 chat messages  
  • Read status bar Hotkey (NUMPAD 2): Announces the status of the recipient (e.g. whether they are online) when the focus is in the chat window.   
     
• FIX: Magnification. The cursor position is now tracked by the magnification correctly when the cursor reaches the end of a line in the Chat edit area in Microsoft Teams.   
• FIX: Notifications. SuperNova magnification and speech now tracks and speaks balloon notifications as expected. This helps to ensure important notifications are not missed, such as new chat messages and incoming calls in Microsoft Teams and new emails and calendar reminders from Microsoft Outlook. You can also move the focus straight to a balloon notification using the following shortcut keys:
• Teams notifications: SHIFT + WINDOWS KEY + Y
• Outlook notifications: SHIFT + WINDOWS KEY + V
• FIX: Checkbox Announcement. Announcement is made to notify you when a checkbox is selected or unselected.  

General Improvements  

• NEW: BeMyEyes. SuperNova magnification and screen reading now provides access to the BeMyEyes App for Windows, available from the Microsoft store.  
• FIX: Google Chrome. The Edit Bookmark dropdown in Google Chrome is now announced by the speech as expected.  
• FIX: Dolphin Cursor. Improvements to ensure that the ESCAPE key performs the correct function depending on the application in use when the Dolphin Cursor is being used to explore the screen.
• FIX: Google Drive. The option to send scanned text to Google Drive is now re-enabled in the 23.02 update.  
• FIX: Firefox. Blank cells in tables are no longer announced when using Speak Keys in Firefox.    
• NEW: Magnification. True Fonts now correctly displays fonts that are not physically installed on the computer but provided by the current application itself (e.g. Adobe Reader).
• FIX: Magnification. Improvements have been made to ensure the magnification uses fewer CPU resources. This helps SuperNova to respond faster when used on lower powered devices.  
• FIX: Magnification. Improvements have been made to ensure image smoothing work as expected.  
• FIX: Magnification. True Fonts now works as expected to deliver clear text in the SuperNova Help.
• FIX: Profiles. The option to speak text under mouse is no longer enabled by default when switching to the Magnifier or Screen Reader profiles.
• FIX: Settings. The checkbox setting in the startup preferences dialog for ‘Ask User’ now works as expected.  This option is only available when the option to ‘Always save user settings’ is unchecked, and it asks the user if they want to save their current accessibility settings when exiting SuperNova.  
• NEW: Shortcut Keys. It is now possible to assign a hotkey to use the Control Panel popup menu. The pop-up menu is particularly useful for screen reader users.  
• NEW: Shortcut Keys. You can now choose which shortcut key is used to start SuperNova. This is useful to prevent clashes between SuperNova and other applications, such as the shortcut key to answer a call in Microsoft Teams. To change this shortcut key, open the General menu, then choose Startup Preferences. The options are:   
  • None  
  • Control + Shift + S   
  • Control + Alt + S  
    Please note: you may need to sign out and in again for Windows to recognise the change to this shortcut key.
     

• FIX: Shortcut keys. SuperNova no longer exits Layered Mode when using a layered key combination to change the magnification level, voice speed or verbosity scheme. This enables users to adjust multiple accessibility settings without having to re-enable Layered Mode.  
• FIX: Speech. The Microsoft OneCore driver now starts as expected when selected in SuperNova.  
• FIX: Speech. The Orpheus synthesiser announces capital letters in character echo, as expected.  
• FIX: Speech. When an option to announce capitals is selected in the ‘Text style announcements’ dialog, SuperNova now automatically selects the option to ‘Announce capitals when reading lines’ in the ‘General announcements’ dialog as well.
• FIX: Start-up. Improvements have been made to ensure SuperNova works as expected when the device is restarting from Sleep mode.
• FIX: Thunderbird. The speech now announces items in the Thunderbird Inbox when the inbox is set to Threaded view.  
• FIX: Thunderbird. The magnification and speech is now faster to respond when navigating message and folder controls in Thunderbird.  
• FIX: Thunderbird. Thunderbird no longer closes unexpectedly when opened twice in a row while SuperNova is running.    
• NEW: WhatsApp. SuperNova magnification and screen reading now provides access to WhatsApp for Windows, available from the Microsoft store. This includes reading emojis.
• FIX: Windows Calculator. Magnification and Speech now work as expected in the Windows 11 calculator.    
• FIX: Windows Explorer. When the verbosity level is set to ‘Medium’ or ‘High’, the speech will now announce the number of items when navigating to items on the Windows 11 Desktop (e.g. 1 of 20).  
• FIX: Windows Explorer. Search Bar in the Windows Start Menu now reads the results list correctly in Swedish and Slovenian languages.    
• FIX: Windows Store. The speech now announces items in the Windows Store App as expected. 

Technical improvements

• NEW: Java support. SuperNova is now able to use the Java Access Bridge to deliver accessibility for both 32-bit and 64-bit Java applications. To ensure Java accessibility works, please follow these steps:
  • Ensure Java Access Bridge is must be enabled: read full instructions.
  • Ensure Java Access Bridge map file is enabled in SuperNova.  
  • Ensure the Java application support the accessible UI toolset.  
• FIX: Mapping and Scripting. SuperNova no longer intermittently hangs when using the Training Mode Hotkey.   
• FIX: SuperNova Enterprise. The entire Media tab is now hidden if the Scan and Read, Bookshelf and Entertainment options are disabled in the Enterprise config.  
• FIX: SuperNova Enterprise. The option to ‘Disable Ask Support’ in the Enterprise config has been renamed to ‘Disable Ask a Question’  
• FIX: SuperNova Enterprise. The option to export the ‘Unlock code settings’ now works as expected.  
• FIX: SuperNova Enterprise. When exporting files to a registry file, the Enterprise config now automatically appends ‘.reg’ to the end of the selected filenames.