Typing Settings in Jieshuo Screen Reader

Last updated on 30 September 2024

Customizing typing echo is typically one of the key features of a screen reader. However, despite its advanced set of features and options, the Jieshuo screen reader lacked this customization until October 2022, when a dedicated typing settings section was added to its settings to give users more control over the feedback and behavior of Jieshuo while typing.

Available Typing-Related Settings in Jieshuo Screen Reader

To access typing settings, open “Screen reader settings”, then navigate to Advanced settings. The available options in the typing settings section are:

1. Use gestures to switch candidates while typing: When this option is checked, it allows for movement between available word completion suggestions using one finger right and left swipes. Swiping down or up activates the selected suggestion. The downside of this option is that it alters the use of one-finger swipes when the edit box is in focus and the keyboard is shown. This means that you cannot use swipes to move the editing cursor or navigate to items before and after the edit box. To move the editing cursor, you need to use another method, such as the character-by-character browsing mode. With Gboard, this method moves between the suggestions displayed above the keyboard and activates them. If the option to show suggestions is not activated from Gboard’s text correction settings, then the option won’t work.
2. Suspend browse by touch while the keyboard is shown: When this option is checked, browse by touch will automatically be suspended whenever the keyboard is present on the screen, and it should automatically resume when the keyboard is closed. However, no typed characters will be announced when this option is active, even in older versions of Gboard that are still compatible with Jieshuo’s character announcement when browse by touch is manually suspended while typing. This has been a bug since the option was introduced and has not been fixed.
3. Double tap to type: This checkbox changes the typing behavior from lift-to-type to double-tap-to-input. However, this mainly supports the Samsung keyboard. For Gboard, the only difference it causes is switching the input of certain keyboard elements from lift-to-input to double-tapping, mainly affecting emoji insertion.
4. Speak keyboard elements as you touch them: When this option is unchecked, it prevents the screen reader from announcing characters as the finger moves between them. So, when the user touches a character or slides to explore and find other characters, they will not be announced. With Gboard, other keyboard elements and buttons are not affected, including the space key.
5. Read capital letters while typing: This checkbox switches between announcing the word “capital” before uppercase letters when typed or not. Note that with Gboard, only the announcement when the character is inserted is affected, not while moving the finger on the keyboard, where Jieshuo will still announce whether the letter is uppercase or lowercase.
6. Speak example words for letters while typing: When enabled, Jieshuo will speak an example word after announcing the typed letter, like “papa” for the letter “P” or “hotel” for “H.”
7. Read candidates: When checked, this option should make Jieshuo announce the suggested word as the user types. However, for me, this never worked. The option only makes Jieshuo announce the part of the word formed after typing each letter. For example, when typing the word “how,” Jieshuo will read “h,” then “ho” after typing the “o,” and finally “how” after typing the “w”.

8. Echo typed characters and echo typed words: These two options control whether Jieshuo reads the typed characters and words. If both are checked, this is equivalent to enabling the announcement of both characters and words.
9. Speak passwords: This checkbox determines whether Jieshuo should announce characters in password fields. I haven’t tried unchecking this checkbox, so I cannot comment on how reliable and consistent disabling this option is.

Notes:

• The behavior of certain options may vary between supported keyboards. My focus, as you may notice, is on Gboard, my keyboard of choice.
• Currently, if you enable the usage of swiping gestures to move and activate suggestions, you will not hear the suggestions as you swipe between them when the “Read candidates” option is off. This is due to a recent bug that prevents the reporting of keyboard elements when swiping between them with this option disabled. We are waiting to see if this issue will be addressed in future versions.