When I had my last eye appointment at the hospital I met with someone from our local blindness association and I asked if there was any training available locally for screen readers on Windows. The only screen reader she seemed to know about was Dolphin.
Does anyone actually use it? I never hear anyone talking about it - it's always NVDA and Jaws. Even Narrator gets the occasional mention. But never Dolphin.
Is Dolphin the screen reader for those who can't manage the grown-up ones? Or is it just not good enough? Just curious why no one ever talks about it, but it's been around for ages.
Comments
Called something different I think
I think it had a magnifier as well. Can't think of the name Don't think it was HAL but could have been supernova. Someone will know.
Or was it
Windows eyes? Honestly can't remember.
I'm quite sure dolphin was called supernovor.
There's some kind of training thing with NVDA but you do have to pay for it, personally i'd look on youtube for free training videos if they exist.
Supernova
I think Supernova is a bundle of screen reader plus magnifier isn't it?
I vaguely remember a long time ago when blindness was not anywhere on my personal radar, that I visited a blindness organisation as part of my job to see how they used a computer. And I'm sure they had a copy of Dolphin that no one there had ever used. I think our visit was the first time anyone had turned on the computer there. Needless to say it wasn't the most productive visit.
But obviously Dolphin has been going for a long time. I wonder if they maybe got contracts with some blindness organisations to supply the software. A bit like in the old days when you used to find the Archimedes computer at schools but you would never see one anywhere else.
Only reason I'm really asking is that I saw Dolphin were at Sight Village and was just curious.
Yes
Yes. Super Nova reader/magnifier is a bundle that included a screen reader and magnifier. before that, there screen reader was called Hal, and there magnifier was called looner. both have been discontinued and have been replaced by supernova.
It makes me smile - Fusion to SuperNova
But I'm a physics geek.
Speaking About Dolphin...
Want to find out what's new?
[https://yourdolphin.com/news?id=540]
And the price sadly has gone up considerably:
[https://yourdolphin.com/ScreenReader]
And that's the price for only the Dolphin Screen Reader!
Have fun with the JAWS vs Dolphin keyboard-layer-mode comparisons...
Is it just me or jaws is…
Is it just me or jaws is almost less expensive compared to Dolphin ScreenReader? :) Yeah I think more people talk about even windows eyes than dolphin. Never tried it. Something is odd. Like why include a custom media centre or something in a screen reader? I guess it's good that they are there but I really don't think they are that popular in the windows screen reader market.
I'd highly recommend not trying dolphin.
When you navigate through a page, you'll hear something like, normal heading level 1, brads video, for example, and it's just so slow to navigate.
I'd choose either JAWS or NVDA every day.
I just tried the demo and oh god, no, the voices are very old and I just couldn't get used to them. It's voices like Daniel, Oliver Kate and Sarina.
Yup
Although the voices sounded very nice to me, the software itself is not that widely known compared to Jaws or NVDA.
What I remember from an old conversation with someone about this is that Dolphin screen reader is made to work with magnifire, so it's really good for partially sighted people. But then someone above pointed out super-nova, and then I got all confused about which one is screen reader, and which one is the magnifire.
Googling seems to indecate that Super-nova is magnification product by company named Dolphin, and they also bundle a screen-reader with this super-nova magnifire. Screen-reader might be known as Dolphin. So, I think my old understanding stands valid.
re: mr grieves
If the only screen reader being recommended to you by this organisation is Supernova, then I wouldn't touch this organisation with a barge pole because they clearly don't know what they're talking about. Trenton is literally the only person who I've ever seen mention Supernova. That's no bad thing, it's an option, but not the most widely-used. I never see it mentioned on ag.net either. Hey at least they didn't mention Guide to you. It really does say it all if they did doesn't it? Any decent organisation would want to discuss what you need from a computer, and then give you the most common options JAWS, NVDA, and then mention Supernova and Narrator as a sidenote. Narrator wouldn't be any good as a primary screen reader anyway. If you want to learn a screen reader, look for free JAWS and NVDA tutorials online.
Narrator is coming very…
Narrator is coming very close to a backup screen reader. Myself I use narrator with excel instead of nvda and I find it incredible microsoft effeorts in the past 10 years seemingly opposite to Voiceover trends on macos...
You're better off sticking with NVDA/JAWS
As my subject states, you're much better sticking with NVDA and JAWS. Narrator on Windows 11 isn't atrocious but there's much better support for NVDA and JAWS. I self-taught myself NVDA from just watching YouTube tutorials, and Freedom Scientific has great resources too.
More than one tool
This would be my suggestion. This thread will also clue you in on this. Sometimes there's more than one tool to do the job! I personally think any one of the 3 screenreaders Jaws, NVDA, or Narrator can do the job. I think each has strengths and weaknesses. I think the more Comfortable you get with any of those three the better computer user you'll be!
Why the Dolphin
Thanks for all the replies to this. To be clear I wasn't particularly intending to learn Dolphin, but I was curious how a company like this can go for so long and charge so much for a screen reader no one seems to use.
It sounds like its niche is in the joint magnification/screen reader option although I think Freedom Scientific also do a magnifier. I do wonder if maybe they have targeted certain healthcare organisations to try to get in at the point where someone is losing their sight and needs help in different ways.
I used Windows for many years as a sighted user. I felt like its options to customise how big things were on the screen was pretty good but I never liked the magnifier. And even to this day it starts up with Windows and I can't figure out how to get rid of it (other than alt+f4 on every boot). On the other hand, my route into the Mac was that it had a wonderful screen, a mouse pointer I could scale with a slider and then a proper dark mode. But it also had a magnifier built in that was much better than Windows in my opinion. Although towards the end I was just swooping in and out of the screen all the time. I never really understood the need for an expensive third party magnifier. But maybe it's one of those things you don't know you need until you try it.
As for that blindness organisation, they did seem to be nice and friendly but ultimately totally useless. They have a newsletter they send round once in a blue moon and that's about it. I should also say I've not been to the hospital for maybe 2 years now but I would bet they would still say the same.
Try this.
Press windows plus escape. That should turn off the magnifier.
Win+Esc
That does close Magnifier as per Alt+F4, but then it comes back from the dead on reboot. Under accessibility settings the option to start Magnifier during and after login are both unticked. I had a look in task manager and it's not listed as a startup item there either. It's not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but it is just a bit stupid.
Then i have no idea.
Sorry about that. You could reinstall windows but that would be a bit over the top.
I feel obliged to say this...
....but I don't get this problem on the Mac.
(Stands well back and covers ears...)
It's a diffirent system.
Of course you don't have this issue, it's a completely different system with issues of its own.
Re: Startup Apps
In Windows there can be a number of reasons an app launches at startup.
1. It could be in your Registry. Usual culprit is something like, "HK Current User > Software > Microsoft > Windows > Current Version > Run. Note, I would not recommend messing with the Registry unless you know what you are doing. And also export a backup first. Always.
2. The Task Scheduler. Press Start, type, "Task Scheduler".
3. In Task Manager (Control + Shift + Escape), under the Startup section.
HTH. 🙂
pricing structure
When a company and product are in tight with various schemes like DSA and Access to Work plus are noted as preferred or sole providers of accessibility products to many organizations who care a little more about DDA legal action and a little less about price, then you get high prices for inferior technology. Of course, I'm not necessarily saying this is the case here though!!!