Hi all,
Whenever I activate Windows Magnifier it seems to interfere with NVDA's audio ducking feature.
For example when I have NVDA set to always duck audio, when I activated Windows Magnifier by pressing the windows+= hotkey NVDA no longer ducks audio as expected.
Likewise, sometimes NVDA would suddenly duck my audio when I activated Windows Magnifier.
Anyone here experiencing this weird behavior? If so is there a way to fix this?
For your information I'm running NVDA 2024.4.2, on Windows 11 24H2 Single Language and I have the Windows Magnifier NVDA addon installed (I tried with it disabled and still same result so I don't think it's an addon issue).
By Nut, 23 February, 2025
Forum
Windows
Comments
Sounds like a hotkey issue
Do you, by chance, have a hotkey for the magnifier, and if so, is it the same as NVDA's Audio Ducking function?
Also, this add-on might give you better Magnifier functionality while using NVDA.
HTH. 🙂
Hotkey and addon
By default, the hotkey for Magnifier is windows+=, which is different from NVDA's audio ducking hotkey (NVDA+shift+d).
About the addon you referenced, it is the one that I'm already using...
Check Input Gestures add-on
The link below may also help you. It is called Check Gestures or Check Input Gestures. Its a simple add-on that will show you if you have any hotkey conflicts and allow you to quickly sort them out.
https://github.com/grisov/checkGestures
HTH.
Input gestures
Hi,
So I installed the addon you suggested and from what I can see the audio ducking gesture is not listed anywhere, either in the list of duplicate gestures or the list of gestures without description.
Odd
While I am glad that you did not have any conflicting hotkeys with regards to Windows magnifier and audio ducking, I am a bit stumped as to what is causing this issue.
Would you be willing to try an experiment for me? Would you be willing to remap a different hotkey to Windows magnifier, I believe you said it was Windows plus equals? Maybe change that, and delete the old hotkey, just to see how things go?
It's just a thought. :-)
If you can, try on another…
If you can, try on another PC, or at least a new installation of NVDA? I’ll try it myself later today but I don’t use Magnifier so I have no idea what to look for
Alternatively
You could try running NVDA without add-ons, press NVDA plus Q, then choose the restart without add-ons option.
HTH.
I think I found the cause
So I tried restarting NVDA with addons disabled and audio ducking and Magnifier works properly.
After going through and disabling/enabling each of my addons manually, I think I found the cause. It's the IBMTTS addon, which is the addon for the Eloquence TTS.
Furthermore, it seems that it's only the Eloquence synth (or rather the one from IBMTTS addon) that's been causing it. I tried another version of Eloquence and now things seem to work normally.
Weird
Weird, but I am glad you got it sorted out. :-)
Eloquence
Had NVDA long time ago and purchase Eloquence but lost it when I updated windows. It remove it. It happen 2 times after the second time, it just gave me a headache. Using jaws 25. Is Eloquence free now with NVDA? Do you need to pay for the voices such as vocalize voices?
Vocalizer
For Vocalizer, yes you do need to pay, that is, if you want to obtain it legally. But for Eloquence I don't really know, Codefactory discontinued the Vocalizer and Eloquence combo addon some time back.
For me the codefactory addon…
For me the codefactory addon I paid back then still work by overiding the compatibility checkbox.
Eloquence
A bit of googling uncovered a sapi5 version of Eloquence, which is still available but I don't like it because of the unusually long pauses compared to the Eloquence I used with the IBMTTS addon.
At least it's only an issue with this particular synth, so I could technically switch to another synth temporarily (I do have a separate profile set up for Vocalizer with a hotkey defined in input gestures).
@Holger
You need to pay for the software that uses those voices, though they are no longer called Vocalizer — and instead are called Tiflotecnia voices. The voices themselves are free to use once you have paid for the license, which (I think) is about $97 USD, give or take.
You can also purchase a license from Acapella and I want to say those voices are roughly the same in pricing.
HTH.