SuperNova Magnifier & Screen Reader 21.03

The update to SuperNova 21.03 includes a host of improvements for browsing web pages, announcing emojis, listening to text with Read From Here and using Microsoft Teams. The update also includes a range of fixes to support the latest updates to Windows applications.

Please note: This page includes fixes and improvements across the SuperNova range. Fixes and improvements relating to speech are not available in SuperNova Magnifier.

Websites accessibility

• Chrome. The previous word is no longer announced when a character is deleted in an edit area in Google Chrome. This issue only occurred when character echo was set to announce characters and words.
• Chrome and Edge. When the Dolphin Cursor is disabled, the speech no longer announces ‘Forms mode’ when the focus moves into an edit area on a web page, and ‘Dolphin Cursor Off’ when moving out of an edit area on a web page.    
• Chrome, Edge and Firefox. If an image on a web page is also a heading, the image alt-text is now announced by the speech as a heading. 
• Chrome, Edge and Firefox. The speech now correctly announces checkboxes which are displayed on the screen but unavailable (e.g. greyed out).
• Edge. The ‘Downloads’ notification is now announced correctly by the speech when a file is being downloaded from a web page in Microsoft Edge.
• Edge. Files and folders in the ‘Open’ dialog in Microsoft Edge are now announced correctly by the speech.  
• Edge and Firefox. The speech now correctly announces the suggestions drop down in edit areas in Mozilla Firefox and the auto-complete drop down in edit areas in Microsoft Edge

Announcing Emojis

• SuperNova now correctly tracks the focus in the Windows Emoji dialog. The emoji dialog can be opened in any application by pressing WINDOWS KEY + FULL STOP.
• The speech now correctly announces emojis in documents, emails, web pages and more. When the focus lands on an emoji, the speech will announce its description.
• The speech no longer announces ‘surrogate’ when an emoji is deleted.

Read From Here

• Fix for reading web pages using Read From Here. When the speech is reading text near to the bottom of the visible screen, the web page is now scrolled so the highlight always remains on the visible screen.
• Buttons on web pages are now announced by the speech during Read from Here.
• Windows is now prevented from going to the lock screen whilst a document or web page is being read using Read from Here.  
• The speech now announces text from the Open University website as expected when performing a Read From Here.

Microsoft Teams

The update to SuperNova 21.03 includes a number of improvements to the experience of using Microsoft Teams with magnification and speech. This includes: 

• Improved navigation of the Teams interface for keyboard users.
• More informative announcements when making and receiving video calls.
• An improved chat experience, where CAPS LOCK + L can now be used to read the last message sent.

Additional fixes and improvements

• FIX: Dolphin Cursor. The speech now correctly announces information about the current character in Microsoft Word or Outlook after pressing NUMPAD 4.
• FIX: General. A fix has been applied to prevent text becoming invisible in certain applications whilst SuperNova is running. This issue was reported when using SuperNova with Sage ERP, Epson Label Editor, and Microsoft Excel.
• FIX: Microsoft Excel 2016 and later. The speech now correctly announces cells containing text when multiple cells have been selected.
• FIX: Microsoft Office 2016 and later. Improvements have been made to how the speech announces items in the ribbon bar in Word, Outlook, Excel and other Microsoft Office applications. These improvements mean the speech now correctly announces the ribbon item in focus without repeating the item or also announcing the group in the ribbon that the item is located.
• FIX: Microsoft Outlook 2016. A fix has been applied for an intermittent issue where pressing SHIFT + TAB was not moving the focus out of the message window in Microsoft Outlook. 
• FIX: Microsoft Outlook 2016 and later. If a menu is opened in Microsoft Outlook whilst a calendar event is open, the focus now remains in the menu so the options can be explored. Previously, the focus was unexpectedly returned to the calendar event.
• FIX: Microsoft Word 2019 and later. Performance improvements have been made to prevent SuperNova from closing unexpectedly when using Microsoft Word. 
• NEW: Multiple Monitors. A sound is now played when the mouse pointer moves from one monitor to another. To toggle this sound ON and OFF, open the ‘Visual’ menu, select ‘Multiple Monitors’, then find the setting for ‘Play sound when mouse enters monitor’.
• FIX: SuperNova Enterprise. A fix has been applied to prevent SuperNova from closing unexpectedly when it is used on a Citrix multi-GPU environment. 
• FIX: Windows 10 Explorer. The focus is now tracked correctly in Windows 10 Explorer.
• FIX: Windows Logon screen. A fix has been applied to prevent speech and braille from being disabled on the Windows logon screen after the device has been in sleep mode. 
• FIX: Windows 11 Explorer. The speech now correctly announces the focus when moving from an application to the Windows desktop.
• FIX: Windows 11 Notepad. The speech now correctly announces the ‘find’ and ‘replace’ edit areas in Notepad.
• FIX: Windows 11 Start Menu. The speech now correctly announces apps which are pinned in the Start Menu in the Turkish language version of Windows.
• FIX: Windows Clipboard. The Windows Clipboard pane, which can be opened using the key press WINDOWS KEY + V, is now tracked correctly by SuperNova.

Important information for people using Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 

Dolphin wants to ensure people who are blind or partially sighted get the most from the latest updates to the Microsoft Windows platform.

To continue delivering accessibility to these latest innovations, SuperNova no longer includes support for devices that run Windows 7 and Windows 8.1. While SuperNova may continue to run on Windows 7 and 8.1 devices, the Dolphin team is not able to fix any issues that occur on these operating systems.

If you currently use SuperNova on a device which runs Windows 8.1 or earlier, please contact our friendly team in the UK for advice on computer packages that will support the latest upgrade to SuperNova 21. If you live outside the UK, please contact one of our trusted local Dolphin Dealers for further advice.