[Trainer-Talk] ZoomText 2022, Windows 11, and high contrast

[Andrews, David B (DEED)]

It might be better to search all lists instead of just trainer-talk. No guarantees, but larger universe.

Dave



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From: Trainer-Talk <trainer-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Brian Vogel via Trainer-Talk
Sent: Sunday, April 24, 2022 6:11 PM
To: trainer-talk at nfbnet.org
Cc: Brian Vogel <britechguy at gmail.com>
Subject: [Trainer-Talk] ZoomText 2022, Windows 11, and high contrast

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Well, I've tried my search of the archive and turned up nothing that's useful in what was returned.  I used google and this operator, *site:nfbnet.org/pipermail/trainer-talk_nfbnet.org/
<https://gcc02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnfbnet.org%2Fpipermail%2Ftrainer-talk_nfbnet.org%2F&data=05%7C01%7Cdavid.b.andrews%40state.mn.us%7C803f62e8066840b2e02108da2647e43b%7Ceb14b04624c445198f26b89c2159828c%7C0%7C0%7C637864387460304581%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=EUf%2FkyHY5qyclBvksfXUrQHmKv%2FEIk%2F2fk7NScp9Rrg%3D&reserved=0>*, along with ZoomText and got fewer than 10 results.

I am working with ZoomText for the first time in over 5 years, and although the user interface is not all that different than I remember it, the system requirements (minimum of 16 GB memory) and how it interacts with Windows 11 and high-contrast themes is quite different.

I am finding myself in a quandary as far as getting things set up to match his visual profile.  He has macular degeneration, and a dark background is needed.  The problems lie in coming up with a combination of accommodations that work.

We were trying to use ZoomText's color inversion feature, which is fine as far as the pure color inversion goes, but it screws up other things like the icon text on the desktop, making the actual lettering black and putting a white-ish foggy halo around it.  This is very hard to read, and since he can read, just wouldn't do.  ZoomText is also, for some reason, cutting off the first letter or two letters at the beginning of any word/phrase it reads as the mouse hovers over it.  I have tried a complete uninstall/reinstall, and that didn't fix it.  Vispero support said to stop using color inversion and, instead, to use one of Microsoft's high contrast themes instead, which I've tried.

When a Microsoft high contrast theme is in use (and the one I chose that "did it best" under Windows 11 was Night Sky) there are other issues, particularly with Gmail's web interface.  When that theme is in use none of the buttons that you should see other than the ones that have text labels appear.  They are there if you mouse-over on them, and the divider bars are still visible, but all the button icons are rendered black, which makes that theme utterly useless.  And I will note that I am not using any ZoomText color enhancements at the same time, so it is an issue with the high contrast theme.

So then I created the rough equivalent of the High Contrast theme from a regular theme, using a black desktop background.  That works beautifully until you do something like creating a new email message, because the compose window opens in classic white background with black lettering, which is very difficult for this client to use.  Yes, we can use ZoomText color inversion, and that works in the compose window itself, but while that's good the rest of the dark background elsewhere inverts to bright white, so we always have somewhere on the screen that is not as we want it to be and that makes it hard on his eyes.

If anyone knows of "the magic combination" of settings in ZoomText and Windows 11, or if there exists that magic combination in only one of those, that allows us to consistently have a dark background and light lettering, where certain windows don't just come up as they typically would with white background and black lettering, I'd love to hear it.

Brian
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