How to Make Visual Studio Talk Correctly

At last, after days, weeks and months of pain and punishment inflected by a rude and unfriendly Visual Studio IDE, after searching for a solution to the time-wasting effect of VS2008 not talking, finally today a major break-through is made! Microsoft’s Visual Studio can actually be made to talk nicely.

Introducing VB.net 2008 Beginners Intro Using Windoweyes
Thanks to the guys at GW Micro and an anonymous user of Window-Eyes, the Visual Studio GUI could at last be customized to work with a text-to-speech or screen reader. The VB.net 2008 Beginners Intro Using Windoweyes article is written for Visual Basic .net 2008 and goes far beyond just customization for speech access. Rather the guide is a handy quick-start for writing applications in VB.net using Visual Studio, covering the short-cuts and sample code for navigating the GUI builder and adding functionality to your program. The beauty is that once everything is set up and one goes through the process of writing a first Visual Basic application, then the next time is a breeze in whatever language, be it VB.net, C#, C++ or any of the others supported in Visual Studio 2008. Note too that the Visual Studio 2008 environment settings can be saved and exported for use on other computers, and, also, you will find they apply when upgrading to Microsoft Visual Studio 2010.

Visual Studio Settings and Hot Key Cheat Sheet

Here is a skinny on configuring settings in Visual Studio for accessibility

Steps for VS IDE Customization

Step01 The Options Window
If the Environment Branch is closed expand it by right cursoring on it and cursor down to the General Tab Group. Tab around this group to where you hear the Show All Settings Check box and check it if not checked.
Close any open branches; you’ll find…
Environment Closed one of 5
Projects And Solutions Closed 2 of 5
Text Editor closed 3 of 5
DataBase Tools closed 4 of 5
Windows FormsDesigner closed 5 of 5.
These are the major Branches in the Tree. We will expand a few of them one at a time and adjust some of the default settings. You can set the ones you want based on these settings, Jamal’s documentation for using the IDE with JAWS or your personal preferences.

Step02 The Environment Branch
In the Options Window TreeView,
Right cursor on the Environment branch to expand it.
Cursor down to the General tab Group.
Find “Show All Settings” checkbox and check it if not checked.
Continue tabbing in the General Tab and set the following options…
Set Window Layout to Tabbed Document by selecting this Radio Button.
Leave the items shown to the defaults or bump them to some number like 10 or 20.
The Show Status Bar option is checked.
Close button affects Active Tool Window Only is checked.
AutoHide Button Affects Active Tool Window only is unchecked.
Animate Environment Tools is UnChecked.
Leave the RestoreFileAssociations Button alone.

Navigate to the Help SubMenu and expand it.
In the General Tab Group…
Show Help Using is set to “External Help Viewer”
Show Results Per Page 20
Show Topic Abstracts is checked.
Reuse Topic Window is Unchecked.
Highlight Search Terms is checked.
Include Partial Matches in Local SearchResults is checked.
Online Topic Language, English.
Online Tab Group…
When Loading Help Try Local First Then Online Radio Button is selected.
Under Search These Providers all 4 are checked.
There are 2 buttons that just say button; ignore them.

In the Options ListView…
Unchecked 4 guys from Roll… that is for ASP stuff.
Unchecked Asp Alliance again that is for ASP which is websites.
Leave C# Corner checked, assuming you want to write in C#.
Unchecked Developer Fusion in the UK.
Leave everything else checked.
That is the end of the Environment Branch Settings.

Step03 The Projects And Solutions Branch
Expand the Projects And Solutions Branch by right cursoring it.
In the General Tab Group…
Projects Location, leave as is.
User Project Templates Location, leave as is.
User Item Templates, leave as is.
Always Show Error List if Project builds with errors is checked.
Track active item in Solution Explorer is checked.
Show Advanced Build Configurations is Unchecked.
Always show Solution is unchecked.
Save New Projects when created is Unchecked.
Warn User when Project Location Is not trusted is checked
Show Output Window when build starts is unchecked.
Prompt for symbolic renaming when renaming files is Unchecked.

In the Build and Run tab group…
Before Building Combo Box is set to Save All Changes.
Maximum Number Of Parallel Projects is set to 2.
Only Build Project and Dependencies on Run is Unchecked.
On Run, When Projects Are Out Of Date Combo Box is set to “Always Build”.
On Run, When Build Or Deployment Errors Occur Combo Box is set to Prompt To Launch.
For New Solutions Use the Currently Selected Project for Startup is unchecked.
MsBuildVerbosity Combo Box is set to Minimal.

Projects And Solutions Branch >> VB Defaults Tab Group.
Option Explicit is on in the combo box.
Option Strict is off in that Combo Box.
Option Compare is set to Binary in that Combo Box.
Option Infer is set to on in that Combo Box.
Go through C# and C(++, etc. as desired for your desired programming language.

Step04 The Text Editor Branch
Expand the Text Editor Branch.
In the General Tab Group set…
Go To Selection Anchor After Escape is unchecked.
Drag And Drop Editing is checked.
Include Insertion PointMovements in Undo List is unchecked.
Automatic Delimiter Highlighting is checked.
Track Changes is Unchecked.
AutoDetect UTF 8 coding without signature is checked.
Display Selection margin is checked.
Display Indicator Margin is checked.
Display Vertical and horizontal check boxes are unchecked.

In the AllLanguages tab (a sub branch)
In the General Tab…
AutoListMembers is unchecked.
Parameter Information is unchecked.
Enable Virtual Space is unchecked.
Word Wrap is Checked
Show Visual Gliffs for Word Wrap is unchecked.
Apply cut or copy to blank lines when there is no selection is checked.
Line Numbers is partially checked.
Enable single click navigation is partially checked.
Navigation Bar is unchecked

The Tabs Tab Group …
Indenting Radio Button is set to None.
Tab size and indent size Text Boxes are left empty.
Tab, insert spaces radio is unselected and keep tabs radio is selected.

The last section is for the specific settings for Visual Basic, C# & C++. They are all similar so only Visual Basic is shown here.
navigate in the Options Window to the Text Editor Branch and down to the
Basic SubBranch and expand it.
These settings are for the VB Text Editor. Any settings you change here will be reflected in the All Languages Tab Groups but changing something in the All Languages Tab Group will change these settings as well.
In the General Tab Group…
Autolist Members and Parameters are unchecked.
WordWrap is checked.
Show Gliffs is unchecked.
Apply cut or copy to blank lines is checked.
Line Numbers is checked.
Single Click Navigation is checked.

navigate back to the Options Window, to the Text Editor Branch and down to the
Basic Language SubBranch >> Tabs Tab Group.
Indenting is set to none,Tab size and indent size are set to 1.
The VB Specific tab group…
Automatic Insertion of End Constructs is checked.
Pretty Listing is unchecked.
Note- The above features can make your code look nice and dynamically add end constructs to statements but the pretty listing makes the code hard to work with in Windoweyes.
Enable Outlining Mode is checked.
Automatic Insertion interface and must override members is checked.
Show Procedure Line Seperators is unchecked.
Enable Error Correction Suggestions is Unchecked.
Note- this is key to avoid having the nasty Error Window automatically popping up.

Hot Keys

The handy hot keys to remember are:
Hit the Alt key to open the Menu Bar.
Use arrows and tab to navigate through menus and properties
hit Shift-F1 when you want help or a description of something while working in the IDE…
Use Alt+w, l to close all open windows.
hit Alt+w then T to set the active window to be a “Tabbed Document”.
Use ctrl+f4to close a Tabbed Document Window
Hit Ctrl+Alt+L to open Solution Explorer.
Hit F4 to open the Properties Window in The Forms Designer.
Expand a Branch by pressing the right cursor.
Collapse a branch with the left arrow cursor.
Use ctrl+f5 to run the project.
Bar.
Use F5 to build the solution.
Use intellisense by hitting Ctrl+SpaceBar, Ctrl+Shift+SpaceBar or Ctrl+J.

Recall that the window title can be read with (ctrl+shift+t).. in Windoweyes and (insert+t) in JAWS. The window summary is (ctrl+shift+s).