stab Help

21. Platform guides

Accessibility

Stab draws its own window: the title bar, the menus, the home, the panes and their notes. A screen reader can’t see what’s drawn, so Stab describes it as well: every button, menu, card and pane by its name and what it does. This page says what a screen reader reads today, how to move through Stab from the keyboard, and what isn’t read yet.

Screen readers and the keyboard

Available on every platform.

What is read

  • The title bar: Home, each menu and its items with their shortcuts, the workspace, the window’s buttons (Minimize, Maximize, Close).
  • Each pane’s bar: what the pane shows, its link colour, Help on the pane, Pane Settings, Split Right, Split Below, Maximize Pane and Close Pane. Each button can be pressed from the screen reader.
  • The home: Bring a Song In’s ways, each shelf’s + card (“New song in Stab Cloud”), Play Together, Stab Cloud, each song with when it was changed, and the demos.
  • Cards over the window: the offer to unlock Stab (its comparison read row by row), the licence, signing in to Stab Cloud with its email field and its two checkboxes.
  • A pane’s content, in one line: its kind, then where the caret is (the track, the bar, the beat, the string) and what’s selected (“2 notes selected: fret 5 on string 2, fret 7 on string 3”). In the Editor, the note on the caret and how many notes its bar holds on that track (“On the caret: fret 7, B4. 3 notes in this bar.”). While the song plays, the bar playing. When the caret moves, the new line is said.
  • The Mixer: each strip’s controls, named by the strip: its sound (“Guitar Sound”), a drum kit’s pieces, each send (“Guitar Send to Reverb”), its pan (“20 % left”), its volume (“−6.0 dB”), Mute and Solo. The master’s volume too.
  • The Sound pane: the track’s sound and each device in the rack by its name, its power, More Settings, and each of its knobs, sliders, switches and choices (“Amp Gain”, “Reverb Mix”), with its value; + Add Device between devices; Presets. In Patch mode, the selected device’s controls.
  • The Session pane: Host This Song and Join a Session…, Copy Link and Show Large, the watch link’s button, each person’s Follow (on or off) and role, Shared Playback and Let Guests Keep a Copy (on or off), Look Here, and End Session or Leave. Each can be pressed from the screen reader.
  • The Playlist pane: New Playlist and Speed Steps when there’s no playlist yet; then the playlist’s name (press it to rename the playlist), Repeat and the switch, each saying whether it’s on, and + Add Step. Each can be pressed from the screen reader. The steps themselves aren’t read one by one.
  • The Chart’s Chords card: each key as it reads aloud, the key’s chords with their numerals (“D, IV”), the roots, the families and the refinements (the root, the family and a refinement in force on), Type…, Hear, and the moves by their names (Back, Next, Next Bar, Bass, Repeat, No Chord, Clear).
  • Fields over the song: a field that opens to type a tempo, a name, a marker or the text over a note says what it is (“Tempo (BPM)”, “Marker Name”).

Adjusting a fader or a knob

A fader, a pan, a send and a device’s knob or slider are adjustable: step them up or down with the screen reader’s own gesture or keys, and the new value is said. A volume or a send moves a decibel a step, a pan 10 %, a knob a fiftieth of its travel, a choice to the next. Each step is one change, undone with Undo. Mute, Solo, a switch and a device’s power are toggles.

With Narrator or NVDA, a fader is a slider: the arrow keys step it while it has the screen reader’s focus, and its value can be typed where the screen reader offers it.

In the browser, a fader or a knob is a slider: with it focused, the arrow keys step it and Page Up and Page Down move it five steps.

With VoiceOver, VO+Up Arrow and VO+Down Arrow step a fader or a knob; VO+Space presses a button.

Not read yet

The notes themselves are not separate items: a screen reader hears a pane as its one line, with the caret’s note and its bar, not each note, chord or symbol of the score. Moving through the music note by note is the next step. In the Sound pane, a plugin’s own knobs are read but set from its editor; the patch canvas’s cards and wires, every channel’s racks at once and the Synth and Amp editors are not read yet.

The keyboard

Press F6 to move from the song into Stab’s own buttons, starting with the title bar; a ring shows where you are. Tab and Shift+Tab (or the arrow keys) move on, through the title bar and each pane’s bar; Enter or Space presses; Escape goes back to the song. Shift+F6 starts from the end. In a card, F6 then Tab reaches its buttons and checkboxes.

F10 or Alt opens the menu bar, as always: the arrow keys walk the menus, Enter chooses.

In a browser, Tab also leaves the song for Stab’s buttons: it goes to the title bar, Home first, then the menus and on, in the same order; Shift+Tab from Home, or Escape, brings you back to the song. In Edge and Chrome on Windows, the browser keeps F6 for its address bar and F10 and Alt for its own menu, so Tab is the way into Stab’s menus there.

The menus, toolbars and settings are the system’s own, and read as any app’s. A pane is one item, named by what it shows, its value where the caret is and what’s selected; the Mixer, the Sound pane and the Instrument also give their controls one by one.

Larger text

Stab’s own text in the panes and the tools tray keeps its size here, whatever the system’s text size.

Each platform

Windows: Narrator, NVDA and JAWS read Stab’s window through UI Automation. Turn Narrator on with Ctrl+Windows+Enter.

The web: a screen reader in the browser reads the editor’s buttons, menus and cards, and each pane’s line; the pages around the editor (the home, signing in, the sheets) are the browser’s own. In the Assistant pane, your words and its answers are read in order, its suggestions, the field and Send are buttons, and a new answer is said once it’s finished.

On a phone, the page’s bar of views is a row of buttons (the one in front is pressed), the view in front is one item with its line (said again as the caret moves or the song plays, at most twice a second), and the Transport strip under it is read and pressed button by button: Play and Stop, Loop and the count-in with their state or value, and where the song is and its tempo. The tools tray is read too: each tool’s tab (the one in front is selected), the step chip, the tray’s ⋯ menu, and the Keypad’s keys by what they do (“Fret 5”). On a tablet you work by touch, the tools tray is read the same way. The Assistant’s thread is read in order, your words and each answer as plain text (a new answer is said when it is finished), then the field, Send and ‹ Song; a proposal’s Play, Accept and Reject are buttons. The note card, Bend, Modifier, Chord and Graces tools are read the same way, in the order the card draws them: the fret or pitch with Lower Pitch and Raise Pitch, the lengths, the marks (each says whether it is on), a bend’s presets, a chord diagram’s strings (the mark above the nut, then each fret), each grace note. A pinned view’s sheet over the song is read before the song. Explore by touch, then double-tap to press. Dragging a point on a bend or modifier curve, or adding a grace, is not available with a screen reader yet: choose a preset instead.

The Mac and the iPad: VoiceOver reads the system’s menus, toolbars and settings, each pane as one item with its line, and the Mixer’s, the Sound pane’s, the Instrument’s and the Session pane’s controls one by one. On the iPad, so are the Playlist pane’s. On the Mac, so are the Transport’s buttons (Play, Loop, Count-In…), and a switch such as Let Ring or Loop says whether it’s on.