The GNOME Project is about to release the first Beta build of the upcoming GNOME 3.20 desktop environment to public testers, so we've spotted some important updates for this cycle.
Orca 3.20 will be a great release for GNOME 3.20 this Spring, and the first Beta build proves just that. Orca remains the number one screen reader and magnifier tool for numerous GNU/Linux distributions, which include the open-source software by default for users with disabilities.
Among the new features implemented in the Orca 3.20 Beta 1 release, we can mention beeps for progress bars, core support for the sound icons, speak support for the visited state of links, as well as for text indentation during selection, and the addition of a setting for speaking the misspelled indicator.
Orca will now present various functions like selection restoration, selection deletion, copy, paste, redo, undo, and cut. Moreover, there's an option to present the summary, including landmarks, of a web page during its loading process, and the 'Flat Review SayAll' binding has been made independent of the focus-tracking SayAll binding.
Orca 3.20 to be included by default in GNOME 3.20
The first Beta release of Orca 3.20 also brings improvements to the presentation of selected Gecko content, support for the Calc component of the recently-released LibreOffice 5.1 office suite, better Eclipse IDE support, as well as several other minor enhancements that promise to make a difference.
Last but not least, there are, of course, new and updated translations, for which the project's developers wish to send their thanks to all translators who collaborated and translated Orca in Czech, German, Latvian, Turkish, Spanish, Occitan, Polish, Esperanto, Swedish, Lithuanian, and many other languages.
Early adopters and Beta testers can download the Orca 3.20 Beta 1 (technical version number is 3.19.90) sources right now via our website and take it for a test drive to experience all the goodies mentioned above. The first Beta release of the GNOME 3.20 desktop environment will launch soon and will include Orca 3.20 Beta 1.
