How you control Dial

You do not have to set anything up

Dial works out of the box, whatever your keyboard has. There is no key to identify and nothing to detect. If you have a volume dial, turn it. If you don't, Dial mode puts everything on the arrow keys.

This page explains what Dial puts where, and the one setting that can change it.

What the dial does

Dial never claims your dial on its own, only while you hold a modifier key. So your volume dial goes on turning the volume up and down exactly as it did.

• Hold Shift and turn to move through the items in a category
• Hold the NVDA key and turn to move through your categories
• Hold Control and turn to move through your clipboard history

Then press the dial, still holding the same modifier, to act on what you have landed on. Shift and press launches it. The NVDA key and press tells you which category you are in. Control and press copies that clipboard entry.

The press works on Mute and on Play or Pause

Most clickable dials send the Mute key when you press them. Some send Play or Pause instead. Dial listens for both, so it does not matter which one your hardware sends and you are never asked.

That is also the answer if your dial only turns and does not press at all. Use the Mute or Play/Pause key next to it, which on most keyboards with a rotate-only dial is right beside the dial or in the media cluster above it. Hold Shift, turn to the item you want, then press that key. It does exactly what pressing the dial would have done.

Pressing any of those keys on its own is left alone, so Mute still mutes and Play/Pause still plays. Dial only takes them while you are holding Shift, the NVDA key or Control.

If you have no dial at all

Press NVDA + Applications to turn on Dial mode, which puts all of the above on the arrow keys. Up and down move between categories, items and the clipboard; left and right move through them; Enter is the press and Space is the second press. Press the same keys again, or Escape, to leave.

The one setting

On the Add-on Settings tab of the Dial settings, the first control is How do you want to control Dial?. It has three answers, and all three leave you with a working add-on, so you cannot pick wrongly.

The volume dial and the keyboard

The default, and the recommendation. Everything on this page is available. Leave it here unless you have a reason not to.

The volume dial only

The same, except that NVDA + Applications is left free. Choose this if you have a dial, never expect to use Dial mode, and would rather have that key back.

The keyboard only, using Dial mode

Dial touches no volume or media key: not the turn, not the press. Dial mode is the only way in.

Choose this if you would rather Dial left your media keys completely alone, perhaps because you have another program using them, or if you have no dial and want to be sure nothing is intercepted.

Changing it

1. Open the Dial settings panel and go to the Add-on Settings tab
2. The How do you want to control Dial? dropdown is at the top
3. Choose an answer
4. Click OK to save

The change takes effect immediately, with no need to restart NVDA.

Using different keys instead

Every Dial command can be put on any key you like in NVDA's own Input Gestures dialog, under the Dial group. Open the NVDA menu with NVDA + N, then Preferences, then Input Gestures.

That is also how to remove a gesture Dial has taken, and how to give Dial mode a different key if your keyboard has no Applications key.

Modifier keys, and what to expect

Shift, the NVDA key and Control are the three Dial uses, and all three are safe to hold while you turn.

NVDA stops speech every time the Control key goes down, and holding it repeats that many times a second, which used to make announcements inaudible. Dial installs a guard that ignores those repeats while you are using the dial, so a held Control no longer cuts anything off. Pressing Control on its own to silence speech still works exactly as it always did.

If you assign Alt to something yourself and ever hear a menu open instead of your item, that is not the add-on: pressing and releasing Alt on its own, without turning the dial, opens the foreground application's menu, which is what the Alt key does everywhere in Windows.