Just so I'm looking in the right place, I tried the general settings category first. When I press F1, it opens the local copy of the User Guide to userGuide.html#GeneralSettings - which starts:

"12.1.1. General (NVDA+control+g)

The General category of the NVDA Settings dialog sets NVDA's overall behaviour such as interface language and whether or not it should check for updates. This category contains the following options: "

Is that what you mean? And in that case, is it that the description here isn't enough? My initially reading was that it wasn't there at all?

@Qchristensen I was talking about the introductory text of the settings dialogs themselves. I apologize that this was not clear.
I have updated the description with a sample STR, and a speech viewer paste of what happens.

Ok, I'm with you now. So similar to how when you go into the Vision category, it has "Configure visual aids" and then further broken up into groups: Visual highlight, and screen curtain.

Have you got an idea of what you might have for each? I just looked at "General" and couldn't think how to further compartmentalise it?

Ok, I'm with you now. So similar to how when you go into the Vision category, it has "Configure visual aids" and then further broken up into groups: Visual highlight, and screen curtain.

Have you got an idea of what you might have for each? I just looked at "General" and couldn't think how to further compartmentalise it?

The request of @XLTechie is not to further compartmentalise the settings panels. He just requests that the panel have an introductory description text. In his example:

• The object presentation panel HAS such description text. It reads "Configure how much information NVDA will present about controls. These options apply to focus reporting and NVDA object navigation, but not when reading text content e.g. web content with browse mode."
• The Input Composition panel HAS NOT such description text.

Note: if present, the description text of the panel lays visually at the top of it, above the first option.

Ah thanks Cyrille, sorry I looked at the Vision page (the first one NOT on the list above), and got distracted by the categories. That makes sense. I was originally thinking the description could come from the description in the user guide (that you get when you press F1), though looking at the Object Presentation page, the text is actually different.

So it's possibly worth considering whether there an argument for aligning the description in the user guide with the description on the settings screen.

The main argument for is that it would be one less string to translate, and the descriptions would be consistent.
The main argument against is likely that you'd want the description in the dialog box to be brief whereas the user guide has more room to expand as needed.

Hi Quentin

IMO, we should not force alignment between the user guide description and the setting panel description in the UI. Looking at the introductions of each settings category in the user guide, I feel that it reads well and that there is a higher amount of information that what would fit in a settings panel. On the contrary, in a settings panel, the description should remain brief as you wrote, since it is read before the first option when you tab to it from the category list.

@Qchristensen, I would agree with @CyrilleB79. We shouldn't just take what's in the user guide and duplicate it here, but should come up with something more brief. The context help is there for more information, I think we just need something basically informative as the example I presented contains.

I will have to take some time and try some writing if you want me to come up with suggestions, but I haven't had a chance yet.
Plus, I didn't want to do that until I was sure NV Access was on board with these changes.

I'm happy with the idea, and I agree that the wording should be brief on the dialog, but can be expanded in the User Guide - I felt it was worth considering the question though.