PoppyDisk User GuideUse PoppyDisk with a keyboard or a screen reader
Every non-pointer path and display accommodation, in one place.
When you finish, you can scan, read a result, inspect, collect, and delete without touching a mouse, and you know which Windows settings PoppyDisk follows.
Every core action has a keyboard path
Focus moves through the Drive Overview, the toolbar, the result, the Details Panel, the Inspector, the Cleanup Basket, and every confirmation with Tab and Shift+Tab. Inside a list, focus roves with the arrow keys, and when a view changes, PoppyDisk puts focus back where it makes sense rather than dropping it.
| Where | Keys |
|---|---|
| Drive Overview | Tab to a Drive's Scan or Rescan button, or to its row to open results. |
| Search box | Type to search; Enter runs it at once; Escape clears it. |
| Details Panel | Up and Down move between rows, Home and End jump to the ends. Enter Drills into a folder or opens a file's Inspector. Right also Drills into a folder, or expands Smaller Items; Left collapses it. |
| Tree view | The same, plus Right and Left to expand and collapse a folder in place, and Backspace to Drill back out. See Switch to Tree view. |
| Any result | Backspace or Alt+Left returns to the folder you came from. I opens the Inspector on the selected item; Escape closes it. |
| Cleanup Basket | Ctrl+B adds the selected item. The basket, its rows, and its actions are buttons in the tab order. |
| Details Panel width | Tab to the handle between the map and the panel, then Left and Right to resize, Home and End for the narrowest and widest. |
| Deletion Review | Every state and both confirmations are ordinary controls; the permanent path's checkbox and Cancel countdown are reachable during the countdown. |
The Tree view is the readable result
The Disk Map is drawn on a canvas, so a screen reader hears it as one picture. The Tree view is the same result as a treegrid with a Name, Size on Disk, Share, and Items column for every row, and it is the view to use with a screen reader. Choose Tree at the bottom right of the map area, and PoppyDisk remembers the choice. See Switch to Tree view.
What is announced
Scan progress is announced politely, so it never interrupts what you are doing: Scan queued, Scanning with the counts so far, Scan complete with the totals, The Scan was cancelled, The Scan failed, and, when files change under a result, Files changed on disk. Some sizes need a Rescan. Errors that need attention, such as a refused deletion, are announced as alerts.
Narrator and NVDA were both used in the release acceptance pass, and the repeat of that pass is part of the launch checklist for each new installer.
Windows settings PoppyDisk follows
- Contrast themes. With a Windows contrast theme active, PoppyDisk drops its glass surfaces for solid ones with visible borders and outlines, uses the theme's colours, and opens results in the Tree view by default, because the map's canvas colours cannot be remapped by the theme.
- Reduced motion. With Animation effects off in Windows, PoppyDisk removes its continuous animation and makes every transition near-instant, including the Disk Map's Drill and the window's layout change between the overview and a result.
What to tell us
If a control has no keyboard path or a screen reader announces the wrong thing, write to support@poppydisk.com with the screen, the control, and the assistive technology you use. That is a defect, not an omission you have to work around.