The "Dropbox badge" interferes with using Office 2007 and later documents stored on dropbox

[Qchristensen]

When using the desktop app for Dropbox - see https://www.dropbox.com/ - a recent feature called "Dropbox badge" is designed to allow easy collaboration with other users when working with files stored in your dropbox folder.

What is happening is that when you open a file from your Dropbox folder, Dropbox pops up an invisible window - with a small badge on the right hand side to access dropbox features. The first time you use it, a full pane is displayed. At this point, no keys work to navigate within the document until this pane is dismissed, however the pane cannot be dismissed or interacted with except with the mouse.

If the pane is dismissed by clicking the mouse in the document, it reverts to the small icon. When the pane is visible, even alt+tabbing away from Word and back again does not fix it. When only the badge is visible, pressing alt twice or alt+tab away and back actually does fix the problem at that moment (though it reverts the next time a document is opened).

The current solution for users is to disable the dropbox badge:

1. Press WINDOWS+B to go to the system tray
2. Press RIGHT ARROW to move to the Dropbox icon (it may also be in the System notification overflow).
3. Press ENTER to open the menu.
4. Press UP ARROW to go to Preferences and press ENTER
5. Press TAB 5 times to get to the "Dropbox Badge" grouping / combo box.
6. Press DOWN ARROW to get to "Never show".
7. Press ENTER to close the dropbox preferences.

Having done this, the full pane does not appear for me now, even when I reenable the feature although the problem with initially accessing the document remains. Dropbox advised they have tested with Narrator and found no problem. Having tried it with Narrator now, I can access a document as soon as I open it, however I cannot replicate the instance of opening a document from dropbox and having this new feature screen appear so can't confirm how the feature behaves the very first use again.

[feerrenrut]

Priority 2 to investigate and understand the extent of this issue.

[Adriani90]

@Qchristensen is this still reproducible with the last Dropbox version and NVDA 2019.1 RC1?

[Qchristensen]

This still seems to be reproducible with NVDA 2019.1.1 and dropbox v 72.4.136 in Microsoft Word v16.0.11601.20174 (I don't think the version of Word is so important here, but you never know).

Note that the steps to disable this setting in Dropbox have now changed:

Press WINDOWS+B to go to the system tray
Press RIGHT ARROW to move to the Dropbox icon (it may also be in the System notification overflow).
Press ENTER to open the menu.
Press TAB to "Access and manage your Dropbox Settings" button.
Press ENTER to open the sub-menu
Press UP ARROW to go to Preferences and press ENTER
Press TAB 3 times to get to the "Dropbox Badge" grouping / combo box.
Press ALT+DOWN ARROW to open the combo box.
Press DOWN ARROW twice to get to "Never show" (Note if you don't open the combo box first, you can still change the setting, but it doesn't read, in that case, press TAB to move to the next option and SHIFT+TAB to move back to confirm the current status of the combo box.
Press ENTER to close the dropbox preferences.

[Adriani90]

@Qchristensen has this issue been reported to Dropbox so far?

[Qchristensen]

I must admit, I'm not sure how to reproduce this now. Following the original steps, any action on the Dropbox icon opens a window of recently synced files. You can interact with individual files, and the only other options (in the free version at least) are:
"Your files are up to date" which lets you postpone syncing for a period of time.
"Upgrade" (to move to a paid account).

Does anyone know if there are still options in the Dropbox app and if so how to get to them?

[Adriani90]

@Qchristensen when you press right click on the system tray icon of Dropbox, it seems the window with the dropbox account opens. At the top there are buttons like "search", "notifications" etc. and then a button for "Manage dropbox settings". Pressing that button display a menu where you can find the settings item. From there you can enable or disable the badge.

[Adriani90]

I tested with last Dropbox version and can still reproduce this issue as follows:

1. Open Dropbox settings and enable the badge
2. With NVDA enabled, open a Microsoft Word document in your Dropbox folder
3. Wait until the document opens, and then press arrow keys or tab or something else

Actual: NVDA is silent, the focus is overtaken by an inaccessible QT5 window which is the badge showing action buttons like "view version history, "sent document", "settings", and hide". The only way to work with this dialog is to use object navigation or the mouse. The word document cannot be accessed unless you dismiss that badge window.

Expected: NVDA should recognize that badge dialog and focus it properly, the button controls should be navigable by tab or something similar in order for an user to be able to dismis the dialog or to work with it in some way.

Technical:
It seems this badge is a QT5 dialog with non accessible controls and NVDA cannot handle them at all. The developer info looks as follows:

IO - inputCore.InputManager.executeGesture (23:46:55.347) - winInputHook (22948):
Input: kb(laptop):enter
INFO - braille.BrailleHandler._setDisplay (23:46:56.122) - MainThread (12824):
Loaded braille display driver 'noBraille', current display has 0 cells.
IO - speech.speech.speak (23:46:56.206) - MainThread (12824):
Speaking ['Fenster', CancellableSpeech (still valid)]
IO - speech.speech.speak (23:46:56.264) - MainThread (12824):
Speaking ['Kontodaten.docx  -  Kompatibilitätsmodus - Word', CancellableSpeech (still valid)]
IO - speech.speech.speak (23:46:56.354) - MainThread (12824):
Speaking ['Microsoft Word-Dokument', 'Eingabefeld', 'mehrzeilig', CancellableSpeech (still valid), 'Seite 1', 'Abschnitt 1', 'Kto Girokonto: 931710432']
INFO - braille.BrailleHandler._setDisplay (23:46:56.422) - MainThread (12824):
Loaded braille display driver 'noBraille', current display has 0 cells.
IO - speech.speech.speak (23:46:56.447) - MainThread (12824):
Speaking ['Dropbox', 'Fenster', CancellableSpeech (still valid)]
DEBUGWARNING - IAccessibleHandler.internalWinEventHandler._shouldGetEvents (23:46:56.463) - MainThread (12824):
Foreground took too long to change. Foreground still 264112 (OpusApp). Should be 133408 (Qt5QWindowOwnDCIcon)
IO - inputCore.InputManager.executeGesture (23:46:59.622) - winInputHook (22948):
Input: kb(laptop):downArrow
IO - inputCore.InputManager.executeGesture (23:47:00.813) - winInputHook (22948):
Input: kb(laptop):NVDA+f1
INFO - globalCommands.script_navigatorObject_devInfo (23:47:00.956) - MainThread (12824):
Developer info for navigator object:
name: 'Dropbox'
role: Role.WINDOW
processID: 16896
roleText: None
states: State.FOCUSABLE, State.FOCUSED
isFocusable: True
hasFocus: True
Python object: <NVDAObjects.UIA.UIA object at 0x014E3FF0>
Python class mro: (<class 'NVDAObjects.UIA.UIA'>, <class 'NVDAObjects.window.Window'>, <class 'NVDAObjects.NVDAObject'>, <class 'documentBase.TextContainerObject'>, <class 'baseObject.ScriptableObject'>, <class 'baseObject.AutoPropertyObject'>, <class 'garbageHandler.TrackedObject'>, <class 'object'>)
description: ''
location: RectLTWH(left=1494, top=236, width=392, height=548)
value: ''
TextInfo: <class 'displayModel.DisplayModelTextInfo'>
appModule: AppModule(appModuleHandler, appName='dropbox', processID=16896)
appModule.productName: 'Dropbox'
appModule.productVersion: '172.4.7555'
appModule.helperLocalBindingHandle: c_long(92692480)
windowHandle: 133408
windowClassName: 'Qt5QWindowOwnDCIcon'
windowControlID: 0
windowStyle: -2046820352
extendedWindowStyle: 524424
windowThreadID: 12912
windowText: 'Dropbox'
displayText: ''
UIAElement: <POINTER(IUIAutomationElement) ptr=0xa7b61c8 at 1507350>
UIA automationID: 
UIA frameworkID: Qt
UIA runtimeID: (42, 133408)
UIA providerDescription: [pid:11116,providerId:0x20920 Main:Nested [pid:16896,providerId:0x20920 Main(parent link):Unidentified Provider (unmanaged:qwindows.dll)]; Hwnd(parent link):Microsoft: HWND Proxy (unmanaged:uiautomationcore.dll)]
UIA className: DQHarmonyV1Flyout
UIA patterns available: LegacyIAccessiblePattern, WindowPattern, ValuePattern

Either NVDA could provide a workaround via display Model (cc: @LeonarddeR),
or the community and NV Access could contact Dropbox suggesting to change the badge wrapper to a newer QT version like 6.4 or so. This at least would make it more accessible, probably, still not perfect though.
cc: @michaelDCurran

[Qchristensen]

Unrelated to the issue, but I worked out what is happening with mine. Whenever I open the dropbox window, it opens in the top right of the screen showing ONLY from the list of files down. The other options are all off the top of the screen. That, combined with that tab starts on the first file, and I missed the higher options :) Anyone else looking visually watch out for that - you can move the window to see the other options (alt+space, m, then arrows) but it goes back next time it opens. I suspect it's due to my resolution / DPI.

[Adriani90]

This is not reproducible anymore in Dropbox 227.4.4774, MS Office 365 version 2505 and NVDA 2025.1.2.
Closing as works for me. if you are still having this issue, please comment and we can reopen.