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Accessibility

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Orfeo can be used with the keyboard alone, doesn’t rely on colour alone to show which hand plays a note, and lets you enlarge or simplify what is on screen. This page gathers those options in one place.

Using Orfeo without a mouse

  • Press Tab and Shift+Tab to move between controls. The focused control gets an orange outline, which appears only when you use the keyboard, not when you click.
  • Press Enter or Space to activate a button, or to play a focused key on the virtual keyboard.
  • On mixer faders and knobs, use the arrow keys to adjust, Shift + arrows for bigger steps, and Home / End for the minimum and maximum.
  • While a window such as the mixer, an Explorer or File Info is open, Tab stays inside it. Esc closes it.

All shortcuts are listed in Keyboard Shortcuts.

Hand cues for colour-blind players

Orfeo colours the left hand blue and the right hand pink. Two extra cues work without colour:

  • Note edges: hand-coloured falling notes carry a thin light stripe, on the left edge for the left hand and on the right edge for the right hand. Always on.
  • Hand tags: small L and R badges on the lit keys. Turn them on in Settings → Practice → Hand tags.

How hands are assigned is explained in Left and right hands.

Making things easier to read

If you want

Try

Bigger falling notes

Settings → Piano Roll → Zoom

Wider keys

A smaller key range: 61 keys gives the widest keys, 88 the narrowest

Note names in your own system

Settings → Chords & Notation → Display system

Chord symbols instead of abbreviations

Chord naming

Fewer things on screen

 Presentation Mode (F11) or Focus Mode

Reducing motion

  • When Settings → Accessibility → Visual effects → Animation effects is off in Windows, Orfeo stops its blinking indicators and scrolling text.
  • The note-strike animations are controlled separately. Turn them off in Settings → Piano Roll → Visual Effects.
  • Turn off Track color VU meters if the pulsing track lines distract you.

 Tip

Found something that is hard to use with your setup? Please get in touch. Accessibility reports are welcome.