David,
Jaws will provide all the verbiage in the ribbons. However, because a
surprising number of people complain about their computers speaking too much
you will not get all the information in the ribbons unless you have your
Jaws settings fixed to tell you absolutely every little thig. I run into
this all the time because I keep my Jaws set on absolute beginner with every
tool tip and every little bit of feedback I can turned on. I don't know if
it is a coping thing or if I am still adjusting to my new blindness.
However, I will very often give instructions to someone for a fix and when
they go into the Jaws settings the setting is nowhere to be found. Recently
I discovered that is because often if Jaws is set for less verbiage certain
settings will not be available and will not even show up. It works that way
in the ribbons as well. For example I might see all these shortcuts in Word
or Excel and another Jaws user might sit there for an hour looking for the
same shortcuts. They still exist but jaws isn't telling them they are there.
And like you I fail to see the logic in all these control 1, control 2 and
so on when alt f and alt o and alt v and so on did the trick for so many
years.
You should see what Windows 10 did to Chicken Nugget. That application got
fried unless you have long fingers like I do. I have no problem hitting
control + Alt + windows + shift + T but how many others can do that, laughs!
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-philly-comp-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-philly-comp-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of David Goldfield
Sent: Friday, November 27, 2015 12:46 PM
To: blind-philly-comp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-philly-comp] Re: Update on My Computer/Good News
Merv,
From a visual perspective I understand the benefit of the ribbons. NVDA
reads them with about the same verbeage as does JAWS, except that NVDA
automatically reads the help tip associated with each item as you tab to it.
I have never found a way to get JAWS to read this information. It used to
read them if you press the insert-f1 hotkey but this seems to no longer
work. If I'm wrong and if any JAWS users are having different experiences,
please let me know.
You can also press ctrl-right and ctrl-left arrow to quickly jump from one
group of items to the next within a tab; this really makes navigation
speedier in Word, where each tab contains a ton of items. My issue with the
ribbon is that, in many programs that now use it, Microsoft did not keep the
same shortcut keys. Microsoft Word 2007 and later does allow people to use
their muscle memory to invoke commands from the old pull-down menu hotkeys
but they did not maintain this sort of backward compatibility in other
areas. An example of this was that I was in File Explorer in Windows 10 and
wanted to create a folder on my external hard drive. Out of habit I pressed
alt-F, followed by W which used to be the sequence of keys to invoke this
command. Nope, no longer if you use Windows 10, as the new folder option is
now on the home tab of the ribbon and not in the file menu and alt-F, W no
longer works. As a shortcut I found out that you can also press ctrl-2 to
create a new folder. While it's nice that we now have a quick accelerator
hotkey to do this ctrl-2 is not exactly the key I would have chosen for this
purpose. How about ... oh, I don't know ... ctrl-N for new? Anyway, it's all
good as they say. I've accepted that Microsoft is obsessed with the ribbon
and wants to ribbonize every part of the user interface and sometimes, when
you're dealing with something that big with this type of obsession it's best
to just try and roll with what they give you. So, from now on ctrl-2 is what
I'll press to create a new folder, until I go back to work on the Windows 7
machines. <grin>
David Goldfield
Assistive Technology Specialist
Feel free to visit my Web site
WWW.DavidGoldfield.Info
On 11/26/2015 10:14 PM, Merv Keck wrote:
Hi,and it will bring me back down to the message and my ribbon navigation is
The ribbons are pretty straightforward depending on the screen reader
you are using. I have not yet learned NVDA so I can't comment on that
or Window Eyes, however, if you are using Jaws I can tell you the
ribbon is very simple if you don't bother with that virtual ribbon
setting in Jaws and just use your navigation keys on your keyboard for
everything. For example while typing this email in Outlook 2016 if I
tap the Alt key I will immediately go to the upper ribbon. That gives
me the option of Message, Insert, Options, Format Text, or Review
tabs. I just use my left and right arrow keys to navigate to the
desired tab for example Options tab. Once I navigate to that tab I tab
to the options under the Options tab which sounds clumsy saying it
that way I know but I tab or shift + tab and I am navigating through
my choices in the lower ribbon. For example in this message Themes,
colors, fonts, effects, and so on. Jaws usually tells me if there is a
sub-menu and more choices available in that menu and I can hit space
once I see a choice I wish to make. For example in this message if I
tab a few times past the group box for BCC in the lower ribbon I see a
check box for request read receipt. I would never use that on a list,
however, the option is right there, smile! I can just hit the space bar
Hope that helped.confound me.
Merv
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-philly-comp-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-philly-comp-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of martin
nelson
Sent: Thursday, November 26, 2015 8:03 PM
To: blind-philly-comp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-philly-comp] Re: Update on My Computer/Good News
Hi, David: as you know I have been using windows 10 for some time. One
area that I haven't delved into is that of the sound notifications
that you mentioned. Also, a problem I am having is getting my
documents and downloads to read in a list order. The ribbons continue to
A part from that I also find it very stable and user friendly.NVDA.
On 11/26/2015 3:24 PM, David Goldfield wrote:
Merv (and anybody else who is interested), Thanks for your thoughts
and experiences regarding Windows 10. After using it for just a few
days I'll provide my own feedback to you to see if it meshes at all
with your own experiences and opinions.
You mentioned your dislike of the new system sounds. For me, I think
they sound quite pleasant except that many of them are so similar
that, when I hear a sound, I can't immediately tell whether it means
I have a notification, new mail or a prompt from the user account
control. It's for that reason that I will soon go into sound settings
and will also begin changing a few of them. I really want the UAC
alert to sound more like the UAC alerts I'm used to with Windows 7.
Next, the startup time is amazingly fast. I knew this was promised
but I didn't expect to see this on this older system. With Windows 7,
it took about 50 to 60 seconds before I heard my screen reader begin
talking at the logon screen. The same system with Windows 10 takes 25
seconds or less.
I find it to be incredibly stable, as much as, perhaps more so than
Windows 7 and Win7 was stable for me. I know I haven't even used it
for a week but I don't think I needed to restart the system due to
flaky or otherwise erratic behavior.
I love the new Settings app. To provide a bit of context for JAWS
users, it is similar to the Settings Center found in newer versions
of JAWS. The Settings app has not yet replaced the control panel and
I am assuming that this is a long-term goal for Microsoft for this to
happen. I like the layout.
On an early demo of the Win10 start menu, pressing the Windows key
said something like "search box, edit", almost like Windows 7. On my
machine, it says "cortana window, search box edit."
I have not yet used Cortana but am planning to order a headset mic
for this purpose.
I was honestly flabbergasted that common subfolders in the user
folder, such as documents, music and pictures did not seem to be
present, by default, in the start menu. Yes, File Explorer is there
and I was eventually able to get to the folders I wanted to add via
one of the items in the Settings app but I really don't think this
should have been necessary.
Also, it seems to be much harder to take something in the start menu
and use the right-click menu to send that item to the desktop as I so
easily did with earlier versions of Windows. As an example, I'd like
to be able to use the context menu for "documents" and choose "Send
To" and copy that folder to the desktop. There are ways to do this
but it seems difficult, even impossible, from the first screen of the
start menu. If I'm missing something, would someone please fill in
the missing pieces for me?
While I don't recommend this for new or casual users, I love the fact
that Microsoft makes it very easy for users to be a part of the
insider program to receive early updates, either slowly or more
frequently via the "fast ring."
Again, I overall am really liking Windows 10. Between the new OS, the
8 GB of RAM and my larger hard drive I honestly feel like I have a
brand new computer. The whole thing is just so stable and responsive
that I am very pleased with what I see so far.
David Goldfield
Assistive Technology Specialist
Feel free to visit my Web site
WWW.DavidGoldfield.Info
On 11/23/2015 11:23 AM, Merv Keck wrote:
David,
If you have not used Windows 10 before you will enjoy it once you
become accustomed to the differences from your last OS. I am
currently tweaking all my system sounds now just because I can. I
have pretty much all my favorite system sounds back the way they
were before the upgrade to Windows 10 and eventually I am going to
make a few new wav files just for fun. The Windows
10 sound scheme is annoying to me, laughs! and they only give you
default or none.
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-philly-comp-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-philly-comp-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of David
Goldfield
Sent: Monday, November 23, 2015 1:55 AM
To: blind-philly-comp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-philly-comp] Update on My Computer/Good News
I just received a call from one of the folks in the shop regarding
the status of my computer and he informed me that my computer is
ready to come home. It has a new and larger hard drive, along with
Windows 10. I was informed that its speed is quite fast, which
really pleases me. My wife and I will be heading to the shop
tomorrow to pick it up. Consequently, I expect, a bit ironically, to
be offline for much of the day as I slowly build everything back up
by reinstalling all of the software I regularly use. My first tas,
after physically setting it back up, is to install the new 2015.4 of
WWW.DavidGoldfield.Info for additional resources and information aboutYou are invited to visit the moderator's Web site atSadly, I tried installing it on my iPhone but it didn't seem to work.You are invited to visit the moderator's Web site at
<grin> Next, I need to replace its preinstalled Windows Defender
with Kaspersky for my malware protection. After that, I'll install
Thunderbird and set up my email accounts, followed by Firefox, which
is my preferred Web browser. If I can do all of that in one day that
will be a nice start although there's still Microsoft Office,
Libreoffice, iTunes, WinBT for my occasional Braille translation
tasks, setting up hotkeys for my various files and folders, Tapin
Radio, etc.
I will likely not be posting all that much during the next week but
I'll be monitoring this list as time allows.
Take care.
David Goldfield
Assistive Technology Specialist
Feel free to visit my Web site
WWW.DavidGoldfield.infoYou are invited to visit the moderator's Web
site at WWW.DavidGoldfield.Info for additional resources and
information about assistive technology training services.
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