"JAWS BASIC TRAINING"
- From: mostafa almahdy <mostafa.almahdy@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: jfw <jfw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 8 Apr 2009 06:20:16 +0200
JAWS Basic Training
Welcome to the Basic Training for JAWS® screen reader software,
presented by the Training Department of Freedom Scientific.
Introduction
Hello, my name is Dan Clark. I'm with the training department of the
Freedom Scientific Blind/Low Vision Group in Saint Petersburg,
Florida. I'll be walking you through a series of training modules
using JAWS and Windows Vista?. If you are still using an earlier
version of Windows®, such as Windows XP, don't worry. Most of what
I'll be discussing concerns JAWS, not the operating system of the
computer. However, there are some things that are quite different
between XP and Vista. Where that occurs, please refer back to prior
versions of JAWS training for more information on XP for the module
you are interested in. Prior versions of JAWS and other training can
be found on the Training archive page at
http://www.freedomscientific.com/training/training-archives.asp.
JAWS is a screen reading program that gives blind, visually impaired,
and otherwise print challenged individuals access to information on
their screen by using speech synthesizer output. JAWS stands for Job
Access With Speech.
These lessons teach concepts and as time goes on, both JAWS and
Windows will change. Also, your computer, as well as your version of
JAWS, may be configured differently than mine. Therefore what you may
hear on your computer could vary slightly from what you hear in this
tutorial.
As you begin this basic training module, some of you may have
different keyboards. For example, you might have a standard desktop
keyboard with a numeric keypad on the right side, or another person
may have a laptop keyboard, which does not have a separate key pad. If
you have a laptop, you will probably want to read a separate DAISY
book first called XTraLaptopKeystrokesWithJAWS. That book discusses
using the CAPS LOCK key instead of the INSERT key as a modifier key
for reading commands when using a laptop with JAWS. The
XTraLaptopKeystrokesWithJAWS DAISY book can be downloaded from the
training headquarters at Freedom Scientific,
http://www.FreedomScientific.com/training.
By default, JAWS uses the INSERT key in combination with other keys.
Hold the INSERT key down like a shift key while pressing the other key
or key combinations. The documentation calls the INSERT key the "JAWS
Key" since it is a key that is changeable by the user of JAWS to other
keys. So the generic term "JAWS Key" is often used. For this lesson, I
am using the INSERT key and will not use the term JAWS Key.
JAWS is a trademark of Freedom Scientific, located in Saint
Petersburg, Florida. These learning modules are protected under
copyright by Freedom Scientific. Please feel free, however, to use
these modules to create your own training materials to help others
learn JAWS. Also feel free to share these training modules with your
friends and colleagues who might be interested in learning more about
JAWS. We ask only that you acknowledge Freedom Scientific as the
copyright holder of any of this material you use.
Windows Classic View and Other Assumptions
Windows Classic View
In earlier versions of the JAWS Basic Training you were instructed to
set to Windows to classic view. Beginning with JAWS 7.10, changing to
classic view is not necessary. We've gone to great lengths to ensure
that JAWS works well with the latest versions of Windows right out of
the box. If you previously had set your machine to run in classic
view, don't worry about trying to change it. You can still follow
along just fine with the Basic Training. Although some things may
sound a little different, you will be able to keep up.
Changes in JAWS
You may not realize it, but most of the basic training for a product
is done during the product cycle, not afterwards. The training
materials have to be ready at the same time the product is ready. That
means that things often change after the training is actually
recorded. For instance, what you hear on this recording when I press
INSERT+F2 to open the list of JAWS managers is one of those that
almost certainly will change before the next major JAWS release. So,
for example, you may hear the first item in the list of JAWS managers
is Adjust Braille Options, and it's one of eighteen items in the list.
Don't be surprised when this changes at some point as we add new
managers to the list. This is just one example of how things could
change.
Windows Explorer
Some other differences you may encounter include how Widows Explorer
is set up on my machine. You can change your preferences in Windows
Explorer if you want to, though it is not totally necessary. If you
are interested in making these changes, please review the DAISY book
XTraJAWSAndMAGicIntroToVista and read the topic "Windows Explorer,"
which discusses how to make those changes. The book
XTraJAWSAndMAGicIntroToVista can be downloaded from the Training
Downloads page of Freedom Scientific,
http://www.freedomscientific.com/downloads/training/training-downloads.asp.
Later in the JAWS basic training I'll also go through how to change
Windows Explorer to make it easier to use. Note that this is not a
JAWS issue, but rather, a usability issue and personal preference.
JAWS Tutor Mode
By default, when JAWS first runs, tutor mode is turned on. Tutor
messages provide navigation tips in Windows and applications. Tutor
messages are spoken in a different voice than the JAWS default voice.
You will notice, for example, after pressing the ALT key to access the
JAWS menu bar, you will hear, "Menu Bar, Options. To move through
items press LEFT or RIGHT ARROW, ALT+O." If tutor mode was inactive,
you would just hear "Menu Bar, Options." To activate or deactivate
JAWS Tutor messages, select the Options menu in the JAWS window, and
then choose Basics.
As I begin these training lessons, I will leave the JAWS tutor mode
on, but later in the lessons, I will turn it off to speed up the
process of hearing what JAWS says.
Access Keys
JAWS can announce access keys as you navigate through menus or dialog
boxes. Use access keys to move directly to a control in a dialog box
or an item in a menu. By default, JAWS is set to read all access keys.
For example, when you press ALT to move to the JAWS menu bar, the
Options menu item is automatically selected. At the end of what JAWS
announces, you will hear "ALT+O." O is the access key for the menu
item called Options. Instead of pressing ALT to move to the Options
menu, followed by ENTER to open this menu, you can do both actions in
one step by pressing ALT+O.
As you navigate through menus or dialog boxes, make note of the access
keys so the next time you go there you will not have to use the arrow
keys or the tab key to move through each menu item. Instead, you can
press the access key to quickly choose that menu or dialog box item.
Let's take a look at the JAWS window for some examples. Press INSERT+J
or ALT+TAB to go to the JAWS window. Then press ALT+O to open the
Options menu. You should hear the following:
============
ALT+O, Options Menu, Basics, to navigate press UP or DOWN ARROW, B.
============
I hear several bits of information here. I know this is a menu item in
a list that is arranged vertically, because JAWS told me to use UP or
DOWN ARROW. And the access key for Basics is the letter B. Press DOWN
ARROW now. You should hear something like the following:
============
Voices submenu, V.
============
The word "submenu" is not actually visible on the screen. What is
there is a graphic symbol of a triangle pointing to the right. This
indicates that I can open a submenu of items beneath the word "voices"
by pressing RIGHT ARROW or ENTER. I'm not going to do that right now,
however. We're just looking at how JAWS reads access keys in menus.
I'll come back to the voices submenu later in the basic training and
we'll look at it in more detail then.
Notice that in this menu item and the one above it, the access keys
sound very similar. What if you didn't understand what JAWS said when
it announced the access key? You can press NUM PAD 5 to have JAWS
repeat the access key in menus. Even so, they still sound very much
alike. Try moving between the two menu items on your own and
experience this for yourself.
There is a way to have JAWS pronounce a letter in phonetic mode. While
you are on either one of these menu items, try pressing NUM PAD 5
twice quickly. You should hear them read like this:
============
V, Victor, and B, Bravo.
============
Continue to press DOWN ARROW in the Options menu and you will hear
============
Voices submenu, V
Braille, dot dot dot, l.
============
followed by
============
Manage Application Settings..., M.
============
The last item in the Options menu is:
============
Exit, ALT+F4, x.
============
The other thing you may notice here is the key command ALT+F4. This is
called a hot key. You can access any hot key listed in a menu at any
time without actually having to go to that menu item. In this case,
ALT+F4 is a standard Windows command to close the current window, or
application, depending on where you might happen to be at the time.
Later in this tutorial, I will turn off access keys from being spoken
in menus, but I will still allow JAWS to speak them in dialog boxes.
This is my personal preference, and I'm sure you will figure out your
own preferences as you go along. All of these preferences mentioned in
this section could cause you to hear things differently if you have
JAWS or Windows settings different than mine.
NOTE: Tutor messages and access keys can also be adjusted in the JAWS
Startup Wizard found in the JAWS Help menu.
For now, let's move on to the next lesson.
Starting JAWS and Setting up Hot Keys
This lesson teaches you how to start JAWS from the Windows Desktop,
from the Windows Run dialog box, and from the Start Menu. I'll also
show you how to set up a hot key so you can start JAWS by pressing the
key combination CTRL+ALT+J.
Starting JAWS from the Desktop Icon and Setting Up a Hot Key to Start JAWS
Because every computer can be setup differently, you may or may not
currently be on the Windows Desktop. If you are already on the
Desktop, just wait for a moment, you are in good shape. If you are not
on the Desktop, here is what you can do to get there immediately. Even
if you are already on the desktop, pressing this key combination will
not hurt, so you can go ahead and do it with me for practice.
Press the WINDOWS Key, the second key out from the left or right of
the spacebar, plus the letter M, and then release both keys.
I'll press WINDOWS Key+M now.
I have successfully reached the Desktop. The Desktop is a list of
commonly used Windows program icons, organized in rows and columns.
You can use the UP, DOWN, LEFT, or RIGHT ARROW keys to navigate the
list or you can navigate by pressing the first letter of the program
you wish to choose. In this case, I'm going to press the letter J
until I select the JAWS icon.
On your computer, it may be necessary to press J more than one time to
arrive at the JAWS icon. This is because pressing J tells the computer
to move to the next program icon starting with that letter. So, keep
pressing J until you get to the JAWS program icon, as I am. If there
is only one thing starting with this letter, you may not hear
anything. You can check to see where you are by pressing the SayLine
keystroke, INSERT+UP ARROW.
I'll press the letter J now. Some of you may have JAWS 8.0 installed.
I'm going to press J again. That's the one I want.
NOTE: This section was recorded using JAWS 9. If you are following
along and using a later version of JAWS just press the letter J until
you find the version of JAWS that you want to assign the hot key to.
For example, you might be using JAWS 10 or later when you hear this.
The technique is exactly the same.
If JAWS were not already running on this computer, pressing ENTER on
this icon would start JAWS.
What I'd like to do, however, is set up a hot key to enable me to
start JAWS by pressing a keystroke. To do that, I'll go into the
properties dialog box for the shortcut on the desktop.
The advantage of having a hot key to start JAWS is that you can press
the hot key to start JAWS at any time. Even if you are the only person
using this computer, and you want JAWS to start speaking each time the
machine is turned on, it's still a good idea to have a hot key set up
for JAWS. There could be times you want to shut down and restart JAWS,
and having such a hot key to start it again comes in very handy. In
fact, I not only have hot keys to launch JAWS, but several other
applications I use every day, including Microsoft® Word, Excel®,
Internet Explorer®, and Outlook®. It's a lot faster than searching for
an icon on the desktop or searching for the program in the Start menu!
Let's take a look at how to set up such a hot key. Right now, I'm on
the Windows Desktop, and the focus is on the JAWS icon. Objects on the
Desktop are frequently called shortcuts or icons, and when you have
moved to one of these icons, it is referred to as being selected. If
you hear JAWS say "not selected" nothing on the Desktop is selected.
If you have actually selected something on the Desktop, you will hear
that JAWS announces that the icon is selected. If you hear the JAWS
icon and it is not selected, press the SPACEBAR now to select it.
Now, I'm going to press a key combination that opens the properties
dialog box for this icon. This key combination is ALT+ENTER.
The first thing I hear is that I am on the Shortcut page in a target
edit field. This is what is referred to as a multi-page dialog box. If
you are not in the same area as I am, you can press the key
combination CONTROL+TAB several times until you are.
The only item or field that I want to change is the one asking me for
a shortcut key, or hot key. To get to this field, I'm going to press
the TAB key twice.
This is where I need to specify the hot key combination. I'm just
going to press the letter J.
You may be asking yourself, "Does this mean that the computer is going
to launch JAWS every time I press the letter J?" The answer, of
course, is "No." When you're creating a hot key shortcut, the computer
assumes that any letter you press will be combined with both the
CONTROL and the ALT keys. So, in this example, the JAWS program is
started by pressing the key combination CONTROL+ALT+J.
If you want to confirm that this has been done, press the keystroke to
reread the current control, INSERT+TAB. You should hear JAWS read the
edit box label and the contents of the edit box, CONTROL+ALT+J as well
as a tutor message.
I've confirmed that the correct keystroke has been assigned. Now, let
me show you one additional thing about this dialog box. Press the TAB
key.
In Windows, the term "run" indicates that you are starting a program.
In this case, I'm located over an item that tells Windows how I want
this program to run. For JAWS, the normal window choice in this list
is fine. However, if you're setting up a hot key for something like a
word processor or your email program, you probably want to DOWN ARROW
through the choices in this combo box until you get to the word
Maximize. I'm going to continue pressing TAB until I reach the OK
button.
When you're located in a dialog box, pressing ENTER on the OK button
saves your work. If I didn't want to save the changes I made, I could
press the ESCAPE key. I'll press the SPACEBAR to save my changes.
Because I'm running in Windows Vista, an access denied dialog box has
appeared. This is a feature of the User Account Control in Windows
Vista. Because this is "on" I am given an extra warning. Do I really
want to do this? This warning doesn't mean I can't do this; I just
have to tell it that I really DO want to do this.
There's a Continue and a Cancel button. Focus is on the Continue
button and I'll press ENTER to accept this.
Now I've got another User Account Control dialog box. This one says
"If you started this action, Continue" and Windows needs my
permission. In this case, the focus is on the Cancel button. I want to
activate the Continue button by pressing ALT+C.
The UAC dialog box disappears and the properties dialog box closes.
Now the hot key to start JAWS will work as I want it to.
That's just one example of how User Account Control puts one, and
sometimes more, dialog boxes up to let you know that something is
going to change on your computer. You may need and like this or you
may not. For more information on the User Account Control in Windows
Vista please refer to the XTra DAISY book
XTraJAWSAndMAGicIntroToVista. It is covered in much more detail there,
including how to turn it off if needed. Personally, I don't recommend
turning it off unless you absolutely have to for some reason.
Let's see if I have successfully created the keystroke. However, be
careful not to perform this test until you've completed the steps
above. What I'm going to do now is close JAWS and restart it. This
won't be something that you have to do very often, unless JAWS needs
to be reset for some reason. I'm going to press INSERT+F4 to bring up
the "Close JAWS dialog box".
Now I'll press SPACEBAR, and shut down JAWS which stops all speech.
Now then, let's test the new hot key. Can I get JAWS back? Press
CONTROL+ALT+J. It may take a few seconds for JAWS to load, but you
will hear an announcement when it does.
I hear that JAWS has once again started. If you also heard this,
congratulations, you have successfully created a hot key to start
JAWS.
NOTE: The next section of this module is taken directly from the DAISY
book XTraJAWSAndMAGicIntroToVista, so you will probably notice some
references to the MAGic screen magnification software in addition to
JAWS. JAWS and MAGic behave essentially the same in how they work as
described in this section, so if you are only using JAWS you can
ignore any discussion of MAGic mentioned. MAGic is NOT required to
complete this training.
Start JAWS or MAGic from the Run Dialog Box
At some point in time you may need to shut JAWS or MAGic down and
start either one up again. Or perhaps you may need to start a
different version of either one. I do this quite frequently for
testing. You can start JAWS or MAGic in the run dialog box by typing
JAWSNN followed by ENTER. (Where nn represents the version number of
JAWS you want to start.) The same is true with MAGic as well. Just
type MAGICNN and press ENTER in the run dialog box, where nn
represents the version number of MAGic you want to start. Make sure
that there are no spaces in the string of text and no punctuation.
NOTE: For example, you might type JAWS8 to start JAWS 8.0 or JAWS9 to
start JAWS version 9.0. Or you may start MAGic by typing MAGIC11, and
so on, for MAGic 11.
I'll show you how this is done right now. JAWS is actually running so
you'll hear it. I'm going to press WINDOWS Key and the letter R. Of
course if you were not running JAWS at the moment or MAGic at the
moment you would not hear this but the edit field would be there. Now
if you had previously typed something in there that would be
highlighted so you could just type right over it. What I'm going to
type right now is jaws9 and I would press ENTER to start JAWS 9 at
that point. Again, since I have JAWS running at this point I don't
need to do that so I'm just going to press ESC.
Starting JAWS from the JAWS Program Group
Later in the Basic Training I'll come back to the Start menu in
Windows Vista and take a look at the JAWS program group in great
detail. Another way to start JAWS is to find it there, in the JAWS
program group. For now, however, I'm going to move on to the next
module.
JAWS Startup Wizard
The JAWS Startup Wizard, introduced with JAWS 8.0, runs the first time
you reboot after installing JAWS. It was significantly expanded with
the JAWS 9.0 release, offering many more choices to help you configure
JAWS when you first start it. The first time JAWS runs after
installation the Startup Wizard begins. However, you can start it up
again at any time by pressing ENTER on it in the JAWS Help menu.
NOTE: It is probable that the Startup Wizard will change as time goes
on. If you notice that there is a different order when you follow
through this module than what I experience, don't worry. The order in
which the different dialog boxes are presented and even the contents
of each dialog box could change as well. In either case, that will not
make any difference in your ability to continue this training. Just
don't be surprised if in the future, you notice changes in this
section.
EXERCISE: Go to the JAWS window and choose Help > Startup Wizard and
follow along as we explore the different settings for the Startup
Wizard.
I'll press ALT+TAB to go to the JAWS window. Next, ALT+H to open the
Help menu. Finally, Z to choose the access key to begin the Startup
Wizard.
1. Install training materials , the first dialog box appears.
NOTE: If you install JAWS from the downloaded Web version, the
question about installing Training materials does not occur. That's
because the Training materials would make your download a lot longer.
If you don't have access to a JAWS program CD, you can still download
the Training materials from the Freedom Scientific Training Web pages,
however, they require separate downloads.
I highly encourage you to install the training materials. That way
they are there for you to practice whenever you need them and you
won't have to dig out your JAWS program CD or spend time downloading
them from the Web. Also, the training materials are CONSTANTLY being
updated and improved. If you have not gone through the training in a
while, you should do so again, just to catch up on some of the new
features of JAWS.
I remember when I first went through the basic training with JAWS
every time I listened to it I learned something new.
For now, I'll press ENTER to activate the Next button.
1. Speech settings . The next dialog box, speech settings, includes
the voice rate slider bar, the punctuation combo box, and typing echo
radio buttons.
• Focus initially is in the voice rate slider bar. Press PAGE UP or
PAGE DOWN to increase or decrease the voice rate in larger chunks.
Press the ARROW Keys to move the slider bar in smaller increments. I
had already set mine to 25% which is a little faster than the default
rate. I'll press PAGE DOWN. That's the default rate and I'll press
PAGE UP to set it back.
• Press TAB and focus moves to the punctuation combo box. I'm
going
to leave it set to most punctuation. However, just to give you one
example of a difference between two of the settings, if you change the
punctuation to some instead of most, the greater than sign will not be
spoken.
• I'll press TAB to move to the typing echo group of radio
buttons.
When you type with JAWS you normally hear every character that is
typed. That's the default setting here. If you prefer not to hear
characters, but you'd rather hear words spoken, press DOWN ARROW. With
this setting you would only hear the words spoken when you press the
spacebar or type punctuation at the end of a sentence. You would not
hear the characters. You can press DOWN ARROW and this setting gives
you BOTH characters and words. I'm going to pres UP ARROW to move back
to characters and leave it at that setting for this training.
One thing you are going to hear me say over and over again
throughout this training is that any time you want extra help on
something you can press a keystroke, INSERT+F1, to get screen
sensitive help. Let's try that right here, press INSERT+F1 to get
screen sensitive help for the Typing Echo radio buttons here in the
startup wizard.
When you press INSERT+F1 the virtual viewer appears on the
screen
with the text of the message in it. This is available to you to read
with your normal reading commands and it is also available to you on a
braille display if you are using a refreshable braille display with
JAWS. You can press your UP and DOWN ARROW keys to move through the
text or use your normal reading commands. For now I'm going to press
ESC.
• I'll press ENTER to activate the Next button.
1. Run JAWS Settings in Windows Vista: In Windows Vista there is a
different dialog box than the one that currently appears in Windows XP
at this point. See the next list item for the dialog box that appears
in Windows XP. Run JAWS settings in Windows Vista include: Start JAWS
at the logon screen, start JAWS after logon for all users, start JAWS
after logon for this user, and run JAWS from system tray.
• Start JAWS at the Logon screen - checkbox checked. If you select
"Start JAWS at the Logon screen" JAWS will be loaded at the logon
screen. That way everyone who comes to that computer will hear speech
while they are logging in.
• Start JAWS after logon for all users - the default is not
checked.
If you select "Start JAWS after logon for all users" JAWS will be
loaded after logon for all users.
• Start JAWS after logon for this user, your choices are Always,
Never, or Using the all users setting. If you select the value labeled
Using the All User Setting, JAWS will start after you logon to Windows
Vista if the check box labeled start JAWS after logon for all users is
checked. This is useful if the computer is used by multiple users.
• I'm not going to check the checkbox to run JAWS from the
system
tray. This takes the JAWS user interface out of the task switching
loop that you get when you press ALT+TAB and it also takes JAWS out of
the task bar. Instead, a JAWS icon appears in the system tray. If you
make this choice, use the keystroke INSERT+J to quickly access the
JAWS menus when you need to make changes in JAWS. This is a personal
preference and I know a lot of people who use JAWS that like this
option. Feel free to try it if you never have. You can always switch
it back later.
NOTE: The change for running JAWS in the system tray does not
take
effect until you close JAWS and restart it.
• I'll press the ENTER key to accept the default here. I do want
JAWS to speak at the logon screen, but I am the only person who uses
this computer with JAWS, so this way no one else will hear JAWS after
the initial log in screen and since I've chosen to always start JAWS
after login for this user, myself, I'll hear JAWS all the time.
NOTE: The Start JAWS Options dialog box is also now available by
activating the Automatically Start JAWS button in the JAWS Basics
Dialog box. The Automatically Start JAWS button along with these new
options are only available in the Basics dialog box when JAWS runs in
Windows Vista and give the user additional choices of specific login
preferences.
1. Run JAWS settings in Windows XP includes automatically start JAWS
and run JAWS from system tray. There are two check boxes there. The
first one, automatically start JAWS, is checked by default. The second
one, run JAWS from the system tray, is not checked by default.
If you're running Windows XP, go ahead and make your choices by
pressing the SPACEBAR to check or uncheck the two checkboxes here.
When you're finished, press ENTER to move to the next screen.
1. Keyboard settings include: keyboard layout and Initial state of num
lock key
The keyboard layouts available include desktop, laptop, and kinesis.
For these training modules, I'm using the desktop layout. Remember,
there is a DAISY book available called XTraLaptopKeystrokesWithJAWS
for those of you who want to learn how to use an alternate keyboard
layout for JAWS.
Initial state of num lock key is a new setting available beginning
with JAWS version 9.0. The default setting has been for JAWS to turn
off the num lock so that the num pad can be used for screen reading
and navigation as opposed to typing numbers. You can always manually
switch the num lock on or off by pressing the NUM LOCK key at any
time. However, this setting now gives you several choices as to how
you want the num lock to behave automatically whenever JAWS starts.
I'm going to leave it set to "off" at startup and I'll press ENTER to
activate the Next button.
1. Verbosity settings include tutor messages, access keys, verbosity
level, and graphic verbosity.
I mentioned at the onset of this training that I would leave the
tutor messages on for a while. I'll keep them on for a little while
longer before I change them. Feel free, however, to make your own
choice to the tutor messages now by pressing the ARROW Keys. When you
have made a choice, press TAB to move to the next section, the Access
Keys.
I'm going to make one slight change here to the access key section. I
want to hear access keys in dialog boxes, but not in menus, so I'll
press DOWN ARROW until I reach the fourth choice. OK, now I'll press
TAB to move to the next section.
Verbosity is set to beginner. You can change it to intermediate or
advanced if you want. When verbosity is set to beginner, JAWS speaks
more information. For example, at beginner level, when you press
CTRL+C to copy some selected text to the clipboard, JAWS speaks the
following message:
============
Copied selection to clipboard.
============
At the other two levels, JAWS only speaks the word "copied" and that's
it. You hear less information. That can be nice once you know your way
around Windows and the different programs you commonly use, because
the less you have to listen to the faster you can get your job done.
For now, I'm going to leave it on beginner and I'll press TAB to move
to the next control.
I'm going to leave JAWS set to All Graphics, which is the default
setting. I'll talk more about graphics and how to label them later in
a separate XTra DAISY book on the JAWS Graphics Labeler. For now I'll
press ENTER to move to the next screen.
1. Braille settings include grade two enable translator and expand
current word.
• Grade two enable translator sets your refreshable display to show
contracted braille as opposed to computer braille.
• Expand current word takes the word at the cursor and expands
it to
computer braille when you are using contracted braille. This gives you
the ability to edit the word more easily if you need to by showing
each character of the word (or words) in individual cells on the
display.
If you are using a braille display, feel free to use the SPACEBAR to
check or uncheck these two checkboxes. I'll be discussing braille in
more detail in a later module. I'll press ENTER now to activate the
finish button.
At this point, if you chose to install the training materials, that
installation begins now. If not, the Startup Wizard closes and your
changes should now be in effect, except for the run JAWS from the
system tray option, which requires you to shut down and restart JAWS.
That's the end of this module. Please join me in the next one.
The Windows Vista Screen and Start Menu
NOTE: This module was taken directly from the DAISY book
XTraJAWSAndMAGicIntroToVista, so you will notice some references to
MAGic screen magnification software in addition to JAWS. JAWS and
MAGic behave essentially the same in how they work as described in
these sections. If you are only using JAWS you can ignore any
discussion of MAGic mentioned. MAGic is NOT required to complete this
training.
The topics include:
Parts of the Windows Vista Screen
Start Menu
Start Menu Search Edit Field
All Programs
The Right Pane of the Start Menu
Turning off the Computer
Tab Order in the Start Menu
Customizing the Start Menu
If you are already familiar with these topics, you can move on to the
next module.
Parts of the Windows Vista Screen
The Windows Vista screen consists of the following parts by default:
• Start button
• Quick launch toolbar
• Task bar
• System tray
• Desktop
I'll press CTRL+ESC to open the Start menu and then ESC to put the
focus on the Start button. Follow along as I press TAB to move from
one part of the Windows Vista screen to another. That's the quick
launch toolbar, the taskbar, the system tray, the desktop, and I'm
back to the Start button. The next thing I want to talk about is the
Start menu.
Start Menu
The Start menu is divided into four main parts:
• The left pane shows a short list of programs on your computer.
• The right pane shows a list of commonly used folders, file
settings, and more, called Windows Vista Explorers.
• The third part is a search edit box. This is the first place focus
appears when you open the Start menu. It is just above the Start
button and below the left pane.
• At the bottom of the right pane are two buttons, the Sleep button
and the Lock button, and a third graphic submenu item that opens a
small vertical menu. Read the section below on turning off your
computer for more information on these items.
When using and navigating the Start menu, JAWS and MAGic provide
speech and braille support for Windows Vista functionality and keep up
with Windows Vista as it announces what is happening. This occurs
right away as the Start menu updates and changes.
This means that when you open the Start menu, JAWS and MAGic speak and
show in braille that the focus is in the Start Search edit field. JAWS
and MAGic also announce text that you enter into the edit field and
the associated Start Menu item.
You can press UP or DOWN ARROW to move through the start menu as
usual. However, there is a new search feature built into the start
menu for Windows Vista.
Start Menu Search Edit Field
When you open the Start menu, JAWS and MAGic announce "menu, start
search, edit." You can search for programs, documents, movies, e-mail
messages, and more. The search results appear in the left pane of the
Start menu. If you type the letters c o n in the search field, Windows
Vista filters out everything that does NOT contain those three letters
in the Programs group and announces Programs and the first thing in
the Start menu list. This varies from computer to computer, depending
on how many other items you might have with those three letters. As
you type more letters, the items in the program group narrow down even
further to fewer items. For example, when I just type the letter c on
one computer I might get twenty items in the program group. Anything
that contains the letter C, such as:
• Programs Status and Configuration
• Welcome Center
• Backup Status and Configuration
• Control Panel
• Computer Management
• and other items
I'll press the WINDOWS Key. And I'll type the letter C.
Focus moves to the first item in the filtered list. As a result, JAWS
and MAGic announce Programs, which is the name of the group, and then
the top item in the list that matches the search you typed. Then JAWS
or MAGic announce one of nn, where nn is the number of items that
contain text that matches the search. Everything else that does not
contain the text you typed gets filtered out of the left hand pane of
the Start menu. Since the focus is on the top item of the list, just
press DOWN ARROW to move through the items Windows Vista found in your
Start menu that match. If you move into another group, such as Files
or Communications group, JAWS and MAGic announce this to you.
I'm just going to press DOWN ARROW and explore what I've found by
typing just the letter C. And so on. I'm going to press ESC to get out
of the start menu.
If I type c o n t r o l on my computer, the filtered list is smaller.
I'll press the WINDOWS Key and I'll type the word control. And now I
only have eight items:
• Control Panel
• And several others
Again, this is probably going to be different from one computer to
another, so don't worry if you don't get exactly what I do.
Search results display items if any word in its title matches your
search item, any text in a file matches your search item, or any word
in the properties of a file match your search item. So you can find
things like the following in the search results:
• Programs
• Files
• Folders
• Internet favorites and history
• And more
I think the search is a very nice feature of Windows Vista and once
you start using it, I think you will as well! I'm going to press ESC a
couple of times to get out of the menus.
All Programs
You can still use the choice for All Programs to view all of the
applications installed on your computer. However, pressing the letter
P does not work to open the All Programs submenu, since the focus is
initially in the new search edit field. If you press P what happens is
the search begins to look for items with the letter P in them and
filters out everything else in the left hand pane of the Start menu.
Here's how to go to All Programs:
1. All Programs appears at the bottom of the Start menu, so press UP
ARROW from the search field to move to it. I'll press the WINDOWS Key.
And I'll press UP ARROW from the search field to move to it. You hear
"all programs, submenu." Press ENTER to open a list of all
applications on your computer.
NOTE: Windows Vista does not use cascading menus as were present in
previous versions of Windows. Instead, the left pane where the menus
appear gets instantly updated with the latest information. This means
that more of the desktop is visible when using menus. This is called a
nested folder view, which takes up less screen space.
1. The focus is on the first item in the group. As you press DOWN
ARROW to move through the items inside All Programs, you hear some
programs that stand alone as well as some groups that may be "closed."
For example, press the letter A to move to Accessories and you hear
that it is closed.
2. To open the Accessories group, press RIGHT ARROW or ENTER. The
Start menu beneath All Programs behaves much like a tree view, so
groups can be opened by pressing RIGHT ARROW or closed by pressing
LEFT ARROW as long as you are on the main item of the group. You can
also press ENTER to open or close a group as long as you are on the
main item of the group. Once opened, JAWS and MAGic announce the
number of items contained in that group.
3. Press DOWN ARROW to move to the items contained in that group.
I'll press DOWN ARROW. And so on. You hear the item and it's number
within the group, for example, Calculator, one of seventeen, or
Notepad, four of twelve, and so on. The actual number of items within
a group may vary, depending on what is installed on each individual
computer.
If you move into the individual items of a group, you cannot press
LEFT ARROW to close the group. Pressing either LEFT or RIGHT ARROW
moves the focus between the left and right panel of the Start menu. So
to close a group, you first have to move to the main item of that
group, such as Accessories, JAWS, MAGic, or whatever the group name
is. When you do, you hear the name of the group and if it is open, you
can then press LEFT ARROW or ENTER to close the group.
I'll press UP ARROW to move back to Accessories. I hear it's open and
I can press either LEFT ARROW or ENTER to close it.
Here's how to get back to the programs you had when you first opened
the Start menu:
1. Press END to go to the bottom of the list.
2. Press DOWN ARROW to move to the item that says Back submenu.
3. Press ENTER. The Start menu should be as it was before you opened
All Programs.
You can also just press ESC to return the Start menu to its initial
state and put focus back in the search edit field.
Windows Vista detects the programs you use and puts them in the left
pane for easier access to them. So over time, the programs you use
most often should appear in the left pane of the Start menu.
I'm going to press ESC again to close the Start menu.
The Right Pane of the Start Menu
Items in the right pane of the Start menu are called Windows Vista
Explorers and include your personal folder and the following items you
might use on a frequent basis:
• Documents
• Pictures
• Music
• Games
• Search (for more advanced search options)
• Recent Items
• Computer
• Network
• Connect To
• Control Panel
• Default Programs
• Help and Support
Windows Vista Explorers are designed to provide a consistent visual
and functional experience by maintaining a single common look and feel
that is the same throughout Windows Vista. The navigation, task, and
details panes are similar in all of the Windows Vista Explorers and
the menus and toolbars are also consistent throughout.
Windows Vista Explorers all contain the Instant Search edit field in
the upper right corner. You can jump directly to it by pressing CTRL+E
when you are in any of the Windows Vista Explorers. After you type in
a search phrase, press DOWN ARROW to move to the list of matches
found. You can also press TAB or SHIFT+TAB to move from section to
section within one of the Windows Vista Explorers.
Turning off the Computer
At the bottom of the right pane are two buttons: the Sleep button and
the Lock button. Choose the Sleep button to put your computer into
sleep mode, or choose the Lock button to lock your computer without
turning it off. Don't be surprised if this first button changes from
time-to-time. For example, while I was recording this DAISY book, the
computer downloaded some new Windows updates. When I moved to this
button at that point it changed to a shut down and install updates
button.
If you use remote access software, for example, Remote Desktop
Connection, to connect to a Windows Vista computer, this button
changes and then becomes a session Disconnect button. You can use it
to disconnect your session, or log off of the remote computer.
So, just be aware that while MOST of the time it is a sleep button, it
will change to let you accomplish different tasks that may be
available at any given time.
Once locked, your computer cannot be used until you unlock it with
your password. To shut down your computer, open the Start menu and
press RIGHT ARROW three times to get to a vertical menu of choices
that includes switch user, log off, lock, restart, sleep, and shut
down. Press UP or DOWN ARROW to move to shut down and press ENTER to
shut down the computer. I'll demonstrate this now.
I'll press WINDOWS Key. And I'll press the RIGHT ARROW. There's the
Sleep button. Press RIGHT ARROW again. Lock button and RIGHT ARROW
again. Here's the vertical menu. Shut down is the bottom of the menu.
I'll press DOWN ARROW to wrap to the top. And I'll continue to press
DOWN ARROW. And we're back to shut down. I'm going to press ESC a
couple of times to get out of the menus.
NOTE: For a faster way to shut down the computer, press WINDOWS Key+M
to move to the desktop and then press ALT+F4. Choose shut down from
there and press ENTER. I'll demonstrate that as well, WINDOWS Key+M.
And in this combo box you can choose shut down. I'm going to press ESC
to get out of that. So there's a couple of ways you can do this.
Tab Order in the Start Menu
There is a tab order in the Start menu. After opening the Start menu,
pressing TAB repeatedly takes you from one part of the start menu to
the other, in the following order:
• Right hand pane
• Sleep button
• Left hand pane
• All programs
• Start search edit field
I'll demonstrate this now. I'll press WINDOWS Key and then I'll press
TAB to move through the different parts of the Start menu. That's the
right hand pane; you land on your folder. That's the sleep button.
That's the left hand pane. The item All Programs and a submenu. And
back to the Start search edit field.
The process repeats itself. You can also press SHIFT+TAB to move
backwards through the Start menu sections. However, keep in mind that
going backwards puts the focus on the last item of each section. Going
forward puts the focus on the first item of each section, so you will
hear things differently going one way as opposed to the other. For
now, I'll press ESC to get out of the Start menu.
Customizing the Start Menu
I'm not going to talk about it in this lesson, but the Start menu can
be customized. Some things you can do include:
• Pin an icon for a program you use frequently to the Start menu
• Remove a program icon from the Start menu
• Adjust the number of shortcuts for frequently used programs
• Customize the right pane of the Start menu
• And more
JAWS User Interface
First I'm going to press ALT+TAB to move to the JAWS window. Then I'll
start out by exploring the Options menu.
Options Menu
Basics...
I'll press ALT+O for Options and then ENTER on Basics, the first item
in the menu.
NOTE: Anywhere in the JAWS user interface or when exploring different
controls within dialog boxes for JAWS try pressing INSERT+F1 for
screen sensitive help. When you do this, the virtual viewer opens with
help specific to that particular control. Use normal reading keys to
read or browse the text and then press ESC to close the virtual viewer
when finished.
I'm going to press INSERT+F1 now. Now I'm going to press CTRL+HOME to
move back to the beginning of that message. The virtual cursor is on
the top line again in the virtual viewer. This also appears in
refreshable braille if you have a braille display attached. At this
point you could use normal reading keys such as DOWN ARROW or UP
ARROW, say line (INSERT+UP ARROW), next word (INSERT+RIGHT ARROW),
stop on a word and spell it, and that sort of thing. Take a minute to
read through this text and remember, use INSERT+F1 frequently to find
out more information about different controls within JAWS. For now I'm
going to press ESC to get out of that.
I have discussed Tutor Messages and Access Keys in earlier modules.
This is where you make changes to either of these. Press UP or DOWN
ARROW to move through the choices to select your preference. Then
press TAB to move past these groups of radio buttons to the button for
Automatically Start JAWS.
I mentioned earlier that I was going to turn off tutor messages. I'm
going to do that by pressing DOWN ARROW at this point. I could press
UP ARROW and choose turn off menu and control help, but by pressing
DOWN ARROW to this choice, announce custom messages only, in case
there are some specific messages that someone's designed for a
specific application I might be using, I would hear those messages.
For example, if someone uses the JAWS Prompt Creator to create some
additional prompts for a certain control, you'll hear them by choosing
the third choice. You would not hear them if you chose the first
choice which is "turn off" menu and control help.
Next, I'll press TAB to move to the access key group. My personal
preference on this is to speak dialogs only so I'm going to press DOWN
ARROW. And again. And next I'll press TAB.
Since I'm using JAWS in Windows Vista currently, the Basics dialog box
that I have on the screen differs slightly from what you might
experience when running JAWS in Windows XP. Specifically, the Basics
dialog box in JAWS running with Vista has a button for Automatically
Start JAWS, whereas in XP this is a checkbox. I'll discuss this
further in just a minute.
For XP users, this is a checkbox and you can press SPACEBAR to toggle
the check mark on or off. For Vista users, press SPACEBAR to activate
the button and you get the following choices:
And for Windows Vista users, I'll press the SPACEBAR.
• Start JAWS at the Logon screen - checkbox checked. If you select
"Start JAWS at the Logon screen" JAWS will be loaded at the logon
screen. You'll be able to enter in your user name and password.
• Start JAWS after logon for all users - checkbox not checked. If you
select "Start JAWS after logon for all users" JAWS will be loaded
after logon for all users.
• Start JAWS after logon for this user, Always, Never, or Using the
all users setting. If you select the value labeled Using the All User
Setting, JAWS will start after you logon to Windows Vista if the check
box labeled Automatically start JAWS after logon for all users is
checked. This is useful if the computer is used by multiple users.
I'll press TAB to move to the OK button and activate it with the
SPACEBAR to close this dialog box.
• Press TAB to move to the next control, Automatically start PAC Mate
Desktop. If you select this check box, PAC Mate Desktop automatically
starts when you start JAWS. PAC Mate Desktop allows you to issue
commands to your computer from your PAC Mate's keyboard via an
ActiveSync connection. TAB .
• Run JAWS from System Tray. I'm not going to check the checkbox for
run JAWS from system tray. This takes the JAWS user interface out of
the task switching loop that you get when you press ALT+TAB, and it
also takes JAWS out of the task bar. Instead, a JAWS icon appears in
the system tray. If you make this choice, use the keystroke INSERT+J
to quickly access the JAWS menus when you need to make changes to
JAWS. This is a personal preference, and I know a lot of people who
use JAWS that like this option. Feel free to try it if you never have.
You can always switch back later.
NOTE: The change for running JAWS in the system tray does not take
effect until you close JAWS and restart it.
• Press TAB, Show Virtual Viewer on Screen. The Virtual Viewer is
where we display helpful information that allows you to read through
that information at your own pace. The question is, do you want it to
show visually or not when you use it? I recommend leaving it shown
visually, and that is the default. I'll press TAB to move to the next
control.
• Use Keyboard Layout (Desktop, Kinesis, Laptop). Most JAWS commands
use the numeric keypad in combination with other keys. Laptop computer
users typically do not have a separate numeric keypad. Also, there is
a DAISY book available called XTraLaptopKeystrokesWithJAWS for those
of you who want to learn how to use an alternate keyboard layout for
JAWS. For these lessons, I'm going to leave JAWS set to Desktop. I'll
press TAB to move to the next control.
• Windows System Parameters button. I'm not going to change anything
here so I'll press TAB to move on to the next control.
• Advanced button. Again, no changes here so I'll press TAB again to
move to the next control.
If you made any changes to your settings here, you should press
SPACEBAR on the OK button to save those changes and close the dialog
box. If you did not make any changes, you can press ESCAPE or move to
the next button, the Cancel button and activate it with the SPACEBAR.
I'm going to press SPACEBAR on the OK button since I did make some
changes to tutor messages and access keys.
Voices submenu
The Voices submenu contains two choices, one for Global Voice settings
and another for Individual Voice settings. Many of the choices in each
of these two dialog boxes are similar. The Individual Voice settings
give you more flexibility by allowing changes to be made to the PC
cursor voice, JAWS cursor voice, keyboard voice, tutor and message
voice, as well as the menu and dialog voice. If you want to change
just the voice rate or the synthesizer you normally use, choose the
Global voice settings. A discussion of both Global and Individual
voice settings follows.
Press ALT+O followed by the DOWN ARROW to move to Voices. Then press
RIGHT ARROW to open this submenu.
Global Adjustment . Press ENTER to open the Global Voice Settings
dialog box for JAWS. If you want to change the JAWS voice rate across
all programs or within a specific program only, this is where to do
it. Focus lands in a group of radio buttons that allow you to modify
the default settings for all programs, or only those for one specific
program.
1. Modify radio button group . The choice is Default vs. Application
Specific. There are two radio buttons here. The one that is checked is
to modify the default file. That means that any changes you make would
affect all applications. The other choice is a program name and this
will depend on what program you had running when you went into the
voice settings. If you choose the second radio button, then any
changes you make will only affect that particular application. If I
were in Notepad when I went into the voice settings and chose this,
the changes would only affect Notepad and nothing else. Press TAB. The
focus moves to the Profile name combo box.
2. Profile Name . The Primary selection should be highlighted in this
combo box, unless you have switched to a different voice profile. Some
other choices include Eloquence, SAPI 5, and possibly RealSpeak Solo
Direct, if you have already installed any of these newer synthesizer
voices. RealSpeak Solo Direct voices became available with the JAWS 10
release. They use a direct driver to communicate with JAWS and are
quicker and more responsive than the older SAPI 5 synthesizer voices.
The synthesizer which is automatically assigned to the Primary Voice
Profile is the one which was selected as the default synthesizer when
JAWS was installed on your computer.
JAWS Tip: Whatever choice is highlighted in the Profile Name combo box
when you close this dialog box remains the active profile the next
time you start JAWS. For now, I'm going to leave it set to Primary and
I'll spend more time on this later in the lesson on Voice Profiles.
What is a voice profile? A voice profile is a collection of different
speech settings such as rate, pitch, language, punctuation levels, and
other speech options that have been saved as a group with a specific
name. For example, you could create a "leisure reading" profile with a
nice sounding RealSpeak Solo Direct voice that has a slower speed and
that speaks no punctuation. You could create a "Proofreading" profile
that checks for all punctuation. You could create a Spanish (or other
language) profile to switch quickly and easily to have text that is
written in another language pronounced correctly when you are reading
it. The possibilities are almost endless! You can have as many voice
profiles as you want, with as many languages or synthesizers as you
want to use. You can instantly switch between existing voice profiles
by using the keystroke INSERT+CTRL+S.
JAWS Tip: Whatever choice you select in the Select a Voice Profile
dialog box with the keystroke INSERT+CTRL+S remains the active profile
the next time you start JAWS. It remains the same unless you change it
again. This remains true even when you shut down and restart the
computer.
NOTE: Did you know you can download for free over thirty different
synthesizer voices for your Freedom Scientific products? These
RealSpeak Solo Direct voices work exclusively with JAWS versions 10 or
later and MAGic version 11 after January 2009. These voices will also
work with demo versions of JAWS and MAGic that support RealSpeak Solo
Direct synthesizers. They are available in many different languages
including English, Spanish, French, Basque, Chinese, Danish, Dutch,
German, Greek, Italian, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese,
Russian, Swedish, and Turkish.
Voice profiles and the RealSpeak Solo Direct synthesizers are
discussed later in the JAWS Basic Training. For now I'm going to leave
this set to the default, Primary, and I'll press TAB to move to the
next control. Focus moves to the Synthesizer Name combo box.
1. Synthesizer group . The choices in this group allow you change the
synthesizer, language, and more.
• The Synthesizer name combo box lets you choose which
synthesizer
the currently selected profile uses. I'll press TAB to move to the
next control.
• The Language combo box lets you choose a language for the
currently selected synthesizer. The availability of languages varies
according to the choice of synthesizer. For example, the Eloquence
synthesizer supports American English, British English, Castilian
Spanish, Latin American Spanish, French, French Canadian, German,
Italian, and Brazilian Portuguese. By contrast, RealSpeak Solo Direct
can have these and more, but it depends on which ones you install.
I'll press TAB to move to the next control.
• The Detect SAPI 4 Synthesizers button allows you to search for
older SAPI 4 synthesizers that may be installed on your system. I
recommend that you use the RealSpeak Solo Direct voices instead, since
they are newer. I'll press TAB to move to the next control.
2. Voice group . The choices in this group allow you to change voice
rate, punctuation, and more, depending on the synthesizer chosen.
• Rate Slider Bar. You can use LEFT and RIGHT ARROW, PAGE UP and
PAGE DOWN, or HOME and END to make changes to the voice rate in this
slider bar. Press TAB to move to the next control once you are
satisfied with the voice rate.
• Punctuation. There are four choices, none, some, most, and
all.
The default is most. If you don't want to hear greater than signs, for
example, which are spoken when punctuation is set to most, you could
change this to some, and greater than signs will not be spoken. I'll
press TAB.
• Volume. Adjust this using the volume control settings in
control
panel. If you are using Eloquence, this control is not available, so
you skip over it when pressing TAB. Press TAB.
• Spell Rate Change Percent. When you spell a word, JAWS slows
down
a little bit. That gives you a chance to hear spelled words better. It
is a percentage slower, in this case 20% slower, than whatever you
have your voice rate set to normally. I'll press TAB.
• Upper Case Pitch Percent. When reading by character, upper
case
letters are pronounced with a higher pitch. You can increase or
decrease that here.
NOTE: The choices in the Voice group change depending on the
synthesizer. For example, if you choose RealSpeak Solo Direct as the
synthesizer a Person combo box appears. At other times, a Pitch and
possibly even a Volume slider bar may appear, all depending on the
synthesizer you chose. I'll press TAB.
1. Say All group . The choices in the Say All group allow you to
change to a different synthesizer when you read with the SayAll
command, INSERT+DOWN ARROW. This is a great feature! It allows you to
use Eloquence as your primary synthesizer for navigating and doing
normal work, and perhaps choose a more pleasant RealSpeak Solo Direct
synthesizer voice while listening to documents, e-mail, or Web pages
being read to you during a SayAll. I'm going to change this to show
you how it is done.
• Focus moved to the Speech Synthesizer combo box. If you leave
this
set to Default, the SayAll and the normal reading and other voices are
the same as the synthesizer chosen in the Synthesizer Name combo box
mentioned earlier. I've got some of the RealSpeak Solo Direct voices
installed, so I'll press R to select that in the list. I'll press TAB
to move to the next control.
• Here's another voice rate slider bar. This one is
specifically for
the SayAll. You can speed it up or slow it down according to how you
like it. I'm going to press PAGE UP a few times to increase the voice
rate. I'll press TAB to move to the next control.
• Punctuation. There are the same four choices, none, some,
most,
and all. The default is most. I'm going to change this to Some by
pressing the letter S, then I'll press TAB.
• Focus moves to the Person combo box. The choices available
depend
on the synthesizer you have chosen. I'm going to press UP ARROW. And
again. I'll leave mine set to Karen. I'll press TAB.
• Volume slider bar. Adjust this to your preference using PAGE
UP,
PAGE DOWN, or the ARROW keys. I'll press TAB to move to the OK button,
but before you activate this, read the next paragraph or two.
There are several buttons here, including OK, Save As, Restore To
Factory, and Cancel. Since I left the Profile name as Primary,
choosing the OK button would apply these settings to the primary
profile. The primary profile is the one that I will use the majority
of the time.
If you choose the SaveAs button, you can save the current global voice
settings as part of a new voice profile and give it a name of your
choosing. You could also choose to save these settings over an
existing profile. If you select an existing profile, then that
profile's global voice settings will be overwritten by the new
settings when you choose OK.
Of course, as I mentioned, there's also a Cancel button as well as a
Restore to Factory settings button. I think those are pretty
self-explanatory.
I'm going to demonstrate creating several new profiles later in the
basic training, so for now I'm going to choose the OK button instead
of the SaveAs button. I'll press SPACEBAR to activate the OK button
now. The Global Voices dialog box closes, and focus returns to the
JAWS window.
Now, let me demonstrate this. Focus is in the JAWS window. Follow
along with the steps below:
1. To get something on the screen to read, I'll press F1 to open the
JAWS help system. Focus lands on the Contents page, in the tree view
of books and topics. If you landed on another page, such as the Index,
Search, or Glossary page, press CTRL+TAB until you reach the Contents
page. Focus is on the book Introduction, and I heard it is open.
2. Press DOWN ARROW to move to the topic What's New in JAWS, and
press ENTER to open this topic in the right hand side of the help
system.
3. Press F6 to move to the text where the topic is. I pressed CTRL to
stop speech there.
4. I'll press CTRL+HOME to go to the top of the page.
5. Press TAB to move to the link that reads What's New in JAWS 10,
and press ENTER to activate this link. I pressed CTRL to stop speech.
The What's New for JAWS 10 topic has opened.
6. Now, try reading with the SayAll command, INSERT+DOWN ARROW.
I pressed CTRL to stop the speech there. Did you hear the SayAll with
one of the RealSpeak voices? Very nice!
JAWS Tip: What if you want to read with Eloquence for a SayAll? You
can do that with the current voice profile by pressing the keystroke
for an Alternate SayAll, ALT+INSERT+DOWN ARROW. This begins reading
with the SayAll using the main synthesizer, as opposed to the chosen
SayAll synthesizer. I'll try that now.
I pressed CTRL to stop speech again. So, there you have two different
ways of reading with a SayAll. For now, press ALT+F4 to close the JAWS
Help. Focus returns to the JAWS window. If it did not, just press
ALT+TAB until focus returns to the JAWS window.
Individual Voice Adjustment
Be careful in this area, because it is very easy to make changes that
may not be desirable here. I'll walk you through some things
step-by-step to make sure you understand this well.
EXERCISE: For this exercise, let's use Notepad.
First, press WINDOWS Key+R to open the Run dialog box.
Next, type notepad in the edit box and press ENTER to close the Run dialog box.
Notepad should start up.
1. Now, press INSERT+J to bring the JAWS window into focus.
2. Press ALT+O to open the Options menu and select the Voices
submenu. Press RIGHT ARROW to open the Voices submenu, and press DOWN
ARROW to move to Individual Voice Adjustment.
3. Press ENTER to open the Individual Voices dialog box. Focus lands
in the modify radio buttons group.
4. Press DOWN ARROW to choose the Application Notepad radio button.
This means any changes you make will only affect Notepad.
5. Press TAB until focus moves to the Voice Context combo box. Use
the UP or DOWN ARROW KEY to explore the items in this list. You should
find the following:
• PC Cursor Voice
• JAWS Cursor Voice
• Keyboard Voice
• Tutor and Message Voice
• Menu and Dialog Voice
NOTE: It is VERY IMPORTANT that you do not change the JAWS cursor
voice at this time.
6. Find the Keyboard Voice in this list and press TAB again.
7. You move to the Voice Rate slider bar. Here you can adjust the
voice rate solely for Notepad. Remember, the things you do here will
ONLY affect Notepad and then only the Keyboard voice within Notepad,
since you chose that radio button when you first opened this dialog
box.
8. Press TAB to move to the Punctuation combo box. Here you can
adjust the punctuation solely for Notepad. I'm going to press TAB
again.
9. Focus moves to the Person combo box. Here, I'd like to choose
someone other than Reed or Glen so I can demonstrate this clearly.
What will happen is that when I type in Notepad, the typing echo will
now echo in whatever voice I choose here. I'm going to choose Shelly.
10. I could go through this dialog box and make other changes, but
for the purposes of this exercise, that's all I'm going to change. I
could also choose the Save As button if I wanted to create a new voice
profile. However, I do not want to do that at this time. I'll press
ALT+O to activate the OK button and make this change part of the
primary profile.
At this point, focus returns to the JAWS window. Press ALT+TAB to move
back to the Notepad application. Type some text here and notice what
happens. Did you hear the typing voice change to Shelly? Now, press UP
or DOWN ARROW to move through the text you typed. You should hear the
default PC cursor voice now, which is Reed. The only thing we changed
was the typing echo voice, and then ONLY in the Notepad application.
If you move to another program and begin typing, the normal JAWS
voice, Reed, will speak the typing echo. This is an example of how you
can make adjustments that are application specific. Again, be very
careful here, as you DO want the JAWS cursor voice to be different
from the PC cursor voice for later in these lessons.
A better example of an application specific change might be to change
the voice rate or the punctuation in a certain application. However,
this example shows you how to make application specific changes. Now
you'll be able to experiment more on your own. I'm going to change the
keyboard voice back in just a few minutes, in the section on Manage
Application Settings.
NOTE: If you happened to turn off Typing Echo earlier, you can turn it
on again temporarily with the adjust JAWS options dialog box. To do
this, press INSERT+V, as in Victor, and find Typing Echo in the tree
view. Once you find Typing Echo, press SPACEBAR to toggle through the
choices until you find Characters again. Then press ENTER to close the
adjust JAWS options dialog box. Changes made in the dialog box in this
case are only temporary and JAWS will switch back to your normal
settings as soon as you press ALT+TAB to move away from Notepad.
Once you are finished testing this, switch back to the JAWS window to
continue. Press ALT+O to open the Options menu, and then press DOWN
ARROW to move to the next item.
Braille...
This will be discussed separately in a later lesson. I'll press DOWN
ARROW again.
Manage Application Settings
Press ENTER to open the manage application settings dialog box.
Introduced in JAWS 8.0, this dialog box contains a list of the
applications that have settings that you had created or modified. If
you want to temporarily turn off, or disable, settings in JAWS, you
press SPACEBAR to uncheck the checkbox next to an item in this list.
This list may also contain a default entry if you had modified
settings in the default set of files, for example, the JAWS voice
rate. That's what I landed on, was the default checkbox.
1. Press DOWN ARROW to move through the list until you find Notepad.
It should be checked.
2. Press SPACEBAR to uncheck the checkbox for Notepad. This will
cause the Notepad settings you had just created for the voice rate to
be disabled.
3. Press TAB to explore the other items in this dialog box.
You also have the ability to use several buttons to Enable All,
Disable All, or Remove Selected profiles. What I like about this is
that you can temporarily turn off settings to test things, if you need
to, and then turn those settings back on again. Another nice thing is
that to do this, you don't have to go into any managers or
configuration files to do so. Just open this dialog box and uncheck
one or more of the checkboxes that appear here if you want to see what
happens without having your settings in effect. For now, press
SPACEBAR on the OK button to close this dialog box.
EXERCISE: Press ALT+TAB to move back to Notepad again and try typing.
Notice that the typing echo has changed back to the default voice,
Reed.
Press ALT+TAB to go back to the JAWS user interface and reopen the
manage application settings dialog box.
Press ALT+O for Options and then ENTER on manage application settings
in the menu.
Make sure to select Notepad in the list and then press TAB to move to
the Remove Selected button.
Press SPACEBAR to activate it. A dialog box opens asking if you are sure.
Press TAB to move to the OK button and activate it with the SPACEBAR.
Focus returns to the manage applications dialog box. The choice for
Notepad in the list is now gone.
Press TAB to move to the OK button, and activate it with the SPACEBAR
to close the dialog box.
I'll press ALT+O to open the Options menu again and then DOWN ARROW to
move to Exit.
Exit
This is one way to shut JAWS off. Note that the menu also reminds you
that you can press the hot key, ALT+F4, to close JAWS without having
to go into the menus at all. I'm not going to close JAWS at the
moment, though.
Press ALT+U to open the Utilities menu now.
Utilities Menu
Tandem
JAWS Tandem is a great new feature introduced in JAWS 10 that allows
two computers to connect to each other. Tandem allows one of the
computer users to take control of the other computer. The user at the
controlling computer controls the target computer using a combination
of speech, keyboard, video, and braille. The target user can hear and
participate in the session as desired. The target user has the
ultimate control over the session, and can terminate the session at
any time. This is a great new tool for technical support, trouble
shooting, and training or remote learning. See the JAWS Help system
for more information about this excellent new feature!
I'll demonstrate Tandem later in the Basic Training to show you how
easy it is to use! There will be a separate section.
Merge Utility
The JAWS Merge Utility lets you import specific files and settings,
such as configuration files (JCF), dictionary files (JDF), graphic
files (JGF), personalized Web settings, and so on, from previous JAWS
versions installed on your computer.
This allows you to import your settings from JAWS version 5 or higher
into your current version of JAWS up to version 8.
NOTE: Starting with JAWS 9.0, you will not be able to import previous
Microsoft Word 2007, Word 2003, Office 2007, and Outlook 2003 files
and settings. However, future versions of JAWS will permit the import
of Word and Office files and settings created using JAWS 9.0 or later.
Press DOWN ARROW.
Synthesizer and Braille Manager
Added in JAWS 7.10, this opens a dialog box with a tree view of all
synthesizers and braille displays that are currently installed. To add
or remove devices from this list, choose the Add, Remove, or Change
Devices button. I'll press DOWN ARROW.
Configuration Manager
I won't be covering everything in Configuration manager. However, I
will be using many of the options within Configuration manager during
these lessons. We'll look at some of these options later. For now,
press DOWN ARROW to move to the next item.
Keyboard Manager
This topic will not be covered in this training. The Keyboard manager
controls assignment of keystrokes to JAWS activities. All JAWS
activities assigned to keystrokes are called scripts. A script is a
small computer program that controls how JAWS reacts, and what you
hear. When you press INSERT+T, for example, to read the title of a
window, that is a script. Keyboard manager maintains the relationship
between the script and the keystroke. I'll press DOWN ARROW.
Dictionary Manager
Dictionary manager is covered later in a separate module. I'll press DOWN ARROW.
Frame Viewer
Frame viewer is not covered in this training. The JAWS help system is
a good place to begin learning about frames. I'll press DOWN ARROW.
Script Manager
Script manager is covered in a separate DAISY book. I'll press DOWN ARROW.
Navigation Quick Key Manager
Navigation Quick Keys are single or combination keystrokes that allow
you move quickly around in Web pages (HTML), PDF documents, Microsoft
Word documents, or Microsoft Outlook 2007 e-mail messages.
Navigation Quick Key manager can be used to view, edit, or delete
those current navigation quick key assignments.
EXERCISE Follow the instructions below as the instructor goes into the
Navigation Quick Key manager:
1. If you haven't already done so, from within the JAWS window press
ALT+U to open the Utilities menu.
2. Press N to open the Navigation Quick Key manager submenu. Focus
moves to the first item of three, HTML/PDF.
3. I'll press DOWN ARROW to move through the other two items. There's
Microsoft Word, and there's Microsoft Outlook 2007.
4. I'll press DOWN ARROW again, and focus wraps back to the first item,
HTML.
5. Go ahead and press ENTER and let's examine the navigation quick
keys we use with JAWS on the Web. Focus lands in a list of available
navigation quick keys for the Web that are already assigned. You can
use UP or DOWN ARROW or first letter navigation to move through this
list.
6. I'm going to go ahead and press H to move to the word Heading in
the list. I hear that the letter H is the navigation quick key used
for moving between headings. But what if I wanted to change it to
something else?
7. I'll press TAB to move to the next control in the dialog box.
Here's the Edit Key Assignment button. You can also activate it
without moving to it by pressing ALT+E while still in the list above.
In addition, there is a Delete Key Assignment button just after the
Edit Key Assignment button. The Delete Key Assignment button is used
to delete a key assignment as opposed to replacing one.
8. Press SPACEBAR to activate the Edit Key Assignment button. The
Edit Navigation Quick Key Assignment dialog box opens. Focus is in an
edit combo box. Edit the existing keystroke and change it to another
one of your choosing. What happens if you choose one that is already
in use?
9. Try typing in B which is assigned to buttons, and press ENTER. Did
you get a warning message? The message should read "Key Assignment
Conflict Found. The "b" key is currently assigned to the "Button"
action. If you continue this key assignment will be replaced. Do you
want to replace the key assignment? Yes or No?"
10. Go ahead and press ENTER to activate the Yes button. The edit key
assignment dialog box closes, and focus returns to the list view in
Navigation Quick Key manager. Notice that headings now have the key
assignment of B. You can reread the line by pressing the SayLine
keystroke INSERT+UP ARROW.
11. Now, press B until Button is selected in the list. Do you notice
that it now says "unassigned?"
12. Now that you know how to change these, let's change them back to
what they were. The easiest way to do this is to press ESC. I'll go
ahead and press ESC now. You could also move to and activate the
Cancel button. The Navigation Quick Key manager closes, and the
changes are not saved. You can open it back up again to verify that
the letter B is still assigned to button, and the letter H is still
assigned to headings. Of course, had you wanted to save the changes
you made, you would have activated the OK button.
There are slightly fewer navigation quick keys available in the
Microsoft Word or in the Microsoft Outlook 2007 programs. Take a
moment to examine the keys available to you in both of these programs
by looking at Navigation Quick Key manager for each of them.
NOTE: A separate DAISY book is available for learning to use
navigation quick keys in Microsoft Word.
Focus has returned to the JAWS window. I'll press ALT+U to open the
Utilities menu again, and press DOWN ARROW to move to Re-initialize
Authorization.
Re-initialize Authorization
You can now use the Re-Initialize Authorization command on the
Utilities menu to force JAWS to search for a valid ILM authorization.
If the search is successful, JAWS displays your serial number. I'll
press DOWN ARROW.
Video Intercept Manager
The JAWS Video Intercept manager detects problems related to video
that may prevent JAWS from functioning properly. This will only be
used when you are working with Freedom Scientific Technical Support
Engineers. We recommend only experienced computer users attempt to
resolve Video Intercept problems without assistance From Freedom
Scientific Technical Support. Video Intercept manager is not used in
Windows Vista so the item is unavailable in the menu if you are using
Vista, as I am.
Press ALT+L to open the Language menu now.
Language Menu
JAWS Language
This menu item provides access to a submenu of language version
choices for JAWS. This menu is unavailable in English only versions of
JAWS. It will normally only be available in areas outside of the
United States. Press DOWN ARROW.
1. I hear Voice Profiles submenu. Press ENTER to open the submenu. I
heard JAWS say Primary, checked. That's because that is the voice
profile I am currently using.
2. Go ahead and explore the other voice profiles available to you by
pressing DOWN ARROW to move through the choices.
Prior to JAWS 10 there was a Change Synthesizer option. Now, instead,
JAWS gives you the ability to switch to different voice profiles. Each
profile can use either the same or a different synthesizer. Several
other things can be changed as well, giving you a great deal of
flexibility!
1. I'll press DOWN ARROW. I heard Eloquence. Choosing this gives you
back the default Eloquence profile. I'm going to press ENTER to switch
to the Eloquence profile. Did you notice that the voice is slightly
slower than my Primary voice profile?
2. I'm going to press ALT+L, then I'll open the Voice Profiles
submenu again, and press DOWN ARROW to move to the next item.
3. I heard SAPI 5. If you have installed SAPI 5 software synthesizers
on your computer this gives you a chance to switch to them. I'm going
to press DOWN ARROW again.
4. I hear RealSpeak Solo Direct. I'll press ENTER to make this my
current profile. The menus close, and I now hear one of the RealSpeak
Solo Direct voices that is installed on my computer.
5. I'll repeat the steps to open the Language menu and go back into
the Voice Profiles submenu again.
6. I'll press DOWN ARROW to move to Create New. This gives you
another way of creating a new voice profile. I'll press ENTER to show
how this works. The Global Voices dialog box opens. We reviewed this
earlier in the section on the Options menu, Voices submenu, and then
Global Voice Adjustment.
7. I'll press ESC to get out of the Global Voices dialog box. Focus
returns to the JAWS window.
8. I'll repeat the steps to open the Language menu and go back into
the Voice Profiles submenu again.
9. I'll press DOWN ARROW until I find No Speech. Why would anyone
want to use No Speech? Well, some people may not be able to hear the
synthesizer, but they can still use a braille display. Or perhaps
someone might want to use a braille display instead of speech for
privacy.
10. I'll press DOWN ARROW, and focus wraps back to Primary.
11. I'll press ENTER to select the Primary voice profile again.
There, that's more like it. I like the faster voice rate. The menus
have closed, and focus is back in the JAWS window.
Help Menu
Press ALT+H to open the Help menu and read the choices there.
Training
If you're reading this Basic Training with JAWS you are probably using
FSReader demo right now. Don't press ENTER in the steps below or the
Basic Training will close. Just follow along with the narrator or read
the text until you reach the next section.
New since JAWS 6.1 is the addition of a Training item in the JAWS Help
menu. Pressing ENTER on this item opens the FSReader demo DAISY
reading program. In addition, the File Open dialog box is opened for
you with a list of Freedom Scientific training topics. Pressing ENTER
on any item in the list opens that topic in FSReader. If you have
never used FSReader, we suggest going to the book called
FSReaderGettingStarted first. You can also find this book by pressing
F1 from within FSReader or FSReader demo.
Using FSReader Demo with Narrated Audio and Training Materials
New, beginning with JAWS 8.0, is the ability to play, pause, skip
ahead, or skip backwards through narrated audio DAISY materials
without having to actually be in the FSReader user interface. This is
GREAT for training purposes! What this means is that you can be
listening to a DAISY book about training and open a practice document,
for example, in Microsoft Word, Excel, Internet Explorer, or any other
application. You can stay in the practice document and still control
FSReader audio with this new feature! You no longer have to press
ALT+TAB to move between the FSReader program and back again to your
practice files. Just stay within the practice file and use the
following keystrokes to control FSReader audio (if audio is available
in the DAISY book):
• Play or Pause Audio (toggle), CTRL+P.
• Skip Ahead 5 seconds, CTRL+PERIOD.
• Skip Back 5 seconds, CTRL+COMMA.
NOTE: Since CTRL+P is also normally used as a hot key within
applications to access the print dialog box, when FSReader is running
this hot key will not open the print dialog box. Instead, if FSReader
is open in the background, this hot key controls the audio play and
pause feature. If you need to print a document while FSReader is
running use the application's regular menu commands to print.
Normally, that means just press ALT+F to open the file menu of that
program, and then press P to get to the print dialog box.
1. I'm going to go ahead and press ENTER here. The File Open dialog
box opens with FSReaderGettingStarted highlighted.
2. I'll press ENTER to open it. I'm in a tree view.
3. I can press DOWN ARROW. I hear the item is closed and I'll press
RIGHT ARROW to open it.
4. I'll press DOWN ARROW.
5. I'm going to press TAB to move to the read only text area.
6. I'll press a SayLine, which is INSERT+UP ARROW, and I'll press
DOWN ARROW. Again.
7. I still have Notepad running in the background. I'm going to press
ALT+TAB to move back to Notepad.
8. FSReader is now in the background, but I'm going to press CTRL+P
to start the audio.
9. I pressed CTRL+P again to stop the audio, but I'm still in
Notepad. I can type text and so on. But if I press CTRL+P again. And
again. The CTRL+P keystroke while FSReader is in the background
toggles the narrated audio on and off.
If I want to print this file in Notepad, I would go to the menu bar by
pressing ALT+F, and then I would choose the letter P for Print. I'm
going to press ESC, because I really don't want to print anything
right now. I just wanted to show you how FSReader can be run in the
background using the narrated audio training materials, and you can
still work in the foreground in a different document, like a practice
document. I'm going to press ESC to get out of the Print dialog box.
1. I'll press ALT+TAB to go back to FSReader demo.
2. Take some time to read through this document later. For now, I'm
going to press ALT+F4 to close FSReader Demo.
3. And I'll press ALT+TAB to move back to the JAWS window.
4. I'll press ALT+H to go back to the Help menu.
Press DOWN ARROW.
JAWS Help Topics, F1
The JAWS Help system itself is discussed in detail in a later module.
For now, let's continue by pressing DOWN ARROW.
Keyboard Commands
If you press ENTER on this item, the JAWS help system opens right to
the page that describes keystrokes. Here you can find links for JAWS
keystrokes, standard Windows keystrokes, and JAWS keystrokes for
popular applications. Press DOWN ARROW.
What's New
This opens the JAWS help system right to the section that describes
what's new in each release of JAWS. This is one of the first things I
read when I get a new version of JAWS, because it helps me to find out
about the new things that have been added or things that have changed.
Press DOWN ARROW.
End User License Agreement
This opens the JAWS help system to the section that contains the End
User License Agreement. You first see this agreement when JAWS is
installed, but you can read it again here. Press DOWN ARROW.
Technical Support
This opens the JAWS help system to the technical support page, where
you can find e-mail and telephone information. Press DOWN ARROW.
Web Resources Submenu
The Web Resources submenu was introduced in JAWS version 8. Press
ENTER to open this submenu and let's explore the items within it.
NOTE: These are like links to various resources on the Web, but
they're in a menu. If you do not have an Internet connection you'll
most likely get an error page when Internet Explorer tries to open
them.
• JAWS Headquarters. The JAWS Headquarters Web page is a great
one-stop resource for JAWS. Visit it to download software updates,
locate resources, and learn new ways to use JAWS.
• Technical Support. This opens to the Freedom Scientific Technical
Support page where you can search our knowledge base for support
bulletins and FAQ's.
• FS Activate. Use this menu item to go to a page where you can
verify the number of available JAWS activation keys, ask for a reset
of your activations allowed for a registered user, or retrieve an
activation license code based on your Authorization number and Locking
code.
• Surfing the Internet. Surf's Up, Surfing the Internet with JAWS, is
a useful group of Web pages that teach you how to work with and read
HTML pages with JAWS. Read these pages for some examples of good HTML
code. Refer your Webmaster and IT folks to these pages, as well!
• MAGic Screen Magnification. This page is all about MAGic, Freedom
Scientific's screen magnification software.
• Training Headquarters. My favorite page! Visit the Training
Headquarters Web page for the latest versions of training materials
for all of our products, many of which are available in DAISY or MP3
format for download. Learn about scheduled JAWS workshops, tutorials,
and more!
• PAC Mate Headquarters. Use this link to access information,
documentation, and tools available for the PAC Mate accessible
personal digital assistant.
• RealSpeak Solo Direct download page. This link takes you to the
page where you can download many more RealSpeak Solo Direct
synthesizer voices for free. These voices only work with Freedom
Scientific products.
• www.freedomscientific.com. This menu item takes you to the Freedom
Scientific home page.
I'll press DOWN ARROW again.
I've wrapped back to the top.
I'll press LEFT ARROW to go back to the previous menu.
And I'll continue to press DOWN ARROW.
About JAWS for Windows
The About JAWS dialog box now contains fields of read-only text that
contain your JAWS serial number and locking code. Other information
such as remaining upgrades, remote access, special update codes, and
authorization can also be found here. I'll press DOWN ARROW.
Startup Wizard
The JAWS Startup Wizard was introduced with JAWS 8 and runs the first
time you reboot after installing JAWS. It was greatly expanded with
the JAWS 9 release. The first time JAWS runs after installation the
Startup Wizard begins. However, you can start it up again at any time
by pressing ENTER on it right here in the Help menu. The JAWS Startup
Wizard was discussed in more detail in an earlier module.
Update Authorization
If you purchase an upgrade or Software Maintenance Agreement for your
version of JAWS, our customer service department might direct you to
this menu. Pressing ENTER on this item opens the Start Activation
dialog box that allows them to help you do that.
Check for Updates
New since JAWS 7.10 is the ability to search for newer versions of
JAWS software on the Web. JAWS then checks to see if any updates are
available and displays a list for you to choose from. The list of
updates includes the file size and details about what the update
contains. You can then choose to download and install any of the new
software versions in order to keep JAWS up-to-date. Related material,
such as DAISY training materials, can also be downloaded and updated.
This service will help Freedom Scientific make minor changes and
improvements to JAWS much more frequently.
For now, press ESCAPE to get out of the JAWS menus. You should land
back in the main JAWS window. If you don't, press ALT+TAB until you
do.
JAWS Version Number
You can read the JAWS version number by pressing INSERT+UP ARROW while
the JAWS window is in the foreground. (JAWS version x.y y.z z z.) You
can also find it in the JAWS Help menu item "About JAWS for Windows."
Also, new in version 9 of JAWS, you can read the version number of
JAWS with the UP or DOWN ARROW while the JAWS window is in the
foreground.
JAWS Serial Number
You can read the JAWS serial number by pressing INSERT+PAGE DOWN while
the JAWS window is in the foreground. You can also find it in the JAWS
Help menu item "About JAWS for Windows."
JAWS Program Group
Press the WINDOWS LOGO KEY to open the Start Menu. That's the second
key out to either side of the spacebar on my keyboard. In Windows
Vista you do not press the letter P to move to either Programs or All
Programs like you may have done in Windows XP. Instead, when you first
open the Start menu in Windows Vista, focus lands in the Search edit
box. If you type the letter P here, the Windows Vista search program
begins looking for items in your Start menu and elsewhere on your
computer that begin with the letter P. For example, on my computer if
I press p r, the first two letters of "programs" in the search edit
box I find the following items in the Start menu:
• Explore program files, this opens in Windows Explorer
• Default programs, this opens in Control Panel
• Command prompt, this opens a DOS window
• Connect to a network projector, pretty self-explanatory
• And much more
Notice that in all of the above, there is at least one word with the
letters pr in the list. But, none of these is what you might expect
from the old Programs or All Programs group in the Start menu!
This is a great new feature of Windows Vista! Once you start using it,
you'll like it, I'm sure. To read more about the Start menu in Windows
Vista, read the book XTraJAWSAndMAGicIntroToVista.
Here's how to find All Programs in the Windows Vista Start menu:
1. First, I'm going to press ESC a couple of times.
2. Press the WINDOWS Key to open the Start menu. Focus lands in the
Search edit box.
3. Press UP ARROW to move to All Programs. It is at the bottom of the
left side of the Start menu, just above the Search edit box.
4. Press ENTER to open the All Programs submenu. If you were recently
in a different group during this session of Windows, that group will
be selected in the choices. The last time I was in here I was in the
Accessories group. Windows Vista remembers where you were last during
this session.
In this case, I'll press the letter J until I hear JAWS and the
version number I'm looking for. That puts focus on the JAWS program
group. I'll press ENTER to open the JAWS program group submenu.
NOTE: This module was recorded with JAWS 9. The program group of JAWS
has not changed since then. Also, the items in the program group on
your computer may not be in the same order as those on my computer.
Windows determines the order in which menu items are placed and we
have no control over that. However, all of the menu items should be
included, just not necessarily in the same order on different
computers.
NOTE: Windows Vista does not use cascading menus as were present in
previous versions of Windows. Instead, the left pane where the menus
appear gets instantly updated with the latest information. This means
that more of the desktop is visible when you are using the menus. This
is called a nested folder view, which takes up less screen space.
I'll press DOWN ARROW.
Braille Viewer
The first item in the group on my computer is Braille Viewer. Freedom
Scientific developed the JAWS Braille Viewer to provide textual
representation on the computer screen of the output received on a
refreshable braille device. The application is designed to simulate a
braille display and operates with or without an actual braille display
present. The main purpose of Braille Viewer is to assist sighted
instructors or testers that perhaps do not read braille or may not
have access to a braille display. It helps to demonstrate and confirm
the output information JAWS sends to these hardware devices. I'll
press DOWN ARROW.
FSReader Demo
You now can get more help learning JAWS basics and the more
sophisticated features of JAWS with FSReader Demo, a built-in DAISY
Reader solution that is included with JAWS at no extra charge. All
basic training materials have been converted to DAISY format. DAISY
stands for Digital Accessible Information SYstem. The term DTB is also
used sometimes, referring to Digital Talking Books. Most of the DAISY
books that are created by Freedom Scientific are in both text and
audio format. That means you can copy text from the books and paste it
into your own notes, or listen to the narrator read to you. For now,
I'll press DOWN ARROW.
Help
This is the same JAWS help system that is discussed in detail in a
later module. I'll press DOWN ARROW.
JAWS
Pressing ENTER on this will start JAWS if it is not already running.
I'll press DOWN ARROW.
Run HJPad
This starts the HJPad word processing program that ships free with
JAWS. This is a basic word processor including a spell checker. I'll
discuss HJPad in more detail later in the training modules. I'll press
DOWN ARROW.
Explore JAWS
I hear Explore JAWS, closed. The items in this submenu are shortcuts
to folders that contain important JAWS files. I'll come back to this
in just a minute. For now, press DOWN ARROW to explore this menu level
first.
Tools
I hear Tools, closed. I'll come back to this in just a minute also.
This is the last item in the JAWS group and if I continue to press
DOWN ARROW I move to the next item in the Start menu. In my case
that's MAGic 11.0. For now, press UP ARROW to move back up to Explore
JAWS.
Explore JAWS Submenu
I just moved back to the Explore JAWS item in the Windows Vista Start
menu. Press ENTER or RIGHT ARROW when you find it to open the submenu.
Press DOWN ARROW to move to Explore My Settings.
Explore My Settings
When you press ENTER on this item, Windows Explorer opens into the
directory where your local settings are stored. Files that are created
when you change your personal settings in JAWS are stored here. Some
examples include changes to Voice Settings and Typing Echo. If you
write JAWS scripts, your script files will also be stored here.
The actual path to this folder in Windows Vista is:
C:\Users\[UserName]\AppData\Roaming\Freedom
Scientific\JAWS\[version]\Settings\Enu, where UserName is the
individual JAWS user and version represents JAWS version 6 or higher.
It's a lot easier just to use Explore JAWS, Explore My Settings! It
puts you right in the same place.
The actual path to this folder in Windows XP is:
C:\Documents and Settings\[UserName]\Application Data\Freedom
Scientific\JAWS\[version]\Settings\Enu, where UserName is the
individual JAWS user and version represents JAWS 6 or higher.
Press DOWN ARROW.
Explore Program Files
This is where the main JAWS program files are stored, and it happens
to be the same for both Vista and XP.
The actual path to this folder is:
C:\Program Files\Freedom Scientific\JAWS\[version] where version
represents JAWS version 6 or higher.
Press DOWN ARROW.
Explore Shared Settings
This is where JAWS stores any files that are shared between different
JAWS users who use the same computer. An example might be a computer
in a public setting, such as a classroom, that is shared during the
day by two or more students. If there are special configurations for a
specific program that they all use, those configuration files will be
stored here so they all have access to them. On the other hand, their
files for voice rate and other personal preferences would be stored in
their personal user files location.
In Windows Vista the actual path to this folder is:
C:\ProgramData\Freedom Scientific\JAWS\[version]\Settings\Enu, where
version represents JAWS 6 or higher.
In Windows XP the actual path to this folder is:
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Freedom
Scientific\JAWS\[version]\Settings\Enu, where version represents JAWS
6 or higher.
Press DOWN ARROW.
Explore the Manuals
You can use this shortcut to open a folder containing electronic
copies of printed JAWS documentation and other reference materials,
including the Basics of Scripting manual, the JAWS Quick Start Guide,
and a list of keystrokes in Word (DOC) and TXT format.
For now, press UP ARROW to return to the Explore JAWS item. You should
hear JAWS say "Explore JAWS opened." Press LEFT ARROW or ENTER while
you are on this item to close this group and then press DOWN ARROW to
move down to the Tools Submenu.
NOTE: If you are not on the main item in a group when you press LEFT
ARROW you will end up in the right side of the Start menu in Windows
Vista. In order to close a group with LEFT ARROW you must be on the
main item in the open group. JAWS tells you the name of the group
followed by the word Open or Closed when you move from one group to
another.
Tools Submenu
I had just pressed DOWN ARROW to move to the Tools group. I'll press
RIGHT ARROW to open the Tools Submenu.
Display Chaining Manager
You'll find Display Chaining Manager (DCM) in the menu here if you run
JAWS in Windows XP. DCM allows multiple assistive technology aids
(such as screen readers and screen magnifiers) to be installed on a
single computer. You can use the Display Chaining Manager utility to
view and/or modify the computer's display chain so that your assistive
technology devices do not interfere with each other. You won't find
DCM in JAWS menus when running JAWS in Windows Vista, because
different technology is used.
Warning : Modifying your computer's display chain can cause severe
problems with system functionality. You should only use Display
Chaining Manager if instructed to by Freedom Scientific Technical
Support personnel.
Press DOWN ARROW.
Dongle Viewer
A dongle is a hardware device that you can connect to a computer's
parallel or USB port (depending on the type of dongle). JAWS is
authorized to run on that computer as long as the dongle remains
connected. This is useful if you frequently need to use JAWS on many
different computers and do not want to activate the program on each of
them. Use this command to view the license information for the dongle
currently connected to your computer. Most of you will not have a
hardware dongle, so you don't need to concern yourself with this
topic.
Press DOWN ARROW.
ILM Authorization Viewer
Activating this menu item will give you information about your
Internet License Manager authorization version of JAWS, such as
product authorized, serial number, upgrades remaining, and more.
Press DOWN ARROW.
PAC Mate Desktop
PAC Mate Desktop is a program that allows you to establish a
connection between your PAC Mate and a computer with JAWS installed.
You can connect your PAC Mate and computer using a USB cable, a
network connection, modem, or wireless local area network. Once you
establish a connection, you can run programs, read documents and Web
pages, and work with files and folders on your computer using only
your PAC Mate. Commands that you issue and text that you type are sent
to your computer, and you receive speech and braille feedback on the
PAC Mate.
Press DOWN ARROW.
Remove Product Activation
This command is only present if your license of JAWS uses Internet
License Manager (ILM) for authorization. Use this command to delete
your licenses for all versions of JAWS, 5.10 and later, installed on
this computer. Until you acquire a new license, you will only be able
to use JAWS in 40 minute mode.
Press DOWN ARROW.
Settings Packager
Settings Packager is a program that allows you to import and export
speech and sound schemes, PlaceMarkers, and personalized Web settings,
including Custom Labels. For information about using this program,
start Settings Packager, open the Help menu, and choose Help Topics.
Press DOWN ARROW.
Start JAWS with Eloquence
Use this command to start JAWS with the Eloquence speech synthesizer.
This might be handy for troubleshooting purposes, especially if your
default synthesizer is a hardware synthesizer.
Press DOWN ARROW.
Synthesizer and Braille Manager
Added in JAWS 7.10, this opens a dialog box with a tree view of all
synthesizers and braille displays that are currently installed. To add
or remove devices from the list, choose the Add, Remove, or Change
Devices button.
Press DOWN ARROW.
Uninstall JAWS
Use this command to remove JAWS from your computer.
Press DOWN ARROW.
Those are all the items that are included in the Tools group for
Windows Vista when JAWS is running. If you're running in Windows XP
you may find Video Intercept Manager.
Video Intercept Manager
You'll find this in the JAWS program group if you're running JAWS in
Windows XP but not in Windows Vista. Review the previous module on the
JAWS User Interface under the Utilities menu for JAWS. This is the
same thing, and it's just another way to open it.
For now, I'm going to press ESC a couple of times to get out of the Start menu.
JAWS Reading Commands
Reading the screen is done by pressing keys on the numeric keypad, or
NUM PAD, sometimes in combination with other keys on the keyboard.
When JAWS is loaded, the NUM LOCK is turned off, unless changed by the
user in setting up their personal preferences, so that the keys
represent movement keys, such as left arrow, right arrow, page up, and
so on.
If you want to use your number pad for typing numbers, press NUM LOCK
to toggle back and forth from screen reading mode to number input
mode. Alternatively, you can go to the Configuration manager and
within the DEFAULT.JCF file (JAWS configuration file) choose Set
Options > Keyboard Options. There you'll find a group of radio buttons
for the Initial State of Num Lock Key where you can change your
preference for how the NUM LOCK is handled when JAWS first starts.
This is an option in the new JAWS Startup Wizard as well.
Some other keys which will be explored in more detail as we move
further into the training include the following. I'll explain them all
in more detail later. Just be aware of them for the time being.
• Forward Slash, left mouse button.
• Asterisk, right mouse button.
• NUM PAD Plus, PC cursor in most applications, Virtual cursor in
HTML and PDF documents.
• NUM PAD Minus, JAWS cursor.
• NUM PAD Minus twice quickly, Invisible cursor.
Practice Your Reading Commands in a Document
EXERCISE: Let's open a document to practice reading commands with.
Let's use SAINT PETE.RTF. Press WINDOWS Key+E to open Windows
Explorer.
Press SHIFT+TAB to move to the tree view.
I'll press O to move to my local hard drive, OS(C:)
1. Follow along as I navigate to the Training\enu folder. Press RIGHT
ARROW to open your hard drive if it is closed.
2. Press P for Program Files.
3. Press RIGHT ARROW to open that.
4. Press F for Freedom Scientific.
5. Press RIGHT ARROW to open that.
6. Press T for Training.
7. Press RIGHT ARROW to open that.
8. Press J for JAWS.
9. Press RIGHT ARROW to open that.
10. Press DOWN ARROW to move to the ENU folder.
11. Press ENTER to update the files on the right side of the screen
in the list view.
12. Press TAB to move to the list view. There it is.
13. Press S until you find Saint Pete.rtf.
14. Press ENTER to open it.
I'm going to press DOWN ARROW until I come to the line that begins
From the sparkling blue waters.
Home Row on the Number Pad
To begin reading with JAWS, put your middle three fingers on the
numeric keypad, with your middle finger on the number 5, the one with
the raised bump. Your pointer finger should be resting on the left
arrow (NUM PAD 4) and your ring finger on the right arrow (NUM PAD 6).
This is what I call the Home Row for your fingers on the Number Pad.
Read by Character
Pressing the NUM PAD 5 speaks the current character, pressing the
RIGHT ARROW moves to and reads the next character and pressing LEFT
ARROW moves to and reads the prior character. Try that. NUM PAD 5 ,
capital F with a higher pitch. RIGHT ARROW and LEFT ARROW. To hear a
character spoken phonetically, press the NUM PAD 5 twice quickly. Once
JAWS is in phonetic mode it stays in phonetic mode as you press LEFT
or RIGHT ARROW. Press NUM PAD 5 once again by itself to get out of
phonetic mode.
Read by Word
To read by words, tuck your thumb under and hold down the INSERT key
(NUM PAD 0) while pressing any of the three keys above. Thus
INSERT+NUM PAD 5 speaks the current word at the cursor, INSERT+NUM PAD
RIGHT ARROW moves to and speaks the next word, and INSERT+NUM PAD LEFT
ARROW moves to and speaks the prior word. Press the keystroke
INSERT+NUM PAD 5 twice quickly to spell a word. And again, I heard a
capital F in that word because of the higher pitch on that letter.
While in spelling mode, navigation to the prior or next word remains
in spelling mode unless you press INSERT+NUM PAD 5 once again by
itself.
Read by Lines
To read by lines, press UP ARROW to move to and read the prior line,
DOWN ARROW to move to and speak the next line, and INSERT+UP ARROW to
read the current line. I'll press DOWN ARROW. I'll press it again. Try
pressing UP or DOWN ARROW a few times. Also try INSERT+UP ARROW to
read the current line.
Read the Entire Document
To read an entire document from wherever the cursor is located with
one keystroke, press INSERT+DOWN ARROW. This keystroke is called the
SayAll command, and is used frequently with JAWS. While using the Say
All command, you can press the LEFT or RIGHT ARROW keys to rewind or
fast forward through the text. You can also press PAGE UP or PAGE DOWN
to increase or decrease the voice rate. In addition, you can use
navigation quick keys during a SayAll. To halt speech, press the CTRL
key.
Read by Sentence
To read the prior sentence, press ALT+UP ARROW. To read the next
sentence press ALT+DOWN ARROW. To read the current sentence, press
ALT+NUM PAD 5. Reading by sentences is one of my favorite ways to
read.
Read by Paragraph
To read the prior paragraph, press CTRL+UP ARROW. To read the next
paragraph press CTRL+DOWN ARROW. To read the current paragraph press
CTRL+NUM PAD 5. I'm going to press CTRL+DOWN ARROW a couple of times.
I like to use reading by paragraph to skim through an article or a
document. I can press CTRL+DOWN ARROW and listen to the first sentence
to get an idea of what that paragraph is about. And then move on ahead
by pressing CTRL+DOWN ARROW again.
There are many other keystrokes used for reading with JAWS, but these
are the basic ones. In addition, once you know the basic keystrokes
for reading with JAWS, these same keystrokes apply to all of the
different cursors in JAWS. So whether you are reading with the PC
Cursor, the JAWS Cursor, the Virtual Cursor, or the Invisible Cursor,
they all use the same reading keystrokes.
I'll discuss the different cursors in a later module.
Specialized Keys
Spell Current Word, INSERT+NUM PAD 5 twice quickly. We talked about
that earlier.
Time, INSERT+F12.
Date, INSERT+F12 twice quickly
System Tray Icons, INSERT+F11
List of Running Applications, INSERT+F10
Spend some time practicing your reading commands here in the Saint
Pete.rtf document. When you are finished practicing, press ALT+F4 to
close it. If you are asked to save any changes, just say no.
JAWS Help
The main JAWS Help System can be accessed from within the JAWS window
by pressing F1 or by pressing ALT+H to go to the Help menu.
EXERCISE: If you're not already there, switch to the JAWS window and
press ALT+H to open the Help menu. If you have JAWS running in the
system tray, press INSERT+J to open the context menu for JAWS and then
press DOWN ARROW to move to Help. Then press RIGHT ARROW to open the
Help menu.
JAWS Help Menu
Press DOWN ARROW to explore the JAWS Help menu, which contains the
following items:
• Training
• JAWS Help Topics, F1
• Keyboard Commands
• What's New
• End User License Agreement
• Technical Support
• Web Resources submenu
• About JAWS for Windows
• Startup Wizard
• Update Authorization
• Check for Updates
Focus has returned to the top of the menu on the item Training.
Training
Within FSReader demo, make note of a couple of keystrokes you can use
to explore and navigate with:
• TAB moves between the tree view of topics and the text area of the
book, if there is text available.
• CTRL+P is a toggle keystroke to start or stop narrated audio, if
there is narrated audio in the book.
• Use standard reading commands for JAWS while you are in the text
area. You can also select and copy text to paste it into your own
training materials or notes.
When you close any DAISY book, FSReader also remembers the spot where
you were reading, so the next time you open the book, you'll be right
where you left off.
JAWS Help Topics
EXERCISE: Go back to the Help menu in JAWS, move to the item "JAWS
Help Topics" and press ENTER to open the JAWS Help topics.
The JAWS help system is entirely in HTML format. It is navigated by
using a tree view of books and topics on the left hand side of the
Help window, and the related help topic, located in a window on the
right side. Press ENTER on a help topic in the tree view and press the
F6 key to move to the topic area. Pressing F6 moves you from one side
back to the other again.
The JAWS Help window is composed of four separate pages. You can move
from page-to-page by pressing CONTROL+TAB. The four pages are:
• Contents, ALT+C
• Index, ALT+N
• Search, ALT+S
• Glossary, ALT+G
Press CTRL+TAB now to explore the different pages mentioned above.
Using HTML Help Systems
Help information for software is often presented in HTML format. You
can read and navigate these Help systems just like Web sites on the
Internet. A type of help system called HTML Help is used in many
different kinds of programs, including JAWS. In addition to presenting
information as HTML pages, an HTML Help system can also have an index,
full text search capability, glossary, table of contents, and other
features.
Table of Contents
The table of contents is one of the best ways to browse the various
subject matter contained in the Help system. A table of contents
contains one or more books. Books contain several related topics. Make
sure you are back in the Contents tab, and if you are not sure, press
CTRL+TAB until you hear JAWS speak "Contents page." In the following
exercise, you will use the JAWS Help system to learn how to navigate
the table of contents:
1. If you're not already there, in the JAWS window, open the Help
menu and choose Help Topics.
2. Hold CTRL and press the TAB key until you hear "Table of Contents
page." Notice that this is the pane where the four tabs I mentioned
earlier are located: Table of Contents, Index,Search, and Glossary.
3. Use the UP and DOWN ARROW keys to explore the table of contents.
As you move through the table of contents, you are moving through
books in a tree view. If a book is closed you cannot see what topics
it contains.
4. Select the book Using the Internet with JAWS and then press RIGHT
ARROW to open it.
5. Use the DOWN ARROW key to explore the topics contained in this
book. Notice that in addition to several topics, this book contains
several other books. When you press down arrow the first time you hear
JAWS say, "Level one." If you continue to press DOWN ARROW you
eventually hear JAWS say "Level zero, keystrokes book closed." Level
zero is the top level. As you open and close books and topics, JAWS
announces when you change levels. There are several level one topics
beneath the book Using the Internet with JAWS.
6. Select the book Navigating Web Pages and press RIGHT ARROW to open
it. I'll press UP ARROW to find it.
7. Press DOWN ARROW to move to the next level. JAWS tells you that
you have moved to level two. You can think of these different levels
as having a type of outline structure. Continue pressing DOWN ARROW
until you find the topic Navigation Quick Keys. Press ENTER to open
this topic. The information it contains is displayed in the topic pane
on the right side of the window.
8. Press F6 to switch to the topic pane. JAWS normally will
automatically begin reading the text in the topic pane. You can use
the standard JAWS reading and navigation commands to read this topic.
I pressed CTRL to stop speech. You can use any command or feature that
you can use in Internet Explorer, such as pressing INSERT+F7 to view a
list of links or pressing H, a navigation quick key, to move from one
heading to another. Navigating with JAWS on the Internet or in HTML
documents will be covered more extensively later in these training
sessions.
9. Spend a minute reading through this help topic. When you are
finished reading you can press F6 again to move back to the tree view
of books and topics. F6 is a command that switches between the two
panes of the window.
For the time being, go ahead and close the JAWS help by pressing ALT+F4.
For more help on using the JAWS help system, visit the Surf's Up! Web
site, Surfing the Internet with JAWS and read "Using HTML Help
Systems." In that module, we cover the Index, Search, and Glossary
pages as well.
Screen Sensitive Help (INSERT+F1)
JAWS also provides several other resources for finding helpful
information. This keystroke activates the virtual viewer that places
the help information into a visible text box on the screen. The
Virtual PC cursor is used in this area to read through text exactly as
one would in any regular word processing document, except that the
Virtual PC cursor is invisible. You can, however, use standard JAWS
reading commands to read text, select and copy text, and so on.
Pressing the ESC key closes the virtual viewer. You also have a choice
to either "show" or "hide" the virtual viewer from appearing on the
screen. Either way, you are still able to read through the information
in the same manner.
Press INSERT+F1 now and read the Screen Sensitive help for whatever
window has the focus on your computer. I'll press that keystroke now.
You might be in another window, but it does not matter. The virtual
viewer still opens with some help specific to wherever the focus is.
When you are finished, press ESC to close the virtual viewer.
Keyboard Help (INSERT+1 on the numbers row)
Once this keystroke is pressed, press any other keystroke and JAWS
gives you information about what that keystroke does. Press the key
twice quickly for detailed information. You must press INSERT+1 again
to return the keyboard to its normal function.
Practice this now before moving on to the next part of this lesson.
Press INSERT+1 on the numbers row. Then press NUM PAD 5. Did you hear
JAWS describe what this key command does? Try pressing other keys,
such as INSERT+T or INSERT+DOWN ARROW. When you are finished, press
INSERT+1 on the numbers row again to turn off keyboard help and move
on to the next section in this lesson.
JAWS Help for Applications (INSERT+F1 pressed twice quickly)
This keystroke opens up the JAWS help topics in the tree view and you
land in a list of all applications for which we have help topics
defined. I usually press and hold down the INSERT key and while it is
pressed I tap the F1 key twice quickly. If the program you were in
when you pressed this key combination has JAWS specific help, that
exact help topic will be opened up for you. If not, you can navigate
up or down this list by using your arrow keys or by using first letter
navigation. Once you find the program on which you want help, press
ENTER to open that topic. Then press F6 to move to and read that
topic.
I'm going to demonstrate this now. I'll press WINDOWS Key+M to move to
the desktop. I'll press I for Internet Explorer and ENTER to start it.
I have Internet Explorer set to open to the Training Headquarters
page. I pressed CTRL to stop speech.
What I'm going to do now is press INSERT and hold it down and then tap
the F1 key twice quickly. The JAWS help system opened immediately to
the help topic for Internet Explorer. I'm in the tree view and I could
press F6 to move to the topic itself. This is great! Any time you're
in a program, Word, Excel, Internet Explorer, whatever, try pressing
INSERT+F1 twice quickly and read the JAWS help for that application.
I'll press ALT+F4 to close the JAWS help system.
Hot Key Help (INSERT+H)
This keystroke opens up the virtual viewer and provides a quick list
of JAWS specific keystrokes for the current application. I've still
got Internet Explorer open. I'll press INSERT+H. I pressed CTRL to
stop speech there. The virtual viewer has opened up with a wealth of
information and keystrokes specific to Internet Explorer. You can
press UP and DOWN ARROW to move through this information. Some of it
is presented as links, and you can actually press ENTER on any link to
perform that action. Take a minute to look at some of this and then
when you're finished, press ESC to get out of the virtual viewer.
Windows Key Help (INSERT+W)
This keystroke also opens up the virtual viewer and provides a quick
list of helpful windows keystrokes. I'll press INSERT+W now. I pressed
CTRL to stop speech. When you're finished reading in the virtual
viewer go ahead and press ESC to get out of it.
Virtualize Current Window (INSERT+CTRL+W)
This is a very handy JAWS keystroke! It collects the static text and
regular text in any given window or dialog box. It brings this text
into the virtual viewer where it can be read or copied to the
clipboard and pasted into other applications. This is very useful, for
example, in copying an error message and pasting it into an e-mail. It
can also be used to copy the text from a dialog box into an
instructional manual.
For example, I'm still in Internet Explorer. I'm going to press ALT+F
to go to the file menu. I happen to be using Internet Explorer 7 at
the time of this recording. What if I wanted to use this menu in part
of my training lessons? I could copy this menu by pressing
INSERT+CTRL+W. I'll do that now. I have this information now in the
virtual viewer and I can just press DOWN ARROW and JAWS has copied
everything from that menu into the virtual viewer. At this point I
could select it by pressing CTRL+A, if I want to select it all, and
paste it right into my training materials. This is GREAT and I use it
all the time! I'm going to press ESC to get out of the virtual viewer
and I'll press ESC a couple of times to get out of the menus in
Internet Explorer. I'm going to go ahead and press ALT+F4 to close
Internet Explorer.
Spend some time exploring these different help keystrokes and get to
know them. They are definitely keystrokes you can use on a daily
basis! When you are finished, go ahead and move on to the next lesson.
JAWS Tandem
JAWS Tandem is a great new feature introduced in JAWS 10 that allows
two computers running JAWS to connect to each other. Tandem allows one
of the computer users to take control of the other computer (called
the target computer) by using a combination of speech, keyboard,
video, and braille. The target user can hear and participate in the
session as desired. The target user has the ultimate control over the
session, and can terminate the session at any time. This is a great
new tool for technical support, remote script writing, trouble
shooting, remote training, or just helping out a friend with their PC.
JAWS Tandem is a significant new feature that will change the way many
JAWS users receive support and assistance.
Tandem sessions can take place using the Internet with Tandem Center
or over a local network with Tandem Direct. Most of you will probably
use Tandem Center on the Internet. Tandem Direct will mostly be used
internally, in larger corporations, school systems, and other places
where there is a large intranet, where all the computers are linked
within the company or school. You can find JAWS Tandem controls under
the Utilities menu of the JAWS application window. For more
information and procedures describing how to use Tandem, refer to the
Quick Start Guide in the JAWS Tandem submenu.
For the average JAWS user, Tandem is free. If all you need to do is
let someone else help you, Tandem is free on your side, and costs you
nothing. In fact, anyone can use Tandem for free whether you're the
person in control or whether your computer is the target computer, as
long as it is for casual use.
The only people who might need to pay for access to Tandem are
consultants, trainers, or others who are in charge of controlling
other computers, and who are using it for more than casual use. Once
they reach a certain point, those people may need to pay a nominal
access fee for using Tandem.
One thing we want to say is that when you let someone use Tandem to
gain access to your computer, you should think of it as if that person
were actually sitting at your keyboard. You are literally welcoming
someone else into your home to access your computer. There are a
couple of guidelines we think you should follow:
• The person you allow to access your computer should be someone you
trust.
• You should be on the phone (or perhaps Skype™) with the person who
will be accessing your computer while it is happening.
• The person who is accessing your computer should be explaining
everything they are doing as they do it.
• Remember, you can terminate a session at any time with the JAWS
Tandem keystroke INSERT+ALT+T.
I'm going to get Eric Damery to help demonstrate this great new
feature. I'm in the recording studio at our Saint Petersburg
headquarters, and Eric is halfway across the building in his office.
I'll get him on Skype, and we'll go through this together to give you
a quick demonstration of Tandem.
I'm going to let Eric have control of my computer to do a few things
to help me out.
Dan: All right, let me get Eric on Skype.
Eric: Hello, Dan.
Dan: Hey, Eric, how's it going?
Eric: Very good, how are you?
Dan: I'm doing great! So I've been talking to the JAWS Basic Training
users about Tandem and told them I was going to give you a call to do
a demonstration of it real quick.
Eric: Excellent, I think this is great, whether we use the phone or
Skype this is a good solution to be able to communicate back and forth
as we try Tandem.
Dan: Yep.
Eric: So shall I go ahead and connect to your machine?
Dan: That sounds like a plan, sounds good.
Eric: All right, well, let me walk through the steps here. On my end,
I'll have my JAWS muted so you won't hear it as it's speaking, but
I'll talk through on my side what keystrokes have done and so forth,
and what's happening, and then I'll pass you the numbers; so the first
thing I do is is go to the JAWS Utility menu, choose JAWS Tandem,
choose Tandem Center, and then the choice called Get Access to a
Computer. And here is where I can get a meeting ID number, which I've
now received, and I can read it to you, and I'll use the phonetics on
letters and the meeting ID's are given two letters, three numbers, and
two letters and I'm going to have you enter those in. So, if you're
ready, do an INSERT+ALT+T.
Dan: OK, I'll press INSERT+ALT+T.
Eric: All right, and if you would, Dan, enter GL998KC, and then when
you press ENTER your screen will become available to me, and I'll have
access to type as if I were sitting at your keyboard, and we'll hear
the speech from your computer on both sides.
Dan: OK, I'll press ENTER now.
Eric: All right, and the connection has been established, and I got
the feedback on my side as well, and now when I open up the Start
menu. So, from my keystroke it opened up your Start menu, and we were
able to hear it on both sides, and I'll arrow through your Start menu.
And I get access to your computer just as if I were sitting there,
this is great! Why don't I go to the JAWS window and let me show you
something in JAWS that maybe you haven't looked at yet, and you might
want to take advantage of.
Dan: Sounds great!
Eric: All right, so I've gone to the JAWS window, and I'll go to the
Help menu, and in here there's a choice called Web Resources.You can
DOWN ARROW and find that. And in here there are many things that you
can get access to that will help you with your JAWS use, and one of
them is the RealSpeak Solo Direct download page where you can sample
all the new RealSpeak voices that you can use with JAWS 10 and the
other products from Freedom Scientific. There it is, and when I press
ENTER on this it will open up your browser. So here's where all of the
voices are available to you Dan, and if you do press the letter B
right now you'll be able to walk through and see all of the voice
samples and listen to them individually if you want to hear them. So
try that out on your keyboard.
Dan: OK, I'll try pressing B a few times now. Man, this is great!
Eric: Yep, so this is a good way for somebody that knows something and
wants to take you to and direct you to it to try it out and show it to
you, and train you from a distance.
Dan: I think this is a great feature, and I can see a lot of JAWS
users using it!
Eric: Yeah, I think everyone will be able to take advantage of this,
whether they're getting help from our support department, from a
dealer, or a consultant, or maybe a good friend, or even script
writers from a distance will be able to log in and write scripts for
proprietary applications from the comfort of their own workstation,
without having to travel and get to the location.
Dan: And those people who are trainers out there, this is going to be
a great tool for them to use as well!
Eric: Absolutely!
Dan: Well, Eric, thanks very much, this was great, I appreciate you
taking the time to help demonstrate this, and what I'll do now is I'll
just go ahead and press the keystroke INSERT+ALT+T again and that will
allow me to disconnect, right?
Eric: Yep, that will disconnect the Tandem session, and then we can
hang up on Skype after, go ahead. OK, and it went away on my side as
well, and I heard it close on yours, so that was it.
Dan: Now, you were actually seeing my screen on your monitor at that
time weren't you?
Eric: That's correct, I had the video enabled, which is one of the
options for the controller, so because of the fact that I can actually
see a screen I allow the screen to come up so in addition to me being
able to hear your JAWS and get braille output from your JAWS, I'm
actually getting the video output as well.
Dan: Excellent, well Eric, thanks again!
Eric: OK. thanks Dan.
Dan: Talk to you later.
Eric: Bye.
We think you'll really appreciate the power of JAWS Tandem, another
great tool for JAWS users!
Cursors used by JAWS
One of the key concepts related to how JAWS works relates to the
multiple cursor system that has been developed.
PC Cursor Description
The PC Cursor is used for navigation and follows the focus of the
system. The PC Cursor is active when JAWS is first started, but if you
switch to another cursor, you can press NUM PAD PLUS to make the PC
Cursor active again.
JAWS Cursor Description
The JAWS Cursor is used to both read with or to perform actions that
would normally be done using a mouse. The JAWS cursor can go where the
PC Cursor could never go, for example, to the Title bar at the top of
many Windows applications. The JAWS Cursor moves the system mouse to
read static text to which the PC Cursor does not have access, and to
access other parts of Windows to which the PC Cursor cannot be moved.
You can also perform left mouse click, right mouse click, and other
mouse functions using the JAWS cursor. Press NUM PAD DASH to make the
JAWS Cursor active.
Virtual Cursor Description
Text in a web page is very much like the static text in a Windows
status message. The PC Cursor cannot move to this text, as there is no
insertion point. The JAWS Cursor can access this text, but that is not
the most efficient way to access larger documents, especially those
with multiple columns, such as those often found on the World Wide
Web. When using Internet Explorer 5 or higher (or programs that tie
into the core components of Internet Explorer), or Adobe Acrobat
files, JAWS provides the Virtual PC Cursor to simulate an insertion
point. This provides you with the same functionality as that found in
any word processing document. Text can be read by character, word,
line, sentence, or paragraph, and text can be selected and copied to
the Windows clipboard. The Virtual PC Cursor is active by default in
applications that support it. If you switch to another cursor, you can
press NUM PAD PLUS to make the Virtual PC Cursor active again within
the HTML or PDF environment.
Invisible Cursor Description
The Invisible Cursor allows you to move around the screen without
changing the position of the PC Cursor or the mouse pointer. You can
use this cursor to read text and access options that you cannot move
to with the PC Cursor. You can also use the Invisible Cursor to
provide a quick overview of the information currently available on the
screen. To activate the Invisible Cursor, press NUM PAD MINUS twice
quickly. Use the standard JAWS reading commands to move the Invisible
Cursor around on the screen.
Practice Using Different Cursors
EXERCISE: In this section, let's use SAINT PETE.RTF.
Press WINDOWS Key+E to open Windows Explorer.
Press SHIFT+TAB to move to the tree view.
I'll press O to move to my local hard drive, OS(C:)
1. Follow along as I navigate to the Training\enu folder. Press RIGHT
ARROW to open your hard drive if it is closed.
2. Press P for Program Files.
3. Press RIGHT ARROW to open that.
4. Press F for Freedom Scientific.
5. Press RIGHT ARROW to open that.
6. Press T for Training.
7. Press RIGHT ARROW to open that.
8. Press J for JAWS.
9. Press RIGHT ARROW to open that.
10. Press DOWN ARROW to move to the ENU folder.
11. Press ENTER to update the files on the right side of the screen
in the list view.
12. Press TAB to move to the list view. There it is.
13. Press S until you find Saint Pete.rtf.
14. Press ENTER to open it.
15. Press DOWN ARROW to move to the line that begins "From the
sparkling blue waters" and begin navigating along with me as I
narrate.
PC Cursor Practice
The PC cursor is usually a vertical line that blinks in a document
indicating the insertion point. But it can also be represented by a
highlighted bar in a menu, or a focus rectangle in a dialog box. Let's
look at a few examples of the PC cursor in this document.
1. Use normal reading keys, such as the keystroke for next word,
INSERT+RIGHT ARROW. I'll press that a few times. Notice that the
cursor is at the beginning of the word. How do I know that? Press the
keystroke to read the current character, NUM PAD 5 by itself.
2. I'll press INSERT+LEFT ARROW to move to the word sparkling.
3. Press the ALT key to move to the ribbon. Focus moves to the Home
tab. If you're using an earlier version of Word or another program
you'll land on the menu bar. Press DOWN ARROW to move through the
menus and this is also the PC cursor in that application.
4. Press TAB to move to the lower ribbon. As you continue to press
TAB here, this is also the PC cursor.
5. After you move around a little bit through the ribbon, press the
ALT key again to get out of it and focus returns to the document.
Focus should still be on the word sparkling, with the cursor
specifically on the first letter s of sparkling. I'll press INSERT+5
on the NUM PAD to say the current word. And just NUM PAD 5 by itself.
JAWS Cursor Practice
The JAWS cursor is the mouse pointer. It can go places where the PC
cursor cannot. First off, you may not even know where the JAWS cursor
is if you cannot see it. However, you DO know where the PC cursor is.
It is on the letter s in sparkling.
1. Use the keystroke to route the JAWS cursor to the PC cursor,
INSERT+NUM PAD MINUS. Notice that JAWS speaks a message telling you
that and the voice is a slightly deeper pitch. The JAWS cursor, or
mouse pointer, is now the reading cursor.
2. Press INSERT+RIGHT ARROW to move to the word beaches, which
actually is on the next line down. Verify that the JAWS cursor is on
the b in beaches by pressing NUM PAD 5 by itself.
3. Now, activate the PC cursor again by pressing NUM PAD PLUS. On
most keyboards that's the long vertical key just under the NUM PAD
MINUS. It's the second key down from the top in the right column on
the NUM PAD. JAWS says PC cursor and the voice changes back to the PC
cursor voice.
4. Press INSERT+NUM PAD 5 to say the current word. Notice that the PC
cursor is still on the word sparkling.
5. Press NUM PAD 5 by itself and verify the PC cursor is still on the
s in sparkling.
6. Next, press the NUM PAD MINUS by itself to activate the JAWS
cursor again. Notice that JAWS says JAWS cursor and the voice changes
back to a slightly deeper pitch.
7. Press INSERT+NUM PAD 5 to say the current word. Notice that the
JAWS cursor is still on the word beaches.
8. Press NUM PAD 5 by itself and verify the JAWS cursor is still on
the b in beaches.
Guess what? You now have two different cursors in two different
locations on the screen and you can activate either cursor and read
with each independently. Pretty nice!
Now you may be able to better understand why I said earlier in the
training lessons that it is a good idea to keep the JAWS cursor voice
sounding different from the PC cursor voice. That way when you hear
the voice in a different pitch it helps to remind you which cursor is
the active cursor.
Invisible Cursor Practice
If you want, activate the invisible cursor by pressing NUM PAD MINUS
twice quickly. Try navigating with it as well. Notice how each of the
three cursors can be on a separate word and one can read from three
different parts of the screen by activating the appropriate cursor.
Notice, also that the voice for the invisible cursor sounds just like
the voice for the PC cursor. If you get in the practice of using the
invisible cursor frequently, you may want to adjust the voice to a
different setting so you can hear the difference between it and the PC
cursor. To do that, review the section in the JAWS basic training for
the JAWS User Interface (module seven) on the Voices submenu. When
you're finished using the invisible cursor, press NUM PAD PLUS to
activate the PC cursor again.
Using the JAWS Cursor to Read Static Text and Click a Button
Another use I mentioned for the JAWS cursor was to have it read where
the PC cursor cannot go. Additionally, I said it could perform mouse
functions. Let's look at these two items next.
Static text is text that is visible somewhere on the screen but there
is no carat or blinking cursor that can access it. The presence of a
carat or a blinking cursor would be a good indication that the PC
cursor was there or could perhaps go there to read the text. However,
often a dialog box will open and there will be just a button that can
have the PC cursor focus, but static text above or around or below the
button without the ability of the PC cursor to move there and read it.
The PC cursor is limited to the button where the focus is and cannot
go to where the static text is. This is all based on how the dialog
box or the window is created by the programmer who made that
particular window.
Normally JAWS will read that static text for you. But what if you want
to read it again? There are a couple of ways to do this, but let's use
the JAWS cursor to do it here.
1. Press ALT+TAB to move back to the FSReader demo program which you
are currently using to read this basic training. If you are using a
different DAISY reader you can probably still accomplish this, but it
will sound a little different. Go ahead and switch to either FSReader
demo or the other DAISY reader you might be using and follow along.
The steps should be similar for almost any Windows program.
2. Within FSReader demo, press ALT+H to move to the Help menu.
3. Choose About FSReader and a small dialog box opens that has some
information about the version number of FSReader and copyright
information for Freedom Scientific. There is an OK button in the
dialog box and that is where the PC cursor focus is.
4. Verify that the PC cursor focus is on the OK button. Press NUM PAD
PLUS first to make sure the PC cursor is on.
5. Press INSERT+NUM PAD 5 to read the current word. You should hear
JAWS say OK button.
6. Now, press TAB to move off of the OK button. What happens?
Nothing. You cannot move from the OK button with the PC cursor because
there are no other controls or places the PC cursor can move to in
this dialog box. However, there is text there, as you already heard
when the dialog box opened the first time.
This is a perfect example of how you can use the JAWS cursor to read
static text and go somewhere the PC cursor cannot go. This type of
situation occurs often in the Windows environment, so you should know
how to work with it.
1. First, you know where the PC cursor is...it's on the OK button.
Press the keystroke to move the JAWS cursor to the PC cursor location,
route JAWS to PC, INSERT+NUM PAD MINUS. You should hear JAWS tell you
this and the voice should be a little bit lower in pitch.
2. The JAWS cursor is active now, so press INSERT+NUM PAD 5 to read
the current word at the JAWS cursor. You should hear JAWS speak the
fact that it is on the OK button, again, in a slightly different
voice.
3. Now that the JAWS cursor is inside this small window, press PAGE
UP to move to the top of this window. JAWS is smart enough to keep the
cursor inside the current window, so don't worry.
4. After you press PAGE UP read the current line, which is the title
bar of the small dialog box window, by pressing INSERT+UP ARROW, the
SayLine keystroke. You should hear the text spoken: About FSReader
dialog. I also heard a graphic symbol at the end of that line,
represented by a number.
5. Now, press DOWN ARROW to move down through the dialog box.
You should hear the following information:
About FSReader
FSReader Demo, Version: 1.10.068
graphic 415 © Freedom Scientific 2007
OK button
The version number and information in this dialog box will change as
time goes on, so don't worry if you don't hear exactly the same
version number or other information. However, the results should be
similar.
Next, let's use the JAWS cursor to click the OK button and close the
dialog box using the mouse instead of the keyboard.
1. First, make sure the JAWS cursor is back on the button, route JAWS
to PC using INSERT+NUM PAD MINUS.
2. Verify the JAWS cursor IS back on the button with SayWord,
INSERT+NUM PAD 5.
3. Finally, use the NUM PAD SLASH to click the button with the JAWS
cursor, which really is the mouse cursor. The NUM PAD SLASH is a
forward slash on the number pad. It is the second button from the left
on the top row of the number pad. If you haven't pressed it, go ahead
and do so now one time. This is the equivalent of a left mouse click.
The Help About dialog box for FSReader demo closes.
Just for your information, the right mouse button is the next key on
the number pad, the NUM PAD ASTERISK, or the third key from the left
on the top row.
Finally, remember to press NUM PAD PLUS again to activate the PC
cursor when you're finished.
Virtual Cursor Practice
You've used the virtual cursor already if you went through the lesson
on JAWS Help (module eleven). The virtual cursor is the default cursor
for HTML based help systems such as the one found in JAWS, HTML Web
pages, e-mail messages, and PDF documents. In the JAWS Help system
while focus was in the tree view, that was the PC cursor. But when
focus was in the topic pane area, the virtual cursor automatically
became active.
You'll use the virtual cursor a lot more in this basic training, don't worry!
After completing this exercise, make sure that the PC cursor is your
active cursor by pressing NUM PAD PLUS. Then press ALT+TAB to move
back to Saint Pete.rtf and close it by pressing ALT+F4. Answer "No" if
you are asked to save any changes.
I'll move on now to the next lesson.
Saving Settings with JAWS
Explore My Settings, Program Files, and Shared Settings
In these lessons I'll be talking a lot about saving changes to JAWS
with the various JAWS managers. How and where does JAWS store this
information? Most of the time, JAWS stores any changes you tell it to
save in your personal user folder on the computer. JAWS does this in
the background for you to make it easy. If you went through the
earlier module on the JAWS program group you saw that JAWS stores
files in three different areas. These areas are very easy to access,
even if you don't remember the paths, by using the Explore JAWS
submenu in the JAWS program group. Here they are again:
All Programs in the Start menu, JAWS group:
• Explore My Settings. This is where your personal settings get
stored, including any script files you create.
• Explore Program Files. Files for the JAWS program itself are now
located here.
• Explore Shared Settings. Shared files are located here.
When you press ENTER on Explore My Settings, Windows Explorer opens
with a list of all files that JAWS has saved or modified that apply to
your particular user settings. The paths are different if you are in
Windows XP vs. Windows Vista. If you want to know the exact path, open
the Explore My Settings folder and press ALT+D to move to the address
bar in Windows Explorer. You'll find the path there.
Press ENTER on any of the Explore JAWS choices from the JAWS group to
open Windows Explorer and find the particular files you might need at
any time.
File Extensions Used by JAWS
These are some of the file extensions that JAWS uses when saving files:
• JDF, JAWS Dictionary File
• JGF, JAWS Graphics File
• JCF, JAWS Configuration File
• JFF, JAWS Frame File
• JKM, JAWS Key Map file
• JSS, JAWS Script Source file
• JSB, JAWS Script Binary file
• JSD, JAWS Script Documentation file
• JSH, JAWS Script Header file
• JSM, JAWS Script Message file
When you make changes with one of the JAWS managers, your changes are
saved in a file with one of the extensions listed above. You can then
share those files with other JAWS users.
Default vs. Application Specific settings
When you open up any of the JAWS managers from within a specific
application JAWS assumes that you want to make changes specific to
that application. So JAWS opens up (or creates as needed) files with
that application's name. For example, if you are in Notepad when you
open JAWS Dictionary Manager, JAWS opens NOTEPAD.JDF. If you are in
Word for Windows and you open up the JAWS Configuration Manager, JAWS
opens MICROSOFT WORD.JCF. Again, if this file did not exist, JAWS
would create it automatically for you in the background and place the
file in the appropriate folder.
This is nice for making changes SPECIFIC TO ONE APPLICATION. However,
in some cases I may want changes I make to apply to ALL programs
globally. In that case, I would make my changes in the DEFAULT file.
In the cases above, I'd choose DEFAULT.JDF and DEFAULT.JCF
respectively.
This gives you as a user TREMENDOUS flexibility in using JAWS with
other programs. As one example, I might want to hear the greater than
sign spoken in my programming language software, but not in my e-mail
program. Those would be application specific settings. Or what if your
name is not pronounced by JAWS properly? You would want to write a
dictionary rule for JAWS to pronounce your name properly in ALL
programs. So you'd make that change in the DEFAULT.JDF file.
Additionally, some changes can be made within the JAWS window itself.
Many of these will be discussed later, and can be application specific
or global, applying to all programs. Examples of this include voice
rate and punctuation.
Sharing Configuration Files Manually
As I mentioned previously, you can create your own configuration files
with JAWS and share them with other JAWS users. If you create new
files for sharing manually, just have the person you are sharing them
with copy them into the appropriate folder on their hard drive. This
can be tedious if there are a lot of files to share. An easier way
might be to use Settings Packager.
Settings Packager
Settings Packager is a program that allows you to import or export
speech and sound schemes, PlaceMarkers, and personalized Web settings.
You can use this program to share your JAWS schemes and settings with
other users. Settings Packager collects settings information into a
single ZIP file that you can send in an e-mail message or distribute
on the Internet.
Settings Packager includes the following key features that make
sharing settings easier than manually copying JAWS settings files:
• Compresses all settings that you want into a single ZIP file that
you can send as an e-mail attachment or make available on a Web site.
• Displays all your customized schemes, PlaceMarkers, and
personalized Web settings in a single list.
• Creates a plain text and HTML summary of all files included in the
ZIP file.
• Automatically collects and packages all files that comprise schemes
you want to export, including sound files and voice aliases.
• Warns you when settings you are about to import will replace your
existing JAWS settings.
• Lets you sample sound files and voice aliases before you import them.
For more information and help on Settings Packager, open Settings
Packager by going to the JAWS program group and press ENTER on it
within the Tools submenu. Once you have opened Settings Packager,
press ALT+H to open the help menu for it and press ENTER on Help
Topics.
That's the end of this module. I'll move on to the next one.
Adjust JAWS Options Dialog Box (formerly the JAWS Verbosity List)
What is the adjust JAWS options dialog box? In previous versions of
JAWS it was called the verbosity list. Verbosity actually refers to
the amount of information JAWS speaks. You probably know by now that
there is a beginner, intermediate, and advanced verbosity setting in
JAWS. At the default setting, beginner verbosity, JAWS speaks more
information. The idea is to help people who may not be as familiar
with JAWS, using beginner verbosity, by speaking more information. As
one learns more about using JAWS one can speed up the process of
getting things done by changing to a less verbose setting. If you have
less to listen to, you can work faster.
For example, when you have JAWS verbosity set to beginner and you
press CTRL+C to copy selected text, the message JAWS speaks is:
Copied selection to clipboard.
On the other hand, at intermediate or advanced verbosity levels, JAWS
speaks less. In the example above, all you hear JAWS say verbally is:
Copied.
That saves you from having to listen to three extra words and over the
course of a day, a week, a month, and a year, this small time saving
feature really does add up.
The adjust JAWS options dialog box, on the other hand, allows you to
make changes in many different places that are for the most part,
temporary. It really is more about making changes to JAWS settings
than just changing verbosity, or the amount of information JAWS
actually speaks. The idea is that you can press INSERT+V to open the
adjust JAWS options dialog box and make changes quickly and easily,
AND without having to go into different configuration manager dialog
boxes, thus saving time and effort. If you had to go to a specific
manager each time to do a certain task, you would also have to
remember where and how to access that manager. Having settings in the
adjust JAWS options dialog box eliminates having to figure out where
those different settings are within JAWS. It also puts many of the
common things you might want to change right at your fingertips.
In some cases, however, the settings changed in the adjust JAWS
options dialog box become permanent, or may only persist through that
JAWS session. It depends on the actual item you're changing as to
whether or not the change is temporary, lasts through the current
session, or becomes permanent. I'll try to discuss several of these
different cases.
The adjust JAWS options dialog box is opened by pressing INSERT+V. It
has been newly redesigned and renamed in version 9 of JAWS and now has
a logical tree view format. This is sure to help both new and
experienced JAWS users understand the relationship between various
JAWS settings.
NOTE: In JAWS 9 the adjust JAWS options item was added to the list of
JAWS managers you get by pressing INSERT+F2. This should make it
easier to find the adjust options dialog box for new users or others
who may not yet be familiar with all of the many keystrokes available
in JAWS.
EXERCISE: Open Notepad and press INSERT+V to explore the adjust JAWS
options dialog box. Alternatively, press INSERT+F2 to open the list of
JAWS managers and select it from the list.
1. Press WINDOWS Key+R to open the Run dialog box in Windows XP or
Windows Vista.
2. Type in n o t e p a d and press ENTER to start Notepad. I had
typed it in previously and Windows remembers that, so I'll press
ENTER.
3. Notepad has opened. Now from within Notepad open the adjust JAWS
options dialog box with INSERT+V.
Notice that the first item in the tree view is the General Options.
Take a minute to explore the tree view. I'll press DOWN ARROW to move
through the tree view.
As with any tree view, navigation can be done by pressing the ARROW
Keys. Press RIGHT ARROW to open a closed group. Press LEFT ARROW once
to move to the top of an open group and a second time at the main
level of the group to close an open group. You can also press HOME to
go to the top of the tree view and END to go to the bottom of the tree
view. And of course, you can press the first letter of an option you
want to move to in the tree view and move between quickly the items in
the tree view that begin with that letter, if there is more than one
option that begins with that letter.
The new tree view has the following groups that are common to all applications:
• General Options
• Reading Options
• Say All Options
• Editing Options
• Braille Options. This only appears if you have a refreshable
braille display attached to your computer.
• Synthesizer - Speech On (default)
The tree view is expanded (or open) by default when you first open the
adjust JAWS options dialog box. This lets you use first letter
navigation to move quickly to any item. If the tree view items were
closed, you would only have first letter access to the main groups
themselves, not the items within them.
Notice also that as you move up or down the tree view, you may hear
the level change from zero to one, level two, and in the braille
section, even level three. Level zero is the top level, or like an
outline, main topic, and when you are on level zero, that is the
closest you can get to the left margin. Level one is a sub-heading of
level zero, or like in an outline, perhaps the letter A B C underneath
the main heading or item number one two three, and is indented
slightly from the left hand margin. Level two is indented slightly
more beneath a level one item. Level three is indented even more
beneath a level two item, and so on.
1. Press the letter T to move to Typing Echo - Characters. You may
have to press it more than once.
2. Press TAB to move through the adjust JAWS options dialog box and
explore it with me. Focus moved to the read-only text area. This is a
description of the item that had focus in the tree view when I pressed
TAB. As you explore the items in the tree view remember to press TAB
to move to the description area and use standard reading keys to learn
more about what that particular item does. For example, I'll read this
text by pressing INSERT+DOWN ARROW, the SayAll command. The
description for Typing Echo tells me that I can change from character
echo when typing, to words, or both characters and words, or even to
no typing echo at all. This is very handy to have a description of
what all of these different options in the adjust JAWS options dialog
box mean.
3. Press SHIFT+TAB to move back to the tree view for a minute.
4. Press the letter HOME to move back to the top of the tree view to
the item General Options.
5. Now press TAB twice. The first time focus moves back to the
description field. The second time focus moves to the Expand Tree View
on Open check box, which is checked by default. If you would rather
have the tree view collapsed (with all groups closed) within the
adjust JAWS options dialog box you would uncheck this checkbox.
6. Press SPACEBAR to uncheck this.
7. Now press SHIFT+TAB twice to move back to the tree view. Notice
now that there are only five items in the list. All of the tree items
are collapsed. I'll press DOWN ARROW. I'll press HOME again. Before,
when they were open there were more than forty different items on my
computer. This gives you a great way to find out what the major groups
are.
8. For now, press TAB to move back to the Expand Tree View checkbox
and then press SPACEBAR to check it and uncollapse all of the tree
view items.
9. Go ahead and press TAB to move to the next control. There's a close
button.
10. Press TAB again. There's an Execute button. Notice that there is
an Access key, ALT+E, which you can use as well. This means you don't
have to move to the execute button to change things. While you're in
the tree view, just press SPACEBAR or ALT+E on any item to toggle
through the available choices. I'll demonstrate that in just a minute.
11. Press TAB again and you end up where you started, in the tree view.
12. Move to the item Typing Echo - Characters by pressing the letter T.
13. Try pressing SPACEBAR to cycle through the choices.
14. Now try pressing ALT+E to activate the Execute button.
15. To make a change you would press ENTER once you change one of
these to a different setting. For now, make sure to leave typing echo
set to characters for the next part of the training so we'll all be in
the same spot.
16. Go ahead and close the adjust JAWS options dialog box. Press
ENTER to close it.
Application-specific Items in the Adjust JAWS Options Dialog Box
Application specific items appear in their own group above the basic
items, at the top of the tree view. For example, if you press INSERT+V
while in Internet Explorer, the Internet Explorer Options group
appears above the other groups. In that case, there are two new groups
that appear:
• Internet Explorer Options
• Virtual Cursor Options
The new tree view is also present in other places, such as the adjust
braille options dialog box, INSERT+CTRL+B.
EXERCISE: Open Microsoft Word and repeat the steps above to open the
adjust JAWS options dialog box in Microsoft Word. What do you notice
is different?
I have Word open in the background. I'll press ALT+TAB to move to it.
Now I'll press INSERT+V.
The adjust JAWS options dialog box in Microsoft Word contains a new
group specific to Word at the top of the tree view:
Microsoft Word Options
This group of Microsoft Word options is logically placed above the
other options, since you happen to be working in Word at the moment.
Also notice that the Editing options for Notepad and Word are
different in the adjust JAWS options dialog box.
EXERCISE: Compare the Editing options group in the adjust JAWS options
dialog box within both Notepad and Microsoft Word. What do you find?
I'll press DOWN ARROW to move to the Editing Options group.
I'll press E to move right to the Editing Options group and I'll press
DOWN ARROW from there.
There are more items at the top of the Editing Options group within
the adjust JAWS options dialog box for Microsoft Word than there are
for Notepad. The Microsoft Word-specific ones include:
AutoCorrect Detection - Off
Spelling error detection - Off
Grammatical error detection - Off
Track Changes - Speak Type and Author
The common ones shared by both Notepad and Word include:
Typing Echo - Characters
Caps Indicate - On Character
Punctuation - Most
Indentation - Ignore
Microsoft Word is, of course, a more powerful text editor and word
processor than is Notepad, so the adjust JAWS options dialog box gives
you additional choices when working in programs like this. Take a few
minutes to explore the items in the adjust JAWS options dialog box for
Microsoft Word.
Most changes you make using the adjust JAWS options dialog box remain
in effect until you quit the program. Some options (such as typing
echo) will return to the original setting if you press ALT+TAB to
switch to another program and then switch back. Other settings (such
as user verbosity) remain in effect until you quit JAWS or change them
again. Finally, some settings stay the same for each program until you
physically change them back.
Temporary Changes That Revert Back When You Move Between Programs
EXERCISE: The adjust JAWS options dialog box is still open in
Microsoft Word on my computer. If it is not on your computer, press
INSERT+V and open it within Microsoft Word.
1. Press T several times until you find Typing Echo - characters (or
however typing echo is set on your machine) in the tree view.
2. Press SPACEBAR to change it to something else. I'm going to set it
to words.
3. Press ENTER to close the adjust JAWS options dialog box.
4. I'll type a few words now in Microsoft Word. You do not hear the
characters as you type, but you hear the word spoken when you press
the SPACEBAR or when you type a punctuation mark at the end of a word.
5. Now switch back to Notepad and type in some text. I'll press
ALT+TAB and type some text into Notepad. Notice that typing echo has
switched back to characters.
6. Switch back to Word and type in some more text. Notice that typing
echo has changed back to character echo or whatever your default
setting is for typing text.
This is an example of how a change in the adjust JAWS options dialog
box can be so temporary that it only applies as long as you physically
remain in that program where you made the changes.
Temporary Changes That Remain in Effect until JAWS Closes
EXERCISE: Switch back to Microsoft Word again if you are not there and
change the JAWS user verbosity from beginner to intermediate (or to
anything other than you normally have it set) to see how changing this
setting persists as you move from one program to another.
1. I'm still in Microsoft Word. If you're not, press ALT+TAB to move
back to it or open it and follow along.
2. Press INSERT+V and open the adjust JAWS options dialog box.
3. Press U to move to User Verbosity - beginner and press SPACEBAR to
toggle it to either intermediate, or advanced, or to another setting
from what you normally have it set at.
4. Press ENTER to close the adjust JAWS options dialog box.
5. Press ALT+TAB to move back to Notepad.
6. Within Notepad, press INSERT+V to open the adjust JAWS options
dialog box again.
7. Press U to move to User Verbosity. How is it set? It should be set
the same as it was when you changed it a moment ago in Word.
8. I'll press ESC to get out of the dialog box for now. Leave it set
to intermediate or whatever you just changed it to for a minute.
Notice that this setting does not switch back when you change from one
program to another. However, it will switch back to beginner or
whatever your normal setting was when you quit JAWS and start it up
the next time. Let's verify that.
1. Press INSERT+F4 to close JAWS and answer yes to the OK button.
2. Start JAWS again by pressing CTRL+ALT+J.
3. Press INSERT+V to open the adjust JAWS options dialog box again.
4. Press U to move back to the item for user verbosity. Verify it is
now back to the way it was before you changed it in the last JAWS
session.
5. Press ESC to close the dialog box.
JAWS Script Initialization Files
When you are using some programs, such as Microsoft Word and Excel,
and make changes using the JAWS adjust JAWS options dialog box, JAWS
automatically saves certain settings that can be in effect for that
program until you change them back, or for certain documents,
depending on what you're trying to accomplish.
You'll hear JAWS announce one or both of the following when these
settings are saved:
• Document settings saved
• Application settings saved
• Or both
If you hear JAWS announce document settings were saved, every time you
open that specific document, those changes will automatically be in
effect again for that document.
If you hear JAWS announce application settings were saved, every time
you open that program or application again, the changes you made will
automatically be in effect again for that application.
In either case, JAWS creates a JSI file for either the document or the
application. JSI stands for JAWS Script Initialization. These JSI
files are stored for individual users in your personal settings folder
area. These files can be shared with other JAWS users either manually
by copying and pasting them or by using the JAWS Settings Packager.
Let me show you one example. I've still got Word open. I'll press
ALT+TAB to move back to it.
1. I'll open the Adjust JAWS options dialog box by pressing INSERT+V.
2. Press S to move to style changes - Off.
3. Press SPACEBAR to set this to style changes - always announced.
4. Press ENTER to close the adjust JAWS options dialog box and listen
to what JAWS says. It says application settings saved.
Let's test this:
1. First, I'll insert a heading one into the document I have open
with Word. I'll press ENTER to move to a new line. I'll press
CTRL+SHIFT+S to open the styles pane.
2. I'll press H to find heading one. There it is. I'll press ENTER to
change to this style. Focus returns to the document.
3. I'll type in a line of text here.
4. Next I want to put some normal text in the document. I'll press
ENTER to go to the next line. I'll press CTRL+SHIFT+S to move to the
styles pane again.
5. There it is. I'll press ENTER to apply that style.
6. Now I'll type in some normal text.
I'm going to go ahead and close the styles pane now. On my system it
appeared as a floating toolbar. You probably want to close it if it is
open as well.
1. Press F6. Did you move to the styles pane? If not, keep pressing
F6 until you return to the document area.
2. On my machine focus went to the styles pane. I'll press
CTRL+SPACEBAR to get a menu of choices for it.
3. I'll press DOWN ARROW to move to Close and press ENTER. The style
pane is now closed again.
4. Now, press UP ARROW to move back to the heading and notice how
JAWS announces the style change.
5. Next, press DOWN ARROW to move back to the normal text and again,
JAWS announces the style change.
From now on, every time I start JAWS and use Word, JAWS will announce
style changes. This is great for those of you like me, who might be in
a documentation environment. It means you don't have to change to this
every time you go to Word. However, you may not want to do this, so if
you want to change it back, open the adjust JAWS options dialog box
again and follow along with me.
1. I'll open the adjust JAWS options dialog box by pressing INSERT+V.
2. Press S to move to style changes - always announced.
3. Press SPACEBAR to set this to style changes - Off.
4. Press ENTER to close the adjust JAWS options dialog box and listen
to what JAWS says. It says application settings saved again. Now JAWS
will not announce style changes in Word.
The ability to change settings quickly with the adjust JAWS options
dialog box gives you tremendous flexibility. Having the ability to
make permanent changes using the adjust JAWS options dialog box in
programs like those in the Microsoft Office suite can make your work
more productive. If you haven't used it or if you don't use it often,
study the adjust JAWS options dialog box in more detail and find out
what it can do for you! For now, I'm going to close both Word and
Notepad, saying No to saving any changes. Then I'll move on to the
next lesson.
Changing Settings, Temporary and Permanent
In this section I'll discuss changing some of the things that many
users adjust right away in JAWS. But there are also times when you
just want to change something on a temporary basis. For example, when
I hear a message, perhaps an error message, or something I did not
quite understand, I may want to slow the voice rate down enough to
hear it better. I only want that change to be temporary and I really
don't want to have to go into any manager or dialog box to do it. So
in this case there is a keystroke you can use to adjust the voice rate
temporarily.
This includes such settings as how fast JAWS speaks, tutor messages,
access key messages, and more. One of the main things I want to show
you is how you can change many settings either permanently or on a
temporary basis. Also, remember that if you go into a dialog box to
make changes that you want to save, you should always activate the OK
button after making your choices.
Here are some of the most common ways to make changes for JAWS settings:
• For some of the instructions below, you make changes directly in
the JAWS window itself. To switch to the JAWS window, or to access it
from the system tray, if you're running it in the system tray, press
INSERT+J.
• In other cases, you make changes using the adjust JAWS options
dialog box. You access the adjust JAWS options dialog box by pressing
INSERT+V.
• Most of the permanent changes people make are made by using the
JAWS configuration manager or another of the JAWS managers. Open a
list of JAWS Managers by pressing INSERT+F2.
• Of course, don't forget, you can also use the Startup Wizard found
in the JAWS Help menu for some of these changes as well. Access the
Startup Wizard at any time by switching to the JAWS window and choose
Help > Startup Wizard in the menus.
Whether the changes can be made in the Startup Wizard, in another JAWS
manager dialog box such as configuration manager, or on just on a
temporary basis, I'll try to demonstrate all of the options that are
available and how to use them.
You can make changes with the JAWS managers that are
application-specific or that apply to all programs. This is a great
feature of JAWS, and you need to understand whether the changes you
make will apply only to one program or many. Whenever you are in a
JAWS manager dialog box, press INSERT+T and read the title bar. If the
title bar indicates you are in the configuration file for only one
application, say like Notepad or Microsoft Word, you may want to
change the manager to save in the default file so that your changes
are applied to ALL applications. You can do this by pressing
CTRL+SHIFT+D from within any JAWS manager. After pressing this key
combination, the title bar should read "default" and the file
extension for that manager, such as JCF for JAWS configuration file,
JDF for JAWS dictionary file, and so on.
NOTE: Some things have changed since this module was originally
recorded. For example, the Global and Individual Voice dialog boxes
changed in JAWS 10 from what was recorded in this section. However,
the controls mentioned are still there. You may not hear the exact
same thing on your machine, but you should be able to find the
controls by pressing TAB until you hear them. Some things have been
removed and some things have been added, but the controls mentioned in
these sections are still there. You may have to press TAB a few more
times to find them. Where things totally changed, certain parts of
this module have been rerecorded.
Tutor Messages
Tutor Messages, Permanent, JAWS Basics Dialog Box
1. Go to the JAWS Window > Options > Basics dialog box.
2. Press UP or DOWN ARROW to move through the radio buttons in the
Tutor Messages area. Your three choices are:
• Turn off Menu and Control Help
• Announce Menu and Control Help
• Announce Custom Messages Only
3. Press ENTER to close the dialog box when you have made your
selection.
NOTE: Tutor messages can also be set permanently using the JAWS
Startup Wizard in the JAWS Help menu.
Tutor Messages, Temporary
You can have JAWS speak tutor messages any time by pressing INSERT+TAB
when you are in a control or dialog box.
Access Keys
Access Keys, Permanent.
1. Go to the JAWS Window > Options > Basics dialog box.
2. Press TAB to move to the Access Key group of radio buttons. You
have four choices:
• Off
• Speak all
• Speak Menus Only
• Speak Dialogs Only
3. Press UP or DOWN ARROW to move through the radio buttons and
choose the one you want.
4. Press ENTER to close the dialog box when you have made your
selection.
NOTE: Access keys can also be set permanently using the JAWS Startup
Wizard in the JAWS Help menu.
Access Keys, Temporary
Read access keys any time by pressing NUM PAD 5 in menus or dialog boxes.
Automatically Start JAWS
Automatically Start JAWS, Permanent
Automatically Start JAWS in Windows XP
1. Go to the JAWS Window > Options > Basics dialog box.
2. In Windows XP press TAB to move to the Automatically Start JAWS
checkbox.
3. Press SPACEBAR to turn the checkmark on or off.
4. Press ENTER to close the dialog box when you have made your
selection.
Automatically Start JAWS in Windows Vista
1. Go to the JAWS Window > Options > Basics dialog box.
2. In Windows Vista press TAB to move to the Automatically Start JAWS
button.
3. Press SPACEBAR to open the Start JAWS Options dialog box.
4. Press SPACEBAR to check this check box if you want JAWS to talk
for all users while you type your name and password at the Windows
Vista logon screen.
5. Check the second checkbox if you want JAWS to start after logon
for all users. This would be the case if you have other people using
JAWS on the same machine.
6. In the combo box for Start JAWS after logon for this user, that
would normally be yourself, choose from the following options:
• Always
• Never
• Or using the all users setting
NOTE: Automatically start JAWS can also be set permanently using the
JAWS Startup Wizard in the JAWS Help menu.
Voice Rate
Voice Rate, Permanent
1. Go to the JAWS window > Options Menu > Voices submenu > Global
Adjustment.
2. Press TAB to move to the Rate Slider Bar, where you can use LEFT
or RIGHT ARROW, PAGE DOWN or PAGE UP, and HOME or END to move the
slider and make changes. I'll show you where I like it. But I won't
leave it that way for now. I'll change it back.
3. Press ENTER to close the dialog box when you have made your
selection.
NOTE: Voice rate can also be set permanently using the JAWS Startup
Wizard in the JAWS Help menu.
Voice Rate, Temporary
Press ALT+CTRL+PAGE UP or ALT+CTRL+PAGE DOWN.
This is only in effect while focus is in the program where you
originally change it. As soon as you press ALT+TAB to move to another
program or press ALT+F4 to close that program, the speed of the voice
returns to what you normally use.
Punctuation
Punctuation, Permanent
1. Go to the JAWS window > Options menu > Voices submenu > Global
Adjustment.
2. Press TAB to move to the punctuation combo box.
3. Press UP or DOWN ARROW to move through the choices.
4. Press ENTER to close the dialog box when you have made your
selection.
NOTE: Punctuation can also be set permanently using the JAWS Startup
Wizard in the JAWS Help menu.
Punctuation, Temporary
1. Open the adjust JAWS options dialog box with INSERT+V.
2. Press P to move to Punctuation.
3. Press SPACEBAR to toggle through the choices until you find the
one you want.
4. Press ENTER to close the adjust JAWS options dialog box.
I pressed ESC because I'm not making any changes.
This is only in effect while focus is in the program where you
originally change it. As soon as you press ALT+TAB to move to another
program or press ALT+F4 to close that program, the punctuation returns
to what you normally use.
Select Synthesizer
Select Synthesizer, Permanent, Now Handled with Voice Profiles
1. Synthesizers can be changed using the Global or Individual Voice
settings. Press INSERT+J to switch to the JAWS window first.
2. Press ALT+O to open the Options menu.
3. Press V to open the Voices submenu. Choose either Global or
Individual voice adjustments.
4. Within either dialog box, press TAB to move to the Synthesizer
Name combo box, and choose a different one if desired.
5. Choose OK to save the synthesizer as the new default for the
current voice profile. Or choose Save As to give the profile a new
name.
Select Synthesizers, Temporary, Now Handled with Voice Profiles
In order to switch quickly between two synthesizers you first need to
create a voice profile for each synthesizer. Once that is done, switch
any time by pressing INSERT+CTRL+S to open the Select a Voice Profile
list, and choose a voice profile which has a different synthesizer.
Another way to switch voice profiles and change to one with a
different synthesizer is to go to the JAWS window, and choose ALT+L to
open the Language menu. Next choose Voice Profiles submenu. Select one
from the list, and press ENTER to close the menus and begin using the
new voice profile.
NOTE: Voice profiles are discussed later in the basic training in more
detail. When you change voice profiles, the new one remains in effect
until you switch it again, even if you shut down and restart JAWS.
Select Language
Changing Languages with Voice Profiles
In order to switch quickly between two languages you first need to
create a voice profile for each language. Once that is done, switch
any time by pressing INSERT+CTRL+S to open the Select a Voice Profile
list, and choose a voice profile which has a different language.
Another way to switch voice profiles and change to one with a
different language is to go to the JAWS window, and choose ALT+L to
open the Language menu. Next choose Voice Profiles submenu. Select one
from the list, and press ENTER to close the menus and begin using the
new voice profile.
Typing Echo
Permanent Changes to Typing Echo
1. Open the list of JAWS managers by pressing INSERT+F2.
2. Select configuration manager in the list and press ENTER.
3. Read the title bar of configuration manager by pressing INSERT+T.
It should say the name of the program focus was in when you pressed
INSERT+F2. Example: NOTEPAD.JCF or MICROSOFT WORD.JCF. This is fine if
you want the typing echo change to only apply to THIS program.
4. If instead, you want the typing echo change to apply to ALL
programs, press CTRL+SHIFT+D to switch to the DEFAULT.JCF file.
5. Press ALT+S to open the Set Options menu.
6. Press ENTER on User Options.
7. Press TAB to move to the Typing Echo group of radio buttons.
8. Press UP or DOWN ARROW to select one of the choices. Your choices
are:
• Off
• Characters
• Words
• Characters and Words
9. Press ENTER when you are finished, and focus returns to
configuration manager.
10. Press ALT+F4 to close configuration manager, and answer yes or no
to save the changes, depending on your preference.
NOTE: Typing echo can also be set permanently using the JAWS Startup
Wizard in the JAWS Help menu.
Temporary Changes to Typing Echo
Press INSERT+2 on the numbers row repeatedly to toggle between your
choices. This setting reverts to your default whenever you press
ALT+TAB to move from one application window to another.
Verbosity Options
Permanent Changes to Verbosity Options
1. Open the list of JAWS managers by pressing INSERT+F2.
2. Select configuration manager in the list and press ENTER.
3. Read the title bar of configuration manager by pressing INSERT+T.
It should say the name of the program focus was in when you pressed
INSERT+F2. Example: NOTEPAD.JCF or MICROSOFT WORD.JCF. This is fine if
you want the verbosity change to only apply to THIS program.
4. If instead, you want the verbosity change to apply to ALL
programs, press CTRL+SHIFT+D to switch to the DEFAULT.JCF file.
5. Press ALT+S to open the Set Options menu.
6. Choose Verbosity Options in the menu and press ENTER.
7. Press UP or DOWN ARROW to move through the Verbosity choices. They
are:
• Beginner
• Intermediate
• Advanced
8. Press ENTER when you are finished and focus returns to
configuration manager.
9. Press ALT+F4 to close configuration manager and answer yes or no
to save the changes, depending on your preference.
NOTE: Verbosity options can also be set permanently using the JAWS
Startup Wizard in the JAWS Help menu.
NOTE: JAWS speaks less information at the intermediate level, and even
less information at the advanced level.
Temporary Changes to Verbosity Options
1. Press INSERT+V to open the adjust JAWS options dialog box.
2. Press U to find User Verbosity in the tree view.
3. Press SPACEBAR to toggle through the available choices.
4. Press ENTER to close the adjust JAWS options dialog box when you
find the choice you prefer.
This setting remains in effect until you close JAWS and start it the
next time or until you switch to a different verbosity level using one
of the methods discussed here.
Screen Echo
Permanent Changes to Screen Echo
1. Open the list of JAWS managers by pressing INSERT+F2.
2. Select configuration manager in the list and press ENTER.
3. Read the title bar of configuration manager by pressing INSERT+T.
It should say the name of the program focus was in when you pressed
INSERT+F2. Example: NOTEPAD.JCF or MICROSOFT WORD.JCF. This is fine if
you want the screen echo change to only apply to THIS program.
4. If instead, you want the screen echo change to apply to ALL
programs, press CTRL+SHIFT+D to switch to the DEFAULT.JCF file.
5. Press ALT+S to open the Set Options menu.
6. Choose User Options in the menu and press ENTER.
7. Press TAB to move to the Screen Echo radio buttons.
8. Press UP or DOWN ARROW to move through the choices.
9. Press ENTER when you are finished and focus returns to
configuration manager.
10. Press ALT+F4 to close configuration manager and answer yes or no
to save the changes, depending on your preference.
NOTE: You will probably NOT want to change this on a permanent basis
for all programs, as JAWS will then not behave properly. This is
something you only want to do in very special cases, and then for only
certain specific applications. If you need to change Screen Echo, try
using the following temporary setting method.
Temporary Changes to Screen Echo
Press INSERT+S to toggle through the available choices.
NOTE: If you ever hear your clock say the time every minute, or hear
everything on the screen that changes being spoken, you might have
accidentally pressed this key combination. If so, try pressing this
key combination until you hear JAWS say "highlighted" again.
Speak Dollars
Permanent Change to Speak Dollars
1. Open the list of JAWS managers by pressing INSERT+F2.
2. Select configuration manager in the list and press ENTER.
3. Read the title bar of configuration manager by pressing INSERT+T.
It should say the name of the program focus was in when you pressed
INSERT+F2. Example: NOTEPAD.JCF or MICROSOFT WORD.JCF. This is fine if
you want the speak dollars change to only apply to THIS program.
4. If instead, you want the speak dollars change to apply to ALL
programs, press CTRL+SHIFT+D to switch to the DEFAULT.JCF file.
Personally, I like to do this in one application specifically, that
being Microsoft Excel®. So what I do is I start Excel first, then I
follow the steps by pressing INSERT+F2 and go into configuration
manager.
5. Press ALT+S to open the Set Options menu.
6. Choose Text Processing in the menu and press ENTER.
7. Press TAB to move to the Speak Dollars checkbox. I'm going to
press it kind of quickly.
8. Press SPACEBAR to change the status of the checkmark between on or
off.
9. Press ENTER to close the Text Processing dialog box.
10. Press ALT+F4 to close configuration manager and answer Yes when
asked to save the changes.
Numeric Date Processing
Permanent Change to Numeric Date Processing
1. Open the list of JAWS managers by pressing INSERT+F2.
2. Select configuration manager in the list and press ENTER.
3. Read the title bar of configuration manager by pressing INSERT+T.
It should say the name of the program focus was in when you pressed
INSERT+F2. Example: NOTEPAD.JCF or MICROSOFT WORD.JCF. This is fine if
you want the numeric date processing change to only apply to THIS
program.
4. If instead, you want the numeric date processing change to apply
to ALL programs, press CTRL+SHIFT+D to switch to the DEFAULT.JCF file.
5. Press ALT+S to open the Set Options menu.
6. Choose Text Processing in the menu and press ENTER.
7. Press TAB to move to the Numeric Date Processing combo box.
8. Press UP or DOWN ARROW to make your choice.
9. Press ENTER to close the Text Processing dialog box.
10. Press ALT+F4 to close configuration manager and answer Yes when
asked to save the changes.
Read Columns of a List View
You can change the way JAWS reads columns in a list view or you can
read any single column on demand.
Permanently Change the Way JAWS Reads Columns in a List View
First, you must be in a list view to do this. Let's open Windows Explorer.
1. Press WINDOWS Key+E.
2. I'm going to select my local hard drive, which is called OS(C) by
pressing O.
3. I'll press ENTER.
4. Press INSERT+F2 to open the list of JAWS Managers.
5. Choose Customize List View and press ENTER to close the list of
JAWS Managers.
You land in a list view of the column headers that are available for
Windows Explorer. Within this dialog box are buttons such as Move Up,
Move Down, and Toggle Speech. You can choose to ignore them, speak
custom text or the header, speak custom text AND the header, or speak
custom text only. And you can also select voice aliases so you can
have this spoken in different voices if you want. For now I'm going to
press ESC.
Focus returns to Windows Explorer.
Read Any Column in a List View on Demand
To manually read columns one through ten of a list view at any time,
press CTRL+INSERT+1 through 0. In Windows Explorer right now the date
modified is in the second column, so if I press CTRL+INSERT+2 I should
hear that information.
I'll close Windows Explorer now by pressing ALT+F4. Feel free to
practice more on your own.
Conclusion
These are just a few of the most common things that people change. If
you're not sure you want to make a change, try using the temporary
settings first before making anything permanent.
JAWS and Braille
In this module I'll look at some of the braille features available in JAWS.
JAWS has the ability to work with many refreshable braille devices,
including for example, the Focus line of braille displays from Freedom
Scientific and the PAC Mate portable braille displays. If you have a
braille display, you would choose to install it when you initially
install JAWS, but a braille display can also be installed later.
Startup Wizard Braille Options
Newly added in the JAWS 9 Startup Wizard is a dialog box that controls
how grade two braille, or contracted braille, is set up. There are two
checkboxes:
• Enable Translator. If this check box is checked, the braille
display shows contracted braille. This check box is cleared by
default.
• Expand Current Word. This is checked by default. If Enable
Translator in the prior checkbox is checked, and expand current word
is also checked, the word at the position of the braille cursor
appears in computer braille. This makes it easier to edit the word at
the cursor. For example, everything on the braille display appears in
contracted braille except for the word where the cursor is.
You can also access these choices, and many more, in the Braille
Options dialog box. Read the section later in this module for a
discussion of how to do so.
Installing a Braille Display
NOTE: PAC Mate portable braille displays and Focus braille displays
are automatically detected by JAWS and you do not have to perform a
separate installation for them.
If you already have JAWS installed and you want to add a braille
display to your computer:
1. In the JAWS user interface, go to the JAWS Options menu by pressing
ALT+O.
2. Choose Braille in the menu and press ENTER. The Braille Basic
Settings dialog box opens.
3. Move to the Add Braille Display button and activate it with the
SPACEBAR.
NOTE: The JAWS program CD is not required to accomplish this. For now,
I'll just press ESC.
Adjust Braille Options Tree View, Temporary
To temporarily adjust braille options, press INSERT+F2 to open the
list of JAWS managers and choose Adjust Braille Options in the list.
This opens the Adjust Braille Options dialog box.
I'm just going to press DOWN ARROW a few times to explore some of the
choices. The tree view is new in version 9 of JAWS.
Alternatively, you can also press INSERT+CTRL+B in most applications,
except for where the virtual cursor is active. In that case, the
keystroke INSERT+CTRL+B opens a list of buttons in the current
document or page.
Press UP or DOWN ARROW or use first letter navigation to move through
the tree view of braille options and use SPACEBAR to toggle settings.
Press ENTER to accept changes you have made. For now I'm just going to
press ESC to get out of it.
The settings in this dialog box are only in effect in the application
that was active when you opened the Adjust Braille Options. If you
switch to another application, even briefly, the settings are restored
to their original values. Most of the settings within this dialog box
are also available within Configuration Manager, Set Options, Braille
Options. The default settings for each item in the Adjust Braille
Options dialog box correspond to the settings within Configuration
Manager.
Making Permanent Changes to Braille Settings
Once a braille display is installed, there are several settings that
you can make to further customize how JAWS works with it. Using these
options results in the changes being permanent, unless you change them
again later. There are a couple of ways to make permanent changes.
Braille Basic Settings Dialog Box
1. Switch to the JAWS window.
2. Choose Options (ALT+O), Braille
Here you can easily add a new braille display or change your default
braille display. I'll press ESC.
Braille Options Dialog Box
Open the Braille Options dialog box in the following way:
1. Press INSERT+J to switch to the JAWS window.
2. Press ALT+U to open the Utilities menu.
3. Choose Configuration Manager in the list and press ENTER to start
it. The DEFAULT.JCF file window opens.
4. Press ALT+S to open the Set Options menu.
5. Choose Braille Options in the list and press ENTER. The Braille
Options dialog box opens with focus on the Advanced Braille Display
Options button.
6. Press TAB once, and focus moves to the Enable Translator checkbox.
7. Press TAB again, and focus moves to the Contracted English Braille
radio button. The other choice here is Unified English Braille. This
was added in JAWS version 10. JAWS can now provide contracted braille
using either Contracted English Braille, formerly known as grade 2
braille, as defined in translation rules from the Braille Authority of
North America (BANA), or Unified English Braille (UEB) as provided by
the International Council on English Braille (ICEB). Choose the one
you want with UP or DOWN ARROW, and then press TAB to move to the next
control.
8. This time focus moves to the Expand Current Word checkbox.
9. There are other controls here as well. Press TAB to explore them
on your own.
10. Once finished, press ALT+O to activate the OK button. Focus
returns to the DEFAULT.JCF window. I'm just going to press ESC.
11. Press ALT+F4 to close the DEFAULT.JCF file and choose either yes
or no to saving it, depending on whether you want to save the changes
or not.
This dialog box gives you more advanced braille options, such as
changing from uncontracted to contracted braille, changing braille
modes, changing braille marking options, adjusting the time that new
braille flash messages appear, and more. Some of these are discussed
further in this lesson.
Braille Flash Messages
Braille Flash Messages were introduced beginning with JAWS 6.0. These
are messages that appear on the braille display for five seconds, by
default, and then disappear. When JAWS is talking, some messages, in
the past, did not appear on the braille display. For example, when I
press INSERT+T to read the title bar of the window I am in with
versions of JAWS before 6.0 JAWS speaks it, but this did not appear in
braille. These messages now announce application start messages, error
messages, help balloons, and more by flashing them on the braille
display for five seconds.
There is a way to switch older versions of JAWS to read spoken
messages and it is called Speech History Mode, but switching between
two modes on the braille display is time consuming. Therefore, some of
those messages that would previously only be spoken now appear as
braille flash messages. The time in which these temporary messages
appear is set to 5 seconds by default, but this can be changed by the
end user. It is important, however, for those of you who may not yet
be aware of this new feature or for those of you who are new to using
a braille display, to note that with JAWS 6.0 or higher there WILL be
some messages that appear on your braille display for a few seconds
and then disappear.
Auto Advance Mode
Auto Advance Mode is a new reading mode that was introduced in JAWS
6.0 and is equivalent to Say All for the braille reader. The braille
display is automatically panned at a user-specified speed through an
entire document, automatically skipping over blank segments and blank
lines. You can increase or decrease the speed of the panning
temporarily, skip backward or forward (using panning keys on the
display), and stop the mode by pressing a routing key (or changing the
application focus). Panning speed is adjustable by the JAWS user. In
the Braille Options dialog box there is an Auto Advance Interval combo
box where you can select the length of time (in milliseconds) that you
want JAWS to wait before panning your braille display while you are
reading in Auto Advance mode. Auto Advance mode is started by pressing
keys that vary from one type of braille display to another. On the
legacy Focus braille display from Freedom Scientific, press the two
General Display Buttons at the same time to start it.
Contracted vs. Uncontracted Braille
One of the first things people might want to change is reading in what
was formerly called Grade 2 braille. The newer term for this is
"contracted braille." Here's how to set JAWS to read contracted
braille, because the default for JAWS is to read braille in
uncontracted form.
1. Open the JAWS list of managers, INSERT+F2.
2. Choose Configuration manager in the list and press ENTER.
3. In Configuration manager, press ALT+S for Set Options and choose
Braille Options. Braille Options is near the bottom of the list, the
access key is B, so I'll press B.
4. Press TAB one time to move to the Enable Translator check box and
press SPACEBAR to check it.
5. Press ENTER to close this dialog box. I'm not checking the check
box on my machine and I'm just going to press ESC.
6. Finally, press ALT+F4 to close configuration manager and answer
"Yes" to saving the changes.
Braille Mode Combo Box
In the JAWS Braille Options dialog box, use the Braille Mode combo box
to control the format of the information sent to the braille display.
When line mode is selected, JAWS sends the line of text at the current
cursor position to the braille display. When structured mode is
selected, JAWS sends information to the display that is relevant to
the current cursor position. The information sent includes things such
as control type, dialog box name, or number of items in a list. These
different pieces of information often come from different parts of the
screen, not necessarily on the same line. When speech history mode is
selected, JAWS sends the same text to the display that it sends to the
synthesizer. The default setting for this option is structured mode.
Braille Marking Options
One item that may confuse new braille users is that by default, JAWS
uses dots 7 and 8 to mark highlighted text. This makes highlighted
text on the refreshable braille display appear to be underlined. If
this causes difficulty in reading, you can turn this off by choosing
the button "Braille Marking Options" and unchecking the checkbox for
Highlight.
I actually use a Focus braille display on my desk. I don't read the
braille by touch, but by sight. As I mentioned earlier, JAWS will auto
detect if the braille display is attached. I actually don't have one
here in the recording studio, so I'm going to do an installation to
show you how that works.
1. I'll press ALT+O.
2. DOWN ARROW to Braille.
3. Press ENTER.
4. I'll press TAB to move to the Add Braille Display button.
5. And I'll press SPACEBAR.
6. I pressed DOWN ARROW to move to Focus and I'll press the SPACEBAR.
7. I'll press ENTER.
8. That's fine, I'll press ENTER.
9. That's fine also, I'll press ENTER again.
10. Next I'll press TAB to move to the OK button and I'll press
SPACEBAR.
I shut JAWS down by pressing ALT+F4 and I restarted it by pressing
CTRL+ALT+J I'm going to go to the Options menu with ALT+O and I'll
choose Braille.
I'll show you a few of the things I like to change and this, of
course, is just a personal preference.
1. I'm going to go to the Advanced button. I'll press SPACEBAR.
2. I'll press SPACEBAR on the Advanced Braille Display Options button.
I'm only using a Focus 40 so I like to have the entire forty cells
for text, so I'm going to turn off the status cells, again, entirely
personal preference.
3. I'll press ENTER to close this dialog box.
I mentioned that I read braille by sight, but I'm not a very fast
reader, so when those flash messages appear it takes me a little
longer. I want to increase the time that flash messages appear so I'm
going to press ALT+F to go to the flash messages area. That's five
seconds, so I'm going to press DOWN ARROW until I come to ten seconds,
or 10,000 milliseconds.
4. And I'll press ENTER.
There's one other change I like and that's to cursor settings,
there's a cursor settings button, ALT+U.
5. I'm going to press SPACEBAR to select the PC cursor in this list
and I'll press TAB.
The PC cursor, the JAWS cursor, and the invisible cursor are
represented on the braille display by dots 7 and 8.
6. I'll press TAB and they're set to blink, up, down, up, down, up,
down. I'd rather have them up all the time, so I'm going to press the
UP ARROW.
Another change I make is to the dot pattern itself, I'm going to
press SHIFT+TAB to go back.
7. I'm going to delete the 7 and leave just dot 8, so that on my
braille display dot 8 in a raised position indicates the cursor
position.
This may also be good for some people who may not be able to feel
where the cursor is because, perhaps, their hands aren't as sensitive
as they used to be. You can actually set the dot pattern to 1 through
8, so you could have more than just dots 7 and 8. You can pick dots 1,
2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, AND 8 if you really wanted to to really show someone
where the cursor is. For now I'm just going to press ENTER to close
this dialog box.
8. There's an OK button, I'm going to access it by pressing ALT+O.
9. There's another OK button in this dialog box, again I'll press
ALT+O to access it. Focus returns to the JAWS window.
I just wanted to show you a couple of settings that I change
personally on the braille display that I use for testing purposes,
just to show you how to get into the dialog box and make some changes.
Feel free to make your own changes and experiment and find what works
best for you.
If you have any dialog boxes open, either save your changes by
activating the OK button or press ESC to get out of them. Then
continue on with me to the next lesson.
Getting Started with HJPad
HJPad is a full-featured word-processing program that has been
developed by Freedom Scientific. You'll find that HJPad is a very good
program for training purposes. It gets installed automatically with
JAWS. It has a spell checker and standard items found in many other
Windows programs, such as the File Open and Save As dialog boxes,
toolbars, menu items, and sample dialog boxes that teach you about
different types of Windows controls. So it makes a very safe
environment for training!
Right now the only program I have running is JAWS. The HJPad
application is located in the JAWS submenu under programs. I am using
Windows Vista. If you're using Windows XP, the instructions to start
HJPad follow just after this, so keep listening or reading.
1. I'll go ahead and press the WINDOWS LOGO KEY to open the start
menu now. Focus is in the search edit field of the Start menu.
2. I'll type HJPad, all one word. In the Start menu, HJPad is now at
the top of the menu.
This new search edit box in the Windows Vista start menu is great!
3. All I have to do now is press ENTER to start HJPad.
If you're using Windows XP:
1. Press P to move to either Programs or All Programs and find the
JAWS program group.
2. Then press RIGHT ARROW to open up the JAWS submenu.
3. HJPad is listed in this menu as "Run HJPad," so press the letter R
to launch or start the HJPad application now.
An Overview of the HJPad Application Window
I've just launched the HJPad application and focus is in an empty
document. At this point, as JAWS just told me, I'm in a position where
I can just start typing text into this document if I'd like to. But
before I do this, I'm going to give you a brief overview of how the
HJPad application window is laid out. The first thing I always do is
make sure the program is maximized. The window might be in a restored
state so I'm going to carry out the keyboard commands that will allow
me to activate the application control menu and make sure the program
is maximized. The key combination to activate the application control
menu is ALT+SPACEBAR and I'll press that now.
If you heard the word "Restore" that means that HJPad is already
maximized. If you hear the words "Restore Unavailable" that means
HJPad is not maximized. In either case you can still press the letter
X for maximize and the menu will close and HJPad will be maximized if
it is not already.
I'd like to talk a little bit about some of the major areas of the
HJPad application and this applies to most other Windows applications
as well. HJPad has the following components:
• Title Bar
• Menu Bar
• Format Toolbar
• Standard Toolbar
• Main Document Area
• Status Bar
JAWS provides a keystroke that allows you to read the title of the
current application window that has the focus. That keystroke is
INSERT+T, as in title. I'll go ahead and press this keystroke now.
The next thing I'm going to talk about is the menu bar. Press ALT. You
land on the word File in the menu and this is typical for most
applications up until you get to programs like Office 2007, of course,
and it has a new ribbon. There is a separate DAISY book on Office 2007
available for free download from the Training department at Freedom
Scientific. I'm going to press RIGHT ARROW to move to the right across
the menu bar. Eventually you end up where you started.
Another thing that you'll find in most windows programs may be one or
more tool bars (or sometimes called "button bars"). Most people who
use a mouse will use these as shortcuts so they don't have to go into
the menus. Many times you can accomplish the same tasks as tool bar
buttons with keyboard commands and get those tasks done faster than a
person using a mouse. For example there's a bold button and an italic
button and an underline button. Those appear on the format toolbar.
You can press CTRL+B, CTRL+I, or CTRL+U to activate those buttons.
There are some other buttons there as well.
Another thing I'm going to talk about is the edit area, which is the
main area of the screen. This is where you type text. And one final
area of most windows programs is the status bar. You can read that
with the command INSERT+PAGE DOWN. First, I'm going to press the ALT
key to get out of the menus and I'll press INSERT+PAGE DOWN.
The status bar will often contain important information about where
your focus is. This could be line and page number, or information
about what a menu item or dialog box control will do if you activate
it. This depends on the program and how it is written.
And one other item that I might mention, on most windows you'll find
scroll bars. These are usually vertical, sometimes horizontal, on the
side or bottom of screen. You generally won't be using these with
screen reading software, but just know that they are there as you may
hear terms when reading with the JAWS cursor like scroll up symbol, or
scroll right symbol and so on.
Opening and Saving a File in HJPad
Now that you have a good basic understanding of how the HJPad
application is laid out, let's go ahead and use the file open dialog
to open a document. Follow along with me:
1. You could go to the menu and choose File, and then Open, or you
can press the hot key CTRL+O.
2. I'm going to press ALT+F and I'll press DOWN ARROW to move to Open.
3. There it is, press ENTER
The document I want to open is located in the Program Files\Freedom
Scientific\Training\JAWS\enu folder. To get there press ALT+I to move
to the Look In combo box.
4. Press ALT+DOWN ARROW to open up a list of the available drives on
your computer.
5. Press DOWN ARROW to move to the local hard drive on your computer.
Press ENTER on that.
If you're using Windows XP you may have a hard drive called Local
Disk C or something like that.
6. TAB out of the Look In combo box until you get to the list view of
files and folders. That's it.
7. I'll press P until I find Program Files.
8. Press ENTER to go into Program Files.
9. Press F to find Freedom Scientific.
10. Press ENTER to go into the Freedom Scientific folder.
11. Press T for Training.
12. Press ENTER on Training.
13. Press J for JAWS.
14. Press ENTER to go into the JAWS folder.
15. Press E for Enu.
16. And press ENTER to go into the Enu folder.
17. I've pointed to the folder where the file I want is and I'm going
to press the letter S until I find Saint Pete.rtf.
18. There it is, press ENTER
Focus has returned to the HJPad application and the cursor is in the
edit area. I'm going to read the current line with the SayLine command
for JAWS, INSERT+UP ARROW. You can use standard reading commands to
read this document. I'm going to press DOWN ARROW. Again. And again.
I prefer to read by sentence so I'm going to press ALT+DOWN ARROW.
Take a moment or two to read this document and practice using your
reading commands with JAWS.
What I'd like to do next is I'd like you just to press the SPACEBAR
anywhere in this document. What that means is you have made an edit
change to that document. Now, what happens if you try to open a new
document? Press CTRL+O. You land in the File Name edit field. Let's go
ahead and just the file open dialog box for a minute.
The list of files and folders is right above the file name, so if you
are looking for a file to open you would typically press SHIFT+TAB. In
Windows Vista you move to the name header bar. Press SHIFT+TAB again
and there's the list of files and folders.
1. I'm going to press DOWN ARROW to explore what is in the list.
2. I'll press TAB to move forward again.
3. Again and that's where I was just a moment ago.
4. I'll press TAB again. You have the ability to look for different
types of files or all files.
5. I'll press TAB.
6. And again.
7. And again. There's the Look In combo box. We used that just a moment
ago.
8. I'll continue to press TAB. There's a toolbar. Another toolbar.
Back to the list view. The name header bar. And back to the file name
edit combo box which is where focus is initially when the file open
dialog box opens.
9. I'm going to go ahead and press ENTER to open up TABLE.RTF. Notice
what happens because we made a change by pressing SPACEBAR in the
Saint Petersburg document.
You get a dialog box that asks if you want to save the changes to that
document. I don't, so I'm going to press TAB to move to the No button
and I'll press SPACEBAR to activate the No button. Now the table
document has been opened.
I'm going to press INSERT+DOWN ARROW to do a SayAll. I pressed CTRL to
stop speech. I just wanted to get an idea of what was in this
document. Let's say that you have made a change to this document and
you want to save it, but you want to give it a different name.
1. Press ALT+F to go to the File menu.
2. Press DOWN ARROW until you reach Save As.
3. Press ENTER. Once again you land in the file name edit combo box.
The Save As dialog box and the File Open dialog box are almost
identical. The only difference is in the action that is performed. If
you press SHIFT+TAB here you land on the name header bar. If you press
SHIFT+TAB again you land in the list of files and folders. When you
hear something is not selected you can press the SPACEBAR to select
it.
Spend a moment exploring the Save As dialog box. For now I'm going to
go ahead and press TAB to move to the file name. The file name is
highlighted, so I can type right over it. I'm going to call it table
two. You don't have to put in the extension. If you move to the next
combo box you'll find that it is still set to RTF. If you press TAB
again focus moves to the save button. However, you don't have to move
to the save button.
I'm going to press SHIFT+TAB twice to move back to the file name edit
combo box. In many dialog boxes within Windows one button will often
be the default that gets activated when you press the ENTER key no
matter where you are in that dialog box. Focus is currently in the
file name edit box and I'm going to press a keystroke that is a JAWS
keystroke to find out what the default button is for this dialog box.
That keystroke is INSERT+E. So JAWS tells me that even though I'm in
the file name edit box the default button that gets activated by
pressing ENTER is the Save button. So I don't actually have to press
TAB to find it. I can just press ENTER. Go ahead and do that.
The Menus in HJPad
We've looked at some of the things in the File menu already.
1. Press ALT+E to look at the Edit menu. Pretty standard for most
Windows word processing programs, you have an undo. Many of these
items are unavailable because at the moment I don't have any text
selected, in other words, I cannot cut or copy some text until I
select it first.
2. Press RIGHT ARROW to move to the next menu, the View menu. There's
a toolbars submenu. And I'm going to press DOWN ARROW to wrap back to
the top.
3. I'll press RIGHT ARROW to open the toolbars submenu. Those are the
two toolbars that are active right now, and they are both checked. If
you wanted to turn them off you could press ENTER on either one of
these and that would turn it off.
4. For now, press RIGHT ARROW to go to the Insert menu. That's the
only thing in this menu.
5. Press RIGHT ARROW to go to the format menu. Here's where you can
change your font. I'll press DOWN ARROW, set alignment and other
paragraph information, and set up tab stops and other information.
6. Press RIGHT ARROW to move to the tools menu. We'll talk more about
the spell checker later. Press DOWN ARROW. There's a sample dialogs
submenu.
7. Press RIGHT ARROW to open this, we're going to explore these later
as well. Press DOWN ARROW. Focus moved back to the top of the menu.
8. Press RIGHT ARROW again to move to the Help menu. Help topics and
About HJPad. The about box in most programs in Windows gives you the
version number, and if there is one, the serial number.
9. For now I'm going to press ALT to get out of the menus.
10. I'm going to press ALT+F4 to close HJPad and if it asks me to
save any changes I'll answer No.
That's the end of this module. We'll look at some of the other
features and practice dialog boxes in HJPad in the next lesson.
Selecting Text, Cut, Copy, and Paste and the Print Dialog Box in HJPad
This learning module will cover the Windows Clipboard and Printing a
Document in HJPad. For this session I have JAWS open. I'm going to
start HJPad by pressing the WINDOWS Key and I'll type hjpad in the
start search edit box. I only had to type three letters and now it's
at the top of the Start menu so I can press ENTER to open it.
For those of you who are using Windows XP, press the WINDOWS Key and
go to the Start menu, then the JAWS program group, and then choose Run
HJPad, it starts with the letter R.
One thing I'd like to show you about the File menu in HJPad, as in
most word processors, is that if you've had previous documents open
they'll be listed in the file menu with the number one document being
the last document you had open. Press ALT+F to verify this right now.
I'm going to press DOWN ARROW rather quickly until I reach item one.
That was the last document that I had open. I'll press DOWN ARROW
again. That was the second to the last document that I had open. I'll
press DOWN ARROW one more time. You can go to the File menu and open
up any of these documents by choosing the correct number. It makes it
a little bit easier than going to the File Open dialog box every time.
I'm going to press the ALT key to get out of the menus.
Also, it's a good idea to make sure your application is maximized so
do that by first pressing ALT+SPACEBAR and then X to make sure it's
maximized. If you hear the word "restore" it's already maximized but
you can still go ahead and press the letter X anyway. When a window is
maximized it takes up the whole screen and you have access to more
information than if it appears in a small window.
Currently in HJPad I have a blank document. I'd like to show you one
other item in HJPad. Press CTRL+N as in new. This is also in the File
menu under New. HJPad has the ability to create three different types
of documents. You could save it as a Word 6 document. I'll press DOWN
ARROW or you could also create a rich text document, which is the
default for HJPad, or you could create a text document. For now I'm
just going to press ESC to get out of this dialog box.
I'm going to type a few lines of text here. I'll type a sentence,
Today is a beautiful day!
Now I'll press ENTER to go to the next line. The cursor was at the end
of the line already.
I'll type in some more text here.
Florida is the sunshine state.
And I'll press INSERT+UP ARROW to read this line.
Ok, I have a few things here to practice with so I'll press CTRL+HOME
to go to the top of this short document.
Selecting Text by Character
The Windows standard keys for selecting text usually include the shift
key as an anchor. If I press the SHIFT KEY right now and RIGHT ARROW,
I'll select one character. I'll do it again. I'm still holding the
SHIFT KEY down and I'm going to do this a couple of more times.
So you can select a character at a time by pressing SHIFT and an ARROW
KEY in either forward or reverse motion. You can select to the end of
the line by pressing SHIFT+END. I'll go ahead and press SHIFT+END to
select the rest of this line.
Now, I've let go of my shift key and everything on that line now is
highlighted or selected. The commands for the Windows Clipboard are:
• CTRL+C to copy
• CTRL+X to cut
• CTRL+V to paste
Copying Text to the Clipboard
I'll press CTRL+C to copy this text to the clipboard.
Now I'm going to press CTRL+END to move to the bottom of the document.
I'm at the end of the second line I had typed so I'll press ENTER to
insert a blank line.
Pasting Text from the Clipboard
Next I'm going to press CTRL+V to paste what I've just copied to the
clipboard into this document at the insertion point where the cursor
is. I'll press the keystroke for SayLine (INSERT+UP ARROW) to verify
that it's there. The reason it said blank is because I actually copied
the carriage return at the end of the previous line so now I'm on line
four. So instead of SayLine, press UP ARROW now.
And I'll press UP ARROW again. I'll press UP ARROW again. I am at the
top of the document. If I press UP ARROW again, I should hear a ding.
After the ding, which is a top of window announcement, the line is
repeated so I know I'm at the top of the file.
Selecting Text by Word, Line, or Document
Text can be selected by word, line, or an entire document, as well as
by character. There are other methods as well, but I'm not going to
cover them all in this lesson. Selecting an entire document is CTRL+A.
To select text by word, use CTRL+SHIFT+RIGHT ARROW if moving to the
right one word at a time and substitute the LEFT ARROW in that command
to move to the left one word at a time selecting text. To select a
line of text, wherever the cursor is, I can press SHIFT+END to select
from the cursor to the end of the line or SHIFT+HOME to select from
the cursor to the beginning of the line. I usually press the HOME key
first to make sure I am at the beginning of a line I want to select.
Then I press SHIFT+END to select it. I can also select a line of text
from where the cursor is by pressing SHIFT+UP or DOWN ARROW.
The Windows Clipboard
The general Windows Clipboard can only hold one selected item at a
time, whether that's a word, a phrase, or an entire document. The
Windows Clipboard will hold that information until it's replaced by
either another copy, or a cut command, or until I clear the Windows
Clipboard manually, or until I shut down that session of Windows. For
practical purposes just remember only one item can be held on the
Windows Clipboard. Whenever I copy something else, the first item that
was there is gone. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to press
CTRL+END to go to the bottom of the file.
The cursor lands on that blank line I created before and I'll press
CTRL+V one more time just to show that the first text that I had
copied to the clipboard is still there. And again it inserted the
carriage return from the end of the line so I'm on the line below so
that. I should have two lines that are the same right above the
cursor. I'll press UP ARROW once. I'll press UP ARROW again. Pressing
UP ARROW more time will take me to the line above that. One more time
will take me to the line above that, which should be the first line in
the document. Very Good!
Now, let's say that I want to change the word "beautiful" near the end
of this line. I'm going to press INSERT+RIGHT ARROW to move one word
at a time until I land on the word "beautiful." It's important to note
that when you move by character, word, sentence, or paragraph with
JAWS, the cursor is always placed at the beginning of the current
unit. So in this case, the cursor is at the beginning of the word.
I'll press CTRL+SHIFT+RIGHT ARROW, which is the Windows keystroke to
select a word at a time to the right. I hear "beautiful" is now
selected.
Next, I'm going to type in the word "great." When text in a document
or an edit field is selected, as the word "beautiful" is, and I type
any new character, that new character immediately replaces the
selected text. So I don't actually have to delete the word
"beautiful," I can just type right over it. I'll type over it now.
Press the key now for a SayLine, INSERT+UP ARROW. You hear that the
word beautiful in this sentence has now been replaced with the word
great.
I think this gives you a pretty good overview of the Windows
Clipboard. Again, it can only hold one item at a time. If I cut or
copy something else, whatever was placed there previously is gone. So
remember when you're using it and you cut something and paste it, you
want to make sure you actually paste it before you delete it or before
you copy or cut something else.
Printing a Document
Now, let's talk about printing this document. Under the word File on
the Menu Bar, I find a print command. Press ALT plus the letter F.
I'll press DOWN ARROW several times until I come to Print.
While I'm in a menu CTRL+P won't work. CTRL+P is designed to be used
so that I don't have to go to the menus. So a quick command to print a
document is normally CTRL+P. Or I can navigate to the File Menu and
most file menus have a print command there just like this. I'll go
ahead and press ENTER now and open up the print dialog box.
You probably have a different printer installed on your machine. I
have a printer hooked up in building one over our network. Here I land
in the printer name combo box when I go into the print dialog box. In
some print dialog boxes you land in a number of copies edit field. It
just depends on the type of printer installed on your computer. But in
my case, this is where I can change printers if I have more than one
printer hooked up to my computer.
I'm going to press TAB to move to the next control. Most print dialog
boxes have properties for each printer and I can go in and change
those. I won't go into that here, but just be aware that it's there.
I'll press TAB again. This is also a common check box found in many
print dialog boxes, allowing me to save a document to a file rather
than an ink printer or braille embosser.
I'm going to continue to press TAB until I've cycled through all of
the choices in this dialog box.
This is a group of radio buttons. The default is to print all pages;
however, there may be times when I need to reprint just a specific
page. So I'm going to press DOWN ARROW in this list and I'll land on
the "Pages" radio button. I'll press the TAB Key. I'll press TAB
again. There's a From edit box and a To edit box. This would enable me
to print pages 4 and 5, for example, in a 10 page document. I'm going
to press SHIFT+TAB back to the radio button group. I'll press UP ARROW
to go back to ALL.
I'll continue to press TAB and move forward through this dialog box.
Even though my selection is still on ALL, I still land in this edit
field. This may not be the case for every printer, however. So go on
and keep pressing TAB. Focus has moved to the "Number of Copies" edit
spin box, where I can tell the printer how many copies to print.
Notice that the access key for this is ALT+C in case I want to move
here right away instead of having to press TAB so many times to get
there.
I'll press TAB again. Finally I land on an OK button and there's also
one other button here, the Cancel Button. I'll go ahead and press TAB
until I am back in the name combo box.
So, let's find out what the default button is by pressing INSERT+E.
The default button is the button that will get activated when you
press ENTER at this point. In other words, I don't actually have to
press TAB a lot of times to get to the OK button. The first time I
enter this print dialog box, if all I want to do is print one copy to
my usual printer, all I have to do is press ENTER to get it done.
So at this point I'm ready to print my page. I've gone through, chosen
how many copies I want to print and the necessary pages if needed and
now I'm just going to press the ENTER KEY. I'm back in my document and
the print job has gone off to the printer.
That concludes this module. Let's move on to the next one.
Using the Spell Checker in HJPad
HJPad is a word processing program that has been included in the JAWS
product as a learning tool. Its purpose is to provide you with some of
the most common scenarios that you'll run into when working with a
Windows application. One of the features that we built into HJPad,
which you will also come across in several popular off-the-shelf word
processing programs, is a Spell checker.
I'm going to open a document titled, Spelling.rtf. This document has
several spelling errors that I'm going to correct. You can locate the
Spelling document in the C:\Program Files\Freedom
Scientific\Training\JAWS\enu folder. To activate the open dialog box,
I'll press CTRL+O. Focus is in the file name edit box. I was using
HJPad in the previous lessons so it's pointing to the correct folder.
If you need to, navigate to the Look In combo box and switch to the
folder I just mentioned. Since I'm already there I'll press SHIFT+TAB
to go to the list of files. In Windows Vista you land on the name
header bar. Press SHIFT+TAB again.
I'll press the letter s until I find Spelling. I'll press ENTER to open it.
If you're continuing from the previous lesson and still have another
document open, as I did, a practice document, just answer No if you're
asked to save any changes to it. However, if it's something that you
were working on, you'll want to answer Yes. I'll press TAB to move to
the No button and I'll press the SPACEBAR. The spelling document has
opened.
I'm going to press INSERT+UP ARROW to read the top line. I'm going to
press DOWN ARROW so you can get an idea of the types of errors
contained within this document. You'll discover that just because JAWS
pronounces a word correctly that doesn't necessarily mean that the
word is spelled correctly, and vice-versa, so keep that in mind as you
go through this exercise.
Press CTRL+HOME to go back to the top of the file.
The Spell check feature is activated from within the Tools pull down
menu on the menu bar, or alternatively by pressing the function key,
F7. I'll press F7 now to activate Spell check.
I hear that the first misspelled word in the document is HJPad. That's
because the dictionary doesn't actually have the word HJPad in it, so
I'm going to add it shortly. I did hear the misspelled word spoken and
spelled, then I heard the suggested word spoken and spelled. First,
I'll explore the other types of controls available in this dialog box.
When the dialog box first opens, I'm on the Ignore button. I'm going
to press SHIFT+TAB a couple of times to land in the Not In Dictionary
edit field, where I could edit or change this word if I want to.
Here you could edit the word, if you wanted to, and then activate the
Change button by pressing ALT+C.
I'm just going to press TAB to move to the next control and I'm moving
forward this time.
This is a Suggestions list box containing alternative suggestions for
the correct spelling. Of course, HJPad is a unique name, so it's not
going to appear in this list box. But if you wanted to, you could
press UP or DOWN ARROW in this list and make a selection from it. If
you think you have a word you want, you can use the JAWS command for
spelling a word, INSERT+NUM PAD 5 pressed twice quickly to spell it.
I'm going to press DOWN ARROW just to move through the list. I'll
press HOME to move back to the top.
I'm going to press TAB to move to the next control.
This is the default dictionary.
I'll go ahead and press TAB.
Ignore button. The Ignore button causes this occurrence only of the
misspelled word to be skipped. If the same misspelled word appears
later, it will be reported again. Press TAB.
Ignore All button. The Ignore All button causes this and all further
occurrences of the misspelled word to be skipped. Press TAB.
Add button. The Add button allows you to add a word that the spell
checker does not recognize, but which is actually correctly spelled,
to your dictionary. Notice that the access key was ALT+A. Press TAB.
Change button. The Change button causes the reported word to be
replaced. If the problem word was edited, the edited word is used as
the replacement. You would have done that in Not In Dictionary edit
field. Otherwise, the selected suggestion is used as the replacement.
Only this occurrence of the reported word is replaced. If you want
this and all following occurrences of the word replaced, select the
Change All button. I'll press TAB.
Change All button. There's the Change All button. This causes this and
all following occurrences of the reported word to be replaced. Press
TAB.
Suggest button. The Suggest button lets you search more thoroughly for
suggested replacements for the current misspelled word if more are
available.
Some of you may have landed on an Undo button. The Undo button removes
the last change made. Currently it's unavailable because I haven't
made any changes. Press TAB.
Options button. You can use the Options dialog box to set
spelling-checker options, such as ignore capitalized words, ignore all
cap words, ignore words with numbers, and so on. Press TAB.
Dictionaries button. The Dictionaries button allows you to create your
own custom dictionary. Press TAB.
Help button. The Help button opens the spell checker help topic. Press
TAB again.
Cancel button. The Cancel button stops the current spell check. Press TAB.
I'm back in the Not In Dictionary edit field.
I'm going to press ESC to get out of the spell check dialog box now.
This time I'll start the spell check again with F7 and when the
dictionary stops on the word HJPad as a misspelled word, I'll press
ALT+A to activate the Add button and add it to my dictionary. When
finished, the spell check will automatically move on to the next word.
I'll press F7.
I'm going to change the spelling of this word in the edit field and
activate the Change button by pressing ALT+C. I'll press SHIFT+TAB to
go back to that field. The suggestion is correct, but I want to show
you how to edit something in the Not In Dictionary edit field. When
you press either TAB or SHIFT+TAB to move here, the word is now
highlighted, so be careful. Pressing any key replaces the highlighted
text here. Edit the word as you would in a word processor, then press
ALT+C to activate the Change button to continue.
I'll press HOME. I'll press the SayCharacter key, NUM PAD FIVE. I'll
press RIGHT ARROW to move across the word. I know that that second i
needs to be changed to an a. I'm going to press LEFT ARROW to move to
it. Delete it. I'll press the letter a. Now I'll spell the word with
INSERT+NUM PAD 5 twice quickly. That sounds good. I'll press ALT+C to
activate the Change button.
Here's an example of a word that sounded fine when I pressed DOWN
ARROW to read through the document. Choos. The suggestion, c h o o s e
is correct. Press ALT+C to activate the Change button. The spell check
continues to the next word.
Continue on your own with the spell check through the rest of this
document. When you are finished, don't worry about saving any changes.
Just say No if you are asked to save the changes. That way the
document will remain intact for future practice. Then you can move on
to the next lesson.
Find and Replace in HJPad
This lesson introduces you to both the Find and Replace dialogs, as
well as techniques that will help you narrow your search based on
criteria specified within these dialogs.
Currently, the only applications that I've got running are JAWS and
HJPad. The insertion point is in the upper left-hand corner of a
document titled, "FIND.RTF," which you may locate in the C:\Program
Files\Freedom Scientific\Training\JAWS\enu subfolder, assuming that
you accepted the default folders when installing JAWS for Windows on
your computer. Take a minute to locate and open this file.
The Find and Replace dialogs in HJPad are two distinctly separate
dialogs. In some word processors, these two features are included in
one multi-page dialog box, but that is not the case in HJPad, as
activating either of these features brings you into a single page
dialog. The Find feature is a convenient way of locating specific text
within a document. You may want to use the Find feature as a
navigational tool, to locate a specific string of text, or with the
intention of making changes to a specific string of text.
The Find dialog can be activated either from within the Edit pull down
menu of the HJPad application, or by pressing the shortcut key
combination of CTRL+F as in "find." I'm going to press CTRL+F now.
Since this is the first time that I've gotten into this Find dialog in
HJPad, the PC cursor is in an empty edit field in which I can specify
the string of text that I would like to search for. You'll see as I go
through this lesson that previously defined strings of text in this
edit field are retained the next time I activate the Find dialog. So
since is the first time I've been in the Find dialog in HJPad, this
edit field is cleared.
I'm going to do a search for the word, "HJPad," and then I'm going to
quickly show you the other controls in this dialog. I'll type in HJPad
now. And I'm going to tab to the next control. By default, this match
whole word only check box is not checked.
Checking this check box will result in only finding this word as it
appears all by itself, as opposed to within or as part of another
word.
I'm going to leave this check box not checked and I'm going to tab to
the next control.
Here I end up in the match case check box, and by default it is not
checked. Checking this option will make the find case sensitive. I've
got HJPad spelled two different ways. First, in the header line, it's
spelled with all capital letters and within the body of the actual
document, it's spelled with a capital H-J-P and lower-case a d. So if
I were to check this option to make the find case sensitive, I would
only be able to search for one or the other occurrence of the word
HJPad, and I would have to specify in the edit field whether or not I
wanted HJPad to appear as all caps, or as just having the first three
letters of the word HJPad capitalized. I'm going to leave this item
unchecked so it finds all occurrences of the word HJPad and disregard
whether or not it appears in upper or lower-case letters. I'm going to
press the TAB key to move to the next control.
The cursor is now located in the Direction group of radio buttons. The
Down radio button is checked by default, which means the search will
proceed downward from wherever the cursor is currently located in the
document. When the cursor reaches the bottom of the document, the
search will continue after wrapping to the top until the cursor
location is reached again, so it doesn't really matter if the up or
down radio button is checked. Just be aware that normally, the search
proceeds in a downward motion, but you can change that if you want to.
I'll press TAB again.
Here's the find next button. I don't need to tab over to this button
every time I want to activate it, I can type in the word in that edit
field that I'd like to search for and press ENTER. I'm going to press
the TAB key to move to the next control.
There's a cancel button that'll get me out of this dialog without
searching for anything, I'll press the TAB key again.
And you can hear I'm back in the find what edit field. So as I
mentioned earlier, I don't have to activate that find next button by
moving to it and pressing ENTER. I'm just going to press ENTER from
within this edit field and the button will activate, since it is the
default button.
So here I've come across the first occurrence of the word HJPad. I
want to see in what context this word was being used, so I'll use the
JAWS keystroke to read word in context, which is INSERT+C. I'll go
ahead and press that keystroke now.
JAWS speaks the word as it appears on the top line of the Find and
Replace document. I'm going to activate the find next button by
pressing ENTER here. And I'll press INSERT+C again.
The next occurrence of the word HJPad is actually spoken the way it's
supposed to be because remember, that one has a capital H-J-P and
lower-case a-d.
You'll notice that when I press INSERT+C to read the currently
highlighted word in context, that text is spoken back to me using the
JAWS cursor. I'm going to activate the find next button, I'll press
ENTER.
I'm informed that HJPad is finished searching the document and the
focus is placed on an Okay button that I will activate now by pressing
ENTER.
I'm back in the find dialog in the find what edit field in which I
could either type new text or tab to any of the other controls in this
dialog and specify new find criteria. I'm going to go ahead and exit
the find dialog and activate the find and replace dialog. I'll press
the ESC key to exit this dialog and place the focus back into the main
document edit window.
Now notice what happens when I do a say current line. I'll go ahead
and do this now by pressing INSERT+UP ARROW. I heard the same text
spoken that I heard when I pressed INSERT+C while in the find dialog
to read word in context. So the insertion point is located on the line
containing the word that I last searched for within that find dialog.
This find feature starts at the location of the insertion point and
goes to the end of the document. After it's gone to the end of the
document it returns to the top of the document and continues the find
all the way up to the insertion point. So it's probably a good idea to
return the insertion point to the top of the document before carrying
out a find command.
What I'm going to do now is a find and replace. I'll press CTRL+HOME.
Now I can activate the Find and Replace menu option from within the
edit pull down menu, but I can also activate it with a quick key
command or shortcut key, which is CTRL+H. I'll go ahead and press this
now.
Again, I'm placed into a find what edit field and in that edit field,
I've got highlighted the word HJPad. And the reason it's highlighted
is so that I can go ahead and overwrite this text if I wanted to.
There are also some additional controls in this dialog that have to do
with the replace option. After I specify text in the find edit what
field, you'll see that when I press TAB to move to the next control,
it's going to be a "replace with" edit field so I can specify what I
want to replace the original word or phrase with.
I'm going to make the search case sensitive. I'd like the word HJPad
to appear consistently throughout the document, so I'm going to let it
know that every time it finds an occurrence of the word that is not
all capitals that I want it to replace it with HJPad with all capital
letters. I'm going to press TAB to move to the next control.
Here's the replace with edit field, and I'm going to tell it that
every time it finds the word capital H, capital J, capital P,
lower-case a-d, I'd like it to replace that with all capital letters.
So I'm going to turn on the caps lock and type in the word HJPad.
I'll turn off the caps lock. And I'm going to TAB over to the next control.
Well, that's the only way this word appears in this document is as a
whole word, and not as part of another word, so I'll just leave this
one unchecked. I'll press TAB again.
And in this case, I want to match case, so I'm going to press the
SPACEBAR to check this option. I can verify this by pressing INSERT+UP
ARROW to read the current line.
And I'll press the TAB key to move to the next control.
There's the find next button that I saw in the find dialog, as well.
I'm going to go ahead and activate this button by pressing SPACEBAR.
I'll press INSERT+C to read the current line found in context.
JAWS speaks HJPad in this sentence without spelling it, which is an
indication that I've found one occurrence of capital H, capital J,
capital P, lower-case a-d in the document. Indeed, that's the one I
want to replace with all capital letters, so I'm going to go ahead and
activate the Replace button by pressing the TAB key to move there. The
access key, letter R for replace, is spoken, so I could have just
pressed ALT+R in this dialog, as well. I'll press the ENTER key on the
Replace button now.
HJPad is finished searching the document. This indicates that no more
occurrences of capital H, capital J, capital P, lower-case a-d were
found in this document. I'll activate the Okay button.
I'm going to press ESC now to get out of the replace dialog.
I'm back in the main document edit window and you'll notice that when
I do a say current line that the old HJPad has been replaced by all
caps HJPAD. I'll press the say current line command now. And I hear
that the word HJPad now appears in all capitals, just like the one at
the top of this document. I'm going to press CTRL+HOME to return the
insertion point to the top of the document.
Now let's say that I've changed my mind and I've decided that I don't
want this word HJPad to appear in all capital letters because I don't
want to hear H-J-P-A-D every time I come across it, I'd rather just
hear HJPad. I'm going to go back into the Find and Replace dialog and
change the criteria so that every time I come across the word HJPAD in
all caps, I want it to be changed back to capital H, capital J,
capital P, lower-case a-d. I'm going to go ahead and activate the
Replace dialog, CTRL+H.
There's the word HJPAD, capital H, capital J, capital P, lower-case
a-d, but this time, I want to search for all occurrences of the word
HJPad that appear in all capital letters. So I'm just going to turn on
the caps lock and overwrite the old HJPad in this find what edit
field.
I'll tab to the next control. And I'm going to turn off the caps lock.
And replace this H-J-P-A-D that appears in all capital letters with
capital H, capital J, capital P, lower-case a-d.
I'm going to tab to the next control.
That's as I left it the last time I was in this dialog. I'll press TAB
again. And of course, I want match case check box to remain checked.
There's the find next button. I'll press TAB again.
There's the Replace button that would take me one occurrence of this
word at a time. I'm going to press TAB one more time.
I hear that if I were to press the key combination of ALT+A, it would
have activated this button. I'm going to press SPACEBAR on the replace
all button now.
I hear that HJPad is finished searching the document. I'll press ENTER
on this okay button.
I'll get out of the replace dialog by pressing ESCAPE.
And now I'm going to return the insertion point to the top of the
document by pressing CTRL+HOME.
I hear that the first occurrence of this word has been changed. I'll
press DOWN ARROW twice.
Now, activating the "replace all" button has changed all occurrences
of the word "HJPad" in this document.
So there you are. I've finished the lesson on Find and Replace. If you
want to practice further with different words, feel free to do so now.
After you have finished your practice, close the program by pressing
ALT+F4 and if asked to save the changes, press TAB to move to the No
button and then press SPACEBAR to activate it.
That's the end of the lesson on Find and Replace. Let's move on to the
next lesson.
Windows Explorer in Windows Vista and in Windows XP
If you are using Windows XP you may want to skip ahead to the section
on Windows XP later within this same module. This first section
discusses Windows Explorer in the Windows Vista environment.
Windows Explorer in Windows Vista
In Windows Vista you can still open Windows Explorer with the familiar
keystroke WINDOWS Key+E, however the appearance of Windows Explorer is
now slightly different. As I mentioned earlier, the new Windows Vista
Explorers all have a similar look and feel and a search edit field.
There are additional parts to explore and land on as you press TAB or
F6 while moving around.
EXERCISE: Open Windows Explorer using either one of the following
methods and notice the same end result:
Press the WINDOWS Key to open the Start menu.
Press TAB to move to the right hand pane of the Start menu where the
new Vista Explorers are.
Press C until focus moves to "Computer" and press ENTER to open it.
All right, I landed in a list view on my computer which is called
OS(C), C-drive, and I'll press ALT+F4 just to close this.
Alternatively, you can just press WINDOWS Key+E and the same window opens.
Initially, focus lands in the list view. The first item is not
selected. Pressing the ARROW Keys to move around selects the item you
move to, or you can press the SPACEBAR to select or CTRL+SPACEBAR to
unselect the current item if it is already selected.
As you press TAB to move forward here are the major sections:
• Header bar. Once here you can press the RIGHT or LEFT ARROW to move
across the items contained here. This is the name, type, total size,
free space, and other information. You can rearrange the order of
these items by pressing CTRL+RIGHT ARROW or CTRL+LEFT ARROW. I'll
press TAB.
• Toolbar, desktop split button. This is basically the Address bar
area. You can still access this directly by pressing ALT+D from
anywhere in the Explorer. I'll press TAB again.
• Search edit box. Press CTRL+E to jump directly here from anywhere
else. I'll press TAB.
• A new toolbar in Windows Vista Explorers. Once here you can press
RIGHT or LEFT ARROW to move across the items contained here. It
contains Organize, Views, System Properties, Uninstall or change a
program, and Map network drive buttons by default. And I'll press LEFT
ARROW to go back. It might be easier for screen reader users to use
keyboard commands to just use the regular menus rather than try to
navigate to this toolbar to do the same tasks. I'll press TAB again.
• The Explorer pane, which has several parts by default:
• This is the Favorite links area. It contains documents,
pictures,
etc. TAB again.
• Folders button. This is the Folders button. Use this button to
hide or unhide the folders list below the button. TAB .
• Folders list. This used to be called the folder tree view and
JAWS
still sees it as a tree view. You may be familiar with this from
previous versions of Windows. I'll press TAB again. And I'm back to
where I started.
There is also a menu bar that is initially hidden from view until you
press the ALT key. I'm not going into great detail here about all the
different sections. The main two sections you are most likely to be
familiar with are the list view where focus initially lands and the
tree view. From the list view the quickest way to get to the tree view
is to press SHIFT+TAB. I'll press SHIFT+TAB now.
As you may know, there are no changes required for JAWS to be able to
run in the Windows Vista environment. I haven't made a single change
yet. I'm going to make one here for making the list view easier to
navigate by changing it from a tiles view to a details view. This has
nothing to do with how JAWS works, but makes the usability of Windows
Explorer a little bit easier. The tiles view leaves items in rows and
columns and is not as easy to navigate with the keyboard. The details
view puts everything into one vertical list and is much easier to
navigate with the keyboard. You could do this using the new toolbar,
but I think it's more efficient for keyboard users to use the standard
menus. Here's how:
1. First, press TAB or SHIFT+TAB to navigate to the tree view and
make sure that focus is on your C drive. I had pressed SHIFT+TAB and
landed on Computer. I'll press DOWN ARROW to move to my C drive. Mine
is called OS(C).
NOTE: The list view on the right side of the screen does not update
as you move up and down the tree view on the left side. To update the
list view, press ENTER on the C drive. Then you can proceed. This is
important for a later step, coming up in just a minute, where I want
you to apply the changes you make to all folders. If you do not press
ENTER on the C drive in the tree view, the list view will not update
and also the Apply to All Folders button is greyed out, or
unavailable.
2. I'll press ENTER now and the list view on the right hand side has
updated. If you did not already do so, press ENTER now on the C drive
in the tree view.
3. Press ALT+V to open the View menu.
4. Press D to switch to Details view.
5. Press ALT+V again and then the letter O to find the sort order. In
the sort order list make sure Name is checked. If it is already
checked, which mine was, press ALT by itself to get out of the menus.
If it is not checked, press ENTER on it to check it and close the
menus. While you're in this section you can also choose to sort in
ascending or descending order. Since Name was checked on mine I'll
press the ALT key to close the menu.
6. Press ALT+T to open the Tools menu.
7. Press O to open the Options multipage dialog box.
8. Press CTRL+TAB to move to the View page of the multipage Options
dialog box.
9. Press TAB.
10. And, press TAB again.
11. Press DOWN ARROW to move through the list of items and change the
following items as noted:
• The first one I'm looking for is called Show hidden files and
folders-OFF. Press SPACEBAR to turn this ON. I like to turn this on,
however, this may not be something you want to do on all computers.
This is a personal preference.
• I'll press DOWN ARROW to find Hide extensions for known file
types-ON. Press SPACEBAR to turn this OFF. That way if you have two
files with the same name but different extensions, you'll hear the
different extensions as well.
• Press DOWN ARROW to find Show pop-up description for folder
and
desktop items-ON. For MAGic screen magnification users I recommend you
turn this off by pressing SPACEBAR. I'll do that. This pop-up help in
the Start menu and on desktop items can actually hide other items in
menus from screen magnification users. Usually, it pops up and hides
the next item below the one you are on in a menu.
12. That's all I'm going to change. I'm going to press ALT+L to
activate the Apply to Folders button. I'll press ENTER. That way these
changes will apply to all folders on your computer. If for some reason
your Apply to Folders button is unavailable, go back and review the
Note after step one above and then repeat the process again.
13. Finally, press TAB to move to the OK button and activate it by
pressing SPACEBAR. The folder options dialog box closes and focus
returns to the Explorer window.
EXERCISE: Move to the training folder and practice selecting files.
1. If you're not already there, move to the tree view by pressing TAB
or SHIFT+TAB.
2. Make sure you're on the local hard drive. Mine is called OS(C),
C-drive.
3. Press RIGHT ARROW to open the C drive if it is not already open.
4. I'm going to move to the Training folder by using first-letter
navigation. I'll press the letter P now to move to the Program Files
folder. You may need to press the letter P more than once to land on
the Program Files folder.
5. Press RIGHT ARROW to open the Program Files folder.
6. Next, press F until you land on the Freedom Scientific folder.
7. Press RIGHT ARROW to open the Freedom Scientific folder.
8. Now press T to move to the Training folder.
9. Press RIGHT ARROW again to open the Training folder and press DOWN
ARROW to move to the JAWS folder.
NOTE: Those of you who use MAGic may also find a MAGic folder here
beneath the Training folder. MAGic and JAWS training materials are
located in their own sub-folders.
1. You can open the JAWS folder to continue your navigation in the
tree view by pressing the RIGHT ARROW key. I'm going to press that
now.
2. I'll press DOWN ARROW to move to the Enu folder.
3. Press ENTER to update the files in the Enu folder in the list view
on the right side of the screen.
4. Finally, I'll press TAB to move to the list view of files within
the Enu folder.
5. I'll press TAB again.
6. And again.
7. And finally, one more time. There's the list view.
Now, to continue with this module if you are a Windows Vista user,
please skip ahead in this same document to the section Selecting Files
or Folders.
Windows XP Users
This lesson will introduce you to the Windows Explorer file management
program provided with the Windows XP operating system. In this lesson,
you will learn how to set your Windows Explorer view for optimal
performance with JAWS, as well as techniques for organizing file and
folder information on your computer.
My focus is on the Desktop, and I have one program running, which is
JAWS. I'm going to press WINDOWS KEY+E to open Windows Explorer.
JAWS announced the window control I landed on, which was a tree view.
Now, if you're running in a different operating system, such as
Windows 95 or NT, you may have landed in the list view, which is
another part of Windows Explorer. You can move between the tree view,
the list view, and the other areas that may or may not be active on
your machine by pressing the TAB key. You should only have to press
the TAB key at most three or four times, but eventually, you will land
in the Tree view, which is where you begin. Go ahead if necessary and
press TAB until you land in the Tree view.
Before I get started, I want to make sure my window is maximized so as
much information can be displayed on the screen as possible. To
maximize my window, I'm going to press the key combination
ALT+SPACEBAR to open the application control menu. Then I'm going to
press the access key X to maximize this window.
Changing Settings in Windows Explorer
I mentioned that there were some changes you can make to your computer
to have Windows Explorer be more screen reader friendly. One thing you
can do is have the computer show information in the list view as one
vertical list as opposed to rows and columns. This is very handy for
navigation. Also, by default, Microsoft turns off the "known file
extensions" from files that it knows, so you don't see or hear the
word TXT or DOC after the file names, since those are "known" file
name extensions to Windows. However, if you can't see the visual icon
to tell if it is a TXT or DOC file, the file extensions are very
helpful. These are some of the modifications I want to make.
1. First, make sure you're on your C drive in your tree view. My C
drive is called "Local Disk C:" so I'm going to move there by pressing
the letter L.
2. Open the View menu by pressing ALT+V.
3. Press the letter D for Details. The menus will close and this
changes the rows and columns of icons in the list view to a single
vertical list.
4. Go back to the View menu again if you wish and choose Arrange
Icons by submenu. Choose to arrange your icons by file name, size,
type, or date modified, according to how you like to view your files,
and press ENTER to close the menus. I prefer to have my files arranged
by Name.
5. Open the Tools menu by pressing ALT+T.
6. Press UP ARROW to move to Folder Options and press ENTER. The
Folder Options multi page dialog box opens.
7. On the General page, I land in a group of radio buttons for Tasks.
Make sure that the second radio button is selected by pressing DOWN
ARROW. It should say Use Windows Classic Folders.
8. Press CTRL+TAB to move to the View page.
9. Press TAB twice to move to the tree view of items that begins with
Files and Folders.
10. Press DOWN ARROW to move to the item "Hide Extensions for Known
File Types -- On" and press the SPACEBAR to uncheck this and change
the status to "Off."
11. Press TAB about 5 times until you land on the Apply to all
folders button and press SPACEBAR to activate it. A dialog box will
appear asking you to confirm this. Press SPACEBAR on the Yes button.
12. Press TAB until you get to the OK button in the Folder Options
dialog box and activate it by pressing SPACEBAR. The dialog box will
close and your changes should be in effect.
The Different Parts of the Windows Explorer Window
I'm still in the tree view. I'm going to demonstrate how you can move
between the tree view and the other parts of the Windows Explorer
window by pressing the TAB key. Here's the list view. And the address
bar. Then there's the toolbar close button. And finally I'm back in
the tree view.
Windows Explorer contains a hierarchical structure of the entire
contents of your computer. Windows Explorer is used to conduct file
management tasks, such as moving or renaming files and folders. You
can organize the files you create and store them in folders you
create. There are no rules in how you choose to organize your files
and folders. You simply do what makes sense to you.
So to summarize, if you press the TAB key repeatedly, you will
eventually end up where you started. Pressing SHIFT+TAB will move you
backwards in the same fashion.
Before I show you more, I want to briefly mention the difference
between a file and a folder. Think of a file as a single piece of
paper. An example of a file would be a text or a Word document. A
folder is a storage place, similar to a filing cabinet, used for
storing other files or even other folders.
Tree View
Currently, my focus is in the tree view. The uppermost level of the
tree view in Windows Explorer is the Desktop, which is just above
where I am in the tree view. The tree view is arranged vertically, and
I can go up and down my tree view my using my UP and DOWN ARROW keys.
The item "My Computer" is level one and the Desktop is the uppermost
part of the computer, or level zero, so I'll press the home key to
move to the Desktop in the tree view.
The tree view is composed of different levels. The Desktop is at level
zero. My hard drive or the Local drive is level two, so I'm going to
press the letter L (for Local Disk) to move to the hard drive.
When a tree view item is closed, it means the contents of that tree
view item are not visible when you use your UP or DOWN ARROW to
navigate through the tree view. To open a tree view item, press the
RIGHT ARROW. To close a tree view item, press the LEFT ARROW.
Press UP ARROW now to move to the 3 1/2 floppy drive.
A dialog box has appeared on my screen, and JAWS read the default
button in this dialog box, which is the Cancel button. When navigating
in the tree view, your computer will try to read your three-and-a-half
floppy or your CD ROM drive. If there isn't a floppy or a CD in either
of these drives, you will get this message. I'm going to press
SPACEBAR to activate the Cancel button.
So I've returned to my tree view and now I'm free to navigate again.
JAWS announced that my C drive is closed. If your machine reports that
the C drive is closed, press RIGHT ARROW to open it so that you can
view the items within it on the tree. If, on your computer, JAWS
announced this tree view item as, "LEFT paren C right paren" then that
is how it's currently being displayed. In my case, my hard drive is
called "Local Disk (C:)."
The items contained directly off my hard drive are on level three. I'm
going to move to the Training folder by using first-letter navigation.
I'll press the letter P now to move to the Program Files folder. You
may need to press the letter P more than once to land on the Program
Files folder.
Press RIGHT ARROW to open the Program Files folder, then press F until
you land on the Freedom Scientific folder. Press RIGHT ARROW to open
the Freedom Scientific folder. Now press T to move to the Training
folder. Press RIGHT ARROW again to open the Training folder and press
DOWN ARROW to move to the JAWS folder. Those of you who use MAGic may
also find a MAGic folder here beneath the Training folder. MAGic and
JAWS training materials are located in their own sub-folders.
You can open the JAWS folder to continue your navigation in the tree
view by pressing the RIGHT ARROW key. I'm going to press that now.
I'll press DOWN ARROW to move to the Enu folder.
My focus is still on the tree view item. However, on the right side of
the screen, the LIST view contains a list of files and other
sub-folders that are contained within this folder.
List View
Press the TAB key to move to the list view.
JAWS announced the first item in this list view, and it said it was
unselected. When I'm navigating in the list view, if I do a SayLine,
INSERT+UP ARROW, I'll be able to hear the difference between when I
land on a folder than when I land on a file. If I am on a file when I
do a SayLine, JAWS would read the name of that file, as well as the
size of the file, the type of file it is, and the date it was created
or last modified.
If you are on a folder in the list view and you press ENTER on it, the
list view changes to go down one level and show what the contents of
that folder are. To return to the previous level, press the BACKSPACE
key.
If you are on a file in the list view and you press ENTER on it, the
computer will try to open that file. Usually that will be successful,
and a file with a TXT extension will open in Notepad, or a file with a
DOC extension will usually open in Word, for example. If the computer
does not recognize what program is used to run a particular file, it
may ask you to provide that information.
List view items, unlike tree view items, can be arranged in columns
and rows, similar to how the Windows Desktop is arranged. If you made
the changes I mentioned earlier to Windows Explorer, your list view
will now be in a single vertical list, which is much easier to
navigate.
Press the letter F several times. You should hear two instances of a
"Find" document and an FSReader Start Here folder. So what's the
difference? One of the Find files is a text file that would open in
Notepad and the other is an RTF file that would open in Wordpad or
Microsoft Word. The FSReader folder contains files within it that are
not visible at the moment. Visually on the screen there are icons that
show a picture of Notepad and Wordpad, so visually I can tell the
difference. If I had not turned on file extensions for known file
types earlier in this lesson, it would have been more difficult to
know which was which. For now, press TAB to move to the next area of
the Windows Explorer screen, the Address bar.
Address Bar
JAWS tells me I am in an Address edit combo and reads the full path of
this folder to me. The text that is here is currently highlighted, so
be careful, as when you have highlighted text anywhere in an editable
area, pressing any other key on the keyboard will replace that
highlighted text with the key you press. The address bar is useful for
figuring out where you are if you are working on a file. You can also
copy and paste the address of a file into another document.
I'm going to continue to press TAB until I get back to the Tree view.
Selecting Files or Folders
Make sure you are on the C:\Program Files\Freedom
Scientific\Training\JAWS\enu folder, then press TAB to move to the
list view.
One other thing I'd like to mention is the Windows keystroke to expand
the list to fit the widest selection. That keystroke is CTRL+NUM PAD
PLUS. I'll press that keystroke now.
Selecting Contiguous Files
Press the HOME key to move to and select the first file in the list.
Then press DOWN ARROW to move to the first RTF file. Press the SHIFT
key and hold it down while pressing DOWN ARROW one time. That will
select the second file below the first file, so you should have two
files selected now.
Repeat the step above and select one more file. Three files are now
selected. These files are next to each other in the list and are
called "contiguous" files. To read selected or highlighted text, press
SHIFT+INSERT+DOWN ARROW. At this point you could perform several
different actions on this group of selected files. You could copy
them, cut them, delete them, and so on.
Selecting Non-contiguous Files
Press HOME to move back to the top of the list. This action unselects
the files that were previously selected. Now I want to show you how to
select non-contiguous files, that is, files that are NOT next to each
other.
1. Press DOWN ARROW to move to and select the first RTF file.
2. Hold the CTRL key down and press DOWN ARROW to move to the second
RTF file. Still holding the CTRL key, press the SPACEBAR to select
this file. You now have two files selected.
3. Repeat the last step and select the third RTF file. You now have
three non-contiguous files selected. To verify this, read the selected
or highlighted text by pressing SHIFT+INSERT+DOWN ARROW.
Copying and Pasting Files
Press CTRL+C to copy the files you just selected to the clipboard,
then press SHIFT+TAB to move back to the tree view.
If you are using either Windows Vista or Windows XP make sure you put
the focus on the local hard drive in the tree view of Windows
Explorer.
I want to create a new folder as a sub-folder of my hard drive. I'll
press O to move to OS(C), my local C-drive.
Move to your hard drive in the tree view of your machine and continue with me.
1. Press ALT+F to open the File menu. I hear New, submenu.
2. Press RIGHT ARROW to open the submenu. I hear Folder. Press ENTER
on this menu item to create a new folder.
3. I have an access denied dialog box. I need to press ENTER to
continue.
4. Now I have a user account control dialog box and I'll press ALT+C
to activate the continue button.
5. JAWS says edit New Folder. I am in an edit field where I can type
the name of the new folder. Type in something like Temp Training. You
can use more than one word for file or folder names. Press ENTER.
6. Another access denied dialog box has popped up. I'll press ALT+C
to continue.
7. Another user account control dialog box has popped up, and again,
I'll press ALT+C to continue.
8. Windows has put us back in the List view, so press SHIFT+TAB to
move back to the tree view. You should land back on your hard drive in
the tree view.
9. Press the letter T until you land on Temp Training, the new folder
you just created.
10. Press ENTER to update the list view on the right hand side.
11. Then press CTRL+V to paste the files you copied earlier into this
new folder.
12. And I have an access denied dialog; I'll press ALT+C to continue.
13. Another user account dialog box, so I'll press ALT+C to continue.
14. Press TAB to move to the list view and verify that the three
files are there.
Renaming Files
Press HOME to move to the first file in the list of files. It's easy
to rename a file, just press function key F2. I'll do this now. This
puts me into edit mode, but the text of the file is still highlighted,
so I have to be careful or I'll overwrite the whole file name. If your
purpose is to do that, fine. In this case, I just want to rename the
first part of the file. I'm going to change the word "Saint" to "St."
by editing my text. I'll move there with the home key and then press
RIGHT ARROW to get where I want to be for editing.
When you are finished editing the file name, press ENTER to close the
edit field.
1. An access denied dialog box, I'll press ENTER for continue.
2. The ubiquitous user account control dialog box, I'll press ALT+C
to continue.
Focus returns to the list view.
Deleting Files and Folders
Press SHIFT+TAB to move back to the tree view. You should be on the
folder you created earlier, Temp Training. Press the DELETE key. You
will get a warning asking if you want to delete the folder and its
contents to the recycle bin. Go ahead and press SPACEBAR on the Yes
button.
1. Another access denied dialog box has popped up. I'll press ALT+C
to continue.
2. Another user account control dialog box has appeared. I'll press
ALT+C to continue.
The folder and the three files within it disappear, but they're still
in the recycle bin. I'll cover the Recycle bin in the next module.
You can go ahead and close Windows Explorer by pressing ALT+F4. Then
you can move on to the next lesson.
The Recycle Bin
The Recycle Bin is used for holding deleted files and folders and
retrieving file and folder information after they have been deleted.
At some point, the time will come when you'll want to delete a file or
a folder. When you delete items, they are temporarily stored in the
Recycle Bin. Think of the Recycle Bin as a virtual trashcan that
manages your virtual trash. It can be a very handy tool, especially if
you accidentally delete something.
The Recycle Bin Window
Press WINDOWS KEY+M to minimize all of your applications and put focus
on the desktop. Then press the letter R until you land on the Recycle
Bin. Press ENTER to open it.
This is a standard new Vista Explorer window. It has a search field,
it has a tree view, it has a list view, a status bar, a title bar, and
more. When you first enter the recycle bin focus is in the list view.
If you need to refresh your memory on how to navigate a list view, use
the JAWS key command for screen sensitive help, INSERT+F1. Feel free
to take a moment to stop here and listen to the information this
keystroke will give you. Just for review, this help message will pop
up on the screen and you can read it as you would a regular document.
Remember to press ESC to close the virtual viewer and go back to the
list view in the Recycle Bin. I'll press ESC.
Hard Drive Space
The Recycle Bin occupies an adjustable amount of storage space on the
computer. Therefore, you will not find every item you ever deleted
here. In Windows XP and earlier operating systems, typically ten
percent of your drive space is reserved for the Recycle Bin. In
Windows Vista the amount of space in the recycle bin is not a
percentage, but rather, a size in megabytes. In either operating
system you can change the size. To change settings for Windows XP or
earlier operating systems, review the module on the recycle bin in the
JAWS 8 Basic Training. Choose the "archives" link on the JAWS
Headquarters Web page to find that module. For the rest of this module
I'll be talking about Windows Vista settings.
The Recycle Bin manages this space by operating on a first-in
first-out basis. Once items are deleted from the Recycle Bin, they are
permanently deleted and cannot be retrieved.
Deleting Files from the Recycle Bin
If you want to delete a file or a folder from the Recycle Bin, you can
select the item and then use the DELETE key to delete it from the
Recycle Bin. Because this is a list view, you can select specific
groups of items to delete by selecting either a contiguous or
non-contiguous group. You also have the option to delete all the
contents at once. I'll show you how to do this later in the lesson.
Restoring Files or Folders
In the Recycle Bin list view, you can cut or copy a file and paste it
on the Desktop or somewhere else within the Windows Explorer program.
You can also perform a right mouse click and open its context menu. A
context menu is a specific menu for selected items. I'm going to
restore a file to its original location and this choice is found in
the context menu.
You want to be careful when restoring a selected group of files or
folders. If there is another file on your computer containing the same
name as the file you wish to restore, the computer will stop you, and
ask you whether you want to replace it. If the computer does not find
a duplicate, it will restore the file to its original location and
focus will return to the list view.
Since focus is in the list view, press the letter T until you find the
folder you deleted in the previous module, called Temp Training. Once
you find it, restore it by pressing the APPLICATION KEY, the third key
to the right of the spacebar on most computers. Restore is the first
item. I'll press ENTER.
A destination folder access denied dialog box is here. I'll press
ALT+C to continue. Because I have user account control on this dialog
box appears and I'll press ALT+C to continue.
After the file has been restored, go back into Windows Explorer by
pressing WINDOWS KEY+E and verify that the folder Temp Training is
still on your C drive. I'll press that keystroke now. I'm going to
press SHIFT+TAB to go to the tree view. I'll press DOWN ARROW to go to
my local hard drive. I'll press RIGHT ARROW to open that. I had
created the folder Temp Training underneath program files; I'll press
P. RIGHT ARROW . Then Freedom Scientific. RIGHT ARROW . Then Training.
RIGHT ARROW . Then JAWS. RIGHT ARROW . I can press DOWN ARROW a few
times from here to find it. And there it is.
Emptying the Recycle Bin
Press ALT+TAB to move back to the Recycle Bin window. You can empty
the entire contents of the Recycle Bin all at once. When you do this,
there's no way of retrieving those items because the Recycle Bin is
the last stop for these items before they are permanently deleted from
your computer.
I've got one file selected here. I'm just going to delete this one.
I'll press the DEL key. I get a dialog box asking if I'm sure and
focus is on the Yes button. I'll press ENTER. That file is now
completely gone.
You could press CTRL+A to select all the files in the recycle bin and
then just press the DEL key. You can also go to the file menu by
pressing ALT+F. I'll do that now.
The first choice is empty recycle bin. I'll press ENTER on that. The
question is "are you sure you want to delete these items" and the
answer is Yes so I'll press ENTER. Now visually on my computer it
looked like there were still some files there so I'm going to press F5
to do a refresh. And sure enough, there's nothing there now. Depending
on what items are in the Recycle Bin, such as system, hidden, or
read-only files or programs, the computer may stop you to verify that
you do actually want to delete those items. If you don't want to
delete those items, press TAB to the "no" button when you get that
message and press ENTER.
I'm finished working in the recycle bin so I'd like to exit the
program. To close the recycle bin window press ALT+F4 now.
Press WINDOWS KEY+M again to minimize any applications and return your
focus to the desktop. Make sure you are on the Recycle Bin icon. You
can do a SayLine, INSERT+UP ARROW, to check or you can press the
letter R until you land on it. In my case, focus went right to it.
I'll press INSERT+UP ARROW.
Adjusting Settings for the Recycle Bin
You can adjust the settings for the Recycle Bin, such as the amount of
storage space and the other options by opening the Recycle Bin
properties dialog box. To open the properties dialog box press the
windows key combination ALT+ENTER now.
Focus is in a list view showing the available hard drives on this
computer. I landed on my C drive OS(C) and it is 146 gigabytes total
space. I'll press the TAB key.
There are two radio buttons here, custom size is the first one, and
that's where you can type in the amount of space you want to use for
your recycle bin in megabytes. I'm just going to press DOWN ARROW for
a moment. The other choice here is to remove files immediately,
bypassing the recycle bin. I really don't recommend this because I
know I've personally deleted things accidentally before and I was able
to recover them from the recycle bin. If you leave it set to this
radio button you will NOT be able to recover them. Press UP ARROW to
go back to custom size. I'll press the TAB key. On my particular
computer there is 9571 megabytes set aside for the recycle bin. I'm
going to leave it as it is and press the TAB key.
When you delete a file, whether you have either one of these radio
buttons checked or not you get a delete confirmation dialog box. This
checkbox is what controls that. I personally like to have that dialog
box pop up to tell me I'm about to delete something and it gives me a
chance to say No if I don't want to. If you don't want to have that
you could uncheck this by pressing the SPACEBAR. Again, I'm going to
leave it set as it is. I'm going to press TAB again to move to the
next control.
Focus is on the OK button, but since I didn't make any changes in this
dialog box, I'm going to go ahead and press the ESC key. There's also
a Cancel and an Apply button. I'll press ESC now.
Show or Hide the Recycle Bin on the Desktop
If you want to you can choose to show or hide the recycle bin on the
desktop. I like it there personally, but if you don't here's how to
change it:
1. Press the WINDOWS Key to open the Start menu.
2. Type in control panel. All I had to do in my case was type the
word control and control panel is at the top of the start menu. I'll
press ENTER to open it.
3. I'm going to press TAB until I find Appearance and
Personalization. There it is. I'll press ENTER.
4. I land on a link called Personalization. I'll press ENTER on that.
5. This particular screen has two sides, a left pane and a list of
things on the right. You can press TAB to move through it or SHIFT+TAB
to move through it and it will eventually cycle around. I just want to
go to the left hand pane; I'll press the LEFT ARROW.
6. Change Desktop Icons. That's what I'm looking for. If you didn't
land on it just press the TAB key until you find it. I'll press ENTER
now.
7. Here's a list of check boxes for some of the standard Windows
Vista desktop icons. I landed on the checkbox for Computer. I'll press
the DOWN ARROW. Again. And again. There it is.
8. Press SPACEBAR to check or uncheck the recycle bin check box here.
I'm going to leave it alone and I'm going to press ESC.
9. I'll press ALT+F4 to close this window.
This ends the discussion of the Windows Recycle Bin. If you still have
the Windows recycle bin open press ALT+F4 to close it. If you still
have Windows Explorer open, press ALT+TAB to move to it and close it
as well. Then you can move on to the next lesson.
List of JAWS Managers
The list of JAWS managers can be accessed by pressing the key
combination of INSERT+F2. I'll go ahead and do this now. Keep in mind
that this list can change as time goes on, so if you find different
items than I have here don't be surprised.
In a moment, I'm going to press DOWN ARROW to move through the list of
JAWS Managers. However, before I do I should explain that items in
this list now change, depending on what program you are running when
you open the list. For example, when you open the list of JAWS
Managers in HTML documents or in Microsoft Word, you have three
options that deal with Custom Labels. But if you are in Notepad or
other programs, you will get a different single item called Prompt
Create instead of Custom Labels. JAWS is smart enough to know which
managers are used in which programs. I will cover them all, but
realize that you may not hear the same thing if you did not launch the
list of JAWS Managers as I am, which is while I am in Internet
Explorer.
The managers currently listed include the following:
• Adjust Braille Options
• Adjust JAWS Options
• Configuration Manager
• Custom Highlight Assign
• Custom Label
• Custom Label Delete
• Custom Label Delete All
• Customize List View
• Dictionary Manager
• Frame Viewer
• Graphics Labeler
• Keyboard Manager
• Mark Colors in Braille
• Navigation Quick Keys
• Prompt Create
• Script Manager
• Settings Packager
• Skim Reading Tool
• Window Class Reassign
I'll be covering Dictionary manager, Graphics Labeler, and Script
manager in more detail later in the training. I'll be using
Configuration Manager a great deal during the training, but I won't
cover everything in it during these lessons. I won't cover all of
these managers in this training, but here is what the rest of them do
in a nutshell.
Adjust Braille Options
Opens the Adjust Braille Options list where you can make temporary
changes to braille settings. This is the same dialog you get when you
press the key combination INSERT+CTRL+B.
Adjust JAWS Options
This was introduced with JAWS 9 and opens what used to be the
Verbosity list in JAWS. It was changed from a list view to a tree view
and renamed to Adjust JAWS Options beginning with JAWS version 9. This
dialog box was covered earlier in these lessons.
Custom Highlight Assign
Custom Highlight Assign is used to specify colors that are then
recognized by JAWS as highlighted. This is very useful in applications
that do not use Windows standard colors, or do not allow you to modify
preset color settings. For more information, please refer to Custom
Highlight Colors in the JAWS Help System.
Custom Label
JAWS allows you to assign custom text labels to almost any HTML
element that you can move to by pressing the TAB key in Internet
Explorer, America Online, and HTML documents. These elements include
text links, graphic links, form fields, and buttons. You can also
label images on Web pages.
Custom Label Delete
Allows you to delete an existing label on a Web page or other document
where Custom Labels are supported.
Custom Label Delete All
Allows you to delete ALL existing labels on a Web page or other
document where Custom Labels are supported.
Customize List View
A list view is an area in a window or dialog box that contains one or
more items, such as files, folders, records, and so on. The list view
usually contains multiple columns that display information about each
item in the list. You can use the Customize List View feature to
choose how JAWS provides you with information about these columns and
items. Using this feature, you can do things like:
• Change the order in which JAWS reads columns in the list view.
• Tell JAWS not to speak certain columns or show them on your Braille
display.
• Choose a voice alias that JAWS uses when reading column headers.
• Choose whether JAWS should speak column headers and/or display them
in Braille.
...and so on.
Frame Viewer
Frame Viewer is where you work with frames. A frame is a rectangular
section of the screen that can be any size up to the size of the whole
screen. People often use frames to search for specific text that
occurs in a certain part of the screen or for certain colors that
might appear in a specific part of a window, for example.
Frame Viewer allows you to move between them, move them, resize them,
or open a frame's properties and adjust settings. I won't cover Frames
in this training, but feel free to read more about frames in the JAWS
Help system.
Keyboard Manager
The Keyboard Manager controls the assignment of keystrokes to JAWS
activities. All JAWS activities assigned to keystrokes are called
scripts. A script is a small computer program that controls how JAWS
reacts, and what you hear. When you press INSERT+T, for example, to
read the title of a window, that is a script. Keyboard Manager
maintains the relationship between the script and the keystroke.
Mark Colors in Braille
Mark Colors in Braille is used to specify text colors to be identified
when a person is using a braille display. The text is then indicated
by having dots 7 and 8 raised on the braille display.
Prompt Create
Prompts are the labels spoken when you navigate to a control. However,
these labels are not always automatically spoken. Use Prompt Creator
to specify the label JAWS speaks for specific controls, and even
include a custom tutor message to provide helpful navigation tips.
NOTE: If you are in an HTML document, a Microsoft Word document, or a
PDF form, Prompt Create does not appear in the list of JAWS Managers.
Instead, it is replaced in these programs by the Custom Label feature.
Navigation Quick Keys
Navigation Quick Keys are convenient keystrokes that let you quickly
move around Web pages, PDF files, Word documents, and Outlook 2007
e-mail messages. Beginning with JAWS 10, you can now change the
keystroke assigned to a quick key with any unassigned letter or number
using the Navigation Quick Key Manager. You can also rearrange the
keys already assigned.
Script Manager
Script Manager is used to write and compile scripts, or small
programs, that can change how JAWS behaves within applications. It is
often used to enable JAWS to read programs that are initially not well
written, for example. There is a separate DAISY book on Script Writing
for JAWS and MAGic, available for free download from the Training
department of Freedom Scientific.
Settings Packager
Settings Packager is a program that allows you to import and export
speech and sound schemes, PlaceMarkers, and personalized Web settings
(including custom labels). For information about using this program,
start Settings Packager, open the Help menu within it, and choose Help
Topics.
Skim Reading Tool
The Skim Reading feature lets you quickly browse through long
documents by reading the first part of each paragraph. To begin skim
reading in a document, press CTRL+INSERT+DOWN ARROW. By default, JAWS
reads the first line of each paragraph, but you can choose to read the
first sentence of each paragraph instead or set up your own skim
reading rules. To change your skim reading preferences, press
CTRL+SHIFT+INSERT+DOWN ARROW.
Window Class Reassign
A Windows class is a programming level label for a window or control.
Some programs use non-standard Window classes, making it difficult for
JAWS to recognize and read them properly. Windows Class Reassign
allows you to tell JAWS to treat an unknown class as one that JAWS
already recognizes.
There is abundant help on all of these topics in the JAWS Help system.
If you are interested in learning more, spend some time reading
through it at your leisure. For now, I'm going to move on to the next
lesson.
Dictionary Manager
In this module I'll look at the JAWS Dictionary Manager. The JAWS
Dictionary Manager is useful for pronouncing words or phrases that
your speech synthesizer may not pronounce correctly. Its most common
use is for pronouncing names and places correctly. There are two
keystrokes you can use to open the Dictionary Manager. Pressing
INSERT+F2 opens the list of JAWS managers. The Dictionary Manager is
one of the items in this list. Alternatively, you can bypass the list
of managers and open the Dictionary Manager immediately at any time by
pressing INSERT+D.
For Windows XP users go to the JAWS program group from the start menu.
Find Run HJPad. And press ENTER on it. If you're using Windows Vista,
as I am, press the WINDOWS Key to open the Start menu. Type hjp. Run
HJPad is now at the top of the Start menu. I'll press ENTER to start
it. Once you have HJPad open, type in the following items, one item
per line.
barbeque
formaldehyde
Otis
Press UP ARROW to move through the items you just typed, and listen to
how JAWS pronounces them.
Phonetic Rules
The most common way to change pronunciation is to spell the word
phonetically and have JAWS read it that way. The example for how to do
this follows:
1. Put your cursor within the word barbeque, and press INSERT+F2 to
open the list of JAWS managers. Press D to move to Dictionary Manager,
and press ENTER to open it. I get a new dictionary dialog box and I'll
go ahead and press ENTER to accept that.
2. Dictionary Manager opens. Notice the title is HJPad.JDF. Any rules
I create in the dictionary here will only take place whenever I am in
HJPad. They will not take place in other applications. That's fine for
the purposes of this demonstration. The focus is on the Add button.
3. Press SPACEBAR to activate the Add button. Focus moves to the
Actual Word edit field and the word barbeque should already be filled
in for you. That is because the cursor was within the word when you
started Dictionary Manager.
4. Press TAB to move to the Replacement Word edit field. Here is
where you will type a phonetic spelling so that JAWS will pronounce it
correctly. Experiment with a few different spellings. You can hear the
way JAWS pronounces the word or phrase by pressing INSERT+UP ARROW.
5. When you have typed in a word or phrase that JAWS pronounces
properly, press ENTER to close the Add Dictionary Definition dialog
box. Focus lands back on the Add button ready to add another
definition if you desire.
6. For now, press ALT+F4 to close JAWS Dictionary Manager. Answer
"Yes" to save the changes. Then go back into HJPad and read the word
barbeque and listen to hear if JAWS pronounces it correctly.
7. Repeat this process for the other words listed above. Instead of
pressing INSERT+F2 and using the list of JAWS managers, try using
INSERT+D to do the same thing faster.
Here are some suggested spellings, either phonetic or alternate, for
the words above:
barbecue
formaldehide
Ohtis
Saving Dictionary Files
JAWS saves the dictionary files with a JDF extension, which stands for
JAWS Dictionary File. The file name will either be the name of the
application, in application specific dictionary rules, or the
default.jdf for dictionary rules that apply to all programs. If you
are writing a rule for a person's name, that would most likely go in
the default.jdf file, since you would encounter that person's name in
e-mail as well as other places. Remember, if you want to change to the
default file in any manager, while that manager is in the foreground,
press CTRL+SHIFT+D. Then press INSERT+T to verify that the name
"default" appears in the title bar of the manager.
Dictionary Manager DAISY book
There is a separate DAISY book on the Dictionary manager that is
available for download for free from the Training Department at
Freedom Scientific. Some of the topics covered in that book include:
• Acronyms and Phrases
• Using a Different Synthesizer or Person to Speak Words or Phrases
• Using a Language to Pronounce a Word
• Associating Sounds with Words or Phrases
For now, I'll move on to the next module. When you finish practicing
with HJPad and the dictionary manager, close HJPad by pressing ALT+F4.
Answer No when asked to save the changes.
Voice Profiles
What is a voice profile? A voice profile is a collection of different
speech settings such as rate, pitch, language, punctuation levels, and
other speech options that have been saved as a group with a specific
name. For example, you could create a "leisure reading" profile with a
nice sounding RealSpeak Solo Direct voice that has a slower speed and
that speaks no punctuation. You could create a Spanish (or other
language) profile to switch quickly and easily to have text that is
written in another language pronounced correctly when you are reading
it. The possibilities are almost endless! You can have as many voice
profiles as you want, with as many languages or synthesizers as you
want to use. You can instantly switch between existing voice profiles
by using the keystroke INSERT+CTRL+S.
JAWS Tip: Whatever choice you select in the Select a Voice Profile
dialog box with the keystroke INSERT+CTRL+S remains the active profile
the next time you start JAWS. It remains the same unless you change it
again. This also remains true even when you shut down and restart the
computer.
The Voices submenu contains two choices, one for Global Voices and
another for Individual Voices. A preliminary discussion of the Global
and Individual voice dialog boxes took place in the module on the JAWS
User Interface. Many of the choices in each of these two dialog boxes
are similar. The Individual Voice settings give you more flexibility
by allowing changes to be made to the PC cursor voice, JAWS cursor
voice, keyboard voice, tutor and message voice, as well as the menu
and dialog voice. If you want to change just the voice rate or
synthesizer you normally use, choose the Global Voice settings. This
module on Voice Profiles continues with several examples of using the
Global voice dialog box to create some specific voice profiles.
However, feel free to try the same thing using the Individual Voice
dialog box as well.
In this module, I'll show you how to create four new voice profiles to
accomplish the following tasks:
• Change the synthesizer language
• Change to a different synthesizer
• Proofread documents
• Read documents for relaxation or enjoyment
Change the Synthesizer Language with a Voice Profile
In versions of JAWS prior to 10 you could go to the JAWS window and
change the synthesizer language in the Language menu. That is, of
course, if you were using a synthesizer that supported different
languages. You could also accomplish this with the keystroke WINDOWS
Key+CTRL+L. This keystroke no longer works in JAWS 10, and you can no
longer change the synthesizer language from the Language menu in the
JAWS window. Instead, JAWS now uses voice profiles. Once new voice
profiles are created, switching between them is easily done by using
the keystroke INSERT+CTRL+S.
1. I'm going to switch to the JAWS window by pressing ALT+TAB.
2. I'm going to press ALT+O to activate the Options menu, followed by
pressing DOWN ARROW to move to Voices submenu. Then press RIGHT ARROW
to open this submenu.
3. Press ENTER to open the Global Voices dialog box for JAWS. Focus
lands in a group of radio buttons that allow you to modify the default
settings for all programs or only those for one specific program.
Leave it set to Default for this exercise.
4. Press TAB. The focus moves to the Profile name combo box. The
Primary selection should be highlighted in this combo box, unless you
have switched to a different voice profile.
5. Press TAB to move to the next control, the Synthesizer combo box.
Leave it set to Eloquence for now. I want to be able to use Eloquence
with a different language in this exercise.
6. Press TAB to move to the next control. The Language combo box lets
you choose a language for the currently selected synthesizer. The
availability of languages varies according to the choice of
synthesizer.
7. Press L until you move to Latin American Spanish in the list.
Notice that the synthesizer immediately switches to this language, so
you hear what it sounds like.
8. Next, you need to save these settings as a new profile. Press
ALT+A to activate the SaveAs button in the Global Voices dialog box.
The Save Voice Profile dialog box opens with focus in the edit field.
9. Type in Spanish Eloquence and press ENTER to close this. Focus
returns to the Global Voices dialog box. Focus is in the Profile Name
edit box.
NOTE: It is very important to change back to the primary synthesizer.
If not, the Spanish profile will now become the default whenever you
start JAWS.
1. I'll press P until I find Primary. There it is.
2. Next, I'll press ENTER to close the Global Voices dialog box.
Notice that when you press INSERT+CTRL+S to open the Select a Voice
Profile dialog box, Spanish Eloquence now appears as a new item in the
list. I'll press that keystroke now. I'll press DOWN ARROW to find it.
There it is. For now, I'll just press ESC to close the dialog box. Now
any time I want to read a document written in Spanish I can easily
switch to the Spanish language pronunciation using this method.
Change to a Different Synthesizer with a Voice Profile
If you have installed RealSpeak Solo Direct voices with your version
of JAWS, one choice you will find in the list of voice profiles is a
RealSpeak Solo Direct choice. You can think of this as the default
setting for that synthesizer if you have never changed it. I'm going
to leave it as it is and create a new one, with a name that tells me
which voice is used when I switch to that synthesizer. Here's how:
1. Follow steps one through three in the first exercise above to open
the Global Voices dialog box and move to the Synthesizer combo box.
2. Choose RealSpeak Solo Direct in the list. The voice changes to one
of the RealSpeak Solo Direct voices.
3. What I want is a different voice, and a slightly faster voice
rate, however. I'll press TAB. Focus moves to the language combo box.
I'm going to leave this set to English for now, and I'll press TAB
until I reach the Voice Rate slider bar.
4. I'll press PAGE UP a couple of times to speed the voice up. I like
it a little faster. Feel free to adjust this to your liking.
5. I'll continue to press TAB until focus reaches the Person combo box.
6. Next, I'll change the voice to Karen by using the arrow keys or
first letter navigation.
7. Now, you need to save these settings as a new profile. Press ALT+A
to activate the SaveAs button in the Global Voices dialog box. The
Save Voice Profile dialog box opens with focus in the edit field.
8. Type in Karen Australia and press ENTER to close this. Focus
returns to the Global Voices dialog box. Focus is in the Profile Name
edit box.
9. Remember to switch back to the Primary (default) voice profile,
unless you want this new one to be the default every time you start
JAWS. Then press ENTER to close the Global Voices dialog box.
Proofread Documents with a Voice Profile
In this example, I want to create a voice profile for proofreading. I
want the voice to be slower and I want to hear all punctuation. I'm
going to use the Global Voices dialog box again.
1. Follow steps one through three in the first exercise above to open
the Global Voices dialog box and move to the Synthesizer combo box.
I'm going to leave it set to Eloquence and I'll leave the language set
to American English.
2. Press TAB until you reach the voice rate slider bar.
3. I'll press PAGE DOWN once to slow the voice rate down a bit.
4. Next, I'll press TAB to move to the Voice Punctuation combo box.
Set this to All punctuation.
5. Now, you need to save these settings as a new profile. Press ALT+A
to activate the SaveAs button in the Global Voices dialog box. The
Save Voice Profile dialog box opens with focus in the edit field.
6. Type in Proof Reading and press ENTER to close this. Focus returns
to the Global Voices dialog box. Focus is in the Profile Name edit
box.
7. Remember to switch back to the Primary (default) voice profile. I
don't think you want to hear punctuation all the time. Then press
ENTER to close the Global Voices dialog box.
Read Documents for Relaxation or Enjoyment with a Voice Profile
Finally, I'd like to set up a voice profile for leisurely reading. I
don't want to hear a lot of punctuation, and I want the voice rate to
be just slightly slower than I normally have it set to. I also want to
use one of the RealSpeak Solo Direct voices.
1. Follow steps one through three in the first exercise above to open
the Global Voices dialog box and move to the Synthesizer combo box.
2. Press R until you find RealSpeak Solo Direct in the list, and
press TAB until focus moves to the Voice Rate slider bar.
3. Press PAGE UP, PAGE DOWN, or use the ARROW Keys to adjust the
voice rate to a comfortable reading speed for you. I'm going to set it
just a little slower than I normally have Eloquence set to.
4. Press TAB to move to the Punctuation combo box. I'm going to set
it to even less punctuation than normal by choosing Some in the list.
I'll press TAB to move on to the next control.
5. Focus is in the Person combo box. Choose a person that you would
like to have read to you. That's all you need for now. Press ALT+A to
activate the SaveAs button in the Global Voices dialog box. The Save
Voice Profile dialog box opens with focus in the edit field.
6. Type in Reading for Enjoyment and press ENTER to close this. Focus
returns to the Global Voices dialog box. Focus is in the Profile Name
edit box.
7. Remember to switch back to the Primary (default) voice profile.
Then press ENTER to close the Global Voices dialog box.
You can also create voice profiles that are application specific by
changing the radio button in either the Global or Individual Voices
dialog boxes from the default choice to the application choice. The
second application choice depends on the last application focus was in
before you switch to the JAWS window.
Additionally, using the Individual Voices dialog box gives you even
more flexibility. In the Individual Voices dialog box you can use
different voices or synthesizers for different cursors, messages, and
menus.
Feel free to experiment more with voice profiles. Remember, you can
switch quickly and easily between voice profiles by pressing
INSERT+CTRL+S.
Installing and Starting Surf's Up
Introduction to Surf's Up
In this module, I'll be walking you through our training web site,
called "Surf's Up! Surfing the Internet with JAWS and MAGic." This
module can be accessed directly from our web site, or you can download
a self-extracting ZIP file and install it on your local hard drive.
This last method is especially nice for training situations where the
computer may not have Internet access.
Installing Surf's Up Onto Your Hard Drive
I'm going to load this onto my hard drive and show you how to do that
as well. The file I'll be looking for is called "ZIP_Surfs_Up.exe" and
can be found in the \SurfingTheInternetWithJAWS folder on your JAWS
program CD. If you want to download the file from our web site, go to
the Freedom Scientific web site and choose the Training Downloads
page. On the Training Downloads page you'll find a link that will let
you download the Surfs_Up.exe file, which is a self-extracting ZIP
file.
In Windows Vista when you insert your JAWS program CD an autoplay
dialog box appears. Instead of choosing to run the setup I'm going to
press DOWN ARROW. I'll press DOWN ARROW again. That's what I want so
I'll press ENTER on that. I'll press the letter S to find Surfing the
Internet with JAWS. Press ENTER to go into that folder. Next I'll
press the letter Z to move to the file Zip_Surfs_Up.exe and press
ENTER to start the process of unzipping the files to my hard drive.
That's the one I want, I'll press ENTER.
The default choice is to install the files to a folder on your C drive
called C:\FreedomScientific (no spaces) and beneath that, a folder
named \SurfingTheInternetWithJAWS, again, no spaces. Not all of that
text fit in the Unzip to Folder edit box. I just heard the "fic" of
Freedom Scientific and the backslash SurfingTheInternetWithJAWS. If
you want, you can press HOME and go to the beginning of the line, and
I'll press INSERT+UP ARROW again. And so, you get the idea. The
default button is the Unzip button, and I'll press ENTER to accept
this. Press ENTER for the OK button. The default button now is the
Close button so I'll press ENTER to close this dialog box. Next press
ALT+F4 to close Windows Explorer.
Starting Surf's Up
After Surf's Up has been installed, remember to take your JAWS Program
CD out of your CD drive and put it away. To get started with Surf's
Up, navigate to the folder on your hard drive called
C:\FreedomScientific (no spaces) and beneath that, a folder named
\SurfingTheInternetWithJAWS and look for the file name
"_Surfs_Up_Start_Here.htm." This file should be located at the top of
the list. Press ENTER on this file and the main page for Surf's Up
opens.
I'll press WINDOWS Key+E. I'll press O for my local hard drive. I'll
press ENTER. Next press the letter F until you find FreedomScientific.
Press ENTER to go into that folder. Press S to select the folder
Surfing the Internet with JAWS. And press ENTER to go into it. Press
DOWN ARROW until you find the file _Surfs_Up_Start_Here.htm. That's
the file you want, press ENTER to start Surf's Up.
I pressed CTRL to stop speech there. The initial page for Surfing the
Internet with JAWS and MAGic has loaded and JAWS began reading the
entire page. Some of you might have also heard a Windows sound. In
this case, an information bar in Internet Explorer may have popped up
near the top of the screen. If so, here's what it sounds like. Press
ALT+N to move there. Press SPACEBAR to activate this. The first choice
is what I want, allow blocked content. I'll press ENTER. In this case,
yes I do, I'll TAB to the Yes button, and press SPACEBAR. You should
only have to do this once per session, if you get the information bar
at all.
I'm going to press CTRL+HOME to go to the top of the page. That's the
title of the page, I'll press DOWN ARROW. And again. There's a heading
level one, I'll press DOWN ARROW again. And again. There's a graphic,
or a picture, and it has an ALT tag. The ALT tag is designed to give
screen reader users a description of the picture or the image. JAWS
just read the ALT tag to you out loud. The ALT tag for images is not
visible on the screen. However, if you are a mouse user, perhaps
someone using MAGic, and you hover the mouse pointer over a picture
with an ALT tag, the text of the ALT tag will appear in a small window
for a few seconds. You can re-read it by pressing INSERT+UP ARROW.
I'll continue to press DOWN ARROW.
Spend a few minutes reading this page and then join me in the next lesson.
Surf's Up and General Navigation in Web Pages
Let me begin by saying that the Surf's Up Web pages are sure to change
as time goes by, so don't be surprised if things have changed by the
time you begin these lessons. If so, don't worry, you should still be
able to follow along. In the JAWS Basic Training I'll be talking more
in general terms about things like the virtual cursor, the list of
links, list of headings, list of form fields, tables, and more. If a
particular page I reference has changed in content or maybe is not
even on the site any longer you should still be able to do these
exercises, you just may hear different results. In these lessons I'll
focus mainly on concepts. You can take the time on your own to read
through the Surf's Up pages for content.
I left off on the main page of Surf's Up at the end of the last
module. I had just installed it on my local hard drive using the JAWS
program CD. However, you don't have to install it on your hard drive.
If you want you can follow along using the live version on our Web
site. The URL (Uniform Resource Locator, more commonly known as the
Web page address) for Surf's Up is listed on the next line. You can
copy it and paste it into the Run dialog box in Windows to start it if
you have an Internet connection. If you use the JAWS cursor, you can
also perform a left mouse click on the URL to start Surf's Up.
http://www.FreedomScientific.com/Training/Surfs-Up/_Surfs_Up_Start_Here.htm
For new users, the Surf's Up pages present information and exercises
that are designed to be followed in a specific order. If you skip
around, you may miss some important information, so it is recommended
that you go through it the first time in the order shown on the first
page from beginning to end. In addition, many of the exercise pages
and keystroke commands in Surf's Up open in new browser windows. You
can press ALT+TAB to move between the open windows. Also remember to
close the open windows by pressing ALT+F4 when you are finished with
them.
During this training I will not be reading every word or every
sentence on these pages. However, I would expect you to take the time
to do so. By reading the text on all of the pages for Surf's Up and
practicing all of the exercises, you'll soon be navigating the Web
with ease! I will just touch on a few basic topics in the JAWS Basic
Training to help you get started. I do encourage you to take your time
and really explore all of the information we have here on the Surf's
Up Web site.
Also, please remember that if you are using FSReader or FSReader demo
DAISY reader from Freedom Scientific to learn the training materials,
press ALT+TAB to put FSReader in the background and use CTRL+P to play
and pause the audio. You don't have to continually switch back and
forth to the FSReader application. While FSReader is running you can
also press CTRL+PERIOD to skip ahead five seconds and CTRL+COMMA to
skip backwards five seconds.
Navigation within Surf's Up
All of the Surf's Up pages have a similar structure. Once you learn
how to navigate one, you can navigate all of them pretty easily. In
addition to headings and links there are access keys to move you to
the forward, or Next link, and the reverse, or Back link, at the
bottom of each page. Those keystrokes are ALT+X to move to the Next
link at the bottom of each page and ALT+B to move to the Back link at
the bottom of each page. Once you land on one of these links using the
access key you still have to press ENTER to activate the link.
In addition, there is a form field down at the bottom of each page. It
is a combo box with all of the pages listed in order from first to
last. You can use it to move directly to a given page from anywhere
within the Surf's Up Web site. I'll demonstrate how to use it later
and show you how it is done.
Reading Web Pages with JAWS
By default, when a Web page loads, JAWS begins reading the page from
top to bottom with the SayAll command. If you happen to press PAGE
DOWN during a SayAll, you don't actually move the page down one
screen. Instead, you will have just used the JAWS command to decrease
the voice rate on the fly, making JAWS speak slower. To actually
perform a PAGE DOWN, you first must press CTRL to silence, or stop,
speech and stop JAWS from reading the page.
For testing purposes, the best thing to do with JAWS running is to
press CTRL to silence speech, followed by CTRL+HOME to move to the
beginning of the document, or Web page. Once you have reached the top
of the page, press the DOWN ARROW one line at a time to hear how JAWS
reads the page. This is the best way to listen to speech for testing
purposes, especially if you are new to or unfamiliar with JAWS.
When JAWS is reading a Web page, there is no visible cursor. Instead,
JAWS uses an invisible cursor called the Virtual PC cursor. This
cursor behaves almost exactly the same as the normal PC cursor you
find in the document area of most word processors. You use the same
commands to read with the Virtual cursor as you do with the PC cursor.
When reading with JAWS, note that links, even those in the middle of a
sentence visually, are placed on their own line.
EXERCISE: Press CTRL+HOME to move to the top of the first page of Surf's Up.
Next, press TAB to move to the first link on the page. It should say
Freedom Scientific downloads page. This is an example of a link at the
end of a sentence.
Press UP ARROW. What do you hear?
may be unavailable in previous versions. You can download the latest
version of JAWS or MAGic from the
You should hear the first part of the last couple of sentences:
Press DOWN ARROW. What do you hear this time? You should just hear the
link on a line by itself in the virtual buffer.
The reason links are on a line by themselves in the virtual buffer is
so you can press ENTER when you come to a link and activate it with
JAWS.
So already you've learned you can press several different navigation
keystrokes to move through a Web page. You can press DOWN ARROW to
move through the page one line at a time. You can press TAB to move to
links. Pressing TAB will also move you to the next button or form
field if there are any on the page. Of course, you can press SHIFT+TAB
to move backwards as well.
If you are using Internet Explorer version 7 as I am, at the top of
the screen there are also quite a few areas the TAB key can go. Let's
explore them for just a minute. If you happen to be using Internet
Explorer 6 or earlier, you will not hear most of these, since they are
largely new in version seven of Internet Explorer.
1. First press CTRL+HOME to go back to the top of the page.
2. Next press SHIFT+TAB. In Internet Explorer 7 focus moves to a
toolbar above the current window and below the title bar at the top of
the screen to the Home split button. Activating this button moves you
to whatever your personal Home page is for Internet Explorer. Don't
press it at the moment.
3. Press SHIFT+TAB again. This time I move to the Tab for the current
page I am on. In Internet Explorer 7 you can have multiple pages open
at the same time within one primary Internet Explorer window and press
CTRL+TAB to cycle between them.
4. Press SHIFT+TAB again. This time focus moves to the Favorites
Center on the toolbar.
5. Press SHIFT+TAB again. Focus moves to another toolbar, just below
the title bar at the top of the screen. This button, the Search
button, is on the far right side of the screen, row two.
6. Press SHIFT+TAB again. Focus moves to a Search edit field. The
button you were on a minute a go would look for whatever you type in
this edit field out on the Web. Remember, we're actually going
backwards through these buttons and controls.
7. Press SHIFT+TAB again. Focus now moves to a Refresh button on this
toolbar. You may also notice that JAWS tells you the function key F5
will do the same thing.
8. Press SHIFT+TAB once more. This is the Address Bar edit combo box.
There is an access key you can use to jump right to this without
having to press SHIFT+TAB so many times. The access key is ALT+D.
9. Press SHIFT+TAB one more time. Did you move to the Next link? That
is back in the Surf's Up Web page and it is the last link on the page.
You can continue to press TAB or SHIFT+TAB to move through the
toolbars and then back through the page itself. Often there are faster
ways to do things than by pressing TAB and we'll be talking about a
lot of them in the rest of these lessons. I just wanted to give you an
overview of how the page is laid out.
To summarize the way the page is laid out, the top line of the screen
is a title bar. This is where the name of the current page is
displayed. Next there are a couple of toolbars and the Tabs for each
page you happen to have open sticking up. Then below that is the body
of the Web page. Finally, down at the bottom is a status bar. You can
read what's on the status bar by pressing INSERT+PGDN. I'll do that
now.
General Navigation in Internet Explorer
When you start Internet Explorer, your home page opens. If you don't
have a home page specified, you can select a Web page from the
Favorites or Bookmarks menu, or press ALT+D to move to the Address Bar
and type in the address of a page. After you select a page, the
browser loads it and JAWS announces the presence of frames, links,
headings, and forms and begins speaking the text on the screen. To
move through the page, use standard JAWS reading commands.
JAWS says, "Link," when it encounters a link to another document or
portion of the page. To follow a link, press ENTER while positioned on
the link. To go back to the previous page, press ALT+LEFT ARROW or
BACKSPACE. To move forward one page after you have moved back, press
ALT+RIGHT ARROW.
Tabbed Browsing with Internet Explorer 7
I mentioned a moment ago that you can have several different tab pages
open at once in Internet Explorer 7 and you can switch between them by
pressing CTRL+TAB. You might ask yourself, how can I find out if there
are multiple tabs open in the first place? Here are a few keystrokes
that will help you with tabbed browsing in Internet Explorer 7:
• Open a New Tab, CTRL+T
• View List of Open Tabs, CTRL+SHIFT+Q
• Switch to the Next Tab, CTRL+TAB
• Switch to the Previous Tab, CTRL+SHIFT+TAB
• Switch to a Specific Tab Number, CTRL+n, where n is a digit from 1 to
8
• Close Current Tab, CTRL+F4 or CTRL+W
• Close All Tabs, ALT+F4
• Open Links in a New Tab in the Background, CTRL+ENTER
• Open Links in a New Tab in the Foreground, CTRL+SHIFT+ENTER
There are a few other keystrokes for using tabs with Internet Explorer
but these are perhaps the most important ones you need.
EXERCISE: Let's try this right now. You have the Surf's Up page
loaded. Of course, you need Internet Explorer version 7 in order to
follow along here.
1. Press CTRL+HOME to go to the top of the page. You'll find I do
that quite frequently.
2. Press TAB to move to the first link on the page, Freedom
Scientific downloads page.
3. Press CTRL+SHIFT+ENTER and this page loads in a new tab page in
the foreground. Surf's up will still be running on a tab page in the
background.
I pressed CTRL to stop speech there. Let's try a few keystrokes to see
how this works:
1. First, press CTRL+TAB to move back to the Surf's Up page. OK, there
it is.
2. Next, press CTRL+TAB to move back to the Freedom Scientific
downloads page. There it is. Very good.
3. Press CTRL+SHIFT+Q to open a context menu of the open tabs. There
it is. Press DOWN ARROW to move through this list. Notice that the
page which is in the foreground has a check mark beside it. You can
press ENTER on one of the items in the context menu to switch to that
page as well.
I think you get the idea. I like this very much, personally, and once
you get used to it I think you will also. For now, let's go ahead and
close the Freedom Scientific download page. Here's how:
1. First, press ESC to get out of the context menu.
2. Next, press ALT+F4 but don't go beyond that. If you only had one
tab page open ALT+F4 would close this page and the whole Internet
Explorer window without showing you this dialog box. Since you DO have
multiple tab pages open, Internet Explorer gives you this prompt.
Press ESC to get out of this dialog box.
3. Press CTRL+TAB a couple of times to make sure you are on the
Freedom Scientific download page.
4. Now press CTRL+F4 to close just this page. I hear that the focus
has switched back to the Surf's Up page.
5. Verify that this is the only tab page open by pressing
CTRL+SHIFT+Q. I'll press that now. Ha, nothing happened! That's
because this keystroke only works if there ARE multiple tab pages
open. So there you have a great way to find out if there are multiple
pages open.
NOTE: It is still possible to have multiple instances of Internet
Explorer running and each instance can have multiple tabs. If you have
two or more different browser sessions running you can press ALT+TAB
to move from one session to another. For example, many of the sample
pages for Surf's Up run in separate windows, not as tabbed pages.
Again, I think you'll enjoy using tabbed browsing if you have either
Internet Explorer 7 or the Mozilla® Firefox® browser. They both work
the same way in this respect. The keystrokes I have listed above,
however, are for Internet Explorer. You can use CTRL+TAB to move
between tab pages in Firefox, but not all of the keystrokes listed
above work for that browser. If you are using it and you want a list
of the keystrokes, how would you find out what keystrokes are
available to you? Move on to the next section and we'll discuss
getting help in Internet Explorer, Firefox, or any other application,
for that matter.
Getting Help in Internet Explorer
Screen Sensitive Help
EXERCISE: Press the JAWS keystroke for Screen Sensitive help,
INSERT+F1. I pressed CTRL to stop speech there. Take a few minutes to
read through this. There's a lot of good information here! Press
ESCAPE to get out of the virtual viewer when you are finished.
Try pressing this keystroke, INSERT+F1, often and everywhere. You get
different results depending on where you are on a given page. However
there is some information that is always available there for you.
Application Specific Help
Press the JAWS keystroke for Application Specific help, INSERT+F1
twice quickly. I usually hold down the INSERT key and then tap the F1
key twice quickly. This opens the JAWS help system to the topic
specific for the application you are in, provided there is a help
topic for it in JAWS. Notice that there is information there about
keystrokes and also general information about using the program with
JAWS. You could press F6 to move to the topic pane. For now I'm going
to press ALT+F4 to close the help system.
Hot Key Help
This was discussed in an earlier module, but it is good to reinforce
it again here. The keystroke for JAWS Hot Key help is INSERT+H. This
keystroke opens up the Virtual Viewer and provides a quick list of
JAWS-specific keystrokes for the current application. You can press UP
and DOWN ARROW to move through this list. Some of the items are links.
If you find a link you can press ENTER on that link to actually
perform that action.
JAWS ContextHelp
Web authors may now use the ContextHelp attribute for form input or
other focusable elements and JAWS will tell the user when a field has
such extra help whenever it exists. The user can choose to review the
help using speech or braille with the key combination INSERT+F1 or
ignore it. This is an attribute we created specifically for JAWS and
MAGic. It may not work for other screen readers or magnification
products unless they are specifically looking for it. I'll show you an
example of this when we get to the section on forms with JAWS.
Add Surf's Up to Your Favorites List
Since I'm going to be using the Surf's Up Web site quite a bit during
the next few modules, I want to show you how to add it to your
Favorites list in Internet Explorer. That way you can start it very
quickly and easily just by starting Internet Explorer and going to it
in the Favorites list. Here's how:
1. First, press ESC to get out of the virtual viewer if you're still in
it.
2. I'll press INSERT+T to read the title of the page.
3. Press ALT+A to open the Favorites menu. The first item in the menu
is called Add to Favorites. Press ENTER on that and an Add a Favorite
dialog box appears.
4. Internet Explorer grabs the title of the page for you and puts it
into an edit field here. We can accept it just like it is and close
the dialog box by pressing ENTER. I'll do that now.
From now on you can start Internet Explorer from an icon on your
desktop or find it in the Start menu. Once it opens, press ALT+A to
open the Favorites menu, then S to find Surf's Up in the menu. If
there is only one thing in the favorites that starts with the letter
S, that would be Surf's Up, then Surf's Up will launch. If there is
more than one item in your favorites list that begins with the letter
S, just press the letter S until you find Surf's Up and press ENTER on
it and the Surf's Up opening Web page loads.
That's the end of this module. Let's move on to the next one.
Navigation Quick Keys and List of Headings
I still have the initial page of Surf's Up on the screen from the last
module. If you don't have it running, go back to the previous module,
Surf's Up and General Navigation in Web Pages, to learn how to launch
Surf's Up. If you set it as one of your favorites, just go to the
favorites menu by pressing ALT+A and find it in the favorites menu.
When you find it, press ENTER and Surf's Up will start.
When you use JAWS on the Internet, in PDF documents, or HTML e-mail
there is no visible cursor. JAWS uses the virtual cursor when reading
these pages. But what if you have to enter information into a form?
Think of JAWS as having two different modes on Web pages. The normal
mode for JAWS is what I call reading mode. In reading mode you can
press different keys to move to different elements on a Web page. We
call these Navigation Quick Keys because they help you to navigate
while reading text in the virtual environment. If you need to fill out
a form, you have to get out of the standard reading mode and go into
Forms mode. I'll talk more about forms mode later, but for now let's
talk about using navigation quick keys to move around quickly on Web
pages. So again, just think of two different modes. The default is
reading mode and the other is forms mode.
Navigation Quick Keys make it faster and easier to move around on a
Web page and anywhere else the Virtual Cursor is active. These
commands are all assigned to keys on the main part of the keyboard,
and are easy to remember and use.
Many of the Navigation Quick Keys are also available while using a
SayAll on a Web page. The commands to move by heading, paragraph, form
control, table, list, same or different element, next element, and to
move to non link text all work while you are using the SayAll command.
EXERCISE: Go ahead and move to page two of Surf's Up, the page called
Navigating Web Pages. Here's how:
1. From page one of Surf's Up press ALT+X to move to the Next link at
the bottom of the page. If for some reason you are not sure that you
are there you can also press CTRL+END to move to the bottom of the
page and find it.
2. Press ENTER to activate the link and go to the next page.
I pressed CTRL to stop speech. On this page there is also a link to an
HTML page with all of the JAWS keystrokes listed. Within that file
there is a heading called Navigation Quick Keys, and a list of all of
them that are available to you. I'll talk about a few of them and
practice them with you now. The link on this page is named Navigation
Quick Keys. Out of all the letters of the alphabet, all are used for
navigation except for about two of them.
H is for Headings
The letter H moves you to the next heading on a page. Press SHIFT+H to
move backwards by headings.
1. On the Navigating Web Pages page, press CTRL+HOME to move to the
top of the page.
2. Press H to cycle through all of the headings on this page. Notice
that when you reach the last one you hear a Windows sound and JAWS
wraps back to the top of the page again.
3. Press SHIFT+H and notice that after reaching the first heading at
the top of the page, JAWS wraps back to the bottom of the page.
You will find that this wrapping behavior is typical of most of the
navigation quick keys.
P is for Paragraph
Press CTRL+HOME to move to the top of the page again. Then press the
letter P to navigate by paragraph and read a few paragraphs of text.
This is a very nice way of reading.
L is for Lists
Press L to try moving from one list on this page to another.
List of Headings
As you move through this training you'll find that JAWS makes use of
lists of different types. The list of links, list of headings, and
list of form fields are some of the most common ones I use. Let's look
at the list of headings on this page.
1. Press INSERT+F6 to open the list of headings and explore it.
2. Press DOWN ARROW to move through the list. Notice that the list
contains both the heading and the level of the heading. This is a
great way to get an overview of how a Web page is laid out, provided
that the author of the Web page has used headings properly, to
indicate structure.
3. Press TAB to move through the different parts of the list of
headings dialog box. The first time you press it focus moves to the
Move To Heading button. This is the button that gets activated when
you press ENTER on one of the headings in the list. You move directly
to that spot on the Web page.
4. Press TAB again and there's a Cancel button.
5. Press TAB again and you come to a group of radio buttons for
sorting headings. While you are in this radio button group you can
press UP or DOWN ARROW to change the way headings are viewed in the
list, either in tab order or alphabetically. As you change these radio
buttons the list you were in a minute ago gets sorted in that order.
I'm going to make sure it stays on tab order for now and I'll press
TAB again to move to the next control.
6. This next group of radio buttons determines what level of headings
appears in the list of headings. Think of it like a filter. You can
filter all the headings out of the list except for the ones at a
certain level. Notice there are access keys here in this group of
radio buttons as well. What that means is you don't actually have to
move here to change the filter. You can stay in the list of headings
and change the filter by pressing the appropriate access key. I
pressed UP ARROW to move back to All headings.
7. Press TAB and focus moves back to the list of headings. I heard
that I was on the heading Navigating Web Pages.
8. Press ALT+1 on the numbers row. This filters out all headings
except for level one headings. Did you hear anything? Try pressing the
keystroke for SayLine to read the current line, INSERT+UP ARROW. There
is one level one heading on this page.
9. Press ALT+2 on the numbers row to show only level two headings on
this page. How many are there? I'll press INSERT+UP ARROW to read the
current line in the list of headings. There are nine of them.
10. To set the dialog box back to show all headings, press ALT+L and
then press ENTER on any heading in the list to move to that spot on
the page. It doesn't matter which one you pick.
One of the first things I do when I go to a new Web page is press
INSERT+F6 to see if there is a logical structure to the page. If the
page is well written, this will give me a great idea of how the page
is laid out and what the major topics on that page are. It also gives
me a GREAT way to move instantly to a particular area that might
interest me on the page.
Read the Text on this Web Page and Practice the Exercises
Spend a few minutes on your own reading the text on this Web page and
try practicing some of the exercises using the link for Jim's Cafe.
You'll learn a lot more about the following:
• Hyperlinks
• Lists
• Headings
• Images
• And more
When you're finished, go ahead and close any Internet Explorer pages
for Surf's Up that you have open. I'll start again from page one of
Surf's Up in the next lesson.
List of Links and Form Controls
I have JAWS running and I'm going to start Internet Explorer by going
to the desktop with WINDOWS Key+M. Once I find the shortcut on the
desktop for Internet Explorer I'll press ENTER to start it. Internet
Explorer opens to my home page, the Training page at Freedom
Scientific. I pressed CTRL to stop speech.
Press ALT+A to open the Favorites menu and find Surf's Up in the menu.
When you find it, press ENTER to launch Surf's Up. If you need to
review how to find and add Surf's Up to your favorites menu please
refer to the previous modules titled Surf's Up and General Navigation
In Web Pages and Navigation Quick Keys and List of Headings. I pressed
CTRL to stop speech. The first page of Surf's Up is on the screen.
List of Links
Use the JAWS list of links, INSERT+F7, to find the links on this and
other Web pages. With the list of links you can activate a link by
pressing ENTER on it in the list. You can also just MOVE to a link
rather than activating it.
EXERCISE: Why would someone just want to move to a link rather than
activating it? How about if you go to a Web page and find a link that
says click here? In that case you could move to the link and read any
text near the link that might help you figure out what that link does.
Press INSERT+F7 and let's look at the list of links for a minute.
Focus is in the list of links for Surf's Up, on the top item in the
list if you were at the top of the page when you pressed the
keystroke.
1. Press TAB to move to the next control, the Move To Link button.
This is what you would choose for one of those infamous click here
links.
2. Press TAB to move to the next control, the Activate Link button.
This button is the default button when you are actually in the list of
links, so when you press ENTER on a link in the list, this button gets
activated.
3. Press TAB to move to the next control, the Cancel button, and then
press TAB again to move to the next control beyond that. This is a
group of radio buttons that allow you to sort the links in either tab
order or alphabetical order. You can press UP or DOWN ARROW to move
between the choices. As you change the radio button selection, the
list of links changes to match the selection. I'm going to leave it in
tab order.
4. Press TAB to move to the next control. This is another group of
radio buttons and they let you show all the links in the list or only
visited or unvisited links in the list. Again, as you change the radio
button selection, the list of links changes to match the selection.
As with the list of headings, there are access keys that allow you to
control the radio button groups directly from within the list itself
rather than having to press TAB to move to the groups of radio
buttons. For example, to show only visited links in the list of links
press ALT+V, to show unvisited links in the list of links press ALT+U,
and to show all links press ALT+L. The default is to show all links
anyway, so you don't have to press this every time, but it is handy to
be able to change the way you look for links like this. To view links
alphabetically press ALT+P or to sort them in tab order press ALT+T.
EXERCISE: Use the list of links INSERT+F7 to move to the link for
Forms on the main page of Surf's Up. First, press TAB to move back to
the list. I'll press the letter F. Now I'll press ENTER. I pressed
CTRL to stop speech.
Auto Forms Mode
On the Surf's Up Web page Using Forms with JAWS and MAGic, move to the
heading "JAWS Versions Prior to 10.0," and begin reading there.
1. I'll press the letter H until I find it. There it is.
2. I'm going to read by paragraph, I'll press the letter P. There's
just that one paragraph there.
3. I'm going to press the letter H to move to the next heading.
4. I'll press P to read the next paragraph.
5. Press P again to read the next paragraph.
6. Next, move to the heading Keyboard Navigation within Forms, and
let's explore this together. I'll press the letter H to find it. There
it is. I'm just going to press DOWN ARROW.
So basically, there are three ways that most people use to access
forms from the keyboard. You might use your arrow keys, your tab key,
or the JAWS navigation quick keys. Or in fact, you might use a
combination of all three. The next heading talks about using the arrow
keys to explore a form.
Using the Arrow Keys to Explore a Form
NOTE: The text for these next few sections is taken directly from the
Surf's Up Web page Using Forms with JAWS and MAGic. When you are
finished with this lesson, please go back and review the parts that I
skipped over during the JAWS Basic Training. There is a lot more great
information there, and I'm not going to cover it all in the Basic
Training.
This section begins with an exercise, so let's do the exercise together.
1. I'll press DOWN ARROW.
2. I'm going to press UP ARROW to go back to the link New Web Track
sample form. There's an example of a link that's in the middle of a
sentence, remember it stays on its own line in the virtual buffer.
3. ENTER . I pressed CTRL to stop speech there.
4. First, make sure the cursor is at the top of the page. Press
CTRL+HOME.
5. Let's explore how using the arrow keys works when a form control
is encountered. Begin pressing DOWN ARROW one line at a time. Stop
when you reach the first field label, Name:. Just after the label for
Name: is an edit box.
6. Press DOWN ARROW one time and listen. Did you hear JAWS announce
"edit" and play a sound? The sound indicates that forms mode has come
on automatically. JAWS announced that the cursor is now in the edit
box. You could begin typing now and put your name here, but for now do
not do that.
7. Press DOWN ARROW again. Did you hear a different sound? Forms mode
is now off again since the virtual cursor moved out of the edit box
and back into the main part of the Web page.
8. Continue to press DOWN ARROW several more times to move through
the phone number, social security number, and e-mail address edit
boxes. Notice that as you move into an edit box with an arrow key,
forms mode comes on automatically, and you hear the sound indicating
this has happened. Also, as you move out of an edit field with an
arrow key, forms mode goes off automatically, and again you hear the
sound indicating this has happened.
9. I'm just going to press DOWN ARROW to work through the form for a
little bit.
Notice that as you use the arrow keys with JAWS, forms mode only comes
on when you are in an edit box. This is perfect for those who use the
arrow keys a lot. Whenever an edit area is detected, JAWS allows you
to begin typing immediately. Yet, at the same time, if focus is not in
an edit area, reading mode stays on. This gives you the ability to
quickly type information into edit boxes, and still gives you plenty
of flexibility to move around the form.
TIP: Why is forms mode not turned on when buttons, check boxes, or
other controls are encountered? Because these controls can generally
be activated without going into forms mode. For example, the SPACEBAR
toggles the check mark on or off for check boxes. Pressing SPACEBAR
also moves the selection of a radio button from one choice to another,
and activates buttons such as the OK, Cancel, or Submit button. You
don't have to switch to forms mode to do this.
Using the Tab Key to Explore a Form
1. First, make sure you're out of forms mode. Press ESC.
2. Next, make sure the cursor is at the top of the page. Press
CTRL+HOME.
3. Press TAB to move to the first control. Did you hear the sound
indicating that forms mode is now on? As you continue to press TAB or
SHIFT+TAB notice that as long as you are in an edit box or a combo
box, forms mode is turned on automatically. When the cursor moves out
of an edit box or a combo box, forms mode goes off automatically, and
you hear the sound indicating this has happened.
4. I'll press TAB a few times. At this point you're still in forms mode.
5. There, focus moved to a button, and therefore forms mode went off
automatically.
Using Navigation Quick Keys in Forms with Auto Forms Mode off (Default Setting)
When using navigation quick keys in forms, forms mode does not turn on
automatically. This is great because it gives you the ability to move
quickly from one part of the form to another without having to worry
about forms mode coming on.
1. First, press ESC to make sure you're not in forms mode.
2. Next, make sure the cursor is at the top of the page. Press
CTRL+HOME.
3. Press the navigation quick key B several times to explore what
buttons are available in this form. You should find a total of five
different buttons. This is a nice way to find out if there is a Submit
button or a Send button, for example.
4. Press the navigation quick key R to explore the radio buttons in the
form.
5. Next, press the navigation quick key X to explore the check boxes
in the form. The check boxes are located near the bottom of this form.
6. Let's say you have explored the form and now want to move back to
the edit box for the person's name, which is located near the top of
the form. Just press the navigation quick key E, as in edit, and focus
wraps back to the top of the page where the name edit box is located.
You can tell from this example how nice it is to be able to use
navigation quick keys to explore a form without having forms mode come
on. It is also great to be able to move directly and efficiently to
certain controls within a form.
NOTE: The default setting for JAWS is to NOT go into forms mode when
using navigation quick keys. However, this can be changed. Read the
next section of Using Forms with JAWS and MAGic to find out how.
When you're finished, close the WebTrack sample form page by pressing
ALT+F4, and close any other Internet Explorer pages you have open.
Then join me in the next lesson.
Tables and Surf's Up Conclusion
I have JAWS running and I'm going to start Internet Explorer by going
to the desktop with WINDOWS Key+M. Once I find the shortcut on the
desktop for Internet Explorer I'll press ENTER to start it. Internet
Explorer opens to my home page, the Training page at Freedom
Scientific. I pressed CTRL to stop speech.
Press ALT+A to open the Favorites menu and find Surf's Up in the menu.
When you find it, press ENTER to launch Surf's Up. If you need to
review how to find and add Surf's Up to your favorites menu please
refer to the previous modules titled Surf's Up and General Navigation
In Web Pages and Navigation Quick Keys and List of Headings. I pressed
CTRL to stop speech. The first page of Surf's Up is on the screen.
EXERCISE: Use the JAWS list of links to go to the Tables with JAWS Web
page. That's it, I'll press ENTER. I pressed CTRL to stop speech.
T is for Tables
The navigation quick key T will move you from one table to the next.
1. Press T to move to the table Average Temperatures for Saint
Petersburg.
Notice that when you do so, you hear a table summary. The table
summary is not visible on the screen and is put there by the Web page
author to give you an overview of what to expect in the table. Also
notice that JAWS puts you right in the first cell of the table, column
one of row one, in this case Month.
Table Reading Keystrokes
The table reading keystrokes we'll use and discuss apply not only in
Web pages but anywhere the virtual cursor is active, such as PDF
documents also. They include:
• List Tables, CTRL+INSERT+T
• Current Cell, CTRL+ALT+NUM PAD 5
• Next Cell, CTRL+ALT+RIGHT ARROW
• Prior Cell, CTRL+ALT+LEFT ARROW
• Cell Above, CTRL+ALT+UP ARROW
• Cell Below, CTRL+ALT+DOWN ARROW
• First Cell, CTRL+ALT+HOME
• Last Cell, CTRL+ALT+END
There are a few other table reading commands as well. If you want to
learn them later, choose the link on the Tables with JAWS page for
table reading commands.
1. First, navigate to the end of this row using CTRL+ALT+RIGHT ARROW
and make note of the different column headers here. Also notice that
when you get to the end of the row, JAWS keeps you confined to the
table and lets you know you are at the end of the row.
2. The months of the year are in column one, which is three columns
over to the left. Press CTRL+ALT+DOWN ARROW to move down column four,
which is the Gulf water temperature. Did you hear JAWS announce the
row header, January, and then the contents of the current cell, 64
degrees?
3. Press CTRL+ALT+DOWN ARROW again to move down to the next cell. Did
you hear JAWS announce the row header, February, and then the contents
of the current cell, 65 degrees?
4. Press CTRL+ALT+LEFT ARROW to move to column three, Low Air
Temperature. Did you hear JAWS announce this column header first, and
then the contents of the cell, 51 degrees?
5. Press CTRL+ALT+NUM PAD 5 to read the current cell. In this case
you hear both the column header and the row header followed by the
contents of the current cell.
Tables with One Row that Spans All Columns
There are four tables on this page. Take some time later to look at
the others. For now I want to show you one where the first row spans
all of the columns below it. In other words, there is one big cell
across the top, so the first row only has one cell. It has a title in
it for the table that says Produce On Sale. On the rows below, each
row has five columns. The practice of using one row to span several
columns is common in many tables and you'll come across these from
time to time. You may also encounter some tables where the first
column spans several rows.
1. Press INSERT+CTRL+T to get a list of tables on the page.
2. Press DOWN ARROW to move to the one called Sales Report.
3. Press ENTER to move there. Focus goes to row one, column one. This
is the row that spans all of the columns below it.
4. Press CTRL+ALT+DOWN ARROW. You should now be in row two. In my
case, focus went to the first cell of row two, which is blank.
5. Press CTRL+ALT+RIGHT ARROW to move across the second row to the
right. This second row consists of headers for the columns below. As
you navigate you'll hear the first row read and then the cell contents
of the second row where the focus is.
6. When you get to the end of the row on Fourth Week, press
CTRL+ALT+DOWN ARROW. You hear the row header read which is in column
one, January, and then the contents of the cell, grapes.
7. Now, press CTRL+ALT+LEFT ARROW to move to the column on the left.
You now hear both of the column headings, Produce on Sale from row
one, Third Week from row two, and then the contents of the cell.
That's good. That's what you expect to hear.
JAWS is reading both column headers as it should in this case. If you
press CTRL+ALT+NUM PAD 5 you'll hear both column headers, the single
row header, and then the contents of the cell.
Take some time to practice the table reading keystrokes I've shown you
in the other tables on this page. You'll certainly encounter a lot of
tables as you surf the Web so this will help you when you come across
them.
Using the Surf's Up Combo Box to Navigate to Different Surf's Up Pages
I showed you how to do some of the most common things for using JAWS
on the World Wide Web. I want to show you one more thing about
navigating in the Surf's Up Web page environment. You'll recall I
mentioned there is a combo box at the bottom of the page that you can
use to move quickly to any page you want. Let's look at that. You can
do this from any page except for the actual practice pages themselves
which open in separate browser windows. So just make sure you are back
in one of the main Surf's Up pages.
1. Press NUM PAD PLUS to make sure you are not in forms mode.
2. Press the navigation quick key F to move to the combo box at the
bottom of the page. You may have to press it more than once, but
that's fine. Just keep pressing it if needed until you find the combo
box.
3. Press ENTER to go into forms mode.
4. Press ALT+DOWN ARROW to open a list of choices.
5. Press UP or DOWN ARROW to move through the list and pick any page
you want to move to.
6. Press TAB to move out of the combo box to the Go button.
7. Press SPACEBAR on the Go button to move to the new page.
Surf's Up Conclusion
Once again, I urge you to take some time to go through all of the
pages, all of the text, and all of the exercises in Surf's Up. You
will definitely learn a lot more than I've had time to show you in the
JAWS Basic Training. Remember that we will be updating Surf's Up as
time goes on, so even if you have gone through it before, check back
again from time to time to see what's new. I also recommend that you
show it to your friends and colleagues and anyone who may want to
either work with JAWS on the Web or someone who is interested in
making their Web pages more accessible to people who use JAWS and
other screen readers. The HTML code of these pages have some great
examples they can use!
That's the end of this module. The conclusion is next.
Conclusion and Contact Information
Thank you for your participation in this JAWS Basic Training! If you
have any questions, please feel free to contact us at any time by
phone or e-mail.
Freedom Scientific Training Web Page
www.FreedomScientific.com/training
Freedom Scientific, Inc.
Training Department
11800 31st Court North
Saint Petersburg, Florida 33716-1805, USA
http://www.FreedomScientific.com
Phone toll free 800-444-4443
Phone outside of the US and Canada 727-803-8000
FAX 727-471-7927
Training Department E-mail
The e-mail address for the training department is
training_info@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Technical Support E-mail
The e-mail address for the technical support department is
support@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Copyright
Information in these documents is subject to change without notice.
These learning modules are protected under copyright by Freedom
Scientific. Please feel free, however, to use these modules to create
your own training materials to help others learn JAWS. Also feel free
to share these training modules with your friends and colleagues who
might be interested in learning more about JAWS. We ask only that you
acknowledge Freedom Scientific as the copyright holder of any of this
material you use.
Copyright © 2008 Freedom Scientific, Inc., all rights reserved.
JAWS and MAGic are registered trademarks of Freedom Scientific, Inc.,
St. Petersburg, Florida and/or other countries.
Mozilla and Firefox are registered trademarks of the Mozilla Foundation.
Microsoft, Windows, Internet Explorer, Windows Vista™, Excel, and
Outlook are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft
Corporation in the United States and/or other countries.
Skype™ is a trademark of Skype Limited or other related companies in
the United States and/or other countries.
Adobe, Acrobat, and Acrobat Reader are either registered trademarks or
trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States and/or
other countries.
All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
Last updated 2008/10/08
--
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skype:
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IT'S MY MAIN RIGHT INDEED TO FEEL THAT AM NOT A SPECIAL NEED!!!.
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