[vip_students] Tutorial:Windows Explorer (7) Guide

• From: "Support At NCBI" <support@xxxxxxx>
• To: <vip_students@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
• Date: Thu, 29 Dec 2011 13:35:40 -0000

A guide for users of the Jaws screen reader, written by David Bailes.
 
Contents
•Introduction
•Main Window
•Hierarchy of locations
•Items view
•Address bar
•Tree view
•Tasks – copying, moving, renaming etc.
•Searching
•Libraries
•Zip files – compressed folders
•Customizing Windows Explorer
•Keystrokes

Introduction

This is a guide to Windows Explorer on Windows 7. Its uses include browsing or 
searching the contents of disks, folders and libraries, opening files, deleting 
files and folders, renaming them, copying and moving them around, and creating 
new folders. One way of opening Windows Explorer is to press Windows Key + E, 
and other ways are described later in the guide.

Split buttons

Split buttons are used in a number of places in Windows Explorer, one of which 
is the Address bar. For those not familiar with split buttons, this variety of 
button consists of two parts, and this is indicated visually by a vertical line 
when the button is the focus. On the left hand side of the button there's a 
name or a graphic, and if you press this part of the button by pressing 
Spacebar or Enter, then some command is executed, just like pressing a standard 
button. On the right hand side of the button there's a black triangle, and 
pressing this side of the button opens a menu. If the split button is in a 
group of controls which are arranged as a row, then you press the right hand 
side of the split button by pressing Down Arrow, and this is the case for all 
the split buttons in Windows Explorer. However, if a split button is part of a 
group of controls which is arranged as a column, then you press the right hand 
side of the button using Right Arrow. This is the case, for e
 xample, for the Shut down split button which is at the bottom of the right 
hand column of the Start menu.

Main Window

Assuming that the Details, Preview and Library panes are hidden, and that the 
Status bar is set to be shown as described in the Hiding panes and Show the 
status bar sections of the Customizing section, the main window contains the 
following components:
•Title bar. Although there's no text visible in the Title bar, if you press 
Insert + T to read the title bar, Jaws reads the current location. Bug Warning: 
This does not work if you're in the Items view.
•Back and Forward buttons, and a recent location menu button. You can't tab to 
any of these, but Back, Forward, and the recent locations are also available on 
the Go To sub menu on View menu. The shortcuts for Back and Forward are Alt + 
Left Arrow and Alt + Right Arrow.
•Address bar. This contains the name of the current location, for example a 
folder, and the contents of this location are shown in the Items view. The 
Address bar has two modes: it's either a group of split buttons, the first 
being the desktop split button, or it's an edit combo box. If you Tab to the 
Address bar it's in split button mode, but if you move to it by pressing Alt + 
D it's in edit combo box mode.
•Search box (Ctrl + E).
•Menu bar.
•Toolbar, which contains buttons, menu buttons and split buttons, and the first 
control is the Organize menu button. Nearly all the commands are also available 
from menus.
•Tree view of the location hierarchy, and your favorite locations.
•Items view. This is a list of the contents of the current location which is 
shown in the address bar. This list can include libraries, folders, disks, and 
files.
•Status bar. If no items are selected in the Items view, then the number of 
items in the Items view is shown. Otherwise, the number of selected items in 
the Items view is shown. To read the status bar, press Insert + Page Down.

Moving around the window
•As in any window, to move to the menu bar, press Alt, and to leave it, press 
Esc or Alt.
•Pressing Tab cycles you around the following controls: the desktop split 
button, which is the first split button of the Address bar, Search box, the 
Organize menu button, which is the first control on the toolbar, Tree view, 
Items view, and if this has a Details view, a Name split button, which is the 
first of the column headings. Pressing Shift + Tab cycles you in the opposite 
direction.
•Pressing F6 cycles you around the same controls as using Tab except that the 
Search box is omitted.
•Although undocumented, pressing Ctrl + Tab twice moves you to the Items view.

Opening Windows Explorer

There are a number of ways of opening Windows Explorer. The initial focus is 
always the Items view, but the initial current location, whose contents are 
shown in the Items view, varies.
•Press Windows key + E to opens Windows Explorer with the Computer folder as 
the current location.
•Press Windows key to open the Start Menu, and then press Tab to move to your 
username. You can choose this to open Windows Explorer at your personal folder, 
or you can use Down Arrow or the items's first letter to move to items like 
Documents, Music, or Computer and then press Enter to open Windows Explorer at 
these locations.
•Open the Start menu, and then type the name of a location in the edit box. For 
some common folders, after typing in the the name, the folder is selected, and 
you can just press Enter to open Windows Explorer. For other locations you have 
to press Down Arrow till you select it, and then press Enter.
•By default, a Windows Explorer button is the second button on the Taskbar. So 
if you press Windows Key + 2 then either Windows Explorer is opened with the 
Libraries folder as the current location, or if there are instances of Windows 
Explorer already open, then the focus is switched to one of these.
•Opening the Recycle Bin shortcut on the Desktop opens Windows Explorer with 
the Recycle bin as the current location.

Hierarchy of locations

The folders and drives on your computer, together with any networked computers 
and their shared folders, drives and printers, form a tree like hierarchy. This 
is because nearly all of these different types of location, as well as 
containing files, can also contain other locations which can in turn contain 
other locations, etc. For example, disks can contain folders, folders can 
contain other folders, and some special folders contain disks or networked 
computers.

The top level location is the Desktop folder, and this contains the following 
folders: Libraries, your personal folder, Computer, Network, Control Panel, and 
Recycle bin.
•Libraries folder. By default this contains the four libraries: Documents, 
Music, Pictures, and Videos. There's an introduction to libraries in the the 
next section, and they're described in detail in the Libraries section later in 
the guide.
•Personal folder. The name of your personal folder is your username which you 
use for logging in, and by default it contains the following folders: Contacts, 
Desktop, Downloads, Favorites, Links, My Documents, My Music, My Pictures, My 
Videos, Saved Games, and Searches.
•Computer, which contains all the disks which are contained in or attached to 
the computer, along with devices like USB memory sticks and cameras.
•Network, which contains other computers and devices if you are connected to a 
local network.
•Control panel.
•Recycle bin. See the Deleting items section.

Libraries – an introduction

A library is a new feature in Windows 7, and it's a combined view of one or 
more folders. By default there are four libraries: Documents, Music, Pictures, 
and Videos.

The Documents library is a combined view of the My Documents folder, which is 
in your personal folder, and another folder, which is normally empty, and can 
be just ignored for the moment. With these default settings, then if you're 
viewing their content, opening or saving files, etc, then it doesn't matter 
whether you use the Documents library or the My Documents folder. There's a 
similar relationship between the Music, Pictures, and Video libraries, and the 
My Music, My Pictures, and My Videos folders respectively. The only difference 
for these is that only the libraries contain some sample files.

Microsoft encourage people to use the libraries by making them more prominent 
than the corresponding folders. For example, on the Start menu, there are items 
for opening the libraries, but not the folders.

Libraries are covered in more detail in the Libraries section later in the 
guide, and this includes descriptions of including additional folders in 
libraries, and creating new ones.

Changing the current location

Windows Explorer provides several ways of changing the current location, whose 
contents are shown in the Items view. The following list is a brief overview; 
more details are given in the relevant section of the guide:
•Items view. You can move up one level in the hierarchy to the location which 
contains the current location by pressing Alt + Up Arrow, and you can move down 
one level by selecting a location and opening it by pressing Enter.
•Tree view. You can move to any location by selecting it and pressing Enter. 
Using the first character of a location to quickly select it, you can quickly 
move to locations such as the Downloads folder, and the Documents and Music 
libraries.
•Address bar. The address bar is probably more useful for changing the location 
in its edit combo box mode. If you press Alt + D you're taken to the address 
bar in this mode. For a number of common locations you can just type in the 
name of the location, and then press Enter. These locations include the default 
libraries, for example Documents and Music, and all the folders contained in 
the Desktop folder, for example your personal folder, Computer, and the Recycle 
bin.
•Back and Forward buttons (Alt + Left Arrow, and Alt + Right Arrow). The Back 
button takes you to previously viewed locations, and once you've gone 
backwards, the Forward button takes you forward again.
•Recent locations. These are listed on the Go To sub menu, which is on the View 
menu. The Go To menu contains the commands Back, Forward, Up one level, 
followed by the recent locations.

Reading the current location

You should be always be able check the current location by pressing Insert + T 
to read the title bar. However, this does not work in the Items view, where 
Jaws just says Items view. As a work around for this bug you can press Shift + 
Tab to move to the Tree view. If you've set the Expand to current folder 
option, which is described in the Initial focus section of the Tree view 
section, then the selected location, which is the initial focus, should be the 
current location. Alternatively you can press Ctrl + Shift + E to make sure 
that the current location is selected.

If you want to know the current location, and its position in the hierarchy of 
locations, this can be found in the address bar in its split button mode. Tab 
until you get to the desktop split button, which is always the first of the 
split buttons. Then use Right Arrow or Left Arrow to read the split buttons.

Hidden files and folders

By default, Windows hides critical files and folders, so that you don't 
accidentally delete them. An example of a hidden folder is the AppData folder, 
which is a subfolder of your personal folder, and contains various personal 
settings and data for Windows and for the programs which you use.

If you do want hidden files and folders to appear in the Items view and the 
Tree view, then there's an option for doing this on the View page of the Folder 
Options dialog, as described in the Show or hide hidden files and folders 
section. Note that even if the hidden files and folders are hidden in the Items 
view and Tree view, you can still navigate to a hidden folder using the address 
bar in its edit combo box mode.

Items view

The Items view is a list of the contents of the current location which is shown 
in the address bar, and the list can contain folders, libraries, disks and 
files. Jaws calls this list the “Items view multi-select list box”, but it's 
referred to just as the Items view in this guide, and as the Files list in 
Microsoft's help.

By default, the items are sorted by name, in ascending order. For locations in 
which there are both folders and files, the folders are listed first, sorted by 
name, followed by the files, again sorted by name.

Immediately after opening Windows Explorer, the focus is the first item in the 
Items view, and it's unselected. This is also the case after changing the 
current location using the Tree view or the Address bar, and if necessary 
moving to the Items view. If you need to select the first item, then you can 
press Spacebar or Ctrl + Spacebar. The number of items in the current location, 
and so also in the Items view is shown in the Status bar (Insert + Page Down) 
if no items are selected. If the current item is selected, you can unselect it 
by pressing Ctrl + Spacebar.

In the Items view, you can browse, navigate to different locations, and select 
items so that you can perform the tasks which are described in the Tasks 
section later in the guide. The later sub-sections of the Items view section 
which describe Sorting, Filtering, Grouping, and Arranging, can safely be 
skipped when first reading this guide.

The type of an item

The display of each item in the Items view includes an icon, which is a small 
graphic. Folders, libraries and disks each have their own distinctive icon, and 
each file has an icon which indicates the program which opens it. This allows 
sighted users to quickly see whether an item is a folder or a library or a word 
document or whatever.

For users of screen readers, almost the same information is available from the 
item name's extension or lack of it. The names of nearly all files include an 
extension, which is a period followed by a number of characters, and this 
indicates the type of the file. For example, a plain text file has the 
extension .txt, and a Microsoft Word file has the extension .doc. In contrast, 
the names of folders, libraries or drives don't have extensions. By default, 
the file extensions are hidden, but there's an option to turn them on which is 
described in the Show file extensions section of the Customizing section.

Views

Each location has a view setting, and this determines the layout of the items 
on the screen and the sort of information which is displayed for each item.
•Small, medium, large and extra large icon views. The items are laid out as one 
or more rows, and each item consists of an icon and a name.
•Tiles view. The items are laid out as one or more rows, and each item consists 
of an icon, a name and some other information. However, Jaws only reads the 
name.
•List view. The items are laid out as one or more columns, and each item 
consists of a name, with a small icon just to its left.
•Details view. Each item consists of a row in a table. The first column 
contains a name, together with a small icon, and the other columns contain 
various properties such as size and date modified. This view is described in 
more detail in the Details view section below.
•Content view. The items are laid out as a single column, and each item 
consists on an icon, a name and some other properties. This view is used by 
default for searches, and is described in more detail in the Searching section.

You can find out the view setting of the current location, and change it if 
necessary, on the View menu. This menu contains the possible view options, 
starting with Extra large icons, and ending with Contents. The current option 
is checked, and you can set another option by selecting it and pressing Enter.

With the List and Contents views, which are laid out as columns, and the 
Details view which is a table, the keystrokes to select the next and previous 
item are Down Arrow and Up Arrow respectively. However, in the case of the 
various Icon views and the Tiles view which are laid out as rows, the 
keystrokes to select the next and previous item are Right Arrow and Left Arrow 
respectively. Because of this variation of keystrokes for the next and previous 
items, it greatly simplifies keyboard navigation if the views of all the 
locations that you go to in Windows Explorer are set to either List, Details or 
Content.

Default view settings

Fortunately, the default view setting of many common locations is Details. This 
is the case for the Documents and Music libraries, and the Downloads folder. 
However, the following is a list of some common locations whose view you'll 
probably want to change. There are a number of ways of settings these locations 
to be the current location, but these are all examples of locations which you 
can move to by typing their name into the address bar in its edit combo box 
mode, as described in the Edit combo box address bar section. That is, press 
Alt + D to move to the Address bar, type in the name of the location, and then 
press Enter.
•Computer, which has a Tiles view by default. It's very useful to set this to 
have a Details view because this provides easy access to the total size and the 
free space of each disk.
•Libraries, which has a Tiles view by default, and should be changed to either 
List or Details.
•Personal folder, which has a Medium icons view by default, and should be 
changed to either List or Details.
•Recycle bin, which has a Tiles view by default, and should be changed to a 
Details view.

This may well be all you need to know about customizing views, but more 
information is available in the View options of the Items view section of the 
Customizing section.

Details view

The details view, which was introduced in the previous section, is the default 
view for many locations. This view displays the item's name together with 
additional information such as the item's size. The information is laid out as 
a table in which each row describes an item. The first column is the item's 
name, and the subsequent columns are the item's other properties such as Date 
Modified and Size. These properties are often referred to as details, hence the 
name of the view.

There are various ways of reading an item's details:
•When you select an item, for example by pressing Down Arrow, Jaws reads the 
name of the item only.
•If you press Insert + Up Arrow to read the current item, or when you Tab to 
the Items view, Jaws reads all the information in the row.
•If you press Right Arrow one or more times, the focus becomes one of the cells 
in the row, rather than the whole row. Jaws reads the name of the column, 
followed by the contents of the cell. You can also use Left Arrow to move the 
focus back along a row. If the focus is one of the cells, and you press Down 
Arrow or Up Arrow then the focus moves the to cell below or above respectively, 
and Jaws reads the name of the item, followed by the column heading and the 
contents of the cell.

Changing the details

For each location there's a set of default details which are considered to be 
appropriate for that location. You can change both which details are displayed, 
and their order by using the Choose Details dialog box which is opened from the 
View menu. This dialog includes:
•A list view containing check boxes for all the possible details.
•Move up (Alt + U) and Move Down (Alt + D) Buttons where appropriate for 
changing the order of the selected detail in the list view.

Column headings

The column headings of the table are displayed using a group of split buttons. 
Although they appear along the top of the table, the group of split buttons 
comes after the Items view as you Tab round the controls in the window. The 
first split button is nearly always the name split button, and once you've 
tabbed to this you can then use Right Arrow and Left Arrow to move between the 
split buttons.

The left hand side of each split button, which contains its name, can be used 
for sorting the item by that property, but it's normally easier to use the Sort 
By sub menu on the View menu, as described in the Sorting section. The right 
hand side of each split button, which contains a downwards pointing black 
triangle, can be used for filtering, and this is described in the Filtering 
section.

Selecting items

For the tasks described in the Tasks section, such as copying and deleting 
items, you often need to able to select one or more items in the Items view. 
The following sections describe how to do this.

If you need to check which items are selected, then if you press Shift + Insert 
+ Down Arrow Jaws reads the selected items. Also, if one or more items are 
selected, then the number of items appears in the Status bar which can be read 
by pressing Insert + Page Down.

Selecting a single item

You can select a single item using the keystrokes: Up Arrow, Down Arrow, Home, 
End, and the first character or characters of an item.

Selecting all the items

Press Ctrl + A.

Selecting items which are next to each other:
1.Select the first item.
2.Start holding down the Shift key.
3.Extend the selection using Up Arrow, or Down Arrow, or Home, or End.
4.Let go of the shift key.

To select items which are not next to each other:
1.Select the first item.
2.Start holding down the Ctrl key.
3.Move up or down the list using Up Arrow, or Down Arrow, or Home or End. To 
change an item from unselected to selected, of from selected to unselected, 
press Spacebar.
4.Let go of the Ctrl key.

Inverting the selection

Choose Invert Selection from the Edit menu: all the items which were selected 
are deselected, and all the items which were not selected become selected.

Changing the current location

In the Items view, you can move either down or up the location hierarchy:
•To move down to a location in the list, select it and press Enter. The first 
item in the list of items in the new location is the focus, and is unselected. 
For example, if your current location is the Libraries folder, then if you 
select your Documents library, and press Enter, then your Documents library 
becomes the new current location.
•To move up to the location which contains the current location, press Alt + Up 
Arrow. The previous current location is now selected. For example, if your 
current location is your Documents library, then pressing Alt + Up Arrow moves 
you up to the Libraries folder, and the Documents library is selected.

Sorting

By default, for all locations, the Items view is sorted by name in ascending 
order. For locations in which there are both folders and files, the folders are 
listed first, sorted by name, followed by the files, again sorted by name. You 
can change how the items are sorted for a location by using the Sort By 
sub-menu on the View menu, which contains two groups of options. The first is 
the property by which the items can be sorted, and the second consists of the 
options Ascending and Descending. One option in each group is checked. To 
change the sorting, choose an unchecked option in one of the groups. If you 
change the property, then the setting of the ascending/descending options if 
automatically changed to the most likely setting for that property.

For example, if you wanted find the largest files in your Downloads folder, 
then you could choose Size on the Sort by sub menu. When you do this the 
setting of the ascending/descending options is automatically changed to 
descending, so that the largest file is at the top of the list of files. To 
restore the sorting to its normal setting, choose Name on the Sort by sub menu, 
and the setting of the ascending/descending options is automatically changed to 
ascending.

Note that whatever the view of a location, the properties by which the items 
can be sorted are the same as the details present in the Details view.

Filtering

If the view of a location is set to the Details view, then you can filter the 
contents of the Items view using the split buttons which represent the column 
headings of the table.
1.Tab to the first split button of the column headings, which is almost always 
a name split button.
2.Using Right Arrow or Left Arrow, move to the property by which you want to 
filter.
3.Press Down Arrow to press the right hand side of the split button and so open 
a menu.
4.The menu contains a number of options, and any number of these can be 
checked. You can use the following keystrokes: ◦Spacebar checks or unchecks the 
selected option.
◦Enter sets the selected option to checked, and closes the menu. Note that if 
the option is already checked, it remains checked.
◦Esc closes the menu, and cancels any changes you've made.
◦Alt closes the menu.


After you've applied a filter, the current location is a temporary location 
which is below the original location in the hierarchy. For example, if the 
Documents library is filtered by the Type property of Microsoft Word documents, 
then the split buttons in the address bar are something like: Desktop, 
Libraries, Documents, Microsoft Word 97-2003. Because of this, you don't have 
to unset the filter to return to the original contents: you can just press 
either Alt + Up Arrow, or Alt + Left Arrow since it was the previous location. 
If you're filtered the contents using more than one property, then you just 
have to press these keys the appropriate number of times.

Grouping

By default, only a small number of locations have the items in the Items view 
grouped by some property. One common example is the Computer folder, where the 
items are grouped by type, and typically there are two groups: Hard disk 
drives, and Devices with removable storage.

If the Items view is grouped by some property, then it contains a number of 
groups headings. If a group heading is expanded, which it is by default, then 
the items in that group appear below the heading. If it's collapsed, then the 
items in the groups are not shown. For both expanded and collapsed group 
headings, if a heading is the focus, then all the items in the group are 
selected.

You can control the grouping of items for a location by using the Group By 
sub-menu on the View menu, which contains two groups of options. The first is 
the property by which the items can be grouped, and the second consists of the 
options Ascending and Descending. If one of the properties is checked, then 
this group also contains the option (none) so that grouping can be turned off. 
To group the items by a property, choose one of the properties from this menu. 
When you do this, the setting of the ascending/descending options is 
automatically changed to the most likely setting for that property, and the 
options on the Sort by sub menu are set to the same settings as the Group by 
sub menu, which is normally what you want. This does however mean that if you 
turn the grouping off, you'll also probably want to change the sorting as well.

When Jaws reads a group heading, it reads the name of the group, followed by 
whether it's expanded or collapsed, followed by the phrase group box. For 
sighted users, the number of items in a group is displayed after its name, but 
unfortunately Jaws doesn't read this.

To expand or collapse group headings:
•To expand or collapse a group heading press Right Arrow or Left Arrow 
respectively. Unfortunately Jaws doesn't give any feedback after these 
keystrokes.
•To expand or collapse all the group headings, open the View menu, and choose 
Expand all groups or Collapse all groups.

Unfortunately there aren't any shortcuts to move to the next or previous group 
heading. However, you can collapse all the group headings as described above, 
read through the headings, and then expand the headings which you're interested 
in.

Arranging libraries

Only libraries can be “arranged”. The default arrangement for all libraries is 
by folder, which is the normal way that folders and files are displayed. 
However, libraries can be arranged by other properties which are appropriate to 
the kind of files for which the library is optimized. When a library is 
arranged by one of these other properties, then all the files in the library 
and all the files in the folders below it in the hierarchy are arranged by the 
property.

To change the arrangement of a library, open the Arrange By sub menu on the 
View menu, and choose one of the options. Note that you can also change the 
arrangement of any of the folders below the library in the hierarchy, if you 
really want to. As examples, the next two sections describe the possible 
arrangements of the Documents and Music libraries.

Arrangements of the Documents library

The Documents library can be arranged by:
•Folder, which is the default.
•Author, Tag, or Type. If arranged by Type, for example, then the Items view 
contains all the types of all the files. By default the view is set to a Large 
icons view, so you'll probably want to change it to a list view. When you open 
a particular type, you're taken to a list of all the files with that type.
•Name. The Items view contains all the files, sorted by their name.
•Date modified. The Items view contains all the files, grouped by Date modified.

Arrangements of the Music library

The Music library can be arranged by:
•Folder, which is the default.
•Album, Artist, Genre. If arranged by Artist, for example, then the Items view 
contains all the artists of all the files. By default the view is set to Large 
icons, so you'll probably want to change it to a list view, using the View 
menu. If you open a particular artist, you're taken to a list of all the files 
by that artist.
•Song. The Items view contains all the files, sorted by their name.
•Rating. The items view contains all the files, grouped by their rating.

Address bar

The Address bar both shows the current location, and enables you to change it. 
It has two different modes: it's either a series of split buttons, or an edit 
combo box, and these will be described in detail in the following two sections 
below. When you move to the Address bar, its initial mode depends on the 
keystroke used to move to it:
•If you Tab to the Address bar, then it's a series of split buttons, and the 
focus is the first split button, which is the desktop split button.
•If you press Alt + D to move to the Address bar, then it's an edit combo box, 
and the text is initially selected.

Once you're in the address bar, then you can easily switch between the two 
modes:
•To switch from the split buttons to the edit combo box, either press the 
desktop split button, or press Alt + D. In both cases the text is initially 
selected.
•To switch from the edit combo box to the split buttons, press Esc. The focus 
is the first split button.

Split button address bar

When the Address bar is in split button mode, it consists of one or more split 
buttons, and you can move between these using Left Arrow and Right Arrow. These 
split buttons show the current location, together with its place in the 
location hierarchy. For example, if the current location is your Documents 
library, then the split buttons are: Desktop, Libraries, and Documents. You can 
read this as Desktop contains Libraries, which contains Documents. The initial 
focus is the first split button, and because the Desktop folder is the top 
location in the hierarchy, this is always the Desktop split button.

Note that if the current location doesn't contain any locations, then the last 
button is an ordinary button rather than a split button. Also, if there isn't 
enough space in the address bar for all the split buttons, then one or more of 
the split buttons between the Desktop split button and the current location 
split button are omitted.

Changing the current location

To change the current location using the split buttons:
•To move to any of the locations represented by the split buttons, move to that 
button, and press Spacebar or Enter to press the left hand side of the split 
button which contains its name. Using the example above, where the split 
buttons are Desktop, Libraries, and Documents, if you press the Libraries split 
button, then the current location becomes the Libraries folder. The one 
exception to this is that pressing the desktop split button switches the 
address bar to the edit combo box mode, rather than changing the current 
location. To move to the Desktop, you have to press Down Arrow to press the 
right hand side of the split button, and choose Desktop from the menu.
•Bug Warning: Jaws does not read the menus opened by these split buttons. To 
move to any location which is directly contained in any of the locations, move 
to the containing location split button, press Down Arrow to open a menu which 
contains the child locations, and then choose one of these locations. Note that 
in the menu you can use the first character or characters of a location to 
quickly find it. Again using the above example, if you move to the desktop 
split button, press Down Arrow to open the menu, and then choose Computer, then 
the current location becomes the Computer folder.

Edit combo box address bar

The edit combo box shows the current location, and its position in a location 
hierarchy using backslashes to separate its parts. You can move to a new 
location by typing the appropriate text, as described in the next section.

Note that the location hierarchy shown in edit combo box mode is different from 
the one shown in the split buttons mode, and which is described in the 
Hierarchy of locations section above. For standard file folders it reflects the 
arrangement of the folders on your disk drives. For example, for the Downloads 
folder which is in your personal folder, the address will be something like 
C:\Users\Username\Downloads.

Changing the current location

You can change the current location by typing in the appropriate text, as 
described below, and then pressing Enter. The focus then normally moves to the 
Items view.

You can move to a number of folders and libraries simply by typing in the name 
of the folder or library. These include:
•Any of the default libraries: Documents, Music, Pictures, and Videos.
•Some of the folders in your personal folder: My Documents, My Music, My 
Pictures, My Videos, and Favorites.
•Any of the folders in the top level Desktop folder: Libraries, Your personal 
folder, Computer, Network, Control Panel, Recycle Bin.
•A number of folders buried deep in your personal folder: SendTo (one word) 
which contains shortcuts to locations which appear on the Send To sub menu; 
Startup (one word) which contains shortcuts to programs which automatically 
start when you login; and Start Menu, which contains shortcuts to programs 
which appear in the All Programs in the start menu of your account.

To move to a particular drive you can type in its drive letter, followed by 
colon. For example, if you know that the drive letter of your USB memory stick 
is E, then you can just type in E:.

If the location you type in doesn't match an actual location, then either an 
Address bar message box opens which tells you to check the spelling, or it's 
assumed to be a web address, and your default web browser opens.

Additional notes
•You can type in the complete address of a location in the format: Drive 
letter:colon, followed by folders separated by either \ or /.
•You can use the shell command to move to various locations which are mainly of 
interest to system administrators. For example, shell:appdata takes you to the 
Roaming subfolder of your AppData folder, and shell:common appdata takes you to 
the ProgramData folder. A full list of the possible shell commands for various 
versions of Windows is given on this Shell commands web page. You can also use 
the shell command in the Start menu.
•To open a list of previous locations, press F4 or Alt + Down Arrow.

Tree view

The Tree view contains both a tree view of the hierarchy of locations and your 
favorite locations. Note that this Tree view is called the Navigation pane in 
Microsoft's documentation, and in various places in the user interface. 
However, since Jaws reads the control as “tree view tree view”, this guide 
refers to it simply as the Tree view.

By default, some locations are omitted from the hierarchy of locations shown in 
the Tree view, and the tree view contains the following items:
•Favorites, which contains shortcuts to Desktop, your Downloads folder, and 
Recent Places folder. For more details, see the Favorite locations section 
below.
•Libraries folder, which contains your default libraries: Documents, 
Music,Pictures and Videos.
•Computer folder, which contains your internal hard drives, removable drives, 
etc.
•Network.

By default the top level Desktop folder, your personal folder, Control panel, 
and the Recycle bin are omitted from the tree view. If you want these folders 
to be shown, then the instructions for setting the Show all folders option are 
given in the Tree view options section of the Customizing section.

Changing the current location

To change the current location using this tree view, select a location, and 
then press Enter. Note that the focus remains in the Tree view, so you then 
have to press Tab if you want to move to the Items view.

Selecting a location

With the Favorites, Libraries and Computer items expanded, which they are by 
default, it's very easy to select common locations such as your Downloads 
folder, Documents library, or a USB memory stick using the first character or 
characters of the item. This is a brief summary of all the standard keystrokes 
for selecting a location:
•Up Arrow, Down Arrow, Home, End, and the first character or characters of a 
location.
•Left Arrow has two uses: if an open location is selected, it closes it, else 
the parent location is selected.
•Right Arrow also has two uses: if a closed location is selected, it opens it; 
if an open location is selected, the first child location is selected.
•Backspace selects the parent location.

A more detailed description of the tree view control is given in the separate 
Controls Guide. Note that one of the examples given in that guide is the folder 
hierarchy in Windows XP, and not Windows 7.

Initial focus

When you move to the Tree view, the initial focus is the location which is 
selected. When you're not in the Tree view and change the current location, 
then which location is selected in the Tree view is automatically updated to 
reflect this. However, exactly which location ends up being selected depends on 
the setting of the expand to current folder option. When the current location 
is changed, then:
•If this option is on, then if necessary the tree view is expanded so that the 
current location is shown, and then this location is selected.
•If this option is off, which it is by default, then if the current location is 
shown in the tree view it's selected, but if it isn't shown then the nearest 
location in the hierarchy is selected rather than the current location.

Instructions for setting this option are given in the Tree view options section 
of the Customizing section.

Note that you can also manually select the current location in the Tree view by 
pressing Ctrl + Shift + E, which if necessary expands the tree view so that the 
current location is shown, and then selects this location.

Favorite locations

The Favorites item at the top of the Tree view contains shortcuts to favorite 
locations, and the default locations are Desktop, Downloads, and Recent Places. 
You can also add and remove these locations, as described in the following 
sections. Adding a favorite location can be particularly useful for quickly 
moving to locations which are deep down in the location hierarchy.

The following sections describe how to add to and manage the Favorite locations.

Adding a location
1.Change the current location to be the location which you want to add to your 
favorite locations.
2.Move to the Tree view, and press Home to select the Favorites item.
3.Open its context menu, and choose Add current location to Favorites.

Removing a location

Select a shortcut to a location contained by the Favorites item, and press 
Delete.

Sorting the locations by name

To sort the locations by name, select the Favorites item, and choose Sort by 
name from its context menu.

Tasks

This section describes a number of common tasks which involve folders and 
files, and in the text that follows, an item can be either a folder or a file. 
Normally, you'll select items in the Items view, which was described in the 
Selecting items section above. However, if you only need to select a single 
folder, then you can also do this in the Tree view.

The tasks included in this section are opening files, creating new folders, 
deleting, renaming, copying, and moving items, and finding out the sizes of 
files, folders, libraries, and disks.

Opening files

To open a file, select it and then press Enter. The file will be opened by the 
default program for the type of that file, which is indicated by its extension.

You can open a number of files at the same time, as long as they share the same 
default program. One useful example is that you can select a number of music 
files, and then press Enter. All the files are then played by your default 
music player.

Deleting items

When you delete items, they're moved to the Recycle bin, which gives you a 
chance to retrieve them if in future you realise that you need them. Exceptions 
to this are that if you delete items from devices with removable storage like 
CDs or USB flash drives, or from the Recycle bin, they are permanently deleted.

To delete one or more items:
1.Select one or more items.
2.Press Delete.
3.A Delete File, or Delete Folder, or Delete Multiple Items dialog opens, 
asking whether you're sure. Press Enter to press the Yes button.

Recycle bin

One way of moving to the Recycle bin is to press Alt + D to move to the Address 
bar, type recycle bin, and then press Enter. Alternatively, you can easily move 
there using either the Tree view or the Items view.

If the view has been set to the Details view, then by default the second column 
heading of the Items view of the Recycle bin is the original location of the 
deleted item. You can restore one or more items to their original locations by 
selecting them and then choosing Restore from their context menu. 
Alternatively, you can either copy and paste or cut and paste them to wherever 
you want.

Renaming an item

To rename an item:
1.Select an item.
2.Choose Rename from the item's context menu (F2).
3.The item's name appears temporarily in an edit box. If the item is a folder 
or library, then the whole name is selected, so you can just type in a new name 
to replace the old name. If the item is a file, then all of the name except for 
the extension, for example .doc or .pdf, is selected. So if you type in a new 
name, you shouldn't include the extension, because the original extension is 
not overwritten.
4.Press Enter. Alternatively press Esc to cancel the rename.

Creating a new folder

When you create a new folder, it's created in the current location.
1.Open the File menu, then open the New sub-menu and choose New Folder (Ctrl + 
Shift + N).
2.Type a name for the folder, and press Enter.

Copying items using Copy and Paste
1.Select the items you want to copy.
2.Choose Copy from the Edit or context menu (Ctrl + C).
3.To specify the destination location before pasting the items, you can do one 
of the following: ◦Change the current location to the required destination 
location by any of the available methods. After doing this, the first item in 
the Items view is the focus, and it's unselected. As long as no items in the 
Items view are selected, then the destination location is the current location.
◦Select a location in the Items view, optionally having changed the current 
location. With a location selected in the Items view, the destination location 
is this selected location, rather than the current location.
◦In the Tree view, select a location. Note that this doesn't involve changing 
the current location.

4.Choose Paste from the Edit or context menu (Ctrl + V) to paste the items.

Examples

For example, if there are two folders in your Documents library, and you wanted 
to copy a file from one folder to the other folder, you could:
1.Select the file in the first folder.
2.Press Ctrl + C.
3.To change the current location to the second folder: press Alt + Up Arrow to 
move up to the Documents library, select the second folder, and press Enter to 
move down to this folder.
4.Press Ctrl + V.

As a second example, which illustrates the various ways of specifying the 
destination folder, say that you wanted to copy a file from your Documents 
library to a folder on a USB memory stick. After selecting the file and 
pressing Ctrl + C you could do any of the following:
•Assuming that the USB memory stick has drive letter E, then to change the 
current location to the memory stick, press Alt + D to move to the address bar 
in edit combo box mode, type E:, and then press Enter. Select the folder where 
you want to copy the file, and then press Enter to move down to the folder. 
Finally press Ctrl + V.
•In the previous method, after selecting the folder in the USB memory stick, 
you could paste the file (Ctrl + V) without having to move down into it.
•Press Shift + Tab to move to the Tree view. Select the Computer folder, and 
then assuming this is open, press Down Arrow until you select the memory stick. 
Press Ctrl + V to paste the file.

Moving items using Cut and Paste

This involves exactly the same steps as Copy and Paste, which was described in 
the last section, but in the second step choose Cut from the Edit or context 
menu (Ctrl + X), rather than Copy.

For example, if you wanted to move a file in your Documents library to a Folder 
in this library:
1.If necessary, go to your Documents library.
2.In the Items view, select the file.
3.Press Ctrl + X to Cut.
4.Select the Folder.
5.Press Ctrl + V to paste.

Copy items using Send To

The Sent To sub menu provides a convenient way of copying one or more items to 
a number of locations and programs.
1.Select the items you want to copy.
2.Open the context menu, then open the Send To sub-menu, and choose a 
destination.

By default, the Send To sub menu contains the following destinations:
•Compressed (zipped) folder. For details, see the Zip files – compressed 
folders section.
•Desktop (create shortcut).
•Documents library.
•Fax and Mail recipients. If you send one or more items to mail recipients then 
your default email program opens together with a new message which has the 
items attached. If this doesn't work you may have to go to default programs in 
the control panel and check that the email program is set as the default for 
all protocols.
•Devices with removable storage, for example USB memory sticks.

Note that if you open the context menu with Shift + Application Key or Shift + 
F10, the Send To sub menu also contains the folders contained in your personal 
folder, for example My Music, and My Videos.

Customizing the Sent To sub menu

You can add locations to the Send To sub menu, by creating shortcuts to them in 
a SendTo folder, which is buried deep in the folder hierarchy beneath your 
personal folder. This is one way of creating a shortcut to a location in your 
SendTo folder:
1.Select the location in either the Items view or the Tree view, and press Ctrl 
+ C to copy.
2.To change the current location to the SendTo folder, press Alt + D to move to 
the address bar in edit combo box mode, type sendto (one word), and press Enter.
3.Choose Paste Shortcut on the Edit menu, to create a shortcut to the desired 
location. Note then the name of the shortcut is the name of the location 
followed by dash shortcut, so you'll want to rename the shortcut (F2) to remove 
the dash shortcut.

Size of files

The size of a single file may be available as one the properties shown in a 
details few. In addition, the size of one or more selected files is shown in 
their properties dialog.

A number of locations have by default both a Details view, and the item's size 
as the fourth column. Examples of these locations are the Documents library, 
the Downloads folder, and disks. Although, by default, the Music library has a 
Details view, size is not one of the properties shown. If you need to check the 
size of music files frequently, you can add size to the properties shown, and 
then change the order of the properties so that the size is the fourth column, 
just like these other locations. See the Changing the details section of the 
Details view section for instructions.

You can also find the size of a selected file or the total size of a number of 
selected files in their Properties dialog:
1.To open the Properties dialog of the selected file or files, choose 
Properties from their context menu (Application key, then R, or Alt + Enter).
2.Move to the Details page, and you can quickly find size in the list view by 
pressing S.
3.Alternatively, the size is also available on the General page of this dialog, 
and can be read using the methods given in the next section.

Size of folders

The size of a selected folder, or the total size of a number selected folders 
is shown in their properties dialog:
1.To open the properties dialog of the selected folder or folders, choose 
Properties from its context menu (Application key, then R, or in the Items view 
only Alt + Enter).
2.The dialog opens on the General page, and the initial focus is near the 
bottom of the page. However you can't read the size by using standard keyboard 
navigation. You have to either read the whole page (Insert + B), or use the 
Jaws cursor. For the latter option, press Insert + Numpad Minus to route the 
Jaws cursor to the PC cursor, and then read up the page by using Up Arrow. Note 
that it can take a little time for the size to reach its final total, as 
Windows may have to go through all the files in the folders below that folder. 
When you've finished reading, press Numpad Plus to go back to using the PC 
cursor.

Size of libraries

As in the case of folders described above, the size of a library is available 
in its properties dialog, and again you can't read it by using standard 
keyboard navigation. In this case the initial focus in the dialog box is near 
the top of the page, so after routing the Jaws cursor to the PC cursor, read 
down the page using Down Arrow.

Size of disks

The easiest way to find a disk's size and amount of free space is to set the 
Computer folder as the current location. If the view has be set to Details, as 
has already been suggested, then the third and fourth columns are the disk's 
total size and free space respectively.

Alternatively, the size, free space and used space are available in a disk's 
properties dialog. As in the case of folders and libraries described above, you 
can't read this information by standard keyboard navigation, but have to either 
read the whole page or use the Jaws cursor.

Searching

To search the current location using the search box:
1.Press Ctrl + E to move to the Search edit box.
2.Type in one or more search terms. If you use more than one search term, then 
a file must match all the search terms.
3.As you type in the search terms, the results automatically appear in the 
Items view – there's no need to press Enter to make this happen. To move to the 
Items view, press Tab three times.

By default, when the Items view contains search results, its view is set to the 
Contents view. Each result consists of the item's name, together with some 
other information, including the folder path. This specifies the folder which 
contains the item, using the same disk and folder hierarchy which is used in 
the Address bar in edit combo box mode. When using Down Arrow or Up Arrow to 
select the next or previous item, then Jaws reads only the item's name. 
However, if you press Insert + Up Arrow to read the current item, then Jaws 
reads all the information. You may prefer to change the view to the Details 
view which makes it easier to access each item's properties, such as its folder 
path.

Note that as soon as you move to the Search edit box, a drop down list appears 
temporarily below the edit box. This list contains previous search terms and a 
toolbar for applying advanced search options. However, Jaws doesn't read these 
previous search terms, and it's normally easier to type in the advanced search 
options, as described later in this section, rather that use the toolbar. An 
alternative way of moving to the Items view after you've typed in your search 
terms is to press Enter to close the drop down list, and then press Down Arrow.

The next three sections describe the locations searched, which information is 
searched, and details of the word matching. The sections after these describe 
more advanced techniques which allow you to refine your searches.

Locations searched

The current location is searched, and by default all the the locations below 
this in the location hierarchy are also searched. So for example, if you search 
your Documents library, then all its folders are searched, and any sub-folders 
of these folders etc. If you don't want subfolders to be searched, then you can 
turn this option off, as described in the Search options section of the 
Customizing section.

Which information is matched

When you search, the information which is matched against your search terms can 
be either only filenames or it can also include file contents. Which is the 
case can depend both on whether the location is indexed, and on certain search 
options. By default:

•For indexed locations, filenames and contents are used.
•For non-indexed locations, only filenames are used.

The remainder of this section describes how file contents are used for 
searching, indexing, and the relevant search options.

Files contain both data, and some of the properties of the data. Sometimes 
these properties are referred to as metadata, which simply means data about 
data. For example, a text document contains the actual text, and properties 
such as the authors and title. A music file contains audio data, and also 
properties such as artists, album, etc. When Windows searches file contents, 
this always includes the properties of the data, and also includes the actual 
data, if it's text.

Windows maintains an Index which contains information about the files and their 
contents in certain locations, and this information is stored in a way that 
enables searches to be very fast. So when you search for files in one of these 
indexed locations, the index is searched rather than the location itself, and 
so even a search which includes file contents will be fast. By default, these 
are the locations which are indexed:
•Your Personal folder.
•All folders included in Libraries, whether or not they're in your personal 
folder.
•Start menu folder and IE history. This is for the benefit of the search in the 
Start menu.

For most people these defaults are fine, but if you really want to, you can 
customize the indexed locations in the Indexing Options section of the Control 
Panel.

As noted above, by default, file contents are only included in the search if 
the location is indexed. This is so that the search is always fast. However, if 
you don't like this, you can change it so that file contents are always used, 
irrespective of whether the location is indexed. See the Search options section 
for details.

Word matching

You can use either complete words or the beginnings of words as search terms. 
So, for example, the search term cat would match both cat and catch.

Note that for the purposes of searching, the following characters separate 
words: space, period, -, @, _, and \. So the search term mp3 would match files 
with the filenames: mp3 patents.doc, patents-for-mp3.doc, and cooleddie.mp3

You can use wildcard characters in the search, which match against any 
character or characters:
•The character * matches against any number of characters, including none. For 
example the search term *light would match the words moonlight, daylight, 
light, and lighter. A common use of the * character is to search for a file of 
a given type. For example, the search term *.mp3 matches all mp3 files.
•The character question mark matches against any single character. For example 
the search term consisting of the three characters question mark, a, and t 
would match the words cat, mat, and catch.

File properties

As described above, each search term is normally matched against either 
filenames alone, or filenames and file contents, depending on whether the 
location is indexed, and the search options. However you can also search for 
files which have a specific property which matches a search term using the 
format property:search term. Note that there must not be any spaces either side 
of the colon. You can do this in any location, regardless of whether it's 
indexed, and of the search options. If the location isn't indexed, then the 
search just takes longer.

For example, modified:7/6/08, would match files modified on 7/6/08, and 
author:david would match files whose author matched david. You can use any of 
the properties which are listed in the Choose Details dialog box, which is 
opened from the View menu. They don't have to be checked in the dialog, and you 
don't have to be using the Details view.

There are abbreviations for a number of commonly used properties, including:
•Date modified, can be abbreviated to modified.
•Date created, can be abbreviated to created.
•Filename, can be abbreviated to file (or you can use name).

If the property consists of more than one word, then all the examples given by 
Microsoft show that you should omit the spaces between the words when searching 
using this property. So for example, if you're looking for contacts whose first 
name is susan, then you'd type firstname:susan. However, in practice it seems 
to work both without and with the spaces.

If you're using more than one search term for the value of a property, then the 
following examples show the need to use either parenthesis or quotes. Assuming 
that you're searching a location where normally both filenames and file 
contents are searched then:
•author:donald duck, matches files for which donald matches the author, and 
duck matches the filename or file contents.
•author:(donald duck), matches files for which both donald and duck both match 
the author, but not necessarily in that order.
•author:"donald duck", matches files for which the exact phrase "donald duck" 
matches the author.

Ranges of dates and sizes

To specify ranges of dates or sizes, you can use the following operators: <, >, 
<=, >=, and .. . For example:
•modified:>=8/9/08 matches files modified on or after 8/9/08.
•created:>8/9/08 matches files created after 8/9/08.
•modified:>=8/9/08<=11/9/08 matches files modified between and including these 
dates.
•modified:8/9/08..11/9/08 matches files modified between and including these 
dates.
•size:>1mb matches files with size greater than 1mb, and size:<5kb matches 
files with size less than 5kb. Note that you can also use the letters m or k to 
indicate mb and kb respectively, and a number with no units means bytes.

Special values for dates

You can use the following values for specifying dates:
•Today, tomorrow, and yesterday. For example, modified:today.
•This week, next week, and last week. For example, created:last week.
•This month, next month, last month.
•This year, next year, and last year.
•Monday, Tuesday, etc.
•January, February, etc.

Kinds of files

Anther way of refining a search is to specify the kind of file you're looking 
for. As in the case of using properties, you can do this in any location, 
regardless of whether it's indexed, and of your search options. 
•kind:docs matches files which contain text, including files created using 
Microsoft Office, PDFs, documents written in HTML, and plain text files (*.txt).
•kind:music matches music files, including wma, mp3, m4a, aac (but not ogg).
•kind:folders matches folders.
•kind:pics and kind: videos match pictures and videos respectively.
•kind:email and kind:contacts match email and contacts respectively.

Note that if the kind of file ends in the letter s, than this can be omitted: 
kind:docs and kind:doc both match files which contain text.

So, for example:
•kind:music, matches music files.
•kind:music modified:today, matches music files which were modified today.

OR and NOT
•author:(susan OR james), matches files whoose author property matches either 
susan or james or both. Note that the word OR must be in capitals.
•author:(jones NOT david), matches files files whose author property matches 
jones but not david. Note that the word NOT must be in capitals.

Libraries

A library is a combined view of one or more folders which are included in the 
library. For example, if you have music files on both your computer's hard disk 
and an external hard disk, you can create a combined view of all your music 
files.

These are some important properties of libraries:
•A library itself doesn't contain folders or files: it's the folders included a 
library which contain them. This means that if you delete a library, or remove 
from a library one of the folders included in the library, then no files or 
folders are deleted.

•One of the folders included in a library is set as the default save location: 
if you save something in a library, then this is where it's actually saved.
•Folders on internal and external hard disks, and hard disks on other computers 
can be included in a library, although the last of these options is not covered 
by this guide.
•A folder which is included in a library is automatically indexed if this is 
not already the case.
•A library can be arranged by a number of properties, as described in the 
Arranging libraries section.

By default there are four libraries: Documents, Music, Pictures, and Videos. 
Each of these contain a folder which is in your personal folder, and a folder 
which is in the Public folder. This latter folder is accessible to anyone who 
can log-in to the computer. In all cases it's the folder in your personal 
folder which is the default save location. For example, the Documents library 
includes the folders My Documents and Public Documents. In the case of the 
Music, Pictures, and Video libraries, the public folder contains a Sample 
folder containing a small number of sample files.

Before describing various tasks such as including a folder in a library and 
creating a new library, the next section described a library's properties 
dialog, which is used in most of these tasks.

Library properties dialog

You can open the dialog by selecting a library in either the Tree view or the 
Items view, and selecting Properties from its context menu. The dialog contains 
the following:
•A list view of the folders included in the library. The folder which is set as 
the default save location has a tick mark next to it, and Jaws indicates this 
by appending the word yes when it reads this folder, and appending the word no 
when it reads the other folders.
•Up to three buttons which are available when appropriate: Set save location, 
Include a folder, and Remove.
•An “Optimize this library for” combo box. This setting affects the library's 
view options in the Items view. For details, see the Optimization for kinds of 
files section of the Customizing Windows Explorer section.
•Size of files in Library. Note that this can only be read using the Jaws 
cursor, or by pressing Insert + B to read the entire page of the dialog.

Including a folder in a library

In the library's property dialog:
1.Press the Include a folder button.
2.An Include a folder dialog opens which has the structure of a standard Open 
dialog. Select a folder in the Items view, Tab to the Include folder button, 
and press it.

Note that after including a folder in a new empty library or one of the default 
libraries, the library is automatically set to be grouped by the included 
folders in the library. To switch this grouping off, choose None from the Group 
By sub menu which is on the View menu. Once the grouping has been turned off 
for a particular library, it doesn't automatically turn on again.

An alternative way of including a folder is in the Windows Explorer window:
1.Select the folder in either the Tree view or the Items view.
2.Open its context menu, open the Include in library sub menu, and choose a 
library.

Changing the default save location

In the library's properties dialog:
1.Select the folder in the list view.
2.Either choose Set as default save location on its context menu, or Tab to the 
Set save location button, and press it. Note that if the selected location is 
already the default save location, then both the command on the menu and the 
button are not shown.

Removing a folder from a library

In the library's properties dialog:
1.Select the folder in the list view.
2.Either choose Remove from its context menu, or Tab to the Remove button, and 
press it.
3.If the removed folder was the default save location, then the first remaining 
folder in the list view becomes the new default save location.

Creating a new library
1.Select the Libraries folder in the Tree view
2.Open its context menu, open the New sub menu and choose Library (the only 
option).
3.Type in the name for the new library and press Enter.
4.You can now include folders in the library.

Finding out where an item is stored

Because a library is a combined view of one or more folders, when you're in a 
library, you may not know where a particular file or folder is actually stored. 
To find out where it's stored:
1.Open its context menu, and choose Open folder location.
2.The current location is changed to the folder where the item is stored, and 
you can then Tab to the address bar and read the split buttons.

Zip files – compressed folders

A zip file contains files which have been compressed to reduce their size, and 
it has the extension .zip. It can also contain the folder hierarchy associated 
with the files. For example, you could create a zip file which contained a 
folder, and all the folders and files beneath this folder in the folder 
hierarchy. The main uses of zip files are for sending files by email, 
downloading files from the web, and archiving.

Although a zip file really is a file, Windows also treats it as a folder, and 
refers to it as a Compressed (zipped) folder. This allows you to view and 
manage the contents of a zip file as if it were a folder:
•A zip file can be a location in the address bar, so that the contents of the 
file are shown in the Items view.
•A zip file can appear both in the Tree view and the Items view.
•You can copy and move files and folders from and to the compressed folder 
using all the usual methods which were described in the Tasks section. Any 
necessary compression or decompression is done automatically. Copying items 
from a compressed folder is often referred to as extracting them.

The following sections describe the wizard for extracting all the items from a 
zip file, and two ways of creating one.

Extracting all the items

To extract all the items from a zip file, you can just select all the items, 
and then use copy and paste. Alternatively, you can use the Extract Compressed 
folders wizard:
1.Either select the zip file and choose Extract all from its context menu, or 
set the zip file as your current location, and choose Extract All on the File 
menu.
2.The wizard for extracting all the files opens, and it consists of a single 
page which contains an Edit box which contains the default folder where the 
files are extracted, a Browse button, and a “Show extracted files when 
complete”check box. The default folder is in the same location as the zip file, 
and has the same name, except that the .zip extension has been removed. If 
you're happy with the default folder, then just Tab to the Extract button, and 
press it.
3.If you don't want to extract to the folder suggested, Tab to the Browse 
button, and press it. A Select destination dialog opens, which contains a tree 
view for selecting a location, and also a Make New folder button for creating a 
new folder. When you're finished, press the OK button, which returns you to the 
wizard. Tab to the Extract button, and press it. 

Creating a new zip file containing existing files and/or folders
1.Select the files and/or folders. The zip file will be created in the same 
location as these selected items.
2.Open their context menu, open the Send To sub-menu, and choose Compressed 
(Zipped) Folder.
3.You're taken to an edit box, which contains the default name of the folder, 
which is the name of one of the files or folders, with a .zip extension. The 
text up to the .zip is selected, so if you type in a name without and 
extension, and then press Enter, the file will have a .zip extension

Creating a new empty zip file
1.Move to the location which you want to contain the new zip file.
2.Open the File menu, then open the New sub-menu, and choose Compressed 
(Zipped) Folder.
3.You're taken to an edit box where you can type in a name for the file. The 
default name is “Compressed (Zipped) Folder.zip”, and the text up to the .zip 
is selected. So if you type in a name with no extension, and press Enter, the 
file will have a .zip extension.

Customizing Windows Explorer

Folder options dialog

Many of the options for customizing Windows Explorer are set in the Folder 
Options dialog, which has three pages: General, View, and Search. You can open 
the Folder Options dialog by choosing Folder Options on the Tools menu of 
Windows Explorer, or typing Folder Options in the Start menu and pressing Enter.

Hiding panes

To simplify the navigation around the Windows Explorer window, you may want to 
hide the following three panes. In all cases the information and or 
functionality they provide is also available elsewhere.
•The Details pane shows some of the properties of the item selected in the 
Items view, but the properties which are read-only are not read by Jaws. 
However you can read them in the item's properties dialog.
•The Preview pane displays the contents of some types of text documents if one 
of them is selected in the Items view.
•The Library pane appears between the Tree view and the Items view when the 
current location is a library. It contains a link to open a dialog for managing 
the folders included in the library, and a combo box for changing the 
arrangement of the library. Alternatives for these are a library's properties 
dialog, and the Arrange by sub menu on the View menu, respectively.

To set the visibility of these panes:
1.Tab to the Organise menu button, and press it. (The organise menu button is 
the first control on the toolbar, and is the next control after the Search box.)
2.Open the layout sub menu. This contains options for the visibility of various 
panes, and a pane is visible if it's checked. To hide a pane which is visible, 
select it and then press Enter.

Show the status bar

By default, the status bar is not shown. To show it, open the View menu, and if 
the Status bar option is not checked, select it and press Enter.

Show file extensions

To show the extensions of files in the Items view, so that you can easily tell 
what type of file it is, or whether it's a folder or a library:
1.Go to the View page of the Folder Options dialog.
2.In the tree view, find the item “Hide extensions for known file types”. If 
this option is on, then press Spacebar to switch it off.

Show or hide hidden files and folders

To change whether hidden files and folders are shown or hidden:
1.Go to the View page of the Folder Options dialog.
2.In the tree view, find the item “Hidden files and folders”. This contains two 
options: Do not show hidden files and folders; and Show hidden files and 
folders. One of these is on, and the other off, and by default the first option 
is on. To set the option which is off, select it, and press Spacebar.

Tree view options

To set either the Show all folders option or the Expand to current folder 
option which are described in the Tree view section:
1.Go the General page of the Folder Options dialog.
2.In the Navigation pane section of this page there is a group of two check 
boxes: Show all folders, and Expand to current folder. You can Tab to the first 
of these check boxes, and then use Arrow keys to move between them. Both are 
unchecked by default.

Search options

The Search page of the Folder options dialog contains a number of controls for 
setting search options, and two of these will be described.

What to search

There's a What to search group of two radio buttons:
•In indexed locations search file names and contents. In non-indexed locations, 
search file names only.
•Always search file names and contents (this might take several minutes).

By default, the first option is selected, and this searches as much information 
as possible, whilst still ensuring that the search is very fast.

How to search

The How to search section of the page includes the “Include subfolders when 
typing in the search box”, which is checked by default.

View options of the Items view

In this section, the term view options will be used for the following group of 
options of a location in the Items view: its view, the details present in the 
details view, sorting, and grouping. How to set these options is described 
above in the Views, Details view, Sorting, and Grouping section of the Items 
view section. In addition, some of the common customizations are described in 
the Views section, and this may well be all the information you need. This 
section provides further details about setting view options which will enable 
you to fully customize your view settings.

Issues such as the default view options, whether changing the view options of a 
location automatically changes the view options of other locations, and whether 
you can manually apply the view options of a location to other locations, all 
depend on the type of the location. These types are:
•Libraries, for example Documents and Music.
•File folders. These are the normal sort of folder, and examples include 
Downloads, My Documents, and My Music. If you create a folder, then you always 
create a file folder.
•System folders. These are special folders, and only appear near the top of the 
location hierarchy. Examples are the Libraries, Computer, and your personal 
folder.
•Disks and devices, such as your local disk, and CD drive.

For Libraries, and File folders, the default view options are determined by 
what kind of files they're optimized for, and this will be described in the 
next section, which is then followed by sections for the different types of 
location.

Optimization for kinds of files

All libraries and file folders have a setting for optimizing them for the kind 
of files which are expected to be in that location, and the options are General 
Items, Documents, Music, Pictures and Videos. This setting determines the 
library's or folder's default view, and the default details present in the 
Details view.
•Documents or General Items. Details view, with details: Name, Date modified, 
Type and Size.
•Music. Details view, with details: Name, Contributing artist, Album, Track 
number, and Title.
•Pictures. Large icons view, with details: Name, Date, Tags, Size, and Rating.
•Videos. Large icons view, with details: Name, Date, Type, Size, and Length.

View options of Libraries

There are a few of important points to understand about the behaviour of the 
view options of libraries.
1.A library is a combined view of one or more folders which are included in the 
library. The view options of the library are completely independent of the view 
options of the included folders, and all the folders which these folders 
contain. For example, if you change any of the view options of your My 
Documents folder, this has no effect on the view options of your Documents 
library.
2.A library, and all the locations below it in the location hierarchy share the 
same view settings. So for example, if you first go to your Documents library, 
and then open a folder in the Items view to go down to that folder, both these 
locations have the same view options. If you change the view options whilst in 
either location, the options in the other location will then be the same.
3.Libraries which are optimized for the same kind of file share the same view 
settings.

As you might have guessed, by default the Document library is optimized for 
documents, the Music library for music, the Pictures library for pictures, and 
the Video library for videos. The default view options for the various kinds of 
files were given in the previous section.

For a library, the setting of its optimization for kinds of files is found in 
the library's properties dialog. This dialog can be opened by selecting a 
library in either the Tree view of the Items view, and selecting Properties 
from its context menu. In the dialog, there's a “Optimize the library for:” 
combo box.

View options of File Folders

For a file folder, the setting of its optimization for the kind of files it 
contains is found on the Customize page of the folder's properties dialog. 
There are a couple of ways of getting to this page:
•In either the Items view or the Tree view, open the folders context menu, and 
choose Properties. Then move to the Customize page.
•If the folder is the current location, choose Customize this folder on the 
View menu.

The first control on the Customize page is an “Optimize the folder for: ” combo 
box. Note that if you change the setting, the following control is a check box 
for applying the setting to all the subfolders.

By default, these are the optimizations for some common folders: Downloads is 
optimized for General items, My Documents for documents, My Music for music, My 
Pictures for pictures, and My Videos for videos.

When you change the view options of a folder, this does not affect the view 
settings of any other folder. However, you can manually apply all the views 
options of a folder, ie view, details, sorting and grouping, to all the other 
folders which are optimized for the same kinds of files:
1.Open the Folder Options dialog from the Tools menu.
2.Move to the View page.
3.Press the Apply to Folders button. A Folder views dialog opens asking you 
whether you want all folders of this type to match this folder's view settings. 
Press Enter to press the Yes button.
4.Tab to the OK button and press it.

Note that this also determines the view options of new folders of that type.

View options of System Folders

The Desktop folder at the top of the location hierarchy, and the folders which 
it contains, for example Libraries and Computer, are all special system 
folders. Although not set to have a Details view by default, in many cases the 
details present in the details view are particular to that folder. For example, 
the details for the Computer folder include total size and free space. Because 
of this, these folders don't have a setting for optimizing them for the 
standard kinds of files.

By default, your personal folder has a Medium icons view, and the following 
have a Tiles view: Desktop, Libraries, Computer, Network, and Recycle Bin. It's 
recommended that for these locations the view is changed to Details, or 
possibly List in the case of the Libraries folder.

View options of Disks and devices

In general, the view options of disks and devices behave in the same way as 
file folders, and by default they are optimized for General Items. One 
exception to this is the disk which contains Windows 7, and this doesn't have a 
optimization for kinds of files setting.

Keystrokes



Command

Keystrokes



Cycle around: Address bar in split button mode, Search box, Toolbar, Tree view, 
Items view, and if this has a Details view, a Name split button, which is the 
first of the column headings.

Tab, or Shift + Tab



Move to Search box

Ctrl + E



In the Items view, move up a location

Alt + Up Arrow



Back to previous location

Alt + Left Arrow



Forward

Alt + Right Arrow



Create a new folder

Ctrl + Shift + N



Move to Address bar in edit combo box mode

Alt + D



In the address bar, switch to split buttons mode

Esc



In the address bar, switch to edit combo box mode

Alt + D, or with focus on desktop split button, Spacebar



If necessary, expand the tree view so that the current location is shown, and 
then select this folder.

Ctrl + Shift + E


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