I too like to keep at least 1 previous Jaws version in reserve and as for learning about how the shortcuts work, well that's down to trial and error with a bit of educated guessing. With regard to precedence, start menu or dessktop, my tests indicate that there is a single set of registered key combinations and it is irrelevant where the shortcut is located. The first shortcut to reference a unique key combination keeps it until it is released either by the deletion or amendment of the shortcut. I guess the Desktop is more useful in a visual sense as a sighted person would use it for their most used applications, invoking them via the mouse. If, like me, you have no sight, it doesn't really matter if an application is on the desk top or start menu if you only ever launch it via a shortcut key combination. Cheers Chris -----Original Message----- From: jfw-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:jfw-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Yardbird Sent: 06 December 2007 22:40 To: jfw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: Re: The old Jaws hotkey issue, again Chris, Thanks to your detailed directions, I finally managed to overcome my problem, because you were able to explain how Windows was being confounded by too casual a method of changing hotkey assignments. there's no way I could have thought on my own about how windows registers these assignments, in contrast from what one might innocently imagine. How did you happen to learn about this? I've got my hotkeys assigned as I prefer them now, j for the current version and k for the one preceding, in case I need to fall back on it (I'm not the kind of user who chooses between different versions because I know that one works better in one context and another version in another context. I just like to have a backup, like having a second car in case the new one has to go to the shop for a week. But here's something that I can't figure out intuitively, as I couldn't understand the overall issue intuitively, either. Someone else in the course of this thread advised me to pay attention to the properties hotkey settings associated with the program launch control under Start/Programs, instead of the icon properties. Or in addition to the icon properties. I can't remember. My mind is spinning from going back and forth among all these properties dialogues, then exiting Jaws and testing the hotkeys I've attempted to set up, and then returning to one or another of the properties dialogues yet again. What's the relationship between the Start Menu/Programs-related Properties settings and the seemingly identical dialogues you get when you look at the icon properties? By the way, just want to mention that while the trusty old Alt Enter may bring up properties for an icon, if you do it while focused on the Jaws launch item on the Start Menu/Programs display, all you'll get is the properties routines related to the Desktop and Task Bar. Just in case that helps someone. For instance, I discovered that after I'd deleted the previous hotkey in both a version's Desktop icon and its Start Menu/Programs launch item, then provided a letter to go with the default Control Alt in just the Start menu/Programs item, then exited Jaws and pressed that key combo, it worked, and launched the version I meant it to launch. But at this point, I hadn't even yet opened the icon's properties and assigned the key combination there, yet. So does one of these locations have priority, in the case of a disagreement? Or, as in this case, is it completely redundant to assign a hotkey to the icon once you've assigned it on the Start Menu? Or am I not asking this in the right order? Can you explain the correlation between icons and their Start menu counterparts in regard to hotkeys? Thanks. Hope I haven't asked my questions too confusingly. I'm obviously a bit addled by this point. From: "Mullins, Chris" <Chris.Mullins@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> To: <jfw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Thursday, December 06, 2007 2:01 AM Subject: RE: The old Jaws hotkey issue, again I have not had the problem with any automatically generated desktop icons but then again, I'm stil on Jaws 7.1. The desctop shortcut was generated by the installation program, programmers can make mistakes, so it makes sense to me, to check that the contents correspond to the label. I have done a bit of testing and found that if you specify a hot key combination that is already being used, the setting is retained in the shortcut key property but will not work, as it would seem that Windows registers the shortcut key combination and the path to the related executable and this is not over-written by a new shortcut definition using the same key combination. It would seem a hot key combination is only released by Windows when a shortcut is either deleted altogether or the Shortcut key property is changed to another unused key combination. This would explain your circumstances. Alt+Control+j was not registered when the Jaws9 shortcut was automatically created because it was already being used by Jaws8. When you manually set the shortcut property of Jaws8 to Alt+Control+k, this did not register either because it was already being used by Jaws7. To fix your situation you must first set the shortcut property of Jaws7 to something not currently being used. The shortcut key property of Jaws8 is set to alt+control+k but this will still not work because it has not yet been registered. If you open up the Shortcut tab for Jaws8, tab down to OK and press enter, it still will not register because no details have changed on the screen, so the registration process is not triggered. You have to change the shortcut key property to something else unused, OK it, then go back in and set it to alt+control+k, OK it again and it will now register. To fix Jaws9, repeat what you did for Jaws8 but using alt+control+j. Cheers Chris -----Original Message----- From: jfw-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:jfw-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Yardbird Sent: 06 December 2007 00:13 To: jfw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: Re: The old Jaws hotkey issue, again Chris, I understand what you mean, and I know where to look for what you're talking about. But tell me, why would an icon recently and automatically created when I installed Jaws 9 have anything in its target field other than the path to the executable for launching that version, which I'd just installed and which had created that icon? How could that kind of problem happen? I will look, but it doesn't seem likely. Have you ever discovered that your automatically-created program icons pointed to the wrong program? If so, I'd be interested to hear how it happened and which icons had turned out to be messed up like this. thanks very much.----- Original Message ----- There are other things I could say to express why this sounds unlikely to me, but that question ought to be a start. From: "Mullins, Chris" <Chris.Mullins@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> To: <jfw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Wednesday, December 05, 2007 12:27 AM Subject: RE: The old Jaws hotkey issue, again When you have gone into the Shortcut dialog, have you checked what the Target file edit box is referencing? Changing the label of the icon is not sufficient, the Icon might be labelled Jaws9 but if the file name in the target edit box is in the Jaws8 folder you will load Jaws8. Likewise, with an icon labelled Jaws8 pointing at the Jaws7 executable. All a shortcut does is to simulate typing the contents of the Target edit box into the Run dialog and pressing enter. Cheers Chris -----Original Message----- From: jfw-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:jfw-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Yardbird Sent: 05 December 2007 06:37 To: JFW List Subject: The old Jaws hotkey issue, again the topic of how to successfully set a hotkey for launching Jaws has come up repeatedly over the past year, as Versions 8, and now 9, seem to be troublesome for a lot of users in this respect. Well, I was doing okay with version 8 for a while after finally getting a hotkey assignment to stick (I forget how, exactly), but now I've installed Version 9 and it's even stranger than before. First of all, let me make it clear that I basically know how to do this. At least I know how to do it for any other application that's represented by an icon on my desktop. Select the icon, press the context menu key (right side of spacebar, to left of Control key) and choose properties. Tab, and you're in the edit field for establishing a hotkey. You don't even have to bother pressing control and alt, because that's the standard combination and Jaws will insert that for you. All you have to do is press the letter key you'd like to use. Then you hear Jaws read the edit box, and it'll say something like Control Alt J. Which is what you wanted. You tab down to OK, press Enter, and there you go. Well, since Jaws 8, everyone's had to do all sorts of acrobatics to use this feature. Advice floats around like urban myths. Use this letter but not that letter. It's okay to tab away from the field, but don't tab back to it or what you entered will disappear. Or don't tab at all, just press Enter. If you tab further into the dialogue, it will delete your entry. And so forth. Now, none of that ought to be necessary, of course, and it didn't used to be. Until Jaws 8. But whatever. Now it's really interesting. I actually managed to set Control Insert J for my new Jaws 9, and changed my hotkey for Jaws 8 to Control Alt K, just in case I need to use it. And both settings stayed set, which I thought was a good sign. But now, if I exit Jaws 9 to see if restarting it will stop a bad behavior (don't ask) and then press Control Alt J, what comes up but, yep, Jaws 8. I went to the Desktop and rechecked. yes, everything is still set just as I set it. But it's working the wrong way. Ah, here's a thought, just for the heck of it. Let me exit Jaws 9, then hotkey Control Alt key and see if it actually *also* brings up Jaws 8 or, maybe, launches Jaws 9, so that it's all backward. Hang on.. Nope. Control Alt K brings up Jaws 7, which is what it used to do before I changed everything around. And if I go into the properties for the Jaws 7 icon, it says it has no hot key, just as I'd think it would. Nonetheless, it's as if Jaws 7 is still K, Jaws 8 is still J, and Jaws 9 has no hotkey. none of which is what properties say. Has anyone been through this, or anything like it? I've tried this repeatedly but can't get these hotkeys to behave correctly. Out of ideas. thanks. -- JFW related links: JFW homepage: http://www.freedomscientific.com/ Scripting mailing list: http://lists.the-jdh.com/listinfo.cgi/scriptography-the-jdh.com JFW List instructions: To post a message to the list, send it to jfw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send a message to jfw-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word unsubscribe in the subject line. 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