Tips for a JAWS-Friendly Desktop
- From: "Farfar Carlson" <dgcarlson@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <jfw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2010 11:04:40 -0700
Tips for consistent and reliable re-launch of JAWS
After my last message I thought I'd give some tips that have helped me a lot
in the past when needing to close JAWS and re-launch -- and I do this just
about every day.
This speaks to having your desktop organized in a way that minimizes
ambiguity when you're trying to launch JAWS when no speech is running. And
yes I know we have Narrator, but it's so much faster just to know the
keystrokes than launching Narrator, navigating, launching, and then shutting
down Narrator again. So here's how I have my desktop arranged.
1. I always cut any desktop shortcuts from the "all users\desktop" folder
and paste into the "<UserName>\desktop" folder under "Documents and
Settings". N.B. that I'm using XP parlance here.
Rationale is that a lot of applications including JAWS get installed with
the shortcut in the "all users" desktop folder, and frankly I don't know
why. However the result is that even if you sort your desktop shortcuts by
name, you'll notice a few shortcuts starting at the top left that are
grouped and sorted all by themselves. Some shortcuts we can't do anything
with -- e.g. My Computer, My Documents, My Network Neighborhood, Recycle
Bin. We can turn them off, but we can't group them with all the rest.
However newly-installed applications similar to JAWS often also install
their shortcut up there, and are not sorted with all the others. So that's
why I cut/paste any that I can from "all users\desktop" to
"<UserName>\desktop" so that they are arranged with the majority of my
shortcuts.
2. Make sure that one, and only one shortcut starts with the letter "J".
Which is of course JAWS. And more importantly the current version of JAWS
that you use all the time. If you have multiple versions of JAWS on your
desktop then I advise you give them a different first character in the
shortcut label. In my case, JAWS 9.0 is labeled 9JAWS and JAWS 11.0 is
labeled 11JAWS. The only shortcut on my desktop right now that starts with
the letter "J" is Jaws 12.0.
Rationale is that when you have no speech, and you're on the desktop
(Windows+M to get there) the only shortcut that will be selected when you
press the letter "J" is the version of JAWS you want to launch. Then
pressing Enter will launch exactly what you intended.
3. Now arrange your shortcuts. The next time you're on your desktop, make
sure none of the shortcuts are selected. Press Ctrl Spacebar until you hear
"not selected". Then press the Applications key (or Shift F10) and in the
context menu, arrow right on the "arrange icons by" submenu, and press Enter
on Name. This will sort all your shortcuts alphabetically by their labels
(Except for those aforementioned special shortcuts that stick in the
upper-left corner).
4. Check all your JAWS shortcut properties and make sure that the one you
always want to launch by default has a hotkey Ctrl Alt J. Make sure that no
other desktop shortcuts have that hotkey. Assign other hotkeys if you wish,
but have one and only one with Ctrl Alt J. A nice program to list all your
hotkeys is Hotkey Detective, which I believe is still found on the jfwlite
web page, under programs.
5. Finally create a "Kill JAWS" desktop shortcut. To do this, locate the
file "jfwkill.exe" somewhere in your folders under Program Files. Others on
this list have given instructions in the past on how to set up this
shortcut, so I'll defer to them. However when you've created it, make sure
it's the only shortcut on your desktop starting with the letter "K". I won't
repeat myself as to why, just go back and read the rationale above. Kill
JAWS is very handy to have when you've lost speech, and you can't seem to
launch a darn thing. And even Narrator doesn't tell you much. Happens to me
on every even-numbered day in any month with an odd number of days. The
first solution I try in these cases is to Kill JAWS. I don't bother with a
hotkey for this one, since I'm never confident that a hotkey will work when
things are all jammed up. However I've found that Windows+M will give me my
desktop and pressing K and then Enter will kill the recalcitrant JAWS so I
can resume working.
6. If all else fails when things are totally buggerd, then I reach for the
power button and hold it down for 5 seconds, take a sip of tea, and then
turn on the computer again.
Dave
Created in the Audio Recording and Mixing Studios, San Jose, California
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