Speech and Sounds Manager

Have you ever wanted to hear things differently, perhaps to speed up your reading? Or perhaps you want to hear items you may be missing that you could read if only you knew they were there? If a button, check box, or other control within a Web page could be identified with a different voice, rather than using extra speech, it would mean you would have less to listen to. The Speech and Sounds Manager lets you use voices, spoken text, or sounds to identify various elements of a Web page. For example, you could use different notes from a piano to indicate different heading levels. You can also assign speech or a sound to specific HTML attributes. Many Web page elements have both ALT and TITLE attributes. JAWS reads the ALT tag by default and you may never know that a title is available. Perhaps the title would give you more information. Alternatively, you might want JAWS to identify bold text on a Web page by reading it in a deep voice. When you use Speech and Sounds Manager to alter the way JAWS reads information, you can store your associations as a scheme that you can apply at any time. You can also easily switch between schemes.

Tip: To change the active scheme, press ALT+INSERT+S. Use the arrow keys to select a new scheme and then press ENTER.

To open the Speech and Sounds Manager, do the following:

  1. Press INSERT+F2.
  2. Select "Configuration Manager" and press ENTER.
  3. From the Set Options menu, choose Speech and Sounds Manager.

Creating a New Scheme

A scheme is a collection of settings that you save as a single group. You can use schemes to quickly customize your JAWS speech and sound settings. For example, you could have one scheme for proofreading Web pages and another for working with Web-based forms. To create a new scheme, do the following:

  1. Open the Speech and Sounds Manager. In the Select Scheme list, make sure that "Classic" is selected before continuing with the exercise. If it is not, press the letter C several times to move through all of the items that start with that letter to find it.
  2. Choose the Create New Scheme button. On the Scheme Description tab there is a description of the scheme that you selected. For now, type something like "My new scheme" and then choose the OK button.
  3. Give the new scheme a name, such as "My Test Scheme," and press ENTER.
  4. Press ALT+S to save the current scheme.
  5. Choose the OK button to close the Speech and Sounds Manager.
  6. Press ALT+F4 to close Configuration Manager. Save your changes if you are asked to do so.

The Edit Scheme dialog box is a multi-page dialog box composed of several different tabs. In the next exercise you will take a look at the dialog box in more detail using the scheme you just created. You can use the tabs in the Edit Scheme dialog box to assign speech or a sound to almost any element that JAWS recognizes.

  1. Open the Speech and Sounds Manager again. If you are continuing this exercise immediately after the previous exercise, your new scheme will be the active scheme in the Select Scheme list. If it is not, find it in the list of available schemes before continuing.
  2. Choose the Edit Current Scheme button. You are in the Edit Scheme dialog box for your new scheme, on the General tab where you entered a description previously. You can modify this text any time by repeating these steps to get here.
  3. Press CTRL+TAB to move to the Control Type tab.
  4. Use the UP or DOWN ARROW keys to move through and explore the list of control types. Notice that all of the controls are set to speak the control type using the normal voice.
  5. For the time being, continue to press CTRL+TAB and explore all of the tabs in this dialog box. There are tabs you can use to modify the way JAWS reads control states, attributes, font names, font sizes, colors, indentation, HTML attributes, and more. Eventually, you will come back to the General tab.
  6. If you plan to continue with the next series of instructions, you can leave this dialog box open. If not, choose the Cancel button. Close the Speech and Sounds Manager, and then close Configuration Manager.

Assigning Sounds to HTML Elements

In this section, you will change your scheme so it associates a sound with an HTML element. To begin, open the Speech and Sounds Manager if necessary and make sure you select the scheme you created. Then, choose the Edit Scheme button and do the following:

  1. Press CTRL+TAB until you move to the Control Type tab. This list contains many different control types that you might encounter in Windows programs or on HTML pages.
  2. Press L until you select "Link."
  3. Press ALT+P to select the Play Sound radio button, and then press ALT+W to choose Select Wave File.
  4. Press D until you select the "DeadBoltClose" sound. Press ALT+P to hear a preview of this sound. After you have previewed this sound, press ENTER.
  5. Choose the OK button. Then, close the Speech and Sounds Manager and Configuration Manager. Be sure to save all of your changes.
  6. Open the sample Web page Jim's Cafe at Innisport.
  7. Press ALT+INSERT+S to open the Select a Scheme dialog box. Find your scheme in the list and press ENTER. Use the U and V keys to move through the links on the page. Notice how JAWS plays the sound you selected before reading each link.

Experiment with the other HTML elements available in the Speech and Sounds Manager. You can assign sounds to headings, form controls, graphics, frames, image maps, tables, and more.

Ignoring HTML Attributes

What if you don't want to hear some attributes that JAWS speaks on Web pages? For example, perhaps you don't want to hear JAWS say, "OnMouseOver," when you encounter an OnMouseOver link. JAWS version 5.10 adds the the ability to ignore HTML attributes.

To ignore an HTML attribute, do the following:

  1. In Speech and Sounds Manager, select the scheme you want to modify in the Select Scheme list. Then activate the Edit Scheme button.
  2. Press CTRL+TAB to move to the HTML tab. This tab contains a list of HTML attributes that have already been defined. OnMouseOver is one of these, but if you can choose the Add button to add a new attribute to this list. For this exercise, press DOWN ARROW until you select "OnMouseOver" in the list.
  3. Press the TAB key one time to move to a group of radio buttons. Press DOWN ARROW to move to and select the Ignore radio button.
  4. Press ENTER to close the Edit Scheme dialog box.
  5. Save the scheme and close Speech and Sounds Manager and Configuration Manager. Choose Yes when you are asked to save your changes.

Using Voice Aliases

You can use voice aliases to have JAWS announce certain items, attributes, or states in a different voice. In this section, you will assign a voice alias to bold text. To begin, open the Speech and Sounds Manager and then do the following:

  1. In the Select Scheme list, select the scheme you created earlier, and then choose the Edit Current Scheme button.
  2. Press CTRL+TAB until you move to the Attributes tab. You are in a list of attributes. This list contains one definition for the Default setting, which is set to ignore attributes.
  3. Press ALT+A to choose the Add button.
  4. Press ALT+B to move to and select the Bold check box, and then choose Next.
  5. Press DOWN ARROW to move to and select the Speak Item Text Using Voice radio button, and then choose Next.
  6. Use the arrow keys to select the "BoldVoice" voice alias, and then choose Finish.
  7. Close the Speech and Sounds Manager and Configuration Manager. Be sure to save all of your changes.

You may need to switch to your new scheme to test your voice alias. Press ALT+INSERT+S to open the Select a Scheme dialog box and choose your scheme. Test it by reading some of the lines of text on this page that have bold text. JAWS should read those words in a deeper voice. This makes it very easy to determine exactly which words appear in bold text.

Speech and Sounds Manager Training Mode

Introduced in JAWS 5.10, training mode helps you familiarize yourself with how the active scheme uses sounds to provide information. When training mode is on, JAWS announces detailed information for items, states, and attributes as well as the sounds assigned to them in the active scheme. You hear the sound, and then JAWS announces the same information you hear when using the "Classic" scheme.

Tip: Training mode also announces information for items, states, and attributes that the active scheme ignores.

Since the sound assignments made by the scheme's creator may not be immediately obvious, training mode can help you determine the purpose of each sound. For example, if a scheme uses two different sounds to indicate the state of a check box, you might not be able to tell which sound indicates that the check box is selected. If training mode is on, JAWS plays the sound and then says, "checked" or "not checked."

To turn training mode on or off:

  1. Press ALT+INSERT+S.
  2. To turn training mode on, select "Toggle Speech and Sounds Training Mode On" and press ENTER. If you want to turn training mode off, select "Toggle Speech and Sounds Training Mode Off" and press ENTER.

Tip: If you are using JAWS 5.1 or later, you can use Settings Packager to share your schemes with other JAWS users. For more information on this program, see Settings Packager.

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