06 JAWS Help This learning module is entitled JAWS for Windows Help. In this lesson, you will learn how to access the help you need, depending on your situation. You will learn about different types of user help available in dialog boxes, and programs for which application-specific help has been written. You will also learn how to use keyboard help to familiarize yourself with your keyboard layout. JAWS for Windows provides several help options that are available to you at any time when using the JAWS for Windows screen reader. The most basic help option is called Keyboard Help. This help option may be toggled on or off at any time, no matter what application has the current focus. When toggled on, Keyboard Help allows you to explore the keyboard without affecting the program, which you're currently working in. So, if you're new to JAWS for Windows or computers in general, Keyboard Help will allow you to quickly locate various characters on your keyboard, and help you review JAWS commands. The JAWS keystroke used to toggle Keyboard help on and off is the INSERT + ONE on your numbers row. That is, the number ONE just above and slightly left to the letter Q on your main keyboard. I'll go ahead and press this keystroke now. Keyboard Help on. JAWS speaks, Keyboard Help on. Now I'm in a position where I can press any key on my keyboard and JAWS will either announce what that key is, or, for more complex keys, will announce that keystroke and then give you a detailed description on what that keystroke does. For example, now that we've got Keyboard Help turned on, I'm going to press the number FIVE on my numeric keypad. Numpad five. Says the character at the active cursor. Obviously, this is a JAWS command. If I press any other key on the keyboard that is not associated with a JAWS keystroke, you will just simply hear that keystroke echoed. For example if I press the letter "d" JAWS says "d" or the letter "t" JAWS says "t" you simply hear those keystrokes echoed. However, if I press another JAWS keystroke, the SayLine keystroke, which is INSERT+UPARROW, JAWS speaks message here... you hear a different description. Notice that JAWS gives you feedback on these keystrokes even though some of these keystrokes may not directly be related to JAWS. Some keys, like the letter A or the SPACEBAR or the letter d and those types of keys have no description attached to them, since their function is obvious. Some keys do not echo anything at all. Those include: CTRL, SHIFT, ALT, and Windows Keys. At this time, I'd like you to stop the lesson and spend some time exploring your keyboard. If, for any reason, you want to exit from keyboard help, simply press INSERT+ONE on the numbers row again and you will hear JAWS say, "Keyboard help off." While exploring, if you're using a desktop keyboard, pay extra attention to your numeric keypad. In a future lesson, you're going to be learning how to navigate a document using that numeric keypad. I'll be referring to the numeric keypad as the NUM PAD in later lessons. Please stop the lesson now and join me again after you've spent some time exploring your keyboard with keyboard help on. Now that you've explored your keyboard, you can toggle Keyboard Help off with the same keystroke that you used to turn it on, INSERT + ONE on your numbers row. I'll go ahead and do this now. Keyboard Help off. By default, JAWS for Windows is set at a beginner level of verbosity. The other two verbosity settings are intermediate and advanced. We'll be discussing the adjust JAWS verbosity in a later lesson. I'm only bringing it up now because when JAWS speaks at beginner level you will get more spoken information than you will with the other two verbosity choices. In essence, there are three different ways to find help in JAWS. The first one is for screen sensitive help. Press INSERT + F1. Provided that the software that you are running uses what are known as standard Microsoft foundation classes, or if you're using one of the several popular off-the-shelf applications for which JAWS configuration scripts have been designed, INSERT + F1 will give you help based on your location within the current application. Let's make sure that we're all at the same place by pressing LEFT WINDOWS+M, as we did before to reach our Desktop. LEFT WINDOWS+M. Minimize all apps, Desktop, list view not selected My computer, one of eleven. To move to items, use the arrow keys. Now, my application focus is currently on the Windows Desktop list view. I'm going to press INSERT + F1 to hear what screen sensitive help has to say about my Desktop list view. The Desktop list view contains application icons and Desktop items. Press the first letter of the desired item to move to it. Press ENTER to open or start it. Press the WINDOWS key to open the Start Menu. Link list JAWS hotkeys. Link list Windows hotkeys. Press ESCAPE to close this message. We are now at the bottom of a separate pop-up window that describes the Desktop. We are able to move around in this screen, using our UP, DOWN, LEFT, and RIGHT ARROWS, and can use any of our JAWS reading commands to repeat the information presented here. Also, two of the lines in this message begin with the word "Link." This is an indication that, if ENTER is pressed while you are on one of these lines, a new topic will appear. As you heard, pressing ESCAPE will exit from this message. Also, remember the "Show Virtual Viewer on screen," choice we examined in Basic Settings dialog from the JAWS User Interface. These are the help messages that, depending on this choice, will or will not be displayed on your screen. The default is for these messages to be visible on the screen. While the screen sensitive help is being shown, or even if you choose to hide this text that you are reading, we are now using what is called the “Virtual Viewer”. The Virtual Viewer uses our Virtual Cursor that allows you to select text and copy it to the clipboard and then paste it into another document. This gives you the ability to read these help messages at your leisure, spell words that may be unfamiliar to you, and even copy these help messages to another program, for example, to convert the text for Braille output or for other training materials you may find helpful. *** started here 12/27/02 I'm now going to press ESCAPE to exit from this message. ESCAPE. Not selected, my computer, one of eleven. Another help item mentioned when we first launched the JAWS for Windows program is hot key help, which is activated by pressing INSERT + H. I'm going to press the keystroke and shortly thereafter, I will press the CONTROL key to silence speech. Feel free to stop the lesson and listen to this message fully, and then resume the lesson. I'll press INSERT+ H now. Here are some JAWS hot keys for general use: description hot key Screen Sensitive Help JAWSKey+f1 Windows tips on navigation JAWSKey+w Reed window title press JAWSKey+t Activate the JAWS window JAWSKey+j Minimize all applications and move to the desktop WINDOWS KEY+M or JAWSKey+f6 Close JAWS at any time JAWSKey+f4 Access the JAWS search dialog Control+JAWSKey+f Toggle verbosity levels JAWSKey+v Restrict the JAWS Cursor JAWSKey+r Reed a Dialog Box in Tab Order JAWSKey+b Refresh screen JAWSKey+escape Open JAWS Help for specific applications, press and hold INSERT, then press F1 twice quickly Open a JAWS utility such as Configuration Manager or Keyboard Manager JAWSKey+f2. Explain that the JAWS key is simply the modifier key. By default it is the insert key, but it can be changed by the user to CAPS LOCK or SCROLL LOCK in the JAWS configuration manager. OK, I pressed the CONTROL key there to silence speech. Here, once again, we're able to move about in this window, read various sections, and press ENTER on any links that may be present. Later on in this tutorial, we'll discuss how information is selected, copied and/or moved, formatted, and so on. For now, let's press ESCAPE again to exit from this screen. ESCAPE. Not selected, my computer, one of eleven. One last command, which I won't demonstrate here, is INSERT+W. When pressed, JAWS will provide us with some standard Windows keyboard commands, many of which we have already used. As before, you can review the text that is presented, and would simply press ESCAPE to exit from this help screen. Now let's go to the JAWS application window and find what kind of help we get from within the JAWS Help menu. I'll press INSERT + J to bring the JAWS window back into focus. JAWS. Now, I'm going to activate the JAWS pull down Help menu by pressing the key combination of ALT + H, as in "help". ALT+H. Menu active. Help JAWS Help topics. F1. To move through items, press UP or DOWN ARROW, J. The JAWS Help pull down menu has been activated and we hear that JAWS Help topics is the first selected item in this particular menu. F1 indicates that if we had just pressed the F1 key to begin with, we would end up in the dialog that we're going to go to when we press the ENTER key. Also, the Access Key, letter J was announced. Now, I'm going to press ENTER. ENTER. Leaving menus. Tree view, introduction book closed, one of ten. To move through or expand items, use the arrow keys. Here we are in what's called the Help Contents dialog, and we're given some instructions on how to proceed. The control that our focus is placed on is a book in the tree view called Introduction. This book is currently closed. To confirm this, press the SayLine command, INSERT+UP ARROW, or INSERT+NUM PAD 8. Introduction book closed, one of ten. I can open this book by pressing the RIGHT ARROW key. I'll do this now. Introduction book open, two items. We hear that this book is now open, and that it contains two items. Let's explore this book by pressing the DOWN ARROW key, and listen to what's here. Level one, Topic welcome, one of two. Here's the welcome topic. You also heard that we moved to a new level in the tree view. In this case, we moved from level 0 to level 1. That's why this list is referred to as a tree view. Whenever a book is opened, all of its topics are indented on the screen, or, as JAWS says, placed on a new level. Levels are numbered sequentially, starting with zero. *** stopped here for test with Juliet If I press DOWN ARROW again, we'll move to the second help topic within the book "Introduction". Topic "What's New in JAWS?" As I press UP ARROW, I will eventually end up back on level 0 on the item "introduction book open". I'll demonstrate this by pressing the UP ARROW. Level zero, introduction book open, two items. We're back at the left hand side of the screen now. If I press the LEFT ARROW, this book would be closed, and all of its associated topics or other books at the next level would not be shown. I'll demonstrate this now, by pressing LEFT ARROW one more time. Introduction book closed, one of nine. Now, I'll press the DOWN ARROW. New Users Start Here, book closed, two of ten. And, as expected, we went down to the next book in this list. I'm going to press the RIGHT ARROW to open the New Users Start Here book, and continue down this list and look at all of the topics inside our second book. New Users Start Here As you can hear from this last line, books can themselves contain other books. These books can also be opened by pressing the RIGHT ARROW key, and closed by pressing LEFT ARROW key. I'm going to press DOWN ARROW again. Level zero, Keystrokes book closed, three of nine. We are, once again, at the left-hand side of the screen on level zero. Let's press the HOME key to move back up to the top of the tree view and our Introduction book, and then we'll press ENTER or RIGHT ARROW to open it. First, I'll press the HOME key. Introduction Book closed, one of ten. Now I'll press RIGHT ARROW to open it. Introduction Book opened, two items. Press DOWN ARROW and you will hear JAWS say: Level one, topic Welcome, one of two. Now that we are on the topic called “Welcome” we will want to read it. First, press the ENTER key to bring this topic into view. The Help system is in HTML format. The tree view is on the left hand side and when you press ENTER on a topic, that topic's text appears in the right hand side of the help window. In order to read the selected help topic, you need to press function key F6 to move to the right hand side of the help screen, where the help information appears. I'll do this now. First I'll press ENTER to bring this topic into view. Now I'll press F6 to move to the screen on the right and read the help message. F6. Welcome, page has one link. Welcome. About JAWS for Windows. JAWS for Windows is the text to speech solution for blind or visually impaired individuals working in the rapidly growing computer industry. With JAWS, a blind user can have virtually as much functionality as a sighted user, and can perform the same tasks as fast, or in some cases, faster than a sighted person with the use of JAWS keystrokes. The JAWS text to speech software engine is amazingly clear and accurate, and the speed of speech can be adjusted to the skill level of the user. I silenced speech by pressing CONTROL. Although the text on the screen is different, the way it works should now should be very familiar to you. As before, you can freely arrow about, skip paragraphs which do not interest you, follow indicated links by pressing ENTER when you are on them, and even select and copy text that you may wish to print or have embossed into Braille. But, how do we get out of this screen, and get back to our tree view and table of contents? It's very easy, just press F6 again. F6. Tree view, topic welcome, one of two. To move through or expand items, use the arrow keys. As you hear, we have been placed back in our tree view. So, reviewing the new commands we covered, you can open a book by pressing RIGHT ARROW. You can close a book by pressing LEFT ARROW. An individual topic can be selected by pressing ENTER, and can then be read by pressing F6. F6 should be pressed again once you're done reading this topic and wish to return to the tree view and table of contents. Here are some commands to remember and learn about using JAWS help. While in the table of contents, you can quickly jump to a topic of interest by repeatedly pressing its first letter until it appears. You can back out of a level by pressing BACKSPACE. The HOME key can be used to move directly to the top of the table of contents, and pressing the END key can be used to move to the bottom of the tree view. When you are finished using help, you can press ALT+F4 to exit. Before we exit help, I'd still like to look at one more topic. We should still be over the Welcome topic. Instead of just pressing DOWN ARROW to find it, I'll press the letter P. P. Level zero, Popular Applications With JAWS, book closed, six of ten. I did this to demonstrate how a first letter could be used to quickly skip through a list. Of course, using this shortcut means you have to be familiar with the list of topics. Now, press the RIGHT ARROW key. JAWS says, "Popular Applications With JAWS, book open, followed by the number of topics in the tree view beneath this book. So, JAWS comes with specific help for at least ## commonly used Windows programs. The program I want to investigate is the one we'll be demonstrating later in this tutorial called HJ Pad. Press the letter H now. H. Topic HJ Pad, 16 of 43 Let's hear what JAWS can tell us about this program. Press ENTER, and then F6. ENTER. Topic HJ Pad, 16 of 43 F6. JAWS should begin a SayAll automatically. However, you may have to press INSERT+DOWN ARROW, the JAWS command for SayAll, and you will hear the help topic for HJ Pad read as follows: HJ Pad. The topics listed below are for use with HJ Pad with JAWS for Windows. Freedom Scientific has developed HJ Pad, a training tool for JAWS users. HJ Pad is a basic word processor that ships with JAWS. Much of the basic training tutorial has been built around the HJ Pad application as it provides a secure environment for learning basic Windows concepts. Link JAWS Specific Keystrokes. I pressed CONTROL to silence speech. If I had actually been in the HJ Pad program, and pressed the key combination of INSERT + F1 twice in rapid succession, this very same Help screen would then have come up. This is known as application-specific help. This is helpful information you may need to know about using a particular application with JAWS for Windows. I'm going to press ALT+F4 to close the help topics and return to the JAWS main application window. JAWS. The last thing that I'm going to show you in this section is a JAWS help menu item called About JAWS for Windows. The About JAWS for Windows screen contains information about the JAWS for Windows program, such as authors, copyright information, a version number, and information about you. Here you will also hear your serial number, the version of JAWS you are currently using, and whether or not you are a software maintenance agreement holder. It is very helpful to have this information handy, if you ever need to place a phone call to Freedom Scientific's technical support or sales teams. About JAWS for Windows help can be found in the Help pull down menu. I'm going to activate that menu with an ALT + H now. Alt H. Menu active. Help. JAWS Help Topics. F1. To move through items, press UP or DOWN ARROW, J. At this point, I can either press DOWN ARROW until I land on the menu item About JAWS for Windows and press the ENTER key or simply press the letter A. Go ahead and stop the tape for a moment and follow the method above so that you can listen to this help menu item now. Once you're finished listening to it, simply press the ESCAPE key and return to the JAWS window. End of JAWS for Windows Help. 17 06 JAWS Help