The Script Manager provides you with all the tools you need to write, modify, and use scripts.
The Script Manager is a full-featured text editor. In addition to the usual features contained in most text editors, it has built in capabilities to help you create scripts. You can insert functions into your new scripts, display reference information about functions and scripts that have already been written, check for errors that violate the rules of correct script writing, and save and compile your script files. In addition to providing full scripting capabilities for JAWS, the Script Manager can also be used to create scripts for the MAGic Pro Scripting Edition.
The Script Manager provides hot keys you can use to read through the scripts in your script file more efficiently. For example, a script file can contain one or more scripts. You can use the function key F2 to move forward from script to script, or SHIFT+F2 to move backward from script to script. You can use the hot key combination, CTRL+L, to display a list of all scripts in the current file in alphabetic order.
When you save your script file in the Script Manager with the keystroke, CTRL+S, the Script Manager automatically performs an additional step not found in other text editors and compiles your script file. Compiling a script converts the file from text to machine-readable information.
The Script Manager saves the original text file with a .jss (JAWS Script Source) file extension, and the compiled or binary version (machine-readable language) is saved with a .jsb (JAWS Script Binary) file extension. This is why it is always important to create and save your script files using the Script Manager. If you edit and save your files using some other text editor such as Notepad, they are not compiled when you save them, and JAWS will be unaware of the changes you have made.
For a list of all keyboard commands available in the Script Manager, see Appendix C: Script Manager Commands.
Chapter 4.0 The Script Manager, contains the following sections:
4.2 Starting the Script Manager
4.4 Finding and Replacing Text