[jawsscripts] Re: Useing a .jsb file in your default.jss
- From: Andrew Hart <ahart@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: jawsscripts@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2012 10:52:08 -0300
On 24/10/2012 1:18 AM, Geoff Chapman wrote:
[snip]
> Anywayz two things to note.
> 1. Whilst I also dislike the somewhat inconveniently placed
> farReaching hotkey of Jaws+f10, to activate the StartJawsTaskList feature,
> which I use all the time, and thus personally like to assign to alt+CapsLock
> on desktop layout, one down from Alt+Tab etc,
> Did And you've obviously gone for a similar like-geographic memorization
> location for yours, <smile,> did you realize your blocking out the default
> ability of Suspend/resume Tandem, by choosing that Alt+Jaws+Tab Keystroke?
No.
> Maybe you don't use it much though so you don't care?
Exactly. I don't have a Tandem licence and have only ever used Tandem
once with the FS testing department while trying to track down an issue
I'd reported during beta. Plus, I was using the keystroke long before
Tandem existed. However, I could probably eliminate it without too much
pain, as it's not a function I use all that often.
> It permits the controller to flip between moving around their own machine,
> and controlling the target one?
>
> 2. even though you said to ignore that modifiers section in your jkm, That
> looks kinda fascinating to me! Would you care to explain exactly what that
> does and how it's implemented? i.e. I never knew you could have a
> [modifiers] Section in a jkm anywayz? Is this a known/defined thing? And
> what other purposes might it be utilized for, other than your very specific
> one?
That Modifiers section has been in JAWS since version ... oh probably
3.3. You can find it in the shared default.jkm where FS have defined
the behaviour of all modifier keys. I simply copied the comments
describing the syntax of each line of the section and copied the
relevant lines I needed to modify into my local default.jkm file. The
lines I haven't modified get picked up by JAWS from the shared
default.jkm so it works just like the other sections in the jkm file,
that is, user alterations override the corresponding shared setting.
Actually, glancing at the Modifiers section in the shared default.jkm, I
see that FS have changed it so my modifier is no longer working the way
I expect. They have also improved the documentation. I wonder in which
version of JAWS they did all that. It might explain some keyboard
flakiness I've been experiencing for years but have never been able to
nail down enough to warrant the effort of submitting a bug report. I
wish they'd mentioned this change. Before shared settings were
introduced, I would have picked up on this as it was necessary to hack
default.jkm directly every time I installed a new JAWS version, but this
has obviously slipped by me. Thanks for making me look in default.jkm!
*grin* I'm crossing my fingers it helps.
Oh, as to what you can do in the Modifiers section, you could in theory
permute the functions of all the control, alt and shift keys. Also, if
you need to use JAWS one-handed, you could tell JAWS to make the
modifier keys sticky so that you could press a modifier key, let it up,
and then press the base key for the command you want. for example (and
using the notation of keyboard layers), instead of pressing Alt+t, you
could press alt,t to perform some function.
Actually, I suspect this is a legacy feature from before the time when
Windows did not have accessibility features built in. It is probably no
longer necessary these days as Windows has its own sticky keys feature.
Another use is for keyboards where you have two modifier keys, e.g.,
left and right alt, which actually perform different functions. On
English keyboards, the left and right Alt keys do the same thing; each
is merely treated as an Alt key. On some non-English keyboards, The
left alt key behaves as an English speaker would expect, while the right
Alt key is often labelled as "gr" and behaves differently. The gr key
gives you a third layer of symbols on the keyboard (just like the shift
key gives you access to a second layer of simbols). This is because
many non-English keyboards have keys for accents and there simply aren't
enough keys to include all the symbols found on English and non-English
keyboards together. By tweaking the Modifiers section you can tell JAWS
to recognise this difference so that the gr key continues to work
normally and scripts won't get inappropriately fired while you are
trying to access that third layer of symbols. For example, without
telling JAWS about the gr key, you cannot type symbols such as @, | or \
on such keyboards.
Most users shouldn't have to muck around with the Modifiers section. I
imagine it is mainly used for configuring non-English versions of JAWS
for sale in countries using keyboards different from the US standard.
However, since I purchased my copy of JAWS in Australia, but live in
Chile and use JAWS on Spanish language systems from time to time, I
found it necessary to fiddle with the Modifiers section.
Cheers,
Andrew.
__________ï
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