While I don't own a current JAWS license here at home, we do have a
current license at work, which I use for certain work-related tasks
including training. This means that my overall use of JAWS has
diminished over the past few years and so sometimes there are issues or
bugs which I may not notice as quickly as I might with the software I
use at home.
One of the nice things about JAWS is its incredible keyboard
responsiveness. Whether you use Eloquence or Vocalizer, you hear a key
as soon as it's pressed. When you press the control key, it's pretty
good about stopping immediately. However, just last week I noticed a
glaring exception to this and wonder if others can confirm this.
I was in Outlook, using the down arrow key to browse through the list of
messages in my inbox. While JAWS was reading the name of the sender and
the subject of a message, I pressed the Windows key, intending to open
the start menu. When I did this, I was a bit amazed to hear JAWS
continuing to read the message headers and, only when it was done
reading that line of text, did it say "start menu, search box, edit."
I was intrigued but noticed that this behavior was very consistent. I'd
down arrow to a line of text, then quickly pressed the Windows key but
JAWS would not interrupt the text and would wait until the line of text
was completely spoken before it verified that I was in the start menu. I
don't think this behavior just occurrs in Outlook, either.
This does not happen with most other keys. In other words, if I hear the
message headers, pressing enter stops the speech and begins reading the
message. If JAWS is reading a line of text, I can press an arrow key or
an alphanumeric key and the text is interrupted as one would expect. It
only happens when text is being read and you press the Windows key; the
line of text is not interrupted. I do not know if this happens if you
press the alt key or the applications key but it seems consistent with
the Windows key. When performing the same action using NVDA and
Window-Eyes, the text is immediately halted when the Windows key is
pressed. I saw this behavior with the latest build of JAWS 17. I don't
know if it's done this for years and I just didn't notice it or if it's
a new bug. Have others noticed this?
--
David Goldfield,
Assistive Technology Specialist
Feel free to visit my Web site
WWW.DavidGoldfield.Info
You are invited to visit the moderator's Web site at WWW.DavidGoldfield.Info
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