Rose, Although retired now, I hear you on this. I used to get very frustrated at work that technology would be available with JAWS but couldn't implement at work to do what JAWS (job access with speech) was designed to do. It also gets frustrating having one version at home and another at work as key strokes are different as well as a boat load of other things. Wish employers would keep their stuff up to date so the technology would work.
Al -----Original Message----- From: jaws-users-list-boun...@jaws-users.com [mailto:jaws-users-list-boun...@jaws-users.com]On Behalf Of Rose Combs Sent: Wednesday, September 14, 2011 8:32 PM To: jaws-users-list@jaws-users.com Subject: Re: [JAWS-Users] JAWS 13 Impressions Well, when I opened quick settings in Outlook 2010 I expected to be where I could check to read all messages, instead I was in some word settings, finally I found what I wanted which is to have Jaws read messages when I open an e-mail, in my humble opinion this should be the default and the speed should never be at 15%. Waiting for it to get to the point where I can change it to 40% makes me a little crazy. Unfortunately, I have only been home from work for a bit so I have not tried more than Outlook 2010 so far. Still using Jaws 9 at work due to some scripting that we don't think would transition well, so the convenient OCR which I would love to have at work where they think taking a picture is great and where I have no OCR at all won't be of as much use to me where I need it the most. Any way I could move that into 9? I am only wishing, I really do not expect an answer. Rose Combs roseco...@q.com -----Original Message----- From: jaws-users-list-boun...@jaws-users.com [mailto:jaws-users-list-boun...@jaws-users.com] On Behalf Of Grant Hardy Sent: Wednesday, September 14, 2011 4:07 PM To: jaws-users-list@jaws-users.com Subject: [JAWS-Users] JAWS 13 Impressions Convenient OCR I was a little skeptical about how useful the convenient OCR feature would be for me, but ten minutes with JAWS 13 made me realize that it will be a fantastic addition to my screen reading toolbox! One place I found it to be of tremendous use was in Windows Media Center. I do use my computer as my primary means for accessing TV channels, but while Windows Media Center works well when you're changing channels, exploring the guide, or scheduling and reviewing recordings, in general, informational messages displayed on the screen are not accessible. For example, in all the setup wizards, you can view the choices such as yes or no, but not the information on what exactly it's asking. That means before now, if you wanted to get an accurate idea of which settings you were changing in Media Center, or access any advanced features, you needed to have sighted help. I am pleased to say that the Convenient OCR feature did a great job in this respect. There were a few clerical errors in the results, as is common for most text recognition engines, but it made every single screen in Media Center accessible to me. I'll now be able to use it, as well as many other formerly inaccessible applications, independently. Many people have stated that Convenient OCR won't perform very well when you want to recognize large passages of text; unfortunately, I think that is a completely accurate criticism. Where Convenient OCR shines, in my view, is the ability to interact dynamically with the OCR results. For example, suppose you took a screenshot of your DVD's menu and performed OCR on it within openbook or Kurzweil 1000. You might get accurate results, but it would be hard to do anything with them. With Convenient OCR you'll be able to mouse-click on specific portions of the text as though you were clicking on part of the menu. This is where Convenient OCR excels. I must say I find the default OCR voice to be a little bit silly, though of course that is easily changed from within Settings Center. In my case I simply deleted then re-created the voice alias, so that it would use my current voice and not alter it. JAWS Cursor support in Internet Explorer 9 I was pleased to learn that JAWS 13 includes full support for the use of the JAWS Cursor in Internet Explorer 9, but I'm sad to say that this still doesn't work for me. Attempting to use the JAWS cursor on any website within IE9 results in a blank message being spoken, or the computer hanging for several seconds. I have reported this issue to Freedom Scientific. JAWS Quick Settings Of course JAWS quick settings isn't a true "feature" - it's merely a reorganization of something that was always present in JAWS. That said, I do find the new Quick Settings to be a more consolidated and logical approach than the three separate dialogs (adjust JAWS options, braille settings, and personalized web settings) that used to exist in prior versions of JAWS. Results Viewer This increased flexibility for reading certain virtual screens within JAWS is certainly welcome-though given that it only supports a few designated screens (research it, skim reading, and custom summary-none of which I really need full HTML support for) it's hard to get too excited about the feature. I'm hopeful that script developers will find some interesting and creative uses for the feature, though to be honest I'd be surprised if the average user experienced any incredible increase in efficiency because of the feature. JAWS Find with context-specific history Again, I see this more as an "enhancement" than a feature, but it'll be nice to have a more relevant display of search history items. For example, on a frequently-visited forums website I have a couple different search strings that I utilize to navigate to specific parts of the forums, but of course those aren't relevant when I'm reading Email or another website. Now I'll be able to access only search history items that are relevant at a given moment. It may well be a good idea, with this increased organization of search history, to increase the list of saved searches well past twenty-five. Table layer keystrokes It seems to me that Freedom Scientific could simply introduce a feature where users could add or modify the behavior of layered keystrokes, rather than doing so in each JAWS version and selling it as a feature. Mute speech (layer + S) and these table navigation commands could have all been added by an intermediate JAWS user himself if the option was available in the keyboard manager. Microsoft Word improvements While I haven't done anything to test this empirically, it really does seem to me that I experience a snappier and more accurate experience as I navigate Word - good job! Other thoughts When I was reading the full list of new features, my first thought was "that's it?" Given the history of pretty radical upgrades to JAWS with dozens of new features, I found this version to be a bit underwhelming in that regard. In FSCast it is also mentioned that for the time being sports scores will continue to be unsupported within Research It. I was afraid of this when Research It was released. It relies upon dynamically changing websites and applications to deliver its results, and that's a problem unless you're inclined to take the time and modify your code so that Research It will stay up to date. It seems to me that in most cases it would be best to simply bookmark a web page or install a sidebar gadget to accomplish the same task. That said, I feel that JAWS 13 offers enough, particularly the Convenient OCR feature, that it merits giving it a spin! What do others think? Grant For answers to frequently asked questions about this list visit: http://www.jaws-users.com/help/ For answers to frequently asked questions about this list visit: http://www.jaws-users.com/help/ For answers to frequently asked questions about this list visit: http://www.jaws-users.com/help/
