For Doug Lee:
I have the repetition problem in ms-outlook as well. I didn't know how to
describe the problem so I didn't mention it. I figured I hadn't set
something right somewhere but I didn't consider it bothersome enough to
research. Maybe the punctuation could be somehow included as part of the
word. Glad you mentioned this.
Bob Smith
-----Original Message-----
From: Doug Lee [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Tuesday, December 21, 1999 11:34 AM
To: JFW mailing list
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: A way to make JAWS and Windows apps agree on what a word is
[Mailed to the JFW users' mailing list and to [EMAIL PROTECTED]]
This is a proposal for a way to get JAWS to quit repeating words
unnecessarily when you use Word-Left and Word-Right commands in Word,
WordPad, or similar applications.
As many of you have surely noticed, JAWS considers a "word" to be all
characters surrounding the active cursor up to the nearest space in both
directions. In other words, JAWS considers blank space to be the only
word delimiter. Windows apps vary on this point: NotePad agrees with
JAWS, while WordPad and Microsoft Word consider punctuation marks to be
delimiters. More accurately (I think), Word and WordPad seem to consider
a "word" to be all characters around the active cursor which are in the
same character class as the character under the active cursor. A string
of punctuation marks, for example, is considered a single word by Word and
WordPad.
How hard would it be to add a configuration option to JFW specifying what
JAWS should call a word? This would then be used on an app-by-app basis
to make JFW aggree with the app, thus avoiding a lot of word repeating
when using word-left and word-right commands. My new students often get
confused when hearing a word two or three times when using word-left and
word-right commands when there is only one copy of the word present in the
document.
Considerations I can imagine: Some users might prefer the current
behavior. Those users could set the new option for each of their favorite
apps such that the behavior remains as it is now. There may be subtle
variations among apps as to what they skip over with word-left and
word-right commands, but I'd hate to require users to list word delimiters
manually. I envision this problem being solved by two new options rather
than one: A user-settable pair of radio buttons, like, "Words stop at
spaces," and, "Words stop at character class changes," and an option in
the JCF file, possibly not directly accessible in the Configuration
Manager, which lists the characters in each class. I suspect this second
option would not need changing much at all and could thus be set by
Henter-Joyce in the shipped product.
Any comments, further suggestions, complaints, etc., to this idea?
--
Doug Lee, Computer Instructor
Blindness: Learning In New Dimensions (BLIND), Inc.
http://www.blindinc.org
-
Visit the jfw ml web page: http://jfw.cjb.net
-
Visit the jfw ml web page: http://jfw.cjb.net
