Hartgen Consultancy Training Presents Domain Specific JAWS Scripts in a Nutshell.

At the time of writing, JAWS version 17 is about to be released. It contains a feature allowing you to create script files for a specific domain to be accessed via a web browser. What does this actually mean?

Many applications in places of employment are hosted using a web browser, such as Microsoft Internet Explorer. In theory, this has an advantage for visually impaired people, as it makes it a little easier to read all the information available. A database may be a good example, since the details can be read and information found quickly. With a standalone application outside a web browser, it may have been necessary to use the JAWS cursor or similar, depending upon how accessible the application was.

The difficulty is that finding exactly what you want on a large webpage, or accessing various toolbars and tab controls, may not be quite as fast as you would like, especially if you have not received training on the various tips and tricks to quickly navigate such pages and get the most from them. Having a set of scripts created for such an application or website could mean that information could be automatically spoken in specific situations, keystrokes could be created to move to commonly used areas, or JAWS could be programmed to search pages for specific text and carry out an action accordingly.

A person who is able to write scripts for applications can now do so for specific domains. In point of fact, you have been able to do this for a very long time, but Freedom Scientific have made the process far easier. In this article, I am going to describe how you might go about linking a set of scripts to a domain.

While there is an example in the JAWS Help (along with a set of test scripts) to teach you how to create some customisations for Microsoft Sharepoint, this will only be of benefit if you have Sharepoint! I have created a set of scripts for Google to allow you to validate the test. Don't get too excited, there's not a great deal in the scripts themselves.

1. Download the JAWS Scripts for Google.
2. Extract the archive into your JAWS Settings/ENU (or language) folder. This is typically located from the Start Menu, All Programs, JAWS 17, Utilities JAWS 17, Explore My Settings.
3. Examine the folder and you should find two files, entitled "BHGoogle.JSB" and "BHGoogle.JSS".
4. You will also find another file called ConfigNames.ini. This is a critical file.
5. In the ConfigNames.ini file, you will find a line which says "[Domains]", and underneath a line which reads "www.google.co.uk=BHGoogle". In my example, the website address relates to the Google domain, then there is an equals sign, then finally, the name of the script set is referenced, which is "BHGoogle".

That is all there is to it. You should find now that when you browse to the Google website, you will hear the word, "Hello", automatically spoken. This indicates that the scripts are running, as I have inserted a statement using the AutoStartEvent function which triggers whenever Google gets the focus. You can also press Insert+Q which will advise you that the Google scripts are in operation. Finally, if you press Insert+0 to activate the Script Manager, you will see the code for the Google scripts.

So in summary, create a set of scripts for the website or application. Next, create the corresponding entry as detailed above (or in the sample) pointing to the domain. That's it.

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Happy scripting!