Hi Kimsan,
Here is an answer I received after asking pretty much the same question.
It sounds like you are asking for general information that explains what
toolbars are and how to access them using JAWS.
I will use Microsoft Word for examples, but the information below does not
apply to Microsoft Word 2007.
In addition to having a menu bar, many programs also have one or more
toolbars that are generally found near the top of the program's window. The
toolbars give people the ability to use a mouse to click on a function that
they want to do instead of having to search through levels of menus or
dialog boxes to perform the functions. The toolbars are usually positioned
horizontally from left to right and quite often are positioned just under
the menu bar. There are programs that have toolbars positioned vertically.
A toolbar can have several small graphical pictures and might or might not
be labeled with text labels. An example of a toolbar is the standard
toolbar in Microsoft Word. A few of the choices on the standard toolbar are
"New blank document", Open, save, print, "mail recipient", "spell checking"
among others. Mouse users can move the mouse across the toolbar and click
on the choice for the function they want performed.
There are many toolbars included in some programs. Quite often toolbars can
be made active by going under a view menu with Alt-V, using the up or down
arrow to find the toolbar choice, using right arrow to move into the toolbar
submenu and then using up or down arrows to find the toolbar you want. In
Microsoft Word there will be several toolbars. If you want to work with
forms then press enter on the forms toolbar choice. If you want to work
with drawing tools then press enter on that choice. The standard and
formatting toolbars in Microsoft Word should be left checked. When using up
or down arrows through the toolbars submenu listen for whether an item is
checked or not. If it is checked it is already active and in use. Simply
press enter on a choice to reverse the status, in other words if it says
checked and you press enter you will remove the toolbar from the screen and
visa versa.
In Microsoft Word to access a toolbar that is active first press Alt or Alt
with an underlined letter on the menu bar to move to the menus. After
moving to the menu bar use the keystroke CTRL+tab to cycle between available
toolbars and the menu bar. You will learn which choices are on what
toolbars and what to listen for to know it is the toolbar you want. For
example, you listen for "New blank document" to know you are on the standard
toolbar.
Once on the toolbar you want you can use right and left arrows to move
across the toolbar. Pressing enter on a choice performs the function. For
example, if you right arrow across the standard toolbar to the "E-mail
recipient" button and press enter, the headers to fill in for your E-mail
message will appear.
In HTML formatted E-mail, help systems, Internet browsers like Internet
Explorer, etc., you access an active toolbar by using Insert-F8, (the insert
key on the number pad when the numlock key is off with the function key 8).
When the toolbar appears then you can up and down arrow to choices.
It is important to remember that most things a person uses the toolbars for
can be accomplished by using menus or with hotkeys. This isn't always true
though.
This has been a quick general overview or synopsis of what a toolbar is
and how to access toolbars using JAWS. Let me know if I can clarify any of
the points I made.
Brian Lee
[email protected]
One point that I would like to add is that some tool bars are floating tool
bars. This means that they will appear some place on the screen other then
under the menu bar or the standard tool bar, and these floating toolbars
move. You can still navigate to them as described in Brian's excellent
post. Sometimes these floating tool bars can cause JAWS to have problems
reading the contents of your screen.
HTH,
Annette
Hello,
Press Jaws key+F8 different items will come out regarding the program that
you use.
In Internet Explorer the insert+F8 only brings up the IE toolbar. The
insert-F8 keystroke is generally mapped to the function for showing the
active application's toolbar. Sometimes by moving to the top of a web page
using CTRL+home keys, routing JAWS to virtual PC, doing a page up and then
moving down a line at a time with the down arrow key will find other
toolbars. If you do find your toolbar then you can move a word at a time
across it using CTRL+right arrow until you find the tool you want to click.
Use a left mouse click emulation by using the insert+slash keys on the
numpad when numlock is off. After clicking on the choice remember to put
the virtual PC cursor on again.
Some one else might have a better way to access other toolbars in Internet
Explorer. The above sometimes works for me and sometimes doesn't work.
To perform the above functions if you have a laptop using the laptop
keyboard configuration, use the caps lock key instead of the insert. A left
mouse click can be done with caps lock and the number 8. Moving a word at a
time when JAWS cursor is active can be done with caps lock and L. Routing
JAWS to PC or virtual cursors is done with caps lock+left bracket keys.
Activating PC or virtual cursors is done with caps lock semicolon.
Brian Lee
[email protected]
Now, with Office, you can access toolbars by first opening the Office
programme's menu bar with alt, then do a control tab. If your PC
dings instead, it means no toolbars are showing. Next, you can tab
and shift tab to cycle through the buttons and what not, and do what
you would normally do when navigating dialogue boxes. Hope that helps.
Hi, toolbars are objects that you can click on with the mouse.
They're usually represented by an icon that can be clicked. They're
not all that accessible, however some software include tooltips, text
that appears when you hover your mouse over a toolbar icon. To use a
toolbar, find a toolbar icon that you want using your JAWS cursor (it
might either say graphic xxx, where xxx is a 3-digit number), or text
associated with that toolbar icon, such as "bold", and do a left
mouse click with num pad slash. Hope that helps.
Hi, a correction. Insert num pad slash will in fact lock the left
mouse button down. Pressing again will unlock it. This is not what
you want; just press num pad slash on its own for a left click.
Hope this helps. Take care.
Mike
----- Original Message -----
From: Kimsan
To: [email protected]
Sent: Thursday, October 15, 2009 4:15 PM
Subject: [JAWS-Users] definition of a toolbar
Hi,
I looked up on wikipedia for the definition of a tool bar and I am still
trying to figure it out. I'm not talking about the google toolbar add bar
toolbar, just a definition of a tool bar.
Finally, does a desktop have a toolbar, if so how would I access it, does
the start menue have a toolbar, how would I access it.
I thought I would ask someone here who would speak the jaws lingo.
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/
