I have a touch screen laptop with no number pad. It's a Lenovo that can actually be turned into a tablet. I have never had any sort of issue with the touch screen making the computer do something I didn't want it to do. I think JAWS changes the way the touch screen works in such a way that you really can't cause yourself problems. The mouse pad is typically the culprit in such accidents rather than the touch screen. I hate large laptops because they're still just too heavy for me. So, I learned to use laptop keystrokes. I guess that's why there are different strokes for different folks as they say.
From: Brian Vogel [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Saturday, January 09, 2016 9:33 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Views on Keyboard Shortcuts to teach or, perhaps, emphasize when teaching On Fri, Jan 8, 2016 at 10:42 pm, David Moore wrote: With people using laptops and tablets, it is important to know the JAWS key commands when JAWS is set to laptop keyboard mode. David, Just based upon my years of teaching JAWS now I have to say the answer to this is really a "yes, and no" proposition. I could never figure out why the laptop keyboard commands never worked on any laptop any client of mine had. It was only very recently, because of a conversation off-forum with a member, that I learned that the laptop versus desktop keyboard is a setting you can tweak and that you could, for instance, force a desktop to use laptop commands if you had learned JAWS using only laptop commands on a number-pad-less laptop. I had originally thought that JAWS would do hardware detection to determine the keyboard layout, and perhaps it does, but I have not dealt with a laptop larger than a netbook that does not come equipped with a full keyboard with number pad in I don't know how long. Every laptop I've ever tutored with uses the desktop keystrokes. I make the client aware that the laptop keystrokes exist and explain the situation in which their use becomes necessary, but that's it. I do not attempt to instruct using them because the machine they use, and probably most of the machines they will ever use, will not use those keystrokes. I have yet to see JAWS being used on either a tablet or touch screen laptop. If my clients ask me for purchasing advice with regard to a laptop, I suggest that they do not go the touch screen route because so many unintended accidents can occur if they, or far more likely, their sighted helpers, begin touching the screen when pointing to it or dragging their finger down the screen (possibly closing a program), etc. I am soon to have the novel experience of teaching someone how to use VoiceOver on a Macbook. I'm very rusty on VoiceOver to begin with, and I have never dealt with it except on touch devices like an iPad and an iPhone. Trying to do VoiceOver "on a big screen" using a mouse pad will be a real learning experience for all involved! Brian
