Dear listers I am using Windows in a virtual machine on two Macs. On my Mini I’m using VMWare Fusion and on my Air it’s Oracle’s Virtual Box (not at all VO accessible so I wouldn’t recommend it but work chose it because it’s free so hey-ho) and in both cases it’s impossible to use the laptop layout for Jaws where the Caps lock key is used instead of the Insert key as the host OS (Mac OS X) doesn’t let it pass through even if you set the Caps lock to do nothing in the Mac OS X system preferences.
As the Mac keyboard has no Insert key then you are stuffed. I did some Googling and found out that you need to go with a key remapping utility to create an Insert key where there is none. You may be thinking that this sounds complicated but in fact it’s super-easy. Just download a free Windows utility called Sharpkeys and install it and it has an extremely simple and totally accessible interface which lets you specify a key from a list (the one you want to be the Insert key) and then select the Insert key from a second list (it’s listed under special keys) and click the button that rewrites the registry, reboot Windows and hey-presto, that key now works as the Insert modifier for Jaws. I’ve remapped F1 to be Insert and also ] so now I have one on each side so I don’t have to do awkward stretches to do the various Jaws keystroke combinations. You don’t have to use these keys of course – just take your pick. For info I’ve left the Jaws keyboard layout to desktop so as not to complicate things further. You can get Sharpkeys from http://sharpkeys.codeplex.com/ and it’s totally free. You can also read the excellent article I got the low-down from here https://www.paciellogroup.com/blog/2013/08/insert-key-usage-in-windows-on-a-mac/ For info when using VoiceOver I also happen to favour using quick nav mode to having to press VO+other keys wherever possible and so I prefer to quickly toggle quick nav on and off with the left + right arrow keys to ‘switch’ the arrow keys between screen readers if you get what I mean. To be clear, with quick nav toggled off, the arrow keys are used by Windows (when the VM app has focus of course) and with a press of the left+right arrow keys you are instantly using quick nav and VO even though you are still focused on the VM. Doing the above means you can use a Mac laptop keyboard, or the standard Apple Bluetooth keyboard, without a numberpad and without difficulty in both OSs and with both screen readers simultaneously running in each. With VMWare Fusion you can even be really adventurous and run it in ‘Unity’ mode and have every Windows app open in a separate Mac app window making them feel like Mac apps but running Jaws in each. That really feels futuristic to me. As a final note I favour the Vocalizer voices for both VO and Jaws and happen to have Ava set up on both at exactly the same volume, speed and intonation and so it really feels like I have one screen reader across both OSs, and driving them with different keystrokes somehow doesn’t seem to break that impression for me. Best of both worlds. If someone wanted to do a podcast on this I think it would be really useful for bods in a similar position. I know that person could be me but I’m sure others would do a better job. Perhaps Jonathan might consider it for a future FSCast. Thanks, Robin. -- The following information is important for all members of the VIPhone list. If you have any questions or concerns about the running of this list, or if you feel that a member's post is inappropriate, please contact the owners or moderators directly rather than posting on the list itself. Your VIPhone list owner is Cara Quinn - you can reach Cara at caraqu...@caraquinn.com The archives for this list can be searched at http://www.mail-archive.com/viphone@googlegroups.com/. --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "VIPhone" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to viphone+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to viphone@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/viphone. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
