RACHEL BUCHANAN: Hello, everyone, and welcome to FSOpenLine, Freedom Scientific’s global call-in show. This is our episode for November of 2020, and I’m Rachel. We have the brain trust of Freedom Scientific here with us, of course, my colleagues, the brilliant Glen Gordon, Eric Damery, and a sometimes guest, maybe more frequent now, Matt Ater. So hey, guys, how’s it going?
MATT ATER: Good. Great.
GLEN GORDON: Good. Good to be here.
ERIC DAMERY: Yeah, good to be here. Welcome, everybody.
RACHEL: Definitely, yeah, with the 2021 release just behind us.
ERIC: Yes.
RACHEL: So we’re going to get a lot of great questions.
GLEN: And the December update just ahead of us. We’ll have an update in the early parts of December.
MATT: We should just call it the “Holiday Special.”
ERIC: So maybe we should start with, let’s just make sure everyone was aware of it, the 2021 releases came out a week ago today. So it’s been a full week now. And we know that we’ve got an awful lot of people who have already gotten access to it and gotten it installed. If you haven’t gotten it yet, you can visit the download page at Freedom Scientific, and you’ll find JAWS, ZoomText, and Fusion 2021 are there. You can install them. They will require authorization for that version. So if you had 2020, and you had an SMA in place, when you install it you’re all set and ready to go. Otherwise you’ll want to make sure that you talk to your dealer or the sales department and get that upgrade in place so you can use this new version.
GLEN: And we have a bunch of new features. If you have not listened to some of our “what’s new” sections or listened to the podcast a couple of months ago when I demonstrated all of them, we have a new Voice Assistant. We have some improvements to Picture Smart. We have fixes to some long-term bugs, actually, that people reported on this podcast. And I think I want to mention them because they did come up in previous FSOpenLines.
One of them was clicking on links in Outlook messages didn’t always open the link. Sometimes it would; sometimes it wouldn’t. It was like a slot machine in Vegas. But we got that fixed for 2021. We fixed the problem of Windows Explorer on alternate Tuesdays not announcing the proper count of files. I know Howard will be delighted that that’s finally fixed. And we got an unsolicited testimonial that it was fixed from someone who is really resourceful. She said, “Well, you know I could exit JAWS and start Narrator and get the file count and then go back to JAWS.” She was pretty good-natured about it. But no one should have to jump through hoops like that. So happy we fixed those couple.
ERIC: Right.
RACHEL: We also added OCR to Word, which I believe came up on FSOpenLine, as well.
GLEN: It did, in fact, yes. And that’s turning out to be a popular feature.
RACHEL: Oh, I find it useful.
ERIC: Well, shall we grab a call?
GLEN: Yeah, let’s do it.
ERIC: So Mitchell, we’ll start with you.
MITCHELL: I notice my JAWS, when I boot it up, it no longer says “JAWS Home Edition.”
ERIC: Ah, yes. That’s a change we just made in 2021. And
one of the reasons that we made this particular change is that authorization
check is done at a later stage now. We’re trying to make it so that things
happen faster, and we load the software and get you into working much quicker.
So it’s checking the authorization information later; and, as a result, it was
giving the wrong information. And we’ve just decided to remove that piece. So
we don’t mention Pro. We don’t mention Home. We just get you started.
MITCHELL: Okay. And I noticed a couple times your Voice Assistant has popped up by itself.
ERIC: You know, someone else has mentioned this to me, too. And the only thing I could come up with was that maybe you were reading something. And remember, if JAWS says the word, it will cause it to pop it up. So if you’re reading about the feature...
MATT: [Crosstalk] not saying the word right now.
MITCHELL: Ah, okay.
ERIC: Yeah, that’s why I’m not, yeah. The “S” word.
MATT: Thank you for calling it the Voice Assistant.
MITCHELL: That’s what it is. That’s why I like it.
GLEN: So thank you, Mitchell.
ERIC: You know, something that many people haven’t figured
out yet is that there’s actually a keystroke, instead of using the wake word.
You can hold down the JAWS key, the ALT key, and tap the SPACEBAR, and it’s the
same as saying the wake word. So you can just avoid that altogether. Kenny,
you should be able to unmute now.
KENNY: I’ve noticed when going, arrowing through web pages in Microsoft Edge, that sometimes that it will take me out of the web page area.
GLEN: Are you talking when you’re arrowing or when you’re tabbing?
KENNY: It’s when I’m arrowing. I’m going through my Gmail on the Gmail site, email on the Gmail site.
MATT: Do you know which mode you’re running when you’re in Gmail? Are you using the standard or HTML mode?
KENNY: I’m using the HTML mode.
ERIC: And this is in 2021. Is this something new to 2021 for you?
KENNY: Yes. I’ve never seen it in 2020 as far as I know.
GLEN: Yeah, this would be a good one for us to get a handle on. If you come up with any good tips for making it happen more often, that would be great to know.
ERIC: And I’m making some notes on that one. I’ll take some of these back, and we’ll go back and experiment with some of them. Sorry about the problem.
KENNY: All right.
ERIC: All right. Thank you.
RACHEL: So let’s go to Maria.
MARIA: Hello. I had a situation during our state convention prep where we had the agendas sent out from the State of Washington. And all of a sudden several of us received some of our agenda, there was some German, some French, sounded like French Canadian, and some garbled languages.
ERIC: So what’s happening here is that there is some markup within the document for these other languages. So whoever is creating the document, it actually has some language markup tags in there. And JAWS by default is doing language switching on the fly. So it sees that markup, and it thinks that that text is in this other language, and it’s switching to it. That’s my guess as to what’s happening.
GLEN: Now, if this should ever happen again, one of the things you can do is going to Settings Center and search for, I think it’s “language detection,” and turn language detection off. I actually personally, since I only speak English, and barely do that on some days, I turn off language detection for that very reason, that every now and then some document will come through with language marked up improperly. And if turning off language detection fixes the problem, then Eric nailed it. Otherwise it’s something else.
MARIA: Oh, okay. I’ll let them know, turn off language detection.
RACHEL: Thank you, Maria.
MARIA: Thank you.
ERIC: Bye. So let’s try James Duffy.
JAMES: Thanks for your time today through the ACB. You and I talked today briefly. I had the question about using Picture Smart for web images, and you had mentioned specifically that there was an extension you could enable on Chrome.
GLEN: You’re not a plant; are you? Because Eric was saying we needed to talk about that. And then you’re calling just in the right time.
ERIC: Glen, this came up today on the ACB call.
RACHEL: I know.
ERIC: And I said, “You’ll have to tune in tonight, and we’ll tell you all about it.”
GLEN: Oh, you string them along.
ERIC: Yeah.
GLEN: I see how this works.
RACHEL: Eric does do plants. He does.
ERIC: Wait, let’s tell them the answer on the next one.
MATT: Eric could really be a used car salesman. You just watch.
GLEN: Yeah. You can either go to the File Menu and choose More and go to Settings, or you can type “chrome://settings” in the address bar, which I actually find faster.
JAMES: Okay.
GLEN: And then you have to go to Advanced. You’ll need to expand Advanced. And then you’ll find a heading called Accessibility. And under Accessibility, I think it’s one of the first accessibility options, it talks about caption options. And under that is something that says “Send images to Google to automatically caption the pictures.” That’s the thing you want to turn on. And I found it to work most of the time. But there are cases when it actually doesn’t. The USPS, they send you a digest of mail that’s coming to you on a given day. For some reason the Google captioning doesn’t actually recognize those images. But using Picture Smart does.
RACHEL: I also find that the Google imaging doesn’t work very well on thumbnails when it’s reading down a page of video results, perhaps. And it may just say “sign, sign, sign.” So it doesn’t recognize thumbnails very well.
GLEN: It’s actually a mixed bag. Both Rachel and I independently have turned it off at times because sometimes it gives you captions to things that really are superfluous, that really don’t add anything to the content. But they’re pictures, and so it does the captions.
JAMES: When I asked Eric the question today, I think I used Facebook as an example of a website because I always – I frequently am looking for a little more description sometimes. I mean, sometimes it’ll give you “adult outdoor sky person” or “child.”
GLEN: And I don’t think this Google thing is going to help
you on Facebook because the way that Google decides whether or not to come up
with a caption is whether or not the image already has an alt tag. And
Facebook, as a result of doing their automatic recognition, will often give it
an alt tag.
JAMES: One other quick thing that’s not quite related to that, but I just – this came to mind. The account user settings, if a program needs to make changes to your computer?
MATT: UAC.
JAMES: The dialog box pops up. It says User Account Control. But it doesn’t read the dialog, and I can’t tab to Yes, No, and whatever the options are. I can’t get it to actually read that dialog box properly. Do you have a quick fix for that?
GLEN: I have an idea. I have no idea if it’s a fix. So there is something, when you go into Windows Settings, there’s something that it’s like, I don’t know whether it’s called User Access Settings or UAC Settings. But there’s a slider, and you want it at 66%. And I believe that either Larry or John Gassman is listening tonight. And if they raise their hand, one of them had this problem and figured it out. So we may be able to get more definitive detail on this.
ERIC: All right. Shall we move on to another call? Thank you, James.
JAMES: Thank you.
ERIC: Good to hear from you, yeah.
ERIC: And I’m going to Randy Knapp. Hi, how are you?
RANDY: Hi, I’m just fine. I put this question in the chat window. This is the first time I’ve participated in a meeting. Usually I listen to recordings. But I’ve run into a situation where sometimes in programs, text boxes will not track properly when you’re trying to make a setting change or recall a particular lesson without adjusting screen resolution to fix the problem, at least that’s what I’ve done. Two examples of this would be GoldWave, running their setup program; and another example of this would be Fun With TypeAbility, trying to pick a specific lesson from their dialog box. I’m just wondering if you have any thoughts on this.
GLEN: What screen resolution does it seem to like versus the one that it doesn’t like? Do you recall?
RANDY: The 1366x768. But it won’t do it at 1920x1080 and anything higher than that because my computer will go all the way up to 4K.
GLEN: Is it an edit box, or a combo box, or...
RANDY: It’s a box where I would UP and DOWN ARROW to choose say a different question or setting or lesson. And in the case of GoldWave, I would use a SPACEBAR or ENTER to change the parameter. I can’t recall which. And then in Fun With TypeAbility, for sure, it would be just arrowing down to the particular lessons. What happens is that you hear some lessons, but then it just ignores the remaining lessons, and you don’t see the remaining text.
ERIC: And Randy, on the Fun With TypeAbility, this is the list of, what, lesson plans?
RANDY: Yeah, like for example, Lesson 4 does this, Lesson 5 does this, Lesson 6 does that.
ERIC: Yeah.
RANDY: And you would arrow down to the lesson, and you would pick the lesson in question. Except after the first three I don’t see any more unless I lower the resolution.
ERIC: That’s interesting. And so these – and he does have a very large list. I’m just making a note on that one. That’s one I can go and check on. So I’ll try and follow up on that.
RANDY: I just want you to know I’ve used your program for more years than I want to admit.
[Crosstalk]
RANDY: Thank you.
MATT: Admit it. It’s okay.
RANDY: Over 20, let’s just say that. And I’m real thrilled with the work that you all do, and thank you for what you do.
GLEN: We’re really happy you called. It’s nice talking to new people.
RACHEL: Yes, thank you so much.
RANDY: Thank you.
ERIC: Yup, thanks, Randy. Bye.
MATT: I wanted to share something. Glen, you walked through for somebody in the last couple calls about how to identify images in Google Chrome. If you find an image, you can press the applications key and arrow up, and there’s a check in one of the menu options is “Describe images,” and it’s not checked. And if you press ENTER on it, it will start describing the images. So you don’t have to go into the settings to turn that on.
GLEN: Oh. Well, that’s far better than what I had in mind. I was thinking that that was to describe an individual image. I didn’t realize it toggles it on.
MATT: Yeah, there used to be two options. One was “Describe the images on this session,” and then the other one was like “Describe all images going forward.” Now it just says “Describe images,” and it’s checked or unchecked when you use the applications key. So that’s just a shorter way, SHIFT+F10 or applications key, when you find an image on Google Chrome. And I haven’t tried this in Edge, so I’m going to talk about Chrome. And arrow up, and you should see something that says “Describe images,” and it’s unchecked by default.
GLEN: So it’s all Rachel’s fault. She should have asked you, not me. Oh, no, no, it was Eric. It was Eric’s fault, yeah.
MATT: Okay, it’s Eric’s fault.
RACHEL: Yeah, it’s Eric’s fault.
MATT: It’s always Eric’s fault.
ERIC: Let’s go back to another call. How about Adam Gaffney? Adam, how are you?
ADAM: Yeah, doing well. Hey, thanks a lot for all the hard work and everything that went into the new updates. Definitely appreciate some of the innovation and then some of the simpler things like some of the bug fixes and a few real basic features like the JAWS KEY+SHIFT+2 to cycle around different punctuation levels, just a simple little thing that’s great. So kind of along those lines I was wondering if a few other longstanding bugs that are just real small things could be considered, like for example JAWS KEY+J to take you to the JAWS interface doesn’t always work.
So usually I tell people to try going to the desktop first and then trying that, as it’s more reliable to work then. So stuff like that, and maybe loss of focus. I think that’s more the operating system thing. And then some other problems where when you’re copying and pasting text from web pages on the Internet, sometimes you don’t always get what you think you selected. You paste something in there, and it’s not what you copy and paste.
GLEN: So can I ask you some clarifying questions? Because the hard part is usually figuring out how to duplicate it, not actually fixing it once we duplicate it. So going back to the first one, when the INSERT+J doesn’t work, is there any rhyme or reason to it?
ERIC: Yeah, Glen, I almost wonder, if you’re in another application, you do the INSERT+J, if something changes then in the other application if it takes focus back.
GLEN: Yeah, I was actually thinking about modern applications, which are, you know, some of the settings in Windows 10, things like Windows calculator, the old legacy Edge, may it rest in peace, things that Microsoft considers to be modern or UWP apps. I’m wondering if those might be playing into it.
ADAM: For me, I’m not too much of a modern kind of guy. I use basically Office 365. Probably the most modern kind of app I use is the Windows calculator. I use that a lot. But I’m a Notepad kind of guy, and some of the old-school, old-fashioned apps that just get the job done. So, but Microsoft Office for sure.
GLEN: Let me ask you about copying and pasting text. If you can find examples like a web page or two where what you’re selecting and what gets copied aren’t in line with one another, that would be great because these things tend to be caused not so much by our general code, but by some of the exceptions. You know, you’re in a table, you’re copying the first cell of the second row, you know, something like that is likely figuring in.
ADAM: Sure.
RACHEL: And I have definitely had that experience before.
MATT: I think an example page and which content you’re trying to copy matters because, like Glen said, you know, if it’s a table on a page, that table may be coded in a way that we need to look at, or lists of things that may be causing the problem. So we should look at those.
ERIC: Well, Adam, thanks for the call.
GLEN: And Adam, I have reason to know that you’re interested in ripping CDs. And I suggest Exact Audio Copy.
ADAM: Yeah, okay. I’ll have to give that a look. Last time I looked at it, it looked like I had to be a software engineer just to use the darn thing. It looked pretty complicated. But I’ll give it another try.
GLEN: Okay. Since I offered it up, feel free to reach out.
ADAM: Okay, thank you.
GLEN: Absolutely.
MATT: Thanks, Adam.
ERIC: Hello, Saddam. Can you unmute yourself?
SADDAM: I just have a couple of questions. First of all, the renewal of the portal for outside the U.S. How’s that going?
ERIC: Well, it’s not happening in 2020. We’re hoping to make some progress with that with 2021. So we can’t give you a date yet.
SADDAM: Okay. The other question that I had is when will JAWS support devices with ARM, like the Surface X, those devices? Any plans to support those in the future?
ERIC: This is something that we’re looking at. And while we think we’re going to make some progress in the very near future with JAWS, magnification is probably a ways off.
SADDAM: Okay, so JAWS support may come through.
ERIC: Yeah, stay tuned, and you’ll be hearing more information about that as we probably get past Christmas.
GLEN: Why is JAWS on ARM interesting to you?
SADDAM: Yeah, we’re just doing some work at the University. They’re giving out Surface X’s to people. So I just wanted to see if it would be supported because at the University where I work part-time they’re handing out Surface X’s to employees.
ERIC: And is Microsoft sponsoring that handout?
SADDAM: Yes, yes, because we use a lot of Teams and other Microsoft products. We have a big contract with Microsoft, so they’re giving out those products to employees. So hopefully we’ll see some innovation from you guys soon on that front.
GLEN: Great.
ERIC: See if they’ll us any.
SADDAM: Will do. I’ll pass them a note.
ERIC: Okay. All right. Thanks, Saddam.
GLEN: Saddam mentioned Teams, and there was something I wanted to mention, and that is that the Teams group has done something really good with PowerPoint. If you have PowerPoint slides that are properly marked up using tables and other things that you’d use on slides, and you’re doing a presentation, you share your screen, a JAWS user is going to be able to read the contents of those slides by turning on the virtual cursor in Teams.
MATT: They will have to have that slideshow loaded in Teams. So you just don’t share a traditional PowerPoint screen. It has to be one that’s been uploaded into Teams and then shared from within Teams.
ERIC: Exactly, yup.
MATT: But it is pretty cool. You know, Eric, we should share that, I mean, there’s Teams, there’s advanced Teams support in JAWS 2021. So if you haven’t tried it out, do an INSERT+H to get some additional help with your [crosstalk].
ERIC: That’s right, the keystrokes are in there, if you do the INSERT+H. And there are things like a hang-up keystroke, a raise and lower your hand, and some keys to be able to navigate around and get to different tabs.
MATT: To different tabs, yeah.
ERIC: So it’s much better, yeah.
GLEN: And one of the things that you may notice is if you ever open a document in Teams, and you get into the inaccessible document viewer, the only way you could get out before was turning on the virtual cursor and finding the button to close it. And now we’ve wired up ESCAPE to actually close that and get you out.
MATT: ESCAPE or LEFT, let’s say ALT+LEFT ARROW, like the BACK button would be like anything else.
GLEN: Oh, okay.
MATT: Yeah, either one would work.
GLEN: Cool.
ERIC: Let’s see if we can bring in Douglas Howard. Douglas, how are you?
DOUGLAS: I’m very well, thank you. Hope all of you are well, as well.
ERIC: Mm-hmm.
DOUGLAS: I just had two quick questions for you. My SMA is zero now that 2021 has commenced. When do I need to purchase the new SMA by?
ERIC: Tonight.
MATT: He’s kidding with you. He’s kidding.
ERIC: I am.
MATT: So you’re authorized for 2021? Is that what you said?
DOUGLAS: Yes.
ERIC: Yes.
MATT: You just have to do it by October of next year.
ERIC: No, you really want to do it before the end of this year.
MATT: He wants you to do it now.
ERIC: No, no, no, no. No, in all seriousness, you want to renew before the end of this year because otherwise, if you contact your dealer or contact the sales department, if you wait till after the first of the year, it could be an extra $60 charge if you’re beyond the renewal period. So you want to renew early. So is this a Home License or a Pro License?
DOUGLAS: I converted to a Home License. But when I use it, it comes up as Pro for some reason in the About thing. But it’s supposed to be a Home License.
ERIC: Ah.
MATT: You sound Canadian. Are you Canadian?
DOUGLAS: Yes.
MATT: See, I heard the “about.”
DOUGLAS: Yes, I am. And it’s “about,” not “aboot.”
ERIC: So contact the FS office up there in Canada. And you
definitely want to check, have them check your serial number and make sure it
gets set down to Home, and then talk to them about the renewal of that. I know
that in the U.S., for U.S. customers, I believe the renewal between now and the
end of the year on a Home License is 150 U.S.
DOUGLAS: My other question was I have a laptop, it’s a 15.6 or whatever it is, inch. But I have it hooked up to a 27-inch flat-screen monitor. What should I have the display resolution set at, as recommended for JAWS?
MATT: Traditionally, if I have a laptop hooked up to another monitor, I would actually do that. I would switch to a single screen rather than dual screen.
DOUGLAS: Oh, yeah. I shut the laptop. Like I have the lid closed when I use it.
MATT: Okay, good. Yeah, good. Yeah, then it’s going to default to whatever the monitor wants, which is fine.
DOUGLAS: Oh, okay. Because didn’t normally before you had to have recommended settings of display for JAWS?
ERIC: Yeah, that was way back.
GLEN: You’re an old-timer, apparently.
DOUGLAS: Yes, I used 2.0.
GLEN: Oh, my god, I’m so sorry.
MATT: Wait, wait, not like Randy. Not like Randy. Randy said he was like, well, no, Randy said 20 years, so okay.
DOUGLAS: Yeah, same here, about 20, 22 years, give or take.
ERIC: Well, thanks for joining us, and get that SMA handled; okay? Thanks.
DOUGLAS: Thank you.
ERIC: Bye.
ERIC: All right. Let’s see if we can go to Scott Edwards.
SCOTT: There was a mention about ARM. Could someone please explain what ARM is?
GLEN: Well, it’s like foot.
ERIC: Oh, these guys are funny tonight, huh.
RACHEL: You need to [crosstalk] day job, Glen.
GLEN: More like leg.
ERIC: Yeah.
SCOTT: Or a head, like a header versus a footer.
RACHEL: Geez.
GLEN: Yeah. So in all honesty, so Windows has traditionally run on Intel x86 and x64 processors. And ARM is another processor vendor where the code is not compatible. So something that is compiled for x86 won’t run on ARM. Something that’s compiled for ARM won’t run on x86. The reason why Microsoft is moving to ARM, at least for the Surface X, is because ARM processors are typically used in tablets and cell phones and have really been optimized for good long battery use.
SCOTT: I hear it mentioned recently in some of the new Mac products.
GLEN: Before the new ARM Macs, if you had an x86 or x64 Mac, you could use Parallels or some other system for running Windows on top of your Mac. Well, now that the Mac is going to ARM, if someone gets a new Mac, if Windows isn’t running on ARM, you can’t run Windows. So we’ll see if Microsoft Windows indeed starts running on some of these ARM Macs. But my guess is that they probably will.
SCOTT: All right, thanks.
GLEN: Of course, thanks.
ERIC: Okay, thank you.
ERIC: All right. And let’s try and bring in Roberto Perez. Roberto, how are you tonight?
ROBERTO: Doing good. How are yourselves?
ERIC: Very good.
ROBERTO: Awesome. You know, I want to start by giving you a big, big thanks for that new feature in JAWS 2020 where we can read by paragraph in braille. I will tell you, I wrote that feature to send it to you when I learned that it was already there.
GLEN: We’re really happy you like that. And I want to give credit where credit is due. The first person who came to us with this – and several people came subsequently. But the first person was Kelly Ford, who’s been a long-time JAWS user, works for Microsoft. He really wanted to minimize the wasted screen space on the braille display.
ROBERTO: Now we need a quick way to turn it on and off.
GLEN: I thought that it’s already there. Is it coming in the December update?
MATT: You mean like a keystroke, like a braille keystroke to toggle it on and off?
GLEN: Yes, yes.
ROBERTO: Right. At least to make it available in the Keyboard Manager so we can assign it. But that’s coming, even better.
GLEN: And the reason that I know it’s either there or is coming is because we got email from someone within the last week that asked exactly that same question, saying that read by paragraph is great except in certain places, like when you’re editing a document, and it would be nice to have a key to turn it on and off.
ROBERTO: Right, or when you’re reading code. I have a big piece of code, I want to make sure that the braille display is showing exactly what is on view.
GLEN: Absolutely, yeah.
MATT: Is it by application today? Or is it a Quick Settings?
GLEN: It is a setting by application.
ROBERTO: I’m actually surprised you didn’t leverage that rocker bar on the Focus. You know, where you can just switch between sentences and lines and so on. I really thought you would make that [crosstalk].
ERIC: Oh, yeah, make it in there so it would toggle to that setting, too. That’s a good idea.
GLEN: That’s a great idea. That’s a really good idea.
MATT: And Eric’s making a note as we speak.
ERIC: Yeah, I got that one.
ROBERTO: Awesome. The other thing I wanted to bring to your attention is something you’ve probably heard before. These days that we’re attending so many meetings, it would be so awesome to be able to adjust speech volume independent from the system volume.
ERIC: Oh, boy.
ROBERTO: That would be really neat.
MATT: Are you a plant?
ERIC: Who planted this guy? In the December update, watch for that. It should be on the top of the list of enhancements. I believe that’s a feature that’s been long time coming, especially since we’re all on Zoom these days.
ROBERTO: Oh, my god. I wonder if you have all my wish list already ready.
ERIC: I think we probably do. You want to go for one more? What else you got?
ROBERTO: I do.
ERIC: What else you got?
ROBERTO: Okay. I am a bilingual person. I am switching between English and Spanish all the time, all the time. Even when going through my Twitter timeline, it’s all the time switching. The way I do it now, I have set up two speech profiles, one for English and one for Spanish. But it takes me three keystrokes to make that change. And that is something I do probably two or three times in less than two minutes. I need a shortcut.
GLEN: I think you can have two different voices, or more than one voice per profile. One’s primary, and the other’s your secondary. And then I thought that there is hotkeys for switching between the voices in that profile. But maybe I’m wrong.
ERIC: I think you’re right. No, I think you’re right, Glen.
GLEN: The only reason you’d absolutely need two profiles would be if you were using Eloquence for English and Vocalizer for Spanish.
ROBERTO: Yes, but can you set a keystroke for that?
ERIC: Yeah, you might drop me an email, Roberto, edamery@vispero.com. Drop me an email on that one.
ROBERTO: Okay.
ERIC: And if you do a quick investigation, too, on your own, let me know what you found. But give me that one and an explanation because that may be something we have to put into the list as an enhancement request. Okay?
ROBERTO: No problem. It’s a pleasure.
ERIC: Thank you.
GLEN: Thanks, Roberto.
ERIC: All right. Let’s see if we can bring in Mikel. I don’t know if I’m pronouncing that one right. How are you?
MIKEL: Good, good. I have a question about Outlook. I recently set up an email account using IMAP, and I noticed that when you have the settings for both the incoming server and the outgoing SMTP server, when I tab through the boxes, JAWS just says, like reading, you know, like server, like port. But it doesn’t actually say which one is for the incoming one and which one is for the outgoing one.
GLEN: Unless we have a script that should have been removed four years ago, we’re pretty much announcing what Outlook tells us.
ERIC: And this might be a good one for the Microsoft Accessibility desk, too.
MATT: Yeah, eDAD. eDAD would be a good one to follow up with to see what they say, as well.
GLEN: Does Narrator do any better? That would be a good litmus test.
MIKEL: I would have to check because I didn’t check with Narrator.
GLEN: Check with Narrator. And especially if they get it right and we don’t, write to me.
ERIC: And if they don’t get it, then this is a perfect
example of – and it’s always good to let the Microsoft eDAD desk know because
the more people that do, that’s how these things get escalated and resolved.
So, well, thanks for the call.
ERIC: And let’s try Vikas, or Vikas, I’m not sure.
VIKAS: I have two queries. One is we used to, in the Internet Explorer, when it comes to multiple selection of some items, we used to press SHIFT+F8 and keep on pressing SPACE for selecting certain items. Isn’t that possible in Google Chrome or Edge?
GLEN: It’s been added to Chrome relatively recently, like in the last six to 12 months.
VIKAS: No, I have tried day before yesterday. It was not working yet.
GLEN: Yes, but I’m going to tell you the magical secret.
VIKAS: Okay.
GLEN: Maybe. You need to use, I believe it’s CTRL+UP and DOWN ARROW to move between the items, and CTRL+SPACE to select and deselect.
VIKAS: Okay.
MATT: Which is probably more similar to Windows Explorer; right?
GLEN: Yeah. But it only works, it only works in lists that are considered to be multi-selectable. But you probably already knew that part.
VIKAS: So first I need to press ENTER to go into that box.
GLEN: Correct.
VIKAS: And then CTRL+UP, CTRL+DOWN to...
ERIC: Yeah, hold the CTRL key down and move up and down.
VIKAS: ...move items and CTRL+SPACE to select.
GLEN: Yes.
MATT: And basically keep your CTRL held down until you’re done.
VIKAS: Okay. Okay.
VIKAS: And the second query is with of course continued collaboration between JAWS and Microsoft, and consistent improvement in JAWS. Is it possible to make audio/video recording of slides in PowerPoint using JAWS?
MATT: Are you wanting to record the slides for presentation?
VIKAS: See, there is a feature in presentation, PowerPoint presentation, that you can record the slides. And this works well with the sighted persons.
ERIC: Sure.
VIKAS: I tried with JAWS. But it was, you know, no key was working.
RACHEL: It is built in. It allows you to pre-record audio for slides, and...
VIKAS: Exactly. Even video or audio, both.
RACHEL: Yes. And it does work. We’re going to get back to you. So do send an email to training@vispero.com, and we’ll work out some step-by-step instructions for that because I’ve used this feature.
MATT: Sometimes Office applications have really difficult ways to get to settings when you’re, like, on-the-fly working. And I really highly recommend that people use the quick access bar to put the common features up there because then it’s ALT key followed by whatever number that quick access command is. And I’m not saying that it’s going to work in this case, but when I wanted to start this meeting today, I could press ALT and the number one, and it launched a Teams meeting automatically for me. I didn’t have to tab six times down to the body and click the button that says Connect to Teams. So, you know, there’s a lot of great features about using that bar. But definitely send us an email, and Rachel and her team can get back to you on the step-by-step process.
ERIC: All right. Thank you.
ERIC: And why don’t we try – how about Michael Mote? You’re already unmuted, Michael. Can you join us?
MICHAEL: I can. Can you guys hear me?
ERIC: Yes.
GLEN: We can.
MATT: And I see Michael, I think I see you posting a lot in Facebook. Is that right?
MICHAEL: I do some. I do.
MATT: Yeah, yeah.
MICHAEL: Wanted to ask two questions. First, and I did send an email, I think to you, Glen, about this a few weeks ago. So when we went from...
GLEN: Oh, my god. I’m sorry. I’m going to go under the desk.
MICHAEL: No, no, no.
MATT: He’s going to go on vacation for a month, so you’d better get this question out.
VARIOUS: Oh. Good. Please.
MICHAEL: So we went from Google Chrome 84 to 86, much like we did iPhone 8 to 10. And in so doing, what has happened in Chromium is some of the TinyMCE text editor functionality has disappeared from some of our sites that we use for work. No screen reader that I have tried, and I’ve tried the big three, sees it.
GLEN: And it works in Firefox?
MICHAEL: Works in Firefox, and does work in IE. And I can also say that I tried another website that I use for our LMS, and the description field is also broken there. And I know they haven’t changed anything.
GLEN: So my mind is working better than it did when I responded to your email. And send me a tickler, and I’ll respond to you either tomorrow or Monday. There is something you can do in Chrome to capture the accessibility tree in 84 and in 86. In the address bar, enter chrome://accessibility.
MICHAEL: Okay.
GLEN: It’ll list all the tabs that are open, and one of the options for each tab is dump the accessibility tree. And that’s the thing that would be useful to see.
MICHAEL: Okay.
GLEN: And the fact that it’s multiple sites is a good sign that it’s not something that one site coded.
MICHAEL: Okay, guys. Thank you for your time. And again, congratulations on 2021. It’s really good stuff.
GLEN: Hey, thanks, Michael.
ERIC: Thanks, Michael.
MATT: Thank you.
ERIC: And let’s try Steve Cutway. Steve, can you join us?
STEVE: You should be able to hear me, if my [crosstalk]...
ERIC: We do.
STEVE: ...is settling down. Very good. You had to get a second Canadian in here, Eric. Come on, you know with the “abouts” and “aboots.”
MATT: I think more than one has slipped in. We heard a few more “abouts.”
ERIC: Well, how about that.
STEVE: Yeah, exactly.
GLEN: Easy.
STEVE: My question is specific to JAWS 2021. This one goes back to, I think, the first version that you introduced the feature. And the feature I’m talking about is screen shade mode. On every machine I’ve tried it on – and I’ve tried it on three or four including my main, well, two main machines that one has been retired and this one, one from HP, this one from Dell, and two Toshiba laptops – it doesn’t turn on.
ERIC: All Windows 10?
STEVE: Yes.
ERIC: Interesting.
STEVE: And I was wondering whether is there a relationship to the graphics card?
ERIC: You know, there may be. But I find that unusual that you would have that many computers, and it wouldn’t be working. I haven’t seen it fail.
MATT: It sounds like a puzzle.
GLEN: It does, it sounds like a fun puzzle, actually.
STEVE: Yeah, it’s been a puzzle.
MATT: We want this one. This one’s actually – this would make us all excited because it’s a problem we have to solve.
ERIC: It sounds dangerous.
STEVE: So it’s been a puzzle to me for a long time because of course, you know, it works the...
MATT: Are you in Canada? Just to be...
STEVE: I am.
MATT: Oh, maybe that’s it.
ERIC: Wait a minute. Are you on the west side or the east side?
STEVE: I’m on the middle. I’m in Ontario where [crosstalk].
GLEN: Oh. Export regulations on this feature. It does not go to Canada.
STEVE: You be careful, Mr. Gordon. I’ll send you some Tubes music.
GLEN: Yeah, oh, my god.
ERIC: So how many computers again have you tried this on?
STEVE: I’ve tried it on about four.
GLEN: Do you know if on those machines when you, assuming you have the default settings where the screen will highlight what’s being spoken, does that feature work?
STEVE: You know what, Glen, that is a very good point. You’re talking now about if you’re in – that was a feature you added after the screen shade mode, where if you’re in a web browser and virtual mode you’re supposed to be able to see where the virtual cursor is.
GLEN: Yes.
STEVE: That does not work, either.
GLEN: Okay. So it has...
STEVE: That’s never worked.
GLEN: It has something to do with our DirectX screen overlay.
STEVE: Yeah, could be, could be.
GLEN: So I don’t have a good answer. Drop me email because then...
STEVE: I will.
GLEN: Then there’ll be a little note to kind of...
MATT: Support tools probably very valuable here because we [crosstalk] video drivers and...
ERIC: Yeah, that’s a very good one to gather all this information and get a record on this one.
STEVE: I talked to – yeah, I can do that. I talked to the
– because I did back in 20 – I think you introduced it in 2018 or something
like that. And I talked to support, and I was probably talking to a blind
person because they of course couldn’t relate to it.
STEVE: The other thing I just want to mention, Kenny’s comment to you, he said he couldn’t give you a scenario. That was the issue of Edge losing focus.
GLEN: Yes.
STEVE: Well, I’m calling it “losing focus.” Try this, because I have seen this. If you have, say, Outlook open, and an email comes in, chances are JAWS will lose focus. The other case where you might be able to reproduce it is if you are doing something in Chrome or Edge, and you switch to Word, say, that you have open. You have a document in Word open. If you go back, ALT+TAB back to the browser, it may happen then, as well. And the only way to solve it, at least that I’ve found, is it does go into, you know, one of the, he said “menus,” but it’s one of the other tabs. And if you press F6 a few times, you can get back to where you were, and JAWS will be in the right spot. In fact, it won’t go back to the beginning of the page. It’ll be in the right spot.
ERIC: So this is you’ve got – you’re open in Chrome. You’re in some web page reading, and you go to Word. You open up Word. And when you go back to Chrome, that’s when you’re not on the [crosstalk].
STEVE: That one isn’t as consistent as if you are reading something in Chrome, and you have your email client, I’m thinking of Outlook Office 365, open, and an email comes in. It will lose focus. It will still be in the browser, but you won’t be where you think you are.
GLEN: I have a theory. I will explore this and see if it gets any traction. Thank you, Steve.
ERIC: All right. Thank you, Steve. Well, guys, I think – and gals. It’s been a good evening.
RACHEL: Yeah, we had a great group.
ERIC: Good FSOpenLine. I think we have some – we have quite a few people still waiting, but I think we’re going to have to call it a night.
RACHEL: And we will look forward to seeing you during our next FSOpenLine, which will take place...
MATT: Christmas Day?
RACHEL: No.
ERIC: Probably February.
RACHEL: February is correct.
GLEN: The last...
MATT: Oh, it’s once a quarter.
GLEN: The last Thursday in February.
RACHEL: Yes, the last.
ERIC: We’ll wish you all a fabulous holiday.
RACHEL: Yup.
ERIC: And we’ll talk to you in February, I guess.
RACHEL: Stay healthy, and have a good holiday.
ERIC: Yup.
GLEN: Thanks a lot.
ERIC: ‘Night.