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Re: Why is Insert + ; shortcut removed in Jaws 15 for Skipping ARIA Landmarks ?

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From: Ravindra Kumar Jain
Date: Aug 20, 2014 11:47PM


Hi List ,

Using JAWS 15 in trial mode I noticed something which was unanticipated.
Till JAWS 13 pressing Insert + ; was used to skip to different
Landmarks, which according to me was a very good feature , but sadly
not working in JAWS 15.
After which tried googling, and referring the following page for
keyboard shortcut.
http://webaim.org/articles/jaws/

Pressing Insert + R as mentioned in webaim , only reads out , "You
must turn on either JAWS or Invisible cursor before you can set
restriction ".
Only what comes closer is pressing Q for going to main region and
pressing Control + Insert + R for listing out ARIA Landmarks. Which
according to me is a "reduced functionality and inconvenient". Am I
missing out something ?
Is it something to do with Html 5 ? Why was this simple
functionality change in the later versions ?

By what I see their are atleast 1000 sites referring to "JaWS Keyboard
shortcuts " which have become standard over a period of time , Every
time a version of JAWS comes up, with a relatively a new set of
shortcuts, does it not creates confusion for a general JAWS user
whose search results may not directly go to freedom scientific sites ,
but to one of those sites which have not been updated for years ?

Adding to confusion are thousands of keyboard shortcuts which user
has to remember for accomplishing a task.
Looking at a bigger picture , Does this means that every time the
user learns a new version of JAWS , he has to again do R & D for new
shortcuts by going to freedom scientific website which are unclear
many times ? In my opinion this will discourage other online web
content authors to write about JAWS. This in my opinion certainly
discourages accessibility testers to suggest developers to add ARIA
page role definitions.

Ravindra Kumar Jain
Accessibility Engineer
Onya Digital Solutions Pvt. Ltd.