Navigating the Desktop Navigating the Desktop: When your computer first starts up, you are typically left sitting at what is known as the desktop. This would be after you have to log-in, assuming you had to do that. The desktop is the main interface to your operating system, whether it is Windows 2000, XP, 2003, or Vista. The desktop can be broken down into 5 different areas: 1. The start menu. The start menu is located at the bottom left of your screen. It gives you access to all of your applications and operating system functions. This is probably the most used feature of the operating system. The sighted user would typically click on the start menu, which would cause it to open, exposing all of its’ options. The second area is the quick launch. The quick launch may or may not be enabled. If it is enabled, it is immediately to the right of the start menu. It can be used as a shortcut to startup certain installed applications. A sighted user would typically single click on one of the graphics shown to launch that application. The third area is the taskbar. The taskbar is immediately to the right of the quick launch or to the right of the start menu if the quick launch is disabled. The taskbar shows visually all of the applications that are currently running on your system. Note that there is a difference between installed and running. For example, you may have installed Microsoft Office and Outlook Express and many other applications, but only those that are currently running, like Window Eyes, would show up on the taskbar. A sighted user would usually single click on one of the items in the taskbar to bring that application to the foreground. The fourth area is the system tray, or sys tray. This is on the bottom right of your screen. The taskbar will show applications that are currently running, and the sys tray will show utilities and programs that are currently running. The main difference between the sys tray and the taskbar is that the sys tray has programs that are always running. When your computer starts, these programs are automatically running. They may be items like your anti-virus software or MSN Messenger. An example of a utility that you might find in the sys tray may be an item like your local area network connection. Window Eyes is actually capable of running in the taskbar or the sys tray. Depending on the utility or program, the sighted user would either click or double click on one of the graphics to perform the desired action. To the right of all of the graphics in the sys tray is the system time. The fifth area is the desktop. The desktop comprises the majority of the screen. The bottom line has all of the other previously discussed items, and everything above that line is part of the desktop. This contains graphics representing applications that are installed. It is up to the user how many icons, and which icons are displayed on the desktop. A sighted user would move the mouse to the desired application, and do a double left click to start up that application. Now that you know the five areas of the desktop and how a sighted user interacts, let’s look at each of these from the perspective of Window Eyes and the keyboard. To access the desktop, there are a couple different keystrokes, but I like to use Windows key-d. The Windows key is typically between the control and alt keys at the bottom-left of your keyboard. At the very bottom-left of your keyboard is the control key; to the right of that is the Windows keys; to the right of that is the alt key; and to the right of that is the space bar. So hold down the Windows key and tap the “d” key to get to the desktop. WE: Desktop, command prompt, unselected, list view, 3 of 10 This read that we went to the desktop and read whatever was selected on the screen. So when we pressed it, Window Eyes told us that the desktop was in focus, and now I can use my arrow keys to navigate the desktop. So let me just arrow down once. WE: FTP Voyager, 4 of 10 Down arrow again. WE: FTP Voyager, 4 of 10 Now the problem with the desktop is that the icons can be arranged in any order. There is no way to go from top to bottom or from the first one to the very last one. In my case, I happen to be at the very last icon on the screen. So when I hit the down arrow, I just stay at the same element. Now the problem is, if there are elements to the right or left, you may miss them, so it really isn’t the best way to navigate the desktop. It really isn’t an advantage to put applications on the desktop. There are also better ways to navigate them. It is still important to understand that it is here. Let me up arrow once. WE: Command prompt, 3 of 10 So command prompt is an application on the desktop, so if I hit enter there, this program will launch. Up arrow again. WE: Notepad, 7 of 10 This is actually Notepad ++, but the two plus signs are being squelched because we do not have our punctuation levels set up to read them. Up arrow again. WE: Window Eyes, 10 of 10 There is Window Eyes. Press the right arrow key once. WE: View, 6 of 10 Right again. WE: Recycle bin, 1 of 10 Right again. WE: My computer, 5 of 10 Go back left one. WE: Recycle bin, 1 of 10 Left arrow again. WE: View, 6 of 10 Now your desktop may be arranged differently, and you will most likely have different icons on your system. So you will hear different things that what I did. So using your arrows is one way to navigate throughout your desktop. There is a way to arrange your desktop so that your icons are in a nice column so you can just go down one column and then arrow over to the next one. Mine just happened to be randomly spread out amongst the screen, so it made it a little more difficult to navigate the icons. Once we are on the desktop, we can now press the tab key to move through the different components that we talked about earlier. Let me press the tab key one time now to go from the desktop to the start menu. WE: Start, button So I am now on the start button. We left the desktop area, and one tab takes us to the start button. Once we are on the start button, we can hit enter one time to open up the start menu. Under Windows Vista, the start menu is a lot more powerful than they have been in the past. It is a little different than previous start menus, so it takes a little getting used to. You can set this menu back to classic view if that makes you feel more comfortable. But it is better to learn the new environment as you get more used to Windows Vista. I’m going to bring up the start menu by pressing enter here. WE: Start menu, start search, edit box So it said, “Start menu, start search, edit box.” This is what is different with Vista than with other operating systems. The menu is pretty much the same, but this edit box is unique to Vista. This edit box allows you to find things that are in your start menu quickly, without having to search through the various menus. I will show you how to do that in a minute. To get off of the edit box, you can press the tab key to move through the different areas of the start menu. Press tab once. WE: Doug, list view, 1 of 12 So it takes me to the right half of the start menu. This menu pulled up on the bottom-left of my screen. This right half is called a list view. So I can actually arrow through this list item-by-item. Down arrow once. WE: Documents, 2 of 12 Documents. Down arrow. WE: Pictures, 3 of 12 Down again. WE: Music, 4 of 12 Again. WE: Games, 5 of 12; Search, 6 of 12; Computer, 7 of 12; Network, 8 of 12; Connect to, 9 of 12; Control Panel, 10 of 12; Default programs, 11 of 12; Help and Support, 12 of 12 And when I press down again. WE: Sleep I actually leave the list. So I’m going to go back up to help and support by pressing the up arrow key once. WE: Help and Support, 12 of 12 So 12 of 12 tells me that I’m on the last element there. The problem with the start menu is that Microsoft didn’t necessarily do this the way that I would have done it, in that if you are in a list view, you shouldn’t be able to leave it unless you tab off of it. They allow you to arrow off of these controls very easily. In fact, when I was on the start search edit box, I could have just hit the up arrow and I would have been off of the edit box and on the item above. These list views are just shortcuts to get you to certain areas of your computer. Pressing enter on the “documents” option would have opened up Windows explorer, but we will go over that in another section. The control panel is also available by going to the start menu. The search option will bring up a search box, where you can look for specific things on your system. Let me go ahead and tab off of this. WE: Sleep, button The sleep button will put your system to sleep. Press right arrow. WE: Lock your computer. This will leave your system running, but locks it, which means that it requires a password to start it back up again. So if you are going to be gone for a period of time, you can lock your computer. Right arrow again. WE: Shut down, u. Closes all open programs, shuts down Windows, then turns off your computer. This is actually how I shut down the operating system under Vista. I bring up the start menu and hit the right arrow three times, and it opens up this pull down menu. By default, it highlights shut down. If I up arrow through these options… WE: Hibernate, saves your session and turns off the computer. When you turn on the computer, Windows restores your session. Up again. WE: Sleep, s. Keeps your session in memory and puts the computer in low-power state so that you can quickly resume working. Up again. Restart, r. Closes all open programs, shuts down Windows, and then starts Windows again. Up again. WE: Lock. Lock this computer Up again. WE: Log off, L. Close programs and log off. Up again. WE: Switch user, w. Switch users without closing programs. Up again. WE: Shut down, u. Closes all open programs… I’ll silence that since we are back to the beginning. So you can see all of the options here that you can quickly get to if you want to log off, or if you want to lock the computer, etc. I’m not going to shut down my computer yet, but if I wanted to do that, I’d just press control-escape to bring up the start menu, arrow right three times, and press enter. This will shut down my system. That is how I do it under Vista. Let me go ahead and tab off of this. Actually, I have to escape to get out of this menu, then hit tab. WE: Internet, Internet Explorer, list view, 1 of 11 This is a list of the most recently used applications. Vista can remember the programs that you used last, and list them here in the start menu. If I were to hit enter here, Vista would launch Internet Explorer for me. We have a section on Internet Explorer, so we will skip this option for now. Down arrow one time. WE: E-mail, Microsoft Office Outlook, 2 of 11 Down again. WE: Music, 3 of 11 Down again. WE: Command prompt, 4 of 11; Window Eyes, 5 of 11; Remote Desktop Connection, 6 of 11; Default Programs, 7 of 11; This is just a list of the most recently used programs. I’m going to go ahead and tab to the next list. WE: All programs All programs. Under previous versions of Windows, it was just called “programs pull down,” where you could go through and see all of the programs that are currently installed. Under Vista, they call it all programs. If I were to tab off of this, it would take me to… WE: Start search, edit box So if I wanted to get back to All programs, I could just shift-tab . WE: All programs, button That is a quick way to get to all programs. Once you are on “all programs,” you must hit enter to open it up. This will open up the menu. Press enter. WE: Adobe Reader 8, 1 of 29.Tree view, depth 2. So what it just did was it read the first item in the list. If I were to down arrow from there. WE: Default programs, 2 of 29. Down again. WE: Internet Explorer, 3 of 29. These are all of the items in my all programs folder. Let’s say that I want to get to Window Eyes very quickly. I could just type in “win” WE: Windows calendar, 5 of 29. I guess if I spell out Window- I will get there quicker, so I will do that. WE: Dash, Window-Eyes, closed 29 of 29. So this is the last item in my programs group. This is normally sorted alphabetically. So I am sitting on Window Eyes now, and it said closed. So if I hit enter here, it will open up Window Eyes. WE: Window Eyes, expanded, 29 of 29, 3 items This opened up the Window Eyes folder, and now I can see visually the 3 items that are in the folder. Granted, it told me that there were 3 items, and now I can down arrow through these items. This will actually take me inside this folder. Press the down arrow. WE: Window Eyes, 1 of 3. Depth 3. So this is the actual Window Eyes program itself. This is another way to launch Window Eyes. I’m going to hit down arrow again. WE: Advanced options, closed, 2 of 3 So even within the Window Eyes folder itself, we have other folders, one called advanced options. I’m not going to go into that, but there are some advanced options that you can get into. Down arrow again. WE: Documentation, closed, 3 of 3 Let’s go ahead and open this one up by pressing enter or by pressing the right arrow. WE: Documentation, expanded, 3 of 3, 4 items So it told me that I’m on 3 of 3 of Window Eyes, but there are 4 items under documentation. To get to the first item under documentation, just press the down arrow key one time. WE: Read Me, 1 of 4, Depth 4 So I could hit enter here, and this would launch Notepad so I could read the Read Me file. Down arrow again. WE: Window Eyes Manual, 2 of 4 This will launch the Windows Help version of the Window Eyes manual. Down arrow again. WE: Window Eyes Scripting Manual, 3 of 4 Same thing here as with the regular manual. Down arrow again. WE: Window Eyes text manual, 4 of 4 This opens up a Windows Explorer window and shows you all of the text file versions of the Window Eyes manual. We will bring up the text manual when we talk about Windows Explorer in a later section. Now one would think that to get out of this list, you would hit the left arrow. But if you do that, you would be taken to the list that we first talked about, where it contained a list of folders on the right side of your start menu. The only way to get out of this area is to arrow back up to the top. So I’m going to do that now. WE: Documentation, expanded, 3 of 3, 4 items Now, I can close this by pressing the left arrow. WE: Documentation, closed, tree view, depth 3 Moving around in the “all programs” group can be a little confusing. That is why it is nice to have the search edit box there. So I’m going to hit tab until I get back to the edit box. You will need to hit enter on “back” to get to the start menu, then you can tab around to get to the edit box. WE: Start search, edit box There is the search. Let’s say that I wanted to run Notepad. I could go to the all programs and look for Notepad that way, or I could just type in “no” WE: Internet explorer, no add ons So it found Internet Explorer, no add ons. Now let me type in a “t” after the “no.” WE: t, Notepad, 1 of 18 And there it is. The search is automatically updating the list on the left side of the start menu as you type in each letter. It brought up the best guess of what they thought I was looking for. If Notepad was not what you were looking for, you could use your up and down arrow keys to search through the list. Once I heard that they had selected Notepad, I could just hit enter on it to launch the program. Go ahead and press enter. WE: Untitled Notepad, edit box And I am sitting inside Notepad. It was that simple to launch Notepad. I’m going to go ahead and hit alt-f4 to shut Notepad down. I’m going to bring the start menu back up. We could press Windows key-d, or tab to the start menu, but I’m just going to press control-escape to bring up the start menu. You can also tap the Windows key by itself. So I am holding down control and tapping escape. WE: Start menu, start search, edit box And I am now in the start search edit box. Now I like to do a lot of work from home, and have to use the Remote Desktop Connection. I had a hard time trying to find this when I first started using Vista. So I just went to the start menu and typed in “Remo.” WE: Remote Desktop Connection, programs group. 1 of 17 And it found it. I could hit enter, and it would open this up. This is a great way of being able to deal with that. Let me erase these letters here by pressing the backspace key four times. Go ahead and type in the word “word.” WE: Microsoft Office Word 2007 I could hit enter here and this program would launch. This start menu makes looking for programs much easier and quicker. Give this a try and you will find that it is far superior to going through all of these menus to find a specific program. Just to show you something, lets’ go ahead and type in “worz” instead of “word” and see what happens. WE: Search everywhere, 1 of 2 So it said “search everywhere,” which means that it didn’t find any program to match that word. Now if you hit backspace to get rid of that “z,” WE: Z, Microsoft Office Word 2007, programs group, 1 of 17. So there 17 guesses that they brought up, and I am sitting on the first one of them. As you keep typing, the options will be updating, and Window Eyes will be keeping you informed. If you type something that does not match, you will not hear that. But I’m going to go ahead and hit escape to get out of the start menu. I will still be on the start button, but not the start menu. Press escape. WE: Start, button So now I am sitting at the start button, and now what I can do is tab off to go to the next option that we had talked about. We would be taken to the quick launch part of the desktop. This consists of graphics that are geared to sighted users. These are used to launch programs quickly for a sighted user. However, these items are not very useful for blind individuals. Although you can use them by pressing enter on the graphic. For instance, I am going to hit tab… WE: Quick launch, show desktop, button So show desktop. I could hit this button to go to the desktop, or I could just press Windows key-d to do the same thing. Right arrow one time. WE: Switch between windows, button Switch between windows. This is kind of like the alt-tab business. Press the right arrow again. WE: Launch the Internet Explorer Browser, button Launch Internet Explorer browser. Again, to launch the browser, I could bring up the start menu and type “internet,” and it would be right there for me to launch. I believe that this is quicker than using the quick launch. But it is here if you would like to use it. Pressing tab again will take you to the taskbar. This is where all of the running programs reside. To scroll through the programs, we can use the left and right arrow keys. Then, if I wanted to open a program, I would have to press enter on that item. The more programs that we have open, the more RAM that we will be using. This normally results in slower performance. It just depends on the applications that are running and the system you are using. It is important for you to close any applications that you are not using at the time, but don’t be afraid to leave them open either. Let me go ahead and hit tab. WE: Taskbar, Window Eyes, button So it said taskbar, Window Eyes, button. If I were to hit enter on this, it would launch the Window Eyes control panel. The same as if I did control-backslash, or alt-tabbed to it. This is just another way to access it. Now if I try to arrow right or left, it will not do anything. Why? Well it is because there is only one option, and that is Window Eyes. There are no other applications running at this time. If I would have kept Notepad open, the I could have right or left arrowed to that and gone between my two applications. Pressing tab one more time will take you to the system tray, or sys tray. Again, you can use the left or right arrow keys to navigate the sys tray. Go ahead and press tab to get off of the taskbar. WE: Button Now it just said button. There may be some buttons that have text, and some that do not. Let me hit the right arrow. WE: Sys tray, 98 available plug-in, charging button So it says that I have 98% of my battery available, and that it is plugged in and charging. Right arrow again. WE: Currently connected to Access to local internet, button. Internet access. Right arrow. WE: Volume, button, volume Right arrow again. WE: 1:17 p.m; 9/20/08 clock So we can just arrow through these things, and depending on the item in the sys tray, I may want to do a right click or a left click, or I might just hit enter on it. I can hit tab again, then, to get back to the desktop. Tab again. WE: Desktop, Adobe Reader 8, list view, 9 of 10 So tabbing will just take me between all of the different components. There are keyboard shortcuts to get to all of these elements. For example, to get to the desktop, just press Windows key-d. To open the start menu, press the Windows key or control-escape. In Windows 2000, XP, and 2003, you can use Windows-tab to get to the taskbar. In Vista, you can use Windows-t to do the same thing. In Windows XP, 2003, and Vista, you can press Windows-b to get to the sys tray. All of these are commands that Windows use. These are not special commands for Window Eyes. If you have sighted friends and family, these commands will work as well for them. Another important keystroke is alt-tab. You can use this to shift focus between programs that are in the taskbar. Under Windows Vista, even though Window Eyes is the only application running, I can alt-tab between it and the desktop. So, just hold down the alt key, and while it is down, just tap the tab key. WE: Window Eyes And it said Window Eyes, even though I still have the alt key down. If I let go of the alt key, then Window Eyes would be the active window. I’m going to hit tab again. WE: Desktop Desktop. So that is another way to quickly get to the desktop. If I hit alt-tab again… WE: Window Eyes I would just go between these two programs. If I had many applications running, it would go between all of them. You can press shift-alt-tab to go back to the previous program. But I’m going to let go of the alt key now. WE: Window Eyes0s0s This brings Window Eyes up to the foreground and spoke it. I’m going to hit escape to close the Window Eyes control panel. WE: Start, button Window Eyes has added a special Window Eyes only command to give you access to the system tray. The Window Eyes command may be quicker and easier to use. This new command that we added is the insert-s command. With numlock turned off, I’m going to hold down the insert key on the num pad, which is the zero key, and then press the “s” key. WE: Windows sidebar, 1 of 7, dialog, system tray This brings up the system tray dialog. This is a Window Eyes specific command that we feel gives you quicker access to the system tray and all of its elements. When I went to my sys tray option, you might have only seen a few items, but it really has 7. The reason for that is Windows Vista is hiding some of the least used icons that I use. That is an option that I can disable, but is on by default. I’m only seeing the three icons that I typically use, and it is hiding the other ones from me. When you bring up the system tray with insert-s, we will get you all of those, whether they are hidden or not. When you interact with any of these, we will enable the correct options, even if the icon is invisible. So this is a much easier way of being able to deal with all of your system tray icons. What insert-s does is it brings up a list box that has all of the icons of the sys tray listed. So you can arrow up and down through the list to see what you have in your sys tray. Go ahead and down arrow once. WE: Windows Defender Down arrow. WE: Windows Security Alerts. Down. WE: Safely remove hardware; 98 available, plugged in, charging; currently connected to Access to local internet; volume So once you have selected the item that you want, you can tab off… WE: Single left click, s button What this will do is go to the volume icon and do a single left click on it. Tab again. WE: Single right click, r button This would go to volume and do a single right click. Tab again. WE: Double left click, d button This acts as a double left click. WE: Double right click, o button And again. WE: Cancel, button So let me just go back up to single left click. Shift tab 4 times to get there. WE: Single left click, s button And I will hit enter. WE: Dialog, 66 of 100. Track bar Sure enough, it brought up my volume track bar, and I could actually set the volume with my track bar. That is just a very quick way of being able to get in there. I’m going to hit control-escape to close this down. Now I am back on the start menu. WE: Start menu, edit box Hit escape. WE: Start, button And now I am just sitting back at the desktop. So hopefully that has given you a quick view of how you can interact with your desktop, all of the different components, and how you can deal with them using Window Eyes. Let’s move on to the next section.