I notice Chrome does not have "first letter navigation" for the bookmarks. I had to arrow down until I found the one I wanted. Also, when I press Enter on a bookmark, it does not activate. I had to go into the applications key to activate the option "open in new window".
Hi,
For the curious, you get to the toolbar by pressing Alt+Shift+T. Focus is placed on the first item, then you can arrow left and right through the toolbars.
All the best
Steve
Sorry about this message, I meant NVDA doesn’t see the toolbar, but neither does JAWS.
All the best
Steve
Hi,
Excellent tutorial.
The only thing it doesn’t touch on is how you access the toolbar. Someone installed the High Contrast accessibility extension today and asked me how to enable/disable it, or how to change the colour invertion. According to help, you have to click it from the toolbar, but it seems that JAWS doesn’t see it.
Any ideas please?
All the best
Steve
Hi all!
No problem at all.
I will paste my text tutorial right here in the message so you can all read it here or copy and paste it somewhere on your computer. Here is the tutorial on using Chrome!
Tutorial for Using the Google Chrome Browser
By David Moore
This tutorial will be done with the latest update of Chrome.
I will also use JAWS 18, JAWS 2018, and NVDA 2017.4 for this tutorial, because they all work the same in Chrome.
Finally, I will use Windows 10 Creators Update latest public build.
I will assume that you have downloaded and installed Chrome.
There should be a shortcut on your desktop.
Section One:
Launching Chrome:
One way to Launch Chrome, is to press the Windows key or CTRL+Escape and type Chrome in the search edit field, and press enter when you hear JAWS say Chrome.
However, since you have already downloaded Chrome, You will have a shortcut icon on your desktop.
So next, find the shortcut for Chrome on your desktop, and press enter to open Chrome.
The short cut will actually say Google Chrome, so press G to find the Google Chrome icon on your desktop.
The first very important step, is to press Windows+up arrow to maximise the window. Chrome often opens with the window not maximise, and you will get undesirable results.
Section Two:
Bringing up a web site.
Press CTRL+L or Alt+D
and type the following:
www.freedomscientific.com
The Freedom Scientific web site comes up very quickly.
All navigation commands like: H for heading, E for edit field, C for combo box, and so on all work just the same in Chrome.
Section Three:
The Virticle Chrome menu:
I will press Alt+F.
The Chrome menu is open.
This is a very large virticle menu that you just keep pressing up and down arrow through.
I will press insert+up arrow to hear the first option in this menu.
New Tab, CTRL+T.
You can press that command right from the web site you are on.
New Window, CTRL+N
You can press these commands right from your web page, instead of coming here.
New incognito Window.
History sub menu.
I will press right arrow here to see what is in this sub menu!
History, CTRL+H
So, there is a key command for reading your history.
You can read a few sites you were on right here.
I will press left arrow to close this history sub menu.
Downloads, CTRL+J
There is the command for opening your downloads you have downloaded with Chrome.
Next, the important Bookmarks sub menu.
I will press right arrow, to open this.
I hear, bookmark this page, CTRL+D
That command will bookmark the page you are reading.
Next down arrow, says show bookmarks bar, CTRL+Shift+B
That command, will show your bookmarks on your Chrome browser for all to see. I do not want that.
Here is the important one.
manage bookmarks
The command is, CTRL+Shift+O
In here, you can organize your bookmarks into folders, see the bookmarks you have imported from different browsers, and very importantly, you can download, to your computer, an HTML file of all of your bookmarks in Chrome.
On your computer, you can press enter on this file, after it downloads, and a page will show up in Chrome with a list of all bookmarks you have saved in Chrome. This is an awesome way to download all of your bookmarks right to your computer, so you can back them up.
That is all for manage bookmarks.
Next, I hear import bookmarks and settings.
press enter on this, and you can import all bookmarks and settings from IE, and Firefox, right into Google Chrome, and they will be in their corresponding folders.
Now, I hear all of my saved bookmarks as I continue to arrow down.
Very important!
Sometimes, when I open that bookmarks sub menu, I do not land on the choices I mension here, but instead, I start hearing my saved bookmarks. If this happens, I press up arrow a few times, and it gets me to these choices.
Keep in mind, that many of these choices, like bookmark manager, have key commands, so you do not have to come to this bookmarks sub menu at all. You only need to come here most of the time, to arrow through your saved bookmarks, and enter on the desired one.
To save a web site as a bookmark,
Just press CTRL+D and press enter, and your bookmark is saved.
I will now press left arrow, to close the Bookmarks sub menu!
I will continue to down arrow through this virticle Chrome menu that we entered by just pressing alt.
The next few are very self explanatory.
The next one I will mension, is the more tools submenu.
I will press right arrow on this.
I hear Save Page as, and the command, CTRL+S.
Next, Save to desktop.
This allows you to save the favorite of the page right to your desktop. This is how you do this in Chrome, instead of doing this in the file menu in IE.
It is hidden under this more tools submenu.
Clear Browsing data, and there is the key command, CTRL+Shift+Delete key.
Extentions, In here, you can add extentions, delete extentions and so on.
These are the same as add ons, in IE.
I will press left arrow, to close the More Tools sub menu, and we are back to the virticle Chrome menu.
The last two that I will mention, are settings, and the help sub menu.
If you press the left arrow on the help sub menu, you can open the help system, just like in other programs, so that is all I will say about help.
Now, we will press enter on settings, and a web like page will open where the virtual cursor will turn on with JAWS, and NVDA will be in Brows mode.
Section Four:
Adjusting Settings and Advanced settings:
Now that this web page is open, I will just down arrow down the page and we will deal with each setting.
Important:
I have already signed into Chrome.
So now, arrow down until you hear sign into Chrome and press enter.
You just enter your email address and password, I think it has to be the same email address and password that you used to set up your Google account.
I am not sure about this.
You do not need to sign into Chrome, if you do, you can sync all of your activity between all devices that you have Chrome on. That is the only advantage of signing in.
I will continue with what I hear after you have signed in.
If you do not sign in, press H until you hear Appearance.
Each group of settings is a heading that you can get to by pressing H. This makes it very easy, because you just press H until you hear the group of settings you want to work with.
Now, because I have signed in, this is what I hear before getting to appearance.
The first thing you hear:
Settings.
That is the very top of the web page.
Down arrow, and you hear:
Main Menu Button.
That will just take you back to the virticle menu we were in.
If you down arrow again, you will just hear blank.
Down arrow, again, and you hear:
Settings again, but now, this is a heading. You can get here just by pressing H at the top of the page.
If you down arrow, you hear:
Search Settings.
This is where you can type in a setting that you want to change.
Down arrow again, and there is the edit field where you type in the setting you want to work with.
Down arrow again, and you hear another heading saying people.
Down arrow again, and I hear David Clickable.
This is because I have already signed into Chrome.
Down arrow again, and I hear my Gmail email address.
Again, this is because I have already signed into Chrome to sync my settings and all of that.
Down arrow again, and I hear:
Edit person.
This is where I could change my name.
Down arrow again, and I hear:
Sign Out.
This is because I have already signed in to Chrome.
Down arrow again, and I hear:
Sync.
Down arrow again, and I hear:
On, Sync everything.
This is a combo box, where you can choose what to sinc; I chose everything in this combo box.
Again, all of this is because I have signed into Chrome already.
Down arrow again, and you hear:
Sync button.
Down arrow again, and you hear:
Manage other people clickable.
Don't worry about the clickables. There is a clickable for many things, but then there is the button you enter on right after that.
Down arrow again, and you hear:
Manage other people button.
This is what you would press enter on to set up another user.
Down arrow again, and you hear:
Import bookmarks and settings Clickable:
Down arrow again, and you actually hear
Import bookmarks and settings button.
Here, you press enter and import all of your bookmarks and settings from other Browsers like IE.
This is another way of doing this, because remember,
We had a choice of manage bookmarks in the book marks sub menu in the virticle menu.
There is more than one place to do things in Chrome.
Now, we have a series of headings, that you can just press H for heading, to get to.
Now, we have gotten to the appearance heading. Down arrow and you hear:
themes, which I did nothing with.
Next, you can open the Chrome web store. You can get hundreds of extentions, and more.
Then, you hear Themes button.
Do nothing with this.
Next, you hear:
Show home clickable.
Just skip that.
There are many buttons that say clickable, and then there is a button that you actually press enter on to work with it.
Just work with the buttons, and skip over these vclickables.
Down arrow, and you have an edit box where you can put in your home page you want to get to by pressing Alt+Home.
Next, there is the home button toggle.
Press the spacebar to turn this on or off. If it is on, you can have the home button show at the top of the Chrome Window.
I have it checked.
Now, there are two radio buttons, and I chose the one to enter with a custom web address.
Search Heading:
We are at another heading, where you can set your search Engine.
There is a combo box below, and I set it to Chrome, because I like to have my searches from the address bar done with Crome instead of Bing.
Next heading:
Default Browser.
Here, you can choose weather you want Chrome to be your default browser or not.
Just leave this alone if you do not want Chrome to be your default browser.
Next Important heading:
On Start up.
Here is where you put in your URL that you want to show as soon as you start Chrome.
There are three radio buttons to pick from, but I chose to open with a specific page or pages, which is the third radio button.
Under this, you can type in the URL of the web site that you want to open when you start Chrome.
Under this, there is a link where you can add more pages you want to show when Chrome starts up.
Now, we are up to the search engin heading.
This is a heading.
There are headings on this settings page.
I chose to use Google search engin in the address bar. This is a combo box.
The next heading, is on start up.
Finally, here is where you set up your home page.
There are three radio buttons here.
I chose the third one, to open a selected page or selected pages.
Next, I was able to enter:
www.Google.Com.
That is my home page that will open each time I start Chrome.
Next important group of settings, the advanced settings.
Now, you have to press enter on the advanced settings button before more headings of settings will show.
The Advanced settings are collapsed, so you have to press enter to show more headings of settings.
Now that these advanced settings are open, we get to the next heading of settings.
There is much more we can customize under the advanced settings.
Privacy and security heading:
Down arrow from here, and you hear:
Use a web service to resolve navigation errors.
You have a clickable, and a toggle.
Press spacebar to toggle this on or off.
Again, ignore the clickables.
Now you have:
Use a prodiction service to enable you in searches.
I left this unchecked.
Next, you have a setting to speed up the loading of web pages:
I checked this with spacebar.
The next three settings I just left alone.
I checked the one that says:
Use a web service to help with spelling.
I leave manage certificates alone.
Next, you have content settings, but this is not a new heading.
We are still working with the same heading.
The only thing of interest here, is the clear history button.
This was available in the virtical menu, so don't worry about this.
Now, we get to the next heading of settings.
Passwords and forms:
Under this heading, just make sure that you check to be able to have Chrome save passwords.
Languages Heading:
I did nothing with this.
Downloads heading:
This is where you choose where you want your downloads to be saved on your computer.
Printing heading:
I did nothing with this.
Accessibility heading:
I did nothing with this.
Now, we have the System heading:
Down arrow, and you hear:
Continue running background apps, when Google Chrome is Closed.
I have this unchecked.
Next,
Use hard ware excelloration when Available.
I have this checked.
Next, you hear:
Open proxy settings button.
I left this alone.
Last Heading LOL!
Reset.
Here, you can reset all settings back to their origional.
We are done with Settings.
Now, just press CTRL+F4 to get back to the Freedom Scientific Web site.
This settings web page, opens in another tab.
That is it for settings.
Notice, we made a lot of changes under the advanced settings. You cannot see these, unless you press enter to expand these.
Now, press the Alt key again. Up arrow once to get to the end of the menu where we were with the settings.
You see exit, up arrow and you see the help sub menu, right under the settings choice.
I press right arrow on this help sub menu, and you can enter on the help center to get a lot of help using Chrome.
To open a web site, just press CTRL+L or Alt+D and type the URL.
Chrome for me, is so much quicker with web sites that involve streamming TV and Watching movies, and so on.
For me, Chrome opens large news sites very quickly compared to IE.
Lastly, All JAWS and NVDA navigation key commands work in Chrome. For example, you can press F7 to open a list of links with JAWS, and the elements list with NVDA. All of that is the exact same.
This is the end of the tutorial.
Sent from Mail for Windows 10
From: Monte Single
Sent: Sunday, May 6, 2018 6:25 PM
To: nvda@nvda.groups.io
Subject: Re: [nvda] I've largely changed my mind about Chrome, I like itmuchmore now
Hi David,
Please post your tutorial again; especially for those of us who are not always paying attention to all details.
Thanks,
Monte
Hi all!
I have been telling people just how great Chrome is for two and a half years.
I am so happy that all of you are finding it to be true.
If anyone needs my text tutorial I wrote on how to use Chrome, and take you through all settings, I will paste it on the list.
I have done this around ten times on all the lists, but you are still finding out for the first time, just how great Chrome is.
Just read works great for just reading an article on the page.
CTRL+J allows you to hear the status of the downloads. Now, CTRL+Shift+O allows you to open the bookmarks manager, and you can arrange them in different folders and back them up.
Chrome is great with Youtube, and streaming media. Chrome is good for a lot other than just simple browsing.
Have a great one, and I am celebrating that you are finally getting used to Chrome!
David Moore
Sent from Mail for Windows 10
From: juan gonzalez
Sent: Sunday, May 6, 2018 5:23 PM
To: nvda@nvda.groups.io
Subject: Re: [nvda] I've largely changed my mind about Chrome, I like it muchmore now
I use the add on called sound on for navigational sounds.
-----Original Message-----
From: nvda@nvda.groups.io <nvda@nvda.groups.io> On Behalf Of Brian's Mail list account via Groups.Io
Sent: Sunday, May 6, 2018 9:28 AM
To: nvda@nvda.groups.io
Subject: Re: [nvda] I've largely changed my mind about Chrome, I like it much more now
Would anyone know if Chrome has sounds? one of the annoyances with current firefox is figuring out when downloads are finished or when a page is refreshing itself, ie you normally hear the ticks in the old version due to navigational sounds.
Until i find a browser with this function of sound I'm loathe to get a new browser over ff52, but the problem is that I've been reading that some sites now do not support the old versions of Firefox and tell you so when you have things like modal windows whatever they are.
On XP to make Firefox perform even reasonably you need to use a version 45, as after this the actual load up times are hugely slowed, my guess is that the code is made for multi processor devices, not single core ones.This is also why on xp you might find that Chrome and firefox are similar in page loading times.
Things are no pushing ahead so fast on sites that its not uncommon to see the message you browser is unsupported get this or that then you can come back.
To me this is a weird thing for commercial sites to do, as they are, in effect pushing away potential customers, but hey, that is their business.
Brian
bglists@...
Sent via blueyonder.
Please address personal E-mail to:-
briang1@..., putting 'Brian Gaff'
in the display name field.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Gene" <gsasner@...>
To: <nvda@nvda.groups.io>
Sent: Sunday, May 06, 2018 10:57 AM
Subject: [nvda] I've largely changed my mind about Chrome, I like it much more now
I may have sent messages in the past in which I expressed a much stronger liking for Firefox than Chrome. At this point, I've changed my mind and, unless things change over time, as they may as Firefox continues to implement its new internal technical changes, I consider Chrome to be superior for general browsing. I haven't tested it for uses such as streaming or RSS or other uses. I will therefore only address general browsing and the interface. Others may want to comment on other aspects I haven't compared.
This is a long message, a bit of a review and a bit of discussion of the interface. I hope those interested in the subject find it useful.
If you try Chrome and find it superior for general browsing, you may still not want to use Chrome as your main browser. There are various considerations. I'll explain why I changed my mind and what you may want to consider. You may have other or different considerations as well.
The reason I say Chrome is better for general browsing is because it loads pages faster than Firefox. You may want to compare and see if the difference is important to you. There is a very noticeable difference. I hadn't compared Chrome with Firefox for speed on a fast machine. I compared them on a slow machine running XP perhaps six or eight months ago. I had expected that, if Chrome was faster, there would have been a noticeable difference, even though the machine was slow. But there wasn't a difference that amounted to anything.
I recently decided to compare on a reasonably fast machine running Windows 7 since many people have said on lists I'm on that Chrome is faster. There is a very noticeable difference in speed on my Windows 7 machine. I don't know what the results would have been on a fast XP machine.
I haven't used Chrome much but the increase in speed is the reason I say it's better for general browsing.
The Chrome interface is different than Firefox or Internet Explorer. It isn't difficult to learn but it is different. You will likely want a tutorial or some instructional material. If you are good at learning by exploring, you may not want or need such material, at least not to use in depth, but you may benefit in early learning by using material.
The main things to know in terms of the differences in the interface are that Chrome shows many things as web pages, such as settings and history and there is one menu, which you can open with alt f, that is, hold alt and press f. Of course, there are submenus and there are also items that open like web pages such as settings.
I don't recall if there are classic dialogs that open from the main menu.
But if you work with settings, you need to know that the settings interface doesn't work quite properly in the following way:
It's a web page-like interface but there some controls that don't work as they should. I tried to activate two buttons today and I couldn't do so in browse mode using NVDA. I don't know what JAWS does. I had to manually go into forms mode, and activate the buttons. I may have had to tab to the button because forms mode may not have been properly calibrated with browse mode in that interface, at least at times.
I seem to recall that in another instance, I needed to be in browse mode to activate something but I'd have to experiment more to know if that is the case since I don't have a clear memory of whether that was necessary.
There's a very useful settings search feature in settings.
One of my main objections to Chrome in the past was that the book marks interface is not nearly as comvenient to work with as Firefox because the search feature in Chrome book marks appears to be inaccessible. I very recently learned from someone on a list I follow that this problem can be more or less eliminated. I say more or less because I haven't played with it much, but enough to see that it works well or reasonably well. I'm hedging because I'd want to play with it more before saying just how well it works. It' appears to work well from the very little testing I've done. If you are in the address bar, you can type some or all of what you want to find such as york times or new york times and you can up and down arrow through results. Some of them will be search results using a search engine but the top results in the list should be from book marks and history. Try reading the current line after typing to see if that contains the first result. I haven't played with the feature more than a little and I'm not sure. But if it works well, this would eliminate what I consider to be an important deficiency. In other words, this feature may make book marks just as easy to use in Chrome as in Firefox.
If you use Firefox extensions that you consider important and use them a lot, that may be a consideration in which browser you want to use. and then, there's just convenience of not learning a new interface and continuing to use the familiar Firefox. You, of course, can determine questions like that. It's nice to have pages load a good deal faster, but the importance of speed may vary from user to user. But if you haven't compared with a hands on test, you may wish to.
Browsing is either identical or nearly identical between the browsers because they both use browse mode, or the Virtual PC cursor, which is the JAWS name for the same thing.
So you can compare by installing Chrome, and then opening and using some web sites. Control l moves you to the address bar, just as in Firefox. I believe when you open Chrome, you are automatically placed on the address bar, but you can check. If you want to make sure, it takes almost no time to execute control l.
I hope those who are interested in this subject find these comments useful.
If people are curious or dissatisfied with Firefox or another browser, they may want to try Chrome. I haven't used Edge at all so I don't know how Edge compares.
Gene
