[gui-talk] Still hassling with my laptop keyboard

Sat Jan 2 03:24:53 UTC 2010

Wayne,

thanks but that isn't an issue for kme. This laptop has a number pad, so I 
can use the familiar Desktop jaws keyboard settings. The problems just have 
to do with having trouble finding the keys and understanding the key layout, 
although nobody has chimed in to agree that it's as much a problem as I've 
said it is for me. But that's what it's about, not having to learn the Jaws 
commands or anything like that. Thanks anyway, and Happy New Year.
Joel
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Wayne Merritt" <wcmerritt at gmail.com>
To: "NFBnet GUI Talk Mailing List" <gui-talk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Friday, January 01, 2010 1:43 PM
Subject: Re: [gui-talk] Still hassling with my laptop keyboard

Not sure if this has been mentioned yet, so pardon any repeats. I
leave my JAWS keyboard layout set to laptop. there are several laptop
keystrokes that I regularly use and several other desktop JAWS
keystrokes i use, such as the number pad for switching between
cursors. Some laptop keystrokes I use include the Caps Lock key and T
for the window's title, just like Insert T with a desktop keyboard,
Caps Lock Escape to refresh what JAWS ses, and others. I use desktop
PC's at work and home, and have a netbook which is by default set to
the laptop layout. In all situations though I use the laptop layout,
which gives me those productive laptop keystrokes and lets me maintain
the "normal" keystrokes I have used with JAWS for years. Besides, when
using laptop layout, you don't have to keep moving your hands back and
forth between the numpad.

Good luck Joel. If you switch to laptop layout, which you can do in
the options menu and basics settings dialog in JAWS, then I think that
will help you make the transition and help introduce the newer laptop
keystrokes. I think there's a JAWS training lesson/MP3 on the FS site
for these keystrokes if you need an audio walk through. You can also
find them listed in the JAWS help system.

Hth,
Wayne

On 12/31/09, Joel Deutsch <jdeutsch at dslextreme.com> wrote:
> Ted,
>
> Thanks a lot for the moral support. I've been putting in about an hour of
> just practicing nearly every day, and I can see that I've begun to 
> memorize
> and visualize (a formerly sighted person's habitual way of mapping things
> the little keyboard, and I guess I'm making some progress. I'm still a 
> long
> way from my fantasy of sitting back in an easy chair with the laptop on my
> knees and just typing away; even when I get more of the keyboard 
> memorized,
> I know I'll probably always be struck by the feeling that it isn't a 
> normal
> typist's keyboard. Wrong hand position, and that slab of "hand rest," I
> guess it's thought of, just screws things up if you're a serious typist. 
> If
> children were all given their first piano lessons on something akin to 
> this,
> not many of them would grow up to be serious pianists, I'm afraid.
>
> But I'll keep working at it and see if I can develop a level of skill and
> comfort that's "good enough," to steal a phrase from psychology. The
> good-enough mother, it was.
>
> Thanks again for the moral support. I was starting to think I was really
> lame. Now I see it's truly difficult, but can be done if you're 
> determined.
>
> Joel
> comfrot comfory sts, I'm afraid. up enconenienced comp7utguess)
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Ted Shelly" <tshelly at optonline.net>
> To: "'NFBnet GUI Talk Mailing List'" <gui-talk at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, December 30, 2009 11:35 AM
> Subject: Re: [gui-talk] Still hassling with my laptop keyboard
>
>
> Joel,
>
> I use a laptop regularly and a desktop with a normal keyboard.  It is a 
> pain
> memorizing two different layouts, but it just takes practice.  I also have
> partial sight, but not enough to see the key markings on my laptop without
> using a video magnifier.  Occasionally I do get out the magnifier when I
> can't remember where some of the function keys are (like the one to switch
> to an external monitor).  But mostly I've learned to manage.  I'm on my 
> 4th
> laptop now and fortunately laptop keyboards are similar so there has not
> been too much of a learning curve to switch.
>
> Keep working with the laptop and eventually you will get the hang of it.
>
> Ted
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: gui-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:gui-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
> Behalf Of Joel Deutsch
> Sent: Tuesday, December 29, 2009 3:14 PM
> To: GUI-Talk
> Subject: [gui-talk] Still hassling with my laptop keyboard
>
> Hi listers,
>
> Okay, please come clean. I know some of us are totally blind and some are
> partial. I'm partial, myself, but I have no central vision thus can't read
> at all with my eyes. Only with Jaws, recorded literature, and so forth. So
> in dealing with this new machine of mine, which I'd hoped would be a handy
> tool, I'm at a loss.
>
> I thought I'd be able to get the hang of the keyboard with some effort. 
> it's
> an Acer with a number key pad so I don't have to learn the Jaws laptop key
> commands.
>
> but still there's no space between the keys and the sections of keys as 
> I'm
> accustomed to on a normal keyboard, and no matter how patiently I sit and
> turn on Jaws Keyboard Help to explore and get the lay of the land, so to
> speak, I just am finding it nearly impossible to operate the machine.
>
> Please bear in mind that I'm a pretty damn good touch typist, plus a Jaws
> user from way back with the current release. Ordinary stuff like that is 
> not
> impeding me. But try as I might, my fingers just can't figure out where 
> keys
> are, except in small, lucky instances and a few keys I happen to have 
> taught
> myself by now. I don't think this is gonna work.
>
> I know I can get a USB keyboard to plug into this laptop, then set the
> computer within earshot and sit back with only the keyboard on my lap. But
> this ain't what I'd daydreamed about. I guess I didn't anticipate
> realistically how tough this would be to do blind.
>
> Please just tell the truth, guys. I think a number of you are using 
> laptops,
> at least as your secondary computers. How many of you actually use your
> laptops (mine's an Acer PC, for what that matters) normally, and how many
> use an auxiliary keyboard? Am I in a very low-skill class, sort of, if I
> can't figure out how to type on something like this the way sighted people
> do with their own laptops?
>
> Ug. Bummed out. thanks for any helpful feedback.
> and Happy New Year.
>
> Joel
>
>
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