Enhancements in JAWS 2020.2004.66 (April 2020)

The following is a list of improvements made between the March 2020 release and the April 2020 update.

Announce Group Changes in Outlook 365 Message Lists

JAWS can now indicate group changes, such as dates or conversations, as you navigate through message lists. For example, if your Outlook view settings are set to show messages by date and you are navigating a folder containing messages covering multiple days, when you move to the first message in the new date group, you will hear announcements such as "today," "yesterday," "last week," or "two weeks ago." To turn on this feature, open Quick Settings (INSERT+V) while in Outlook and select the Announce Group Change in Lists check box.

New Focus Braille Display Commands for Adjusting Speech Rate

You can now use the following controls on the Focus braille display to adjust the speech rate.

  • Temporarily increase speech rate: LEFT or RIGHT SHIFT+RIGHT SELECT CHORD
  • Temporarily decrease speech rate: LEFT or RIGHT SHIFT+LEFT SELECT CHORD
  • Permanently increase speech rate: RIGHT SELECT CHORD
  • Permanently decrease speech rate: LEFT SELECT CHORD

New Dialog Box for Troubleshooting Remote Access

JAWS and Fusion now includes a new Remote Desktop dialog box to help troubleshoot remote access connection issues. It can be accessed from the Options menu in JAWS or the Support submenu in the Fusion main menu. From this dialog box, you can:

  • See whether or not your Freedom Scientific software is authorized for remote access.
  • Check the status for each supported remote channel (Remote Desktop, Citrix, or VMWare Horizon).
  • Repair any channel that is reported to not be working.
  • Test the connection between the client and server/remote computers.

Other Changes

  • If Mouse Echo is enabled and you move over text with the mouse, JAWS or Fusion now only reads the current line as expected instead of reading everything on the screen.
  • Book nine of the JAWS Basic Training, Surf's Up, Surfing the Internet with JAWS, an Introduction, has been updated to include links to go directly to the Surf's Up web pages. To get the latest book, select Training from the JAWS Help menu to open the Training Table of Contents in FSReader, select the link to open book nine, and then press ENTER when prompted to install the updated book.
  • Added a new Quick Settings (INSERT+V) option called List Nesting Level Announcement which is off by default and available in Chrome and Edge Chromiun. Use this option to enable the announcement of nesting levels for list items in edit fields on web pages like Google Docs.
  • Resolved an issue where JAWS would sometimes exit Forms Mode when pressing ENTER in some multiline edit fields.
  • In response to customer feedback, disabled the announcement of inserted and deleted text on web pages.
  • In Microsoft Teams, when you press CTRL+PERIOD to display Teams hot keys, the Virtual Cursor is now active so you can review the keystrokes as if you were on a web page.
  • Addressed a reported issue in the retail version of Excel 2016 where JAWS would become sluggish after using Paste Special.
  • Added updated braille drivers from Humanware containing performance improvements when using their line of displays with JAWS and Fusion.