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Custom JAWS Preferences 5 of 6

List Box Announce Position & Count

Author’s Note: This lesson is certified accurate with JAWS 2022, 2023, and the current shipping version of JAWS 2024. For more details see footnote 1 below.

When navigating up or down through lists, including lists such as the JAWS list of links, JAWS list of headings, etc. JAWS now speaks the list item positional information every time focus changes in the list. For example, pressing DOWN ARROW to move through the JAWS list of Headings might read as follows:

  • Disable Speak Character Phonetically After Pausing, 4 of 6
  • List Box Announce Position & Count, 5 of 6

The behavior for this is found in the JAWS Verbosity settings and is “on” by default at both beginner and intermediate verbosity levels for JAWS. To disable this extra verbosity, do the following:

  1. Open the JAWS list of managers by pressing INSERT+F2, and then choose Settings Center.
  2. If you want changes to only apply to a particular application, select it from the Application list. Otherwise, load the default settings file by pressing CTRL+SHIFT+D.
  3. Type begin in the search edit box, and then press DOWN ARROW to move to Beginner in the Configure Verbosity Levels Speech Verbosity settings.
  4. Press SPACEBAR to open the Beginner Preferences dialog box. Focus is in a list of check boxes.
  5. Uncheck the first item in the list, Announce Position and Count when navigating in lists, by pressing SPACEBAR.
  6. Press ENTER to close the Beginner Preferences dialog box.
  7. Press TAB to move to the OK button, and then activate it to exit Settings Center.

NOTE: JAWS still announces this positional list information for the first item selected in each list. You can also re-read the current control and information at any time with JAWS by pressing INSERT+TAB.

JAWS Settings Center showing Announce Position and Count.

Please allow [02:46] to watch a short instructional demonstration on our YouTube channel.


YouTube JAWS Settings    List Box Announce Position and Count

MP3 audio

Transcript

PREVIOUS: Disable Speak Character Phonetically After Pausing, 4 of 6

NEXT: HTML and Web Settings for Testing Web Pages and Documents with JAWS, 6 of 6

Footnote 1: JAWS 2023 includes a new item for Notification History in the list of JAWS managers, so at 00:53 into the recording JAWS 2022 announces “1 of 17.” This now is announced “1 of 18” with JAWS 2023.