Internet Explorer 8 Guide

A guide for users of the Jaws screen reader, written by David Bailes. More guides are available on the Jaws Guides page of the VIP Software Guides website.

Contents

Introduction

This is a guide to the web browser Internet Explorer version 8, and to use this version of Internet Explorer with Jaws, you'll need Jaws 10 or later. In addition, if you use any websites which make use of an embedded version of RealPlayer, such as the UK audio network, you should be aware that there's currently a problem with this which is discussed in the Embedded RealPlayer section below.

Two advantages of Internet Explorer 8 compared to previous versions are:

Internet Explorer 8 also contains a number of other new features, some of which you may find useful:

The first time you open Internet Explorer 8 after it's been installed, a Set-up wizard automatically opens and guides you through some initial settings. This wizard is described in detail in the Set up wizard section.

On subsequent times, when you open Internet Explorer it displays its “Home” page or pages. Setting this page or pages is described in the Browser home pages section.

Embedded RealPlayer

Websites which use an embedded version of RealPlayer, such as the UK audio network, need RealPlayer version 11.1.1 or later installed to be able to work with Internet Explorer 8.

However, even with the appropriate version of RealPlayer installed, if the Jaws screen reader is running, then the embedded version of RealPlayer doesn't work. Fortunately there is a temporary work around for this probem. If you turn off the virtual pc cursor (Insert + Z) before you navigate to such a page by typing in an address or choosing a Favorite, then the embedded version of RealPlayer works. When you need it, you can turn the virtual pc cursor back on again by pressing Insert + Z again. Note that if you go to a page which uses an embedded version of RealPlayer without first turning off the virtual pc cursor, then before trying again, you have to either move to a different tab, or restart Internet Explorer.

Main Window

This section describes the main window of Internet Explorer, and how to move around it.

Components of the window

First toolbar

The first toolbar contains the following groups of controls:

Normally, you'll move to these controls directly using their shortcuts, but you can move around this toolbar, and the other toolbars by using standard navigation keystrokes. To move between the groups of controls use Tab and Shift + Tab, and to move within the groups use Left Arrow and Right Arrow. Note that you can't move to the Back and Forward buttons, the only way of pressing these is to use their shortcuts.

Second toolbar

The second toolbar contains two groups of controls:

Third toolbar

This section describes the Third toolbar, and can safely be omitted on the first reading of this guide.

The third toolbar contains the following groups of controls:

Moving around the window

Reading a web page

For more information about reading and interacting with the HTML elements on a web page, see the separate HTML guide.

Moving around a web page

For more information on moving around a web page, see the separate HTML Page Navigation guide.

Information bar

The Information bar is used for displaying warnings about security related conditions. When a web page tries to do something that might be unsafe, like install an ActiveX control, open a pop-up window, or download a file, the Information bar appears between the third toolbar and the web page. It contains an brief description of the warning, and often an invitation to click the bar for various options.

When the Information bar appears, a dialog box with the title Information Bar may also open. This asks you whether you've noticed the Information bar. The dialog contains a “Don't show this message again” check box, which you'll probably want to check. There's also a “Learn about the Information Bar” link which opens Help at the relevant page. Press Enter to close the dialog.

When the Information bar appears, then apart from the dialog box described above:

  1. Jaws reads the Information bar.
  2. If you want to move to the Information bar so you can click for options, press Alt + N (or press F6 three times).
  3. Press Spacebar to open a pop-up menu, and choose an option.

SmartScreen Filter

The SmartScreen Filter helps to protect users against two types of websites:

If you navigate to a website which the SmartScreen filter thinks is dangerous, then instead of displaying the website, it displays a blocking page, telling you that the website has been reported as being unsafe, and which has the title “Reported Unsafe Website: Navigation Blocked”. The page contains a link to your home page to help you quickly move to a safe web page.

You can turn the SmartScreen Filter on or off using the SmartScreen sub menu on the Tools menu. If you chose the express settings in the set up wizard which ran after installing Internet Explorer 8, then the SmartScreen filter was initially enabled.

In addition to warning you about navigating to unsafe websites, the SmartScreen filter also warns you about downloading files from unsafe websites, as described in the Downloading files section.

Compatibility view

The compatibility view in Internet Explorer 8 will only be of interest to those who use a screen magnifier as well as a screen reader, since it addresses a display problem which doesn't affect how a screen reader reads a web page.

Internet Explorer 8 can display web pages in accordance with agreed standards to a far greater extent than previous versions of this web browser. This is good news, but the temporary downside is that some websites which displayed ok in Internet Explorer 7, by default don't display well in version 8. It will take a little time for these web sites to be updated, and so Internet Explorer 8 includes a compatibility view, which enables a web site to be displayed as it did in version 7.

There are two ways a web site can be viewed using the Compatibility view: if it's on Microsoft's compatibility view list and this is enabled, or if it's on your own compatibility list.

Microsoft's compatibility view list

Microsoft's compatibility view list contains a list of frequently visited websites which are best viewed using the compatibility view. If this list is enabled, then if you're viewing a website which is on this list, then it's automatically viewed using the compatibility view. Also the list is automatically updated via windows updates.

You can enable or disable this list using the Compatibility View Settings dialog which can be opened from the Tools menu. In this dialog, there's an “Include updated website lists from Microsoft” check box. If you chose the express settings in the set up wizard which ran after installing Internet Explorer 8, then this compatibility list was initially enabled.

Your own compatibility view list

If a website isn't displaying correctly, then you can try adding it to your own compatibility view list to see if it displays any better. If it doesn't you can simply take it off again.

You can add and remove a website from your compatibility view list using the Compatibility view button, which is the first or second button of a group of buttons after the Address bar. However, the Compatibility view button is only present if there's a possibility that the Compatibility view might improve the display of the website. So to move to this button press Alt + D, then Tab to the group of buttons. If the first button is the Security Report button, then press Right Arrow to move to the next button which will either be the Compatibility View button if it's present, or the Refresh button if it's not.

If you're on the page of a website which is on your compatibility view list, then you can move to the compatibility view button, and Jaws will say that it's pressed. If you press the button, then the website will be removed from the list. You can view the websites on your compatibility view list in the Compatibility View Settings dialog, which you can open from the Tools menu. The Remove button which follows the List view in that dialog provides another way of removing a website from your list.

There are several ways of moving to another web page:

You can use the Search box, which is on the first toolbar, to search either the web, or often used websites like Wikipedia. It's a convenient alternative to going to the appropriate web page, and using the search edit box on that page.

To search using the Search box:

  1. Press Ctrl + E to move to the Search box.
  2. Type in your search terms, and then press Enter.

Search box drop-down list

As an alternative to just typing search terms into the Search edit box and pressing Enter, you can also make use of the drop-down list which automatically opens after you've typed some characters into the edit box, and which you you can navigate using Down Arrow and Up Arrow. To search using one of the items on the list, just select it and press Enter. In general, the list consists of three sections, but unfortunately Jaws doesn't read the section headings:

Search providers

When you search using the Search box, you use the search of a particular search provider, like Google or Microsoft's Live Search. When you move to the Search box, Jaws says the name of the current search provider: for example “Live search edit” or “Google edit”. Internet Explorer has a list of available search providers, and you can choose which of these you want to use as your current search provider. In addition, one of these search providers is set as your default search provider: the current search provider is set to this each time you start Internet Explorer.

To view the available search providers, go to the Search box (Ctrl + E), and press Ctrl + Down Arrow to open the Search Options menu. Note that if you're using Jaws 12, 13, or 14, the Ctrl + Down Arrow keystroke doesn't work, and you have to Tab to the split button, and then press Down Arrow to open the Search Options menu. On this menu:

The following sections describe how to add a search provider, and manage the list of available search providers.

Adding search providers

Search providers can be added using the Add-ons pages of the Internet Explorer Gallery.

  1. Press Ctrl + E to move to the Search edit box.
  2. Press Ctrl + Down Arrow to open the Search Options menu, and choose Find More Providers. Note that if you're using Jaws 12 or 13, the Ctrl + Down Arrow keystroke doesn't work, and you have to Tab to the split button, and then press Down Arrow to open the Search Options menu.

These Add-ons pages are described in detail in the Internet Explorer Gallery Add-ons section of the Customizing section of this guide. However, an example of using these pages to add Google as a search provider is as follows:

  1. Press E to move to the Search edit box, which is the only edit box on the page.
  2. Press Enter to go into Forms mode, type in the word google, and press Enter. You're taken to a new page which contains the search results.
  3. For each Add-on that's been found, there's the name of the Add-on, which is a level 2 heading. This is followed by an Add to Internet Explorer link, and the type of the add-on. So you can go through the results by pressing H to move through these headings.
  4. For a Google search provider, the name of the Add-on will be something like Google or Search with Google, and the type of the Add-on is search provider. Move to the Add to Internet Explorer link which immediately follows the name of the Add-on and press Enter. You are taken to a page for this Add-on.
  5. On this new page, the name of the Add-on is a level 2 heading, and following this there's a short description of the Add-on, and an Add to Internet Explorer link. Open this link. An Add Search provider dialog opens.
  6. In the dialog, the first control is a “Make this my default search provider” which is unchecked by default. Select this check box if you want to, and then Tab to the Add button and press it.

Managing search providers

You can perform such actions as setting the default search provider, and removing search providers in the Manage Add-ons dialog. To open this dialog:

  1. Press Ctrl + E to move to the Search edit box.
  2. Press Ctrl + Down Arrow to open the Search Options menu, and choose Manage Search Providers. Note that if you're using Jaws 12, 13, or 14, the Ctrl + Down Arrow keystroke doesn't work, and you have to Tab to the split button, and then press Down Arrow to open the Search Options menu.

When the Manage Add-ons dialog opens, the initial focus is the Search Providers radio button, which is part of a group of radio buttons which is used to select which add-ons are shown the the List view, which is the next control. Because the Search Providers ratio button is already selected, you can just press Tab to move to the List view. Note that if you're using a screen magnifier as well as a screen reader, the group of radio buttons are visually formatted to look like a list, rather than a conventional set of radio buttons.

The list view contains your current search providers. It has a details view, and by default it has four columns:

  1. Name.
  2. Status, which is Default if it's the default search provider.
  3. Listing order.
  4. Search suggestions, which is either enabled or disabled.

If you select a search provider, then its context menu includes the following commands, where appropriate:

Downloading files

When you open a link to a file such as a word document, a pdf, or an application, then the result depends on the type of the file:

If you want to save a file, then an alternative to opening the link is to choose Save Target As from its context menu (Numpad *). If you do this, or you've pressed the Save button in either of two File Download dialogs described above, then:

  1. A standard Save As dialog opens. When you're happy with the settings, press Enter to press the default Save button.
  2. A dialog opens which contains information about the progress of the download. During the download, the title of the dialog is “x% of somename.sometype”, and Jaws automatically reads out this percentage from time to time. When the download is complete, Jaws says 100%, and the title of the dialog changes to Download complete. Note that if the download looks as if it's going to take a long time, you can do other things, and then use Alt + Tab to switch back to the dialog to check whether it's finished. Once the download is complete, you can either press Enter to press the default Close button, or Tab to the Open button and press it to immediately open the file.

Tabbed browsing

Tabbed browsing lets you have a number of web pages open at the same time within a single program window, and lets you easily move between these pages. If you don't find the feature useful, you can turn if off, as described in the Tabbed browsing options section below.

Each open web page has a corresponding tab on the third toolbar. So when describing tabbed browsing, the phrases “opening a new page”, and “opening a new tab” mean the same thing. Also, the page with the focus is often referred to as being in the foreground, and the other tabs as being in the background.

If you need to move to the current page's tab, for example to access its context menu, then press F6 twice, then Tab twice.

Tab groups

Tab groups are a new feature in this version of Internet Explorer, and the idea is that tabs originating from the same source are grouped together. For example, if you open a link in a new tab, as described below, the these two tabs are in the same group. Tab groups make it easier to navigate between related tabs since the tabs in the same group are next to each other, and you can also close a group of tabs. If you don't want this feature, then you can turn it off, as described in the Tabbed browsing options section below.

Tab groups are indicated visually by the tabs in the third toolbar which belong to the same tab group being the same colour. When a screen reader is running, then any tab in a tab group has a unique group number appended to its tab name. This group number is read out by Jaws when appropriate, for example when switching between tabs by pressing Ctrl + Tab.

Opening tabs

The following two sections describe ways of opening tabs which are ungrouped and grouped respectively.

New ungrouped tab

In the following ways of opening a new tab, the new tab is in general not related to the current tab, so it isn't made part of a tab group. The tab is places after all the existing tabs.

New grouped tab

In the following methods, if the current tab isn't a member of a tab group, then the new tab is created immediately after the current tab, and these two tabs now form a group. Alternatively, if the current tab is already a member of a group, then the new tab is added to the end of the tab group.

Switching between tabs

Closing tabs

Reopening tabs

Tabbed browsing options

  1. Open the Internet Options dialog, which is on the Tools menu.
  2. On the General page, press the Settings button in the Tabs section.
  3. The Tabbed Browser Settings dialog opens. There are numerous options, which include:
    • An “Enable Tabbed Browsing” check box, which is checked by default.
    • A “Warn me when closing multiple tabs” check box, which is checked by default. If this is checked, then when you close the program with more than one tab open, a message box opens with the title Internet Explorer, asking you whether you want to close all tabs. The default button is Close Tabs.
    • An Enable Tab Groups check box, which is checked by default.
    • A “When a pop-up is encountered” set of radio buttons. By default this is set to Always open pop-ups in a new window, but you may well want to change this to one of the other alternatives.

    When you've made your changes, press Enter to press the default OK button.

  4. You're returned to the Internet Options dialog. Tab to the OK button, and press it.

Favorites center

The Favorites Center, despite its name, is used for opening recently visited web pages and subscribed feeds, as well as favorite web pages. This section gives a brief overview of the Favorites Center, and then the next three main sections of the guide give detailed descriptions of its use for Favorites, History, and Feeds.

The Favorites Center is normally closed, but when opened, it appears below the second toolbar, on the left hand side of the main window. The Center contains the following controls:

Opening and closing the Favorites Center

There are keystrokes for opening the Favorites Center on each of the three pages:

If you use one of these keystrokes to open the Favorites Center and select a web page or feed page, then when you press Enter to open the web page, the Favorites Center automatically closes. If you open the Favorites Center, and then decide you don't want to open a web page, press Esc to close the Favorites Center.

When the Favorites Center is open, and you want to move to a different page, it's easier to use the keystrokes given above than navigating to and using the tabs.

Note that it's possible to pin the Favorites Center open so that it doesn't automatically close when you open a web page, but this isn't normally very useful if you're using a screen reader. You can pin open the Favorites Center either by pressing the Pin Favorites Center button in the Favorites Center, or by adding the Shift key to the above keystrokes for opening the Favorites Center. For example, if you press Ctrl + Shift + I this opens the Favorites page of the Favorites Center, and pins it open, and you can close it using the same keystroke. You can also close it by pressing the Close button in the Favorites Center.

Tree view navigation

You can navigate the tree view in the Favorites Center using all the standard keystrokes for navigating a tree view:

In addition, in this particular tree view, you can also press Enter to open or close a folder.

Favorites

If you visit a particular web page often, or want to make a note of a web page for future reference, you can add it to a list of “favorite” web pages. You can then easily open the web page from that list, without having to remember and type in its web address.

Adding a web page to your favorites

  1. Choose Add to Favorites from the Favorites menu (Ctrl + D).
  2. The Add a Favorite dialog opens. The first control is an edit box for the name of the favorite. By default it's the title of the web page, but if you want, just type in a different name.
  3. Press Enter to press the default Add button.

Opening a favorite web page

  1. Press Ctrl + I to open the Favorites page of the Favorites Center.
  2. In the tree view of your favorites, select a favorite, and press Enter to open it. If you decide that you don't want to open one of your favorites, just press Esc to close the Favorites Center.

Note that as in previous versions of Internet Explorer, you can also open a favorite web page from the Favorites menu (Alt + A).

Using folders to organise your favorites

If you end up with a large number of favorites, you can use folders to organise them.

Managing favorites

First, press Ctrl + I to open the Favorites page of the Favorites Center, then:

As well as being able to manage your favorites using the Favorites page of the Favorites Center, alternatives are:

History

To open a recently visited web page:

  1. Press Ctrl + H to open the History page of the Favorites Center.
  2. In the tree view of your recently visited web pages, select a web page, and press Enter to open it. If you decide that you don't want to open one of these pages, just press Esc to close the Favorites Center.

By default, Internet Explorer keeps a list of visited pages for the last 20 days, but this period can be changed in the Internet Options dialog box, as described in the History options section below.

The following sections describe the different views of the visited web pages, how to search them, and history options.

Views

On the History page of the Favorites Center, the recently visited web pages can have the following views:

To change the view of the recently visited web pages:

  1. In the History tree view, press Shift + Tab to move to the combo box.
  2. Select one of the views, and then press Tab to return to the History tree view.

Search History

  1. Press Shift + Tab to move to the combo box, and select Search History. This causes a Search for edit box, and a couple of buttons to be inserted between the combo box and the tree view.
  2. Tab to the Search for edit box, type in your search terms, and press Enter.
  3. Tab twice to move to the list of web pages which have been found. For some strange reason, the initial focus is the last item in the list, so press Home to move to the first item in the list.
  4. Select a web page, and press Enter to open it.

History Options

To set the number of days Internet Explorer keeps visited web pages in History:

  1. Open the Internet Options dialog which is on the Tools menu.
  2. On the General page, press the Settings button in the Browsing history section of the page.
  3. A Temporary Internet Files and History Settings dialog opens. In the History section, you can change the “Days to keep pages in history” edit spinbox. Press Enter to press the default OK button.
  4. You're returned to the Internet Options dialog box. Tab to the OK button and press it.

Feeds

Feeds are used by websites to inform anyone who is interested that new content is available. They are also known as RSS feeds, and web feeds.

When a website has some new content, it can put information about this as a new item in a feed, which is just a file which available from the website. If you tell a feed reader, such as the feed reader in IE8, to monitor that feed, then it checks the feed at regular intervals and downloads and stores any new items. Every so often, you can open your feed reader, check whether there are any new items in any of the feeds that you're monitoring, and read them.

Feeds can contain information about different types of new content: News and blog feeds contain information about new articles, whereas podcast feeds contain information about new audio files which are available. Internet Explorer can be used both for news/blog feeds and podcast feeds.

The feeds which a feed reader monitors are known as subscribed feeds, even though no money is involved. The following sections describe how to find feeds, subscribe to feeds, and then view and manage these subscribed feeds.

Finding feeds

There are two ways of finding feeds:

When you move to a web page, if Internet Explorer detects that there are feeds available, then:

If you open the menu of the feeds split button (Alt + J), then as of Internet Explorer 8 this now contains both the Web Slices and feeds available on the page:

There are a couple of reasons why there may be more than one feed available on a web page:

Choose one of these feeds, and you're taken to a feed page, where there's an option to subscribe to the feed, as described in the next section.

Subscribing to feeds

If you choose a feed from the Feed menu (Alt + J) or open a link to a feed, then you're taken to a feed page, which contains the feed items which are currently in the feed file on the web.

At the beginning of the page, there's a short section about subscribing to the feed. This is followed by the items currently in the feed, and each item has a level 2 heading.

If you decide that you want to subscribe to the feed:

  1. Either open the “Plus Button Subscribe to this feed” link, which is near the top of the page, or choose Subscribe to this Feed from the Tools menu.
  2. A Dialog opens, which has the title Internet Explorer. The first control is the name of the feed which will appear in your list of feeds. If you want to change the name, just type in a new name to overwrite the existing text. Then press Enter to press the default Subscribe button.
  3. You are returned to the feed page, and at the top is some text telling you that you've successfully subscribed to the feed.

Once you've subscribed to a feed, Windows checks the feed at regular intervals, and if it finds any new items that it hasn't previously saved, it saves them. A new feed is set to use the default update schedule, which by default is once a day. If necessary you can easily change the update schedule for a feed using the Feed Properties dialog.

Viewing subscribed feeds

To open a subscribed feed:

  1. Press Ctrl + J to open the Feeds page of the Favorites centre.
  2. In the tree view of your subscribed feeds, feeds which have new content are indicated by having the word new in parenthesis after the feed name.
  3. If you're impatient, and want to check whether new content is available for one or more of the feeds since the last automatic update, you can perform a manual update by choosing either Refresh or Refresh All from the shortcut menu of a feed.
  4. Select the feed you want to open, and press Enter. (Or alternatively press Esc to close the Favorites Center.)
  5. You're taken to a feed page, which contains the saved feed items for your subscribed feed. The structure of this page is described in the next section.

Note that if you read any documentation about feeds in IE8 which doesn't involve the use of a screen reader, then you'll find that IE8 normally indicates that a feed has new content by making the feed name bold. However, in the presence of a screen reader, new content is also indicated by the word new in parenthesis after the feed name.

Feed pages

A feed page contains the following:

If there are new items, then initially only these items are displayed. To view all the items, open the All link near the bottom of the page (Alt + L, then Enter).

Items in a news/blog feed

Items in a podcast feed

The location of the audio file pointed to by the Open attached file link depends on whether you've chosen to automatically download attached files in the Feed's properties, as described in the Feed properties dialog section:

Searching and Sorting feed items

At the bottom of a feed page there are an edit box and some links for searching and sorting the feed items. The easiest way to move to these is to press E to move the the edit box, and then navigate from there.

Near the bottom of the page, there is:

Searching feed items

  1. Press E to move to the edit box.
  2. Press Enter to go into Forms mode, and then type in one or more search terms.
  3. Press Ctrl + Home to move to the top of the page, and then use the quick navigation key H to move through the results.

Managing subscribed feeds

First, press Ctrl + J to open the Feeds page of the Favorites Center, then:

Feed Properties dialog

You can change the properties of a feed, including its update schedule, using the Feed Properties dialog. To open this dialog, select a feed in the Feeds page of the Favorites Center (Ctrl + J), and choose Properties from its shortcut menu. Some of the settings in this dialog are described in the following sections.

Update schedule

In the Update schedule section of the dialog, there's a set of two radio buttons which allows you to choose between the default schedule, and a custom schedule:

Automatically download attached files

Also in the Update schedule section, there's an “Automatically download attached files” check box which is relevant for podcast feeds. If this is checked, then Internet Explorer automatically downloads and saves the audio files referred to in the new feed items. If you set this, you'll probably want to change the maximum number of items saved for the feed from the default value of 200, as described in the next section.

If the check box is unchecked, an audio file is downloaded from the web when you open a link to an audio file in a feed item, providing that the audio file is still available.

Maximum number of items saved

In the Archive section of the dialog, there is a pair of radio buttons which let you set the maximum number of items saved:

Feed and Web Slice Settings dialog

To open the Feed and Web Slice Settings dialog, open the Internet Options dialog on the Tools menu, and then on the Content page press the Settings button in the Feeds and Web Slices section. Alternatively, the dialog can be opened from the Feed Properties dialog, as described in the previous section.

Default schedule

In the default schedule section, there's an “Automatically check feeds and Web Slices for updates” check box, which by default is checked. Following this is an Every combo box, which you can use to set the frequency of the updates. After installing Internet Explorer, this is set to 1 day. If you change the value, then this affects all your subscribed feeds which are set to use the default schedule.

Play a sound when a feed is found

In the Advanced section there's a “Play a sound when a feed or Web Slice is found for a webpage” check box. By default it's unchecked, but if you really want to, you can check it.

Privacy

One of the new privacy features in Internet Explorer 8 is InPrivate Browsing, which may be useful if your using a public or a friend's computer. During an InPrivate browsing session, data such a form entries, passwords, web addresses, history etc are not stored. In addition, at the end of the session, all the temporary internet files which were created during the session are deleted.

To use InPrivate Browsing:

  1. Open the Tools menu, and choose InPrivate Browsing (Ctrl + Shift + P).
  2. A new Internet Explorer window opens for your InPrivate Browsing. Note that the word InPrivate is appended to the usual text in the Title bar (Insert + T).
  3. To end the InPrivate Browsing, close the Internet Explorer window (Alt + F4).

Accelerators

The purpose of Accelerators is to speed up the process of sending information on a web page to a service provided on another web page, such as searching or translation. They appear on the context menu of selected text, and some also appear on the context menu of the whole page, and of links.

Accelerators can speed things up in two ways:

Before describing the general scheme of accelerators in more detail, the next section describes how to use a search accelerator, which is likely to be one of the most frequent uses of accelerators.

Search accelerator example

You're reading a web page, and you come across something which is mentioned in the text which you'd like to find out about. You want to do a search, and then carry on reading the original page. To do this using an accelerator:

  1. Select the text which you want to be the search terms for a search.
  2. Open the context menu of the selected text (Application Key), and press S which chooses the Search with your default search provider command on the menu.
  3. A new tab opens in the foreground which contains the results page for your search. The new tab is in the same tab group as the original page (see the Tab groups section for more details). The initial focus is the Address bar, so you have to press F6 twice to move to the web page containing the results.
  4. After you've finished exploring the search results, press Ctrl + W or Ctrl + F4 to close the tab. The focus is moved to a remaining tab in the tab group. If the the initial page wasn't originally a member of a tab group, then you're returned to the original page, which is very convenient.

Two good points about this method are that the search is done in another tab, so you don't loose your place on the page, and because the tab is in a tab group it's easier to get back to the original tab. You can, of course, do the same task without using an accelerator, but it involves more keystrokes.

Categories

Accelerators are grouped into categories, and some common ones are: add, blog, define, map, send, search and translate. You can have more than one accelerator for a category, and you can make one of these the default for that category. The default accelerators appear directly on the context menu, whereas you have to go through a sub menu to get to the other accelerators.

After installing Internet Explorer 8, if you choose the express settings in the Set up wizard, then your default accelerators are: Blog with Windows Live, E-Mail with Windows Live, Map with Live Search, Search with your default search provider, and Translate with Live Search. Note that all your search providers automatically appear as search accelerators.

Context menus

Accelerators can appear on the context menu's of selected text, links, and pages. The context menu of selected text is opened by pressing the Application Key, but the context menu of a link or a page is opened by pressing Numpad *. To open the context menu of a page, make sure that the focus isn't a link or a control. As an alternative, the accelerators for a page are also available on the Command bar's Page menu (Alt + P).

All these context menus contain:

In a context menu you can use the first letter of a category to quickly choose a default accelerator, or the letter A to move to the All Accelerator sub menu, which contains:

Adding Accelerators

You can install additional accelerators using the Add-ons pages of the Internet Explorer Gallery. To go to these pages:

  1. Open the Command bar's page menu (Alt + P), or open a page's context menu (Numpad *).
  2. Open the All Accelerators sub menu, and then Choose Find More Accelerators.

The Add-ons pages are described in the Internet Explorer Gallery Add-ons section of the Customizing sectionof this guide.

Managing Accelerators

You can perform such actions as setting the default Accelerator for a category, and removing Accelerators in the Manage Add-ons dialog. This is one way to open the dialog: press Alt + P to open the Command bar's page menu, open the All Accelerators sub menu, and then choose Manage Accelerators.

When the Manage Add-ons dialog opens, the initial focus is the Accelerators radio button, which is part of a group of radio buttons which is used to select which add-ons are shown the the List view, which is the next control. Because the Accelerators ratio button is already selected, you can just press Tab to move to the List view. Note that if you're using a screen magnifier as well as a screen reader, the group of radio buttons are visually formatted to look like a list, rather than a conventional set of radio buttons.

The list view contains all the installed accelerators, which are grouped by category. Unfortunately, Jaws does not read the category group headings correctly, and says something beginning with “not selected”. Just ignore this. The list view has a details view, and by default it has four columns:

  1. Name.
  2. Address.
  3. Category.
  4. Status, which can be disabled, enabled, or default.

If you select an Accelerator, then its context menu includes the following commands, where appropriate:

Favorites bar

The Favorites bar occupies nearly all of the second toolbar, and can host buttons for favorites, feeds, and web slices:

Navigating the Favorites bar

Play a sound on new content

There's option for windows to play a sound when a Web Slice or a feed with a feed button on the Favorites bar has new content:

  1. Open the Internet Options dialog from the Tools menu.
  2. Move to the Contents page, and press the Feeds and Web Slices Settings button.
  3. The Feed and Web Slice Setting dialog opens. This contains the check box “Play a sound when a monitored feed or Web Slice is updated”. Set this as required, and then press Enter to press the default OK button.
  4. You're returned to the Internet Options dialog box. Tab to the OK button, and press it.

Note that the sound that Windows provides by default for this event isn't particularly loud if you're using a screen reader. It can be changed on the Sounds page of Vista's Sound dialog which can be opened from the Control Panel. The program event that needs changing is Feed Discovered.

Web Slices

Web Slices, like RSS feeds, provide a way of being informed if a web site has new content. A Web Slice is a small part of a web page which can be monitored by Windows for new content. If you subscribe to a Web Slice, then a button for that Web Slice is placed on the Favorites bar, and Windows checks at regular intervals to see if that part of the web page has changed. If it has, then it downloads and stores this part of the web page, and lets the user know there's new content by:

If you press the Web Slice button on the Favorites bar, you can then read the contents of the your stored copy of the Web Slice.

At the moment there's aren't many Web Slices available, and it's not clear whether this feature is going to catch on. Also although the original idea was for the Web Slice to be part of the web page, in practice it's often content that's been specifically written for the Web Slice which doesn't actually appear on the web page. The following sections describe how to find and subscribe to Web Slices, and then view and manage the subscribed Web Slices.

Finding and subscribing to Web Slices

There are two ways of find and subscribing to Web Slices: using Internet Explorer's Web Slice detection; and the Add-ons gallery.

Internet Explorer's Web Slice detection

When you move to a web page, if Internet Explorer detects that there are Web Slices available, then:

As noted in the Finding feeds section above, if you open the menu of the feeds split button (Alt + J), then in general, this menu can contain both Web Slices and feeds:

Choose a Web Slice, and an Internet Explorer dialog opens which says it's for adding a Web Slice, and tells you the name of the Web Slice. The default button is Add to Favorites Bar, so you can just press Enter.

Add-ons gallery

You can also find and subscribe to Web Slices on the Add-ons pages of the Internet Explorer Gallery. One way of getting to these pages is described in the Adding search providers section above. Searching and browsing these pages are described in the Internet Explorer Gallery Add-ons section of the Customizing section.

Viewing subscribed Web Slices

To view a subscribed Web Slice:

  1. Press F6 till you get to the Favorites button, and then press Tab to move to the Favorites bar.
  2. You can navigate the buttons using Left Arrow and Right Arrow, or the first character. If a Web Slice has new content, then the word new appears in parenthesis after the Web Slice's name.
  3. To open a Web Slice, press Spacebar, or Enter, or Down Arrow.
  4. A small preview pane opens, and Jaws normally says Web Slice preview flyout. The preview pane contains your stored copy of the Web Slice. You can read this pane using all the standard Jaws keystrokes for reading web pages.
  5. To close the preview pane, press Esc.

The Web Slice's preview pane also contains controls for refreshing the pane and opening the web page which contains the Web Slice. You can sometimes Tab to these, but the navigation is unreliable. An alternative is to use the commands on the Web Slice button's context menu.

Managing subscribed Web Slices

Suggested Sites

Suggested Sites is an online service run by Microsoft which suggests other web sites which are related to your current web page, and which they think may be of interest. This service involves your web browsing history being sent to Microsoft, so if you're concerned about privacy issues then you can read the Internet Explorer Privacy Statement. The relevant section of the document is Suggested Sites which you can quickly find using the headings list dialog (Insert + F6).

You can turn the Suggested Sites service on or off by using the Suggested Sites option on the Command bar's Tools menu (Alt + O).

There are two ways of viewing the suggested sites which are related to the current page: opening the Suggested Sites Web Slice on the Favorites bar, or going to the Suggested Sites web page.

To open the Suggested Sites Web Slice:

  1. Press F6 till you get to the Favorites button, and then press Tab to move to the Favorites bar.
  2. Press S till you get to the Suggested Sites button, and then press it.
  3. A Web Slice preview pane opens and which normally contains a list of five links to other websites. Note that the initial focus is the end of the pane.

To go the the Suggested Sites web page:

  1. Press Ctrl + I to open the Favorites center.
  2. Press Tab to move to the See Suggested Sites button, and press it.
  3. You're taken to a secure web page which contains suggestions for three sites that you've visited recently. Navigation of the page is slightly confusing, but each of the web sites that you've visited is a level 3 heading, and is followed by the suggestions for this site.

Note that the Suggested Sites Web Slice is available from the Suggested Sites web page. So if you accidentally delete the Suggested Sites Web Slice from the Favorites bar, you can replace it by going the the Suggested Sites web page, and choosing Suggested Sites from the menu of the feeds split button (Alt + J).

Customizing Internet Explorer

Internet Options dialog

The Internet Options dialog is a multi-page dialog, and you can open it by choosing Internet Options on the Tools menu (Alt + T, then O).

Some of the options are covered in the relevant sections of the guide:

Browser home pages

You can have one or more home pages. These are automatically opened when you open Internet Explorer, and you can also open them at any time by pressing Alt + Home.

You can set your home page or pages either in the Internet Options dialog, or by using the menu of the Home split button on the Command bar. The latter is slightly easier, so is used in the instructions below.

To set a single home page:

  1. Navigate to the page which you want to be your home page.
  2. Press Alt + M to open the menu of the Home split button, and choose Add or Change Home Page.
  3. The Add or Change Home Page dialog opens, and the initial focus is the No button which is also the dialog's default button. Press Tab to move to a group of three radio button, none of which are initially selected.
  4. The first option is Use this web page as your only home page. Select this either by pressing Spacebar, or by pressing Down Arrow and then Up Arrow to return to it. Then Tab to the Yes button, and press it.

If you want a blank home page: Press Alt + M to open the menu of the Home split button, open the Remove sub menu, and then choose Remove All.

If you want more than one home page, then:

The Add-on pages of the Internet Explorer Gallery contain information about various search providers, accelerators, web slices, and toolbars, that can be added to Internet Explorer. You can either search of browse these Add-ons, as described in the following two sections.

Searching

You can search for an Add-on using the search box:

  1. Press E to move to the Search edit box, which is the only edit box on the page.
  2. Press Enter to go into Forms mode, type in some text, and press Enter. You're taken to a new page which contains the search results.
  3. For each Add-on that's been found, there's the name of the Add-on, which is a level 2 heading. This is followed by an Add to Internet Explorer link, and the type of the add-on. So you can go through the results by pressing H to move through these headings.
  4. If you find an Add-on that you want to add to Internet Explorer, then move to the Add to Internet Explorer link which immediately follows the name of the Add-on, and press Enter. You are taken to a page for this Add-on
  5. On this new page, the name of the Add-on is a level 2 heading, and following this there's a short description of the Add-on, and an Add to Internet Explorer link. Open this link, and a dialog opens.
  6. In the dialog, there's an Add button, and there may be one or more check boxes for setting various options. Set any options that you want, and then press the Add button.

Note that the default search results also contain pinned sites and tracking protect lists, as well as Add-ons. If you want to just have results which are Add-ons, then you can select this using the list of links which follows the search results heading on the search results page. Open the Add-ons link which is in this list of links.

Browsing

Unfortunately, browsing the Internet Explorer gallery isn't currently very easy for users of screen readers, and so will not be described in this guide.

Set up wizard

The first time you open Internet Explorer 8 after you've installed it, a Set up wizard automatically opens. This welcomes you to Internet Explorer 8, and guides you through some initial settings. In fact, all these settings can be changed later, so you don't have to worry about making wrong choices. Jaws only reads the names of the controls on the pages of the wizard, and not the other text. The description of the pages of the wizard given below describe the context of the controls, but if you want to read all the text yourself you have to use the Jaws cursor to do so. Some of the pages contain links to further information: if you want to open any of these you have to press Spacebar rather than Enter, as the latter incorrectly presses the default button rather than opening the link.

The full title of the wizard is Set up Windows Internet Explorer 8, and its pages are as follows:

  1. The first page welcomes you to Internet Explorer 8, and mentions a couple of new features. Just press the Next button, which is the initial focus. Note that you can press the Ask me later button if you want to choose your initial settings later on.
  2. The second page lets you choose whether you want to turn on the Suggested sites service. Tab to the pair of radio buttons: Yes, turn on Suggested Sites, and No, don't turn on. If you're unsure, select No and you can turn this service on later as described in the Suggested Sites section. Then Tab to the Next button, and press it.
  3. The third page lets you choose how to set the remaining settings. Tab to the pair of radio buttons: Use express settings; and Choose custom settings, which allows you to choose the settings individually. The express settings are not read out by Jaws unless you use the Jaws cursor, and are as follows:
    • Search provider: whatever is was your default search provider in IE 7.
    • Search Updates: Download provider updates.
    • Accelerators: Blog with Windows Live, Map with Live Search, E-mail with Windows Live, Translate with Live Search.
    • SmartScreen Filter: Enabled.
    • Default Browser: Internet Explorer.
    • Compatibility View: Use updates.

    Given that you can change all the settings later, it's easier just to select the Use express settings option, and then Tab to the Finish button, and press it. If you opt for the Choose custom settings option, then Tab to the Next button and press it. You can then go through some more pages of the wizard making individual settings.

Keystrokes

General

Command Keystrokes
Select address bar Alt + D
Read the address bar Insert + A
Select the search box Ctrl + E
Open the search options menu (when not using Jaws 12, 13, or 14) Ctrl + Down Arrow
Go to home page Alt + Home
Go backward Alt + Left Arrow
Go forward Alt + Right Arrow
Go to Information bar Alt + N
Refresh page F5
Stop downloading web page Esc
Cycle round the Address bar, Favorites button, and either the first link or control on the web page, or the Information bar if displayed F6
Cycle round the groups of controls in the three toolbars, the Information bar if displayed, and the links and controls in the web page Tab
Move to the top of the web page Ctrl + F6
InPrivate Browsing Ctrl + Shift + P

Favorites, History, and Feeds

Command Keystrokes
Add to favorites Ctrl + D
Open favorites page of Favorites Center Ctrl + I
Open all favorites in a folder Ctrl + Enter
Open history page of Favorites Center Ctrl + H
Open feeds page of Favorites Center Ctrl + J
Available feeds and Web Slices on a page Alt + J
Close Favorites Center (if not pinned open) Esc

Tabbed browsing

Command Keystrokes
Open new tab Ctrl + T
Open link in new foreground tab Ctrl + Shift + Enter
Open link in new background tab Ctrl + Enter
Open new tab from Address bar or Search box Alt + Enter
Switch to next tab Ctrl + Tab
Switch to previous tab Ctrl + Shift + Tab
Open the tab list menu Ctrl + Shift + Q
Move to tab n Ctrl + n, where n is in the range 1 to 8
Move to last tab Ctrl + 9
Move to the first tab in the next tab group Insert + 3, then Ctrl + Alt + Right Arrow
Move to the first tab in the previous tab group Insert + 3, then Ctrl + Alt + Left Arrow
Close tab Ctrl + W, or Ctrl + F4
Close all tabs except current tab Ctrl + Alt + F4
Reopen closed tab Ctrl + Shift + T