Internet Explorer 6 Guide

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

Introduction

This is a guide to the web browser Internet Explorer version 6, running under Windows XP, and there's also a separate guide to Internet Explorer 7.

When you start Internet Explorer, it displays it's “Home” page. You can set this home page to whatever you want, as described in the Configuration section.

Main Window

Components of the window

Along the top of the window there's a title bar followed by the menu bar, and an address bar. The main part of the window is taken up with a content pane containing the web page, and along the bottom of the page, there's a status bar.

Title bar

The title bar contains the title of the web page, followed by the name of the program — Internet Explorer. To read the title bar, press INSERT + T.

Address bar

The address bar is an edit-combo box which contains the address of the web page which is displayed in the content pane. To read the address bar, press INSERT + A.

Content pane

Displays the web page whose address is shown in the address bar.

Status bar

When you are opening a new web page, the progress in downloading the new page is shown in the status bar. You can read the status bar by pressing INSERT + PAGE DOWN.

Moving around the window

• To move to the menu bar, press ALT, and to leave it, press ESC or ALT.
• To move to the address bar, press ALT + D. Note that this also selects the text in the address bar.
• To move from the address bar to the web page, press TAB.

Reading

• When you move to a web page, Jaws starts reading it from the top of the page. You can press CTRL + HOME, which stops Jaws reading, and takes you to the top of the page. You can then navigate to the information you want to read.
• You can use all the standard keystrokes for reading text.
• If you are reading a line at a time, a link appears on its own line.

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

Navigation

Moving to another web address

There are several ways of moving to another web address:

• Type an address in the address bar. Press ALT + D, which moves you to the address bar, and selects the text in the address bar. Then type in the address and press ENTER.
• Go to one of the web pages in your Favorites. Press ALT + A to open the Favorites menu, and then choose a web page. More details about Favorites are given in the Favorites section later in the document.
• Open a link on a web page. To open a link, press ENTER.
• Go Back and Forward, by pressing ALT + LEFT ARROW and ALT + RIGHT ARROW respectively. Going back, retraces your path of web addresses, ending up with the address with which the browser opened. Once you have gone back, you can also go forward again.
• Go to your Home page, by pressing ALT + HOME. Instructions for setting the Home page are given in the Configuration section.
• Open an HTML file on your computer. Press CTRL + O, and an Open dialog opens with the initial focus on an open edit box. Rather than type in the full path of the file, its easier to TAB to the Browse button and press it. A dialog with the title Microsoft Internet Explorer opens, which is very similar to the Open dialog in Microsoft word. Select a file, and press ENTER to press the default Open button. You are returned to the Open dialog, and press ENTER to press the default OK button.

Moving around a web page

• To move to the top or bottom of a page, press CTRL + HOME or CTRL + END, respectively.
• Quick navigation keys, like H to move to the next heading.
• Lists of HTML elements. For example, INSERT + F7 opens a dialog box containing a list of the links on the page.
• This page links, like the “skip to content” link at the top of the page on some web sites.
• Find. Press CTRL + F to open the Jaws find dialog, and F3 to Find next.

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

Favorites list

The Favorites list is used for storing the web addresses of web pages you might want to return to in the future. It saves you having to remember web addresses, and having to type in the web addresses of pages you visit often.

Each favorite consists of a name for the web page, and its web address. A favorite is normally referred to by the name, which by default it the title of the web page, but can be changed to anything you want.

Favorites can be grouped into folders, which is useful if there are a large number of favorites.

Favorites menu

The Favorites menu allows you to navigate to a web page, add a favorite web page, and organise your favorites. The keystroke to open the menu is ALT + A.

The first two items on the menu are Add to Favorites, and Organise Favorites, and these are described in the following two sections. The favorites list follows, in which each folder is a sub-menu. To go to a favorite web page, simply select the favorite and press ENTER. You can move around the Favorites menu using the first letter of a menu item.

Adding a web page to Favorites

To add the current web page to your favorites, you can either use the keystroke CTRL + D, or follow the following steps, which give you more options:

• Press ALT + A to open the Favorites menu.
• Choose Add to Favorites..., which is the first item on the menu.
• The Add Favorite dialog box opens, and the first control is a check box to make the page available offline. Just ignore this. The next control is an edit box for the name of the favorite, and you can change this if you wish. You can then press ENTER to OK the dialog.
• Note that there are other controls on the Add Favorite dialog box to create folders, and select which folder your new favourite should be put in, but it's easier to organise your favourites using Windows Explorer, as described in the next section.

Organising your favourites

If you have a large number of favourites you may want to group some of them into folders, or reorganise your folders. You can use the Organise Favourites dialog box, which is on the Favorites menu, however its easier to use Windows Explorer to organise your favorites list. Your favorites are stored in a Folder called Favorites, and each favorite is stored as a file. The easiest way of opening your Favorites folder in Windows Explorer is to open the Favorites menu, select Organise Favorites, and then press SHIFT + ENTER, rather than just ENTER.

Configuration

Setting the browser home page

1. Navigate to the web page you want as your home page.
2. Open the Options dialog, which is on the Tools menu.
3. The dialog is a multi-page dialog, and should open on the General page. The first control is an edit box which contains the address of your current home page. TAB to the Use Current button, and press ENTER to change the home page. You'll probably find that the default button for the dialog box is undefined, so you'll have to TAB down to the OK button at the bottom of the dialog box and press it.