Taskbar (8.1) 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
• Taskbar buttons
• Jump lists
• Notification area
• Customizing the taskbar
• Keystrokes

Introduction

This is a guide to the taskbar on Windows 8.1, and it's been updated to cover the Windows 8.1 update released in April 2014.

The taskbar is a thin bar that normally runs across the bottom of the screen, and contains:

• A Start button (Windows Key), which takes you to the Start screen, which is described in a separate Start Screen guide.
• A group of taskbar buttons, which can be used for opening programs, and switching between open windows.
• The Notification area, which contains a clock and a number of icons which represent background programs or services.
• Show Desktop button. The large area of the screen which isn't taken up with the taskbar is known as the desktop, and normally contains a few shortcuts. Program windows are displayed in this area, and so either partially or completely hide the desktop. If you press this button (Windows Key + D), then all open windows are minimized, and the desktop becomes the focus.

Following the Windows 8.1 update in April 2014, Windows store apps can both be pinned to the taskbar, and have a taskbar button when open, just like traditional desktop programs. Because of this similarity in behaviour, both Windows store apps and desktop programs will normally by referred to simply as programs in this guide.

The new features in the taskbar which were introduced in Windows 7, and which have been carried over into Windows 8, include:

• Jump Lists. For many programs, Windows 8 provides a Jump List, which contains recent or frequently opened items, and which allows you to quickly open one of these items.
• There are some new convenient keystrokes for using the taskbar buttons to open programs and switch between open windows.
• You can now maximize a window by simply pressing Windows Key + Up Arrow. When a program window opens, then by default it only takes up part of the desktop area. However some windows are read better by Jaws if they take up the whole desktop, which is known as being maximized. For a particular Start screen item or Taskbar button for a program, once the window has been maximized, then Windows normally remembers this, and you don't have to do it again.

If the focus is the Desktop, or one of the components of the taskbar, then you can cycle round these by pressing Tab. However, in practice, you'll normally use the more specialized keystrokes to move to the items in the taskbar, and which are described in this guide.

Taskbar buttons

Assuming the default settings for taskbar buttons, which are described in the Customizing the taskbar buttons section of the Customizing section, a desktop program or a Windows store app has a button on the taskbar if it's pinned to the taskbar, or it's running and has one or more windows open. Using a program's taskbar button you can:

• Open the program.
• Switch to or close any of the program's open windows. In the case of the web browser Internet Explorer, you can switch to and close the open tabs, and all the references to tabs in following description of the taskbar buttons refer to the tabs of Internet Explorer.
• Open the program's Jump List.

There are two main ways of interacting with the taskbar buttons:

• The first is to move the focus to one of the buttons, and then use various keystrokes to interact with this button. This is described in the next two sections.
• The second is to use one of a number of different keystrokes which contain the position of a program's button on the taskbar, and this is described in the Keystrokes which use a program's position section.

The first taskbar buttons are for the pinned programs. By default, after Windows has been installed, a number of programs are pinned to the taskbar, but you can easily pin and unpin programs as described in the Pinning and unpinning programs section.

Although you may find using the taskbar buttons convenient, you don't have to use them: you can open programs using the Start screen, and there are two other ways of switching to opened windows:

• To switch to the previously viewed window, press Alt + Tab. To move to any window, hold down the Alt key, and then repeatedly press Tab until you hear the title of the window you want.
• Open the Windows List dialog by pressing Insert + F10. The first control is a list box which contains the titles of the opened windows in alphabetical order. Select a title, and press Enter.

Moving to a taskbar button

You can use Windows Key + T to cycle round the taskbar buttons. If the focus is not one of the taskbar buttons, then pressing Windows Key + T moves you to the first taskbar button, and if the focus is one of these buttons it moves you to the next button.

Once the focus is one of the taskbar buttons, you can also use these keystrokes to move around the buttons:

• Pressing Right Arrow or Left Arrow moves you to the next or previous button respectively.
• Pressing Home or End moves you to the first or the last button respectively.
• The first character of the button's label which Jaws reads, and which is described below.

For sighted users, the appearance of any taskbar button depends on how many windows or tabs belonging to that program are open. If no windows are open, which normally means that the program isn't running, then only the icon, which acts a label for the button, is visible. If one window or tab is open, then the outline of the button is also visible. And if there is more than one window or tab open, then there appears to be a stack of buttons.

When you move to a button, how Jaws reads the button also depends on the number of open windows or tabs, and in addition gives an indication of what happens when you press the button using Spacebar, which is described in the next section:

• If no windows are open, then Jaws says the name of the program, followed by the word button.
• If one window is open, Jaws says the title of the window, followed by the phrase button menu.
• If there is more than one window open, then Jaws says the name of the program followed by the phrase button menu.

Interacting with a taskbar button which is the focus

If you move to a taskbar button for a program which has one or more windows or tabs open, then a taskbar switcher list box temporarily opens above the button, and this contains the titles of these open windows or tabs, in the order in which they were opened. The focus doesn't automatically move to this list box, but it's used in some of the following tasks, and is described in more detail in the next section.

If a taskbar button is the focus, then:

• To either open a program, or switch to a window or tab which is already open, press Spacebar – the effect depends on how many windows or tabs of the program are already open:
  • If the program isn't open, and so Jaws reads the button as the program's name followed by button, then it's opened.
  • If there's one window open, and so Jaws reads the button as the window's title followed by button menu, then the focus is switched to it. However, for Internet Explorer, if there is more than one tab open, then the focus becomes the first item in the task switcher list box, which is described in the next section.
  • If there's more than one window open, and so Jaws reads the button as the program's name followed by button menu, then the focus becomes the first item in the task switcher list box, which is described in more detail in the next section. You can then select the window or tab that you want to switch to, and press Enter.
• To open the program's Jump List, press the Application key.
• To close all the windows or tabs for a program, open the Jump List, and choose either Close Window or Close all windows. The item for closing is the last item on the Jump list, so you can select it by pressing End or Up Arrow, or by pressing the letter C until you reach it.
• To close a single window or tab, when there is more than one, move to the task switcher list box by pressing Spacebar, select a title, and then choose close from its context menu.
• To open a new instance of the program, whether or not it's already running, press Shift + Enter. Note that for some programs, such as email clients, only one instance can run. If it needs to have administrator privileges, press Ctrl + Shift + Enter.
• To move to the task switch list box, press Down Arrow twice or Up Arrow twice. Unlike using Spacebar, these keystrokes can be used when there's only a single item in the task switcher list box. Note that if Jaws is not running, then you only have to press these keys once. Jaws seems to be swallowing the first key pressed.

Task switcher list box

The task switcher list box automatically opens above a program's taskbar button if the button has the focus, and the program has one or more open windows or tabs.

The list box normally contains the titles of a program's open windows, listed in the order in which they were opened. However, in the case of Internet Explorer, if an open window contains multiple tabs, then there are titles for each of the tabs, rather than just a single title for the window, and these are also listed in the order in which they were opened. Bug Warning: Jaws seems to think that there are three times as many items in this list box as there actually are. So, for example, if there are two items in the list box, then when Jaws reads the first item, it incorrectly says 1 of 6.

The items in the list box are displayed as a row of items, and you can use the following keystrokes in the list box:

• You can cycle forward or backward through the items using Right Arrow or Left Arrow, and you can also do this using Tab and Shift + Tab.
• To select the first or last item, press Home or End respectively.
• Note that you can not select an item by using its first character – this just closes the list box, for reasons unknown.
• To close the list box, you can press either Esc or Down Arrow.

The task switcher list box can also temporarily open whilst using the Windows Key + number keystroke, as described in the next section.

Keystrokes which use a program's position

There are a number of keystrokes which use the position of a program's button on the taskbar, and you can use the numbers 1 through to 0, which gives a total of 10 possible programs. Normally these are useful only for pinned programs, because their positions are known.

• To either open a program, or switch to a window or tab which is already open, you can use Windows Key + number – its effect depends on how many windows or tabs of the program at that position are already open. If the program isn't running, then the program is opened. If there's one open window or tab then the focus is switched to it. However, if it's already the focus, then the previous window becomes the focus. If there is more than one window or tab open, then the task switcher list box temporarily opens with the first title selected, which corresponds to the first window or tab opened. The list box automatically closes, and the focus is switched to the window or tab.

  If there is more than one window or tab, you can also switch to any of these, rather than just the first:

  1. Start holding down the Windows Key.
  2. Press a number key. The task switcher list box opens with the first title selected. The titles are listed in the order in which they were opened, and you can cycle round them by repeatedly pressing the number key.
  3. When you've selected the title you want, release the Windows Key. The task switcher list box closes, and the focus is switched to the window or tab you selected.
• You can also either open a program or switch to a window or tab which is already open using Ctrl + Windows Key + number. If the program isn't running, then the program is opened. If there's one open window or tab then the focus is switched to it. However, if it's already the focus, then the previous window becomes the focus. For these two cases the effect is the same as using Windows Key + number, however, if there is more than one window or tab open, then the focus is switched to the last window or tab which was viewed (was the focus). If you carry on pressing this keystroke, then you cycle round the windows or tabs in the order of last viewed. It's normally convenient to keep the Ctrl and Windows Key held down and just repeat the number key, but you can use the complete keystroke.
• To open the Jump List of a program, press Alt + Windows Key + number.
• To open a new instance of a program, whether or not the program is already running, press Shift + Windows Key + number. If you need the program to run with administrative privileges, then press Ctrl + Shift + Windows Key + number.

Pinning and unpinning programs

You can pin a program to the taskbar, either using the taskbar buttons, or from the Start screen.

To pin a program to the Taskbar using the taskbar buttons:

1. Open the program, and move to its taskbar button.
2. Open its context menu, and choose Pin this program to Taskbar.

To pin a program to the Taskbar from the Start screen:

1. Move to the program either on the Start screen or the Apps screen or in the list of search results.
2. Open its context menu, and choose Pin to taskbar.

So, for example, if you wanted to pin the Control Panel to the taskbar, you could open the Control Panel, press Windows key + T until you get to the taskbar button for the control panel, and then choose Pin this program to taskbar from its context menu.

To unpin a program from the taskbar, select the pinned program, open its context menu, and choose Unpin this program from taskbar.

Changing the order of the pinned programs

Sighted users can change the order of the pinned programs by dragging them using the mouse. Jaws users can also do this using the Jaws cursor, although an alternative is simply to remove all the pinned programs, and then pin the programs in the order that you want.

To change the position of one of the pinned programs using the Jaws cursor:

1. Move to the program's button that you want to move.
2. Press Insert + Numpad Minus to route the Jaws Cursor to the PC cursor, and then press Insert + Numpad Slash to lock the left mouse button, in other words, start holding it down.
3. Press Numpad Plus to switch back to using the PC cursor, and then press either Left Arrow or Right Arrow the number of times which is the number of positions which you want to move the program either to the left or right respectively. This moves the PC cursor to the position where you want the program to end up.
4. Press Insert + Numpad Minus to route the Jaws cursor to the PC cursor, and press Insert + Numpad Slash to unlock the left mouse button, in other words, stop holding it down.
5. Finally, press Numpad Plus to switch back to the PC cursor.

Jump Lists

For many programs, Windows 8 provides a Jump List, which contains recent or frequently opened items, and can also contain more permanently pinned items. A Jump List allows you to quickly open one of these items. So, for example, File Explorer's Jump List contains frequent locations, Microsoft Word's contains recent documents, and the Control Panel's contains recent tasks and settings.

You can only open a program's jump list from a taskbar button.

The Jump List is divided into one or more sections, and the sections present depends both on the program, and which items are present in the list. For users of screen readers, this division into named sections is not accessible, but in practice it's not a problem.

The following sections often appear on Jump Lists, and in this order:

• Pinned. These items stay on the Jump List until you unpin then. By default there are no pinned items, and how to pin and unpin items are described in the next section.
• Frequent or Recent. By default this contains up to 10 items, but you can change this, as described in the Customizing Jump Lists section of the Customizing section.
• Tasks.
• An unlabeled section which contains: an item to open a new instance of the program; either pin or unpin this program from the taskbar; and if there are one or more windows open, either Close Window or Close all Windows.

You can select an item using all the usual keystrokes for a list: Up Arrow, Down Arrow, Home, End, and the first character of the item.

Pinning and unpinning items

There are a couple of ways of pinning a frequently used or recent item:

• Choose Pin to this list from its context menu.
• Press Right Arrow to move to a pin button, and press it. Bug Warning: if you've already opened the context menu of an item since the Jump list was opened, then Jaws does not say you've moved to a button, although you can press it.

Similarly, there are a couple of ways of unpinning a pinned item:

• Choose Unpin from this list from its context menu.
• Press Right Arrow to move to an unpin button. There's also the same Jaws bug.

Notification area

The notification area contains a clock and an number of icons, which normally represent background programs or services which are running on the computer. Each icon normally provides some status information, and allows you to change some of the settings of the program or the service. Examples of icons which are normally present are: a speaker(volume) icon, a network icon, and an anti-virus program icon. In versions of Windows before Windows XP, the notification area was known as the System tray, and Jaws still refers to it using this name.

Occasionally, the program or service represented by an icon can open a small pop-up window, which is referred to as a notification. This provides some information, and may invite you to click it to perform some action. These are described in the notifications section below.

By default, some of the icons are hidden. However, you can either set them all to be shown, or set each icon individually, as described in the showing and hiding notification area icons section of the Customizing section.

You can interact with the icons and the clock using either keystrokes which are part of Jaws, or standard Windows Keystrokes, and these are described in the next two sections. Using Jaws keystrokes is normally the most reliable method due to occasional problems when navigating the notification area using standard windows keystrokes.

Using Jaws keystrokes

You can access the icons in the notification area by opening the Select a System Tray Icon dialog (Insert + F11), and you can read the time by pressing (Insert + F12), and the date by pressing the latter keystroke twice quickly.

The Select a System Tray Icon dialog contains:

• A list box which contains an item for each icon which is visible in the notification area. An item is often the name and/or status of the program or service represented by the icon. For example, the item for the speaker icon might be “Speakers: 52%”.
• Right Single Click button, which opens the icon's context menu, with the first item selected. This is the dialog's default button.
• Left Single Click button. The effect depends on the icon: it can either open a dialog, open its context menu, or do nothing.
• Left Double Click button. Again, the effect depends on the icon: it can either open a window or dialog, or do nothing.
• Cancel button (Esc).

So, for example, to open the volume mixer dialog to adjust the system volume:

1. Press Insert + F11 to open the Select a System Tray Icon dialog.
2. Press the letter S until you select the Speakers.
3. Press Enter to press the default Right Single Click button.
4. The volume icon's context menu opens with Open volume mixer selected. Press Enter to choose this option.
5. The Volume mixer dialog opens, and the initial focus is the volume slider of the Speakers. Adjust the volume, and then close the dialog by pressing Enter.

Using Windows keystrokes

Assuming that all the icons are shown, then you can use the following keystrokes to move to an icon.

• Pressing Windows + B normally moves you to the first icon. However, if there's an notification open, it moves you to the icon with the notification.
• You can then cycle forward or backwards through the icons and the clock using Right Arrow and Left Arrow respectively.
• You can use the first letter of the phrase which Jaws reads when you move to the icon.

When an icon is the focus, then a small amount of text appears above the icon, and this is what Jaws reads when you move to an icon. This text is normally either the name or the status of the program or service which the icon represents.

With an icon as the focus:

• To open the icon's context menu, press Application Key.
• The effect of pressing Spacebar or Enter depends on the icon: it can either open the context menu, or open a small dialog, or do nothing. For example, in the case of the Speaker icon, a small dialog opens, and the initial focus is a volume slider for the speakers.

If there are any hidden icons, then the first item in the notification area is a notification chevron button. If you press this button then a small pop-up window opens, which contains the hidden icons, and a customise link which opens the Notification Area Icons page of the Control Panel. You can then access both the visible and hidden icons using the arrow keys. However if the button is the focus, you can't use the first character of an icon to move to it.

Note that for a small number of icons, after you have pressed Spacebar, or Enter or Application Key, the mouse pointer is moved to this icon, and this can interfere with the subsequent navigation to the other icons in the Notification area.

Notifications

Occasionally, the program or service represented by an icon can open a small pop-up window, which is referred to as a notification, and which automatically closes after a short time. Jaws automatically reads these notifications.

Sometimes the notification just provides some information, for example, that new hardware has been detected. Other notifications offer to perform some action if you click them. For example a notification may inform you that an update for a program is available and say that you can click here for it to be installed. You can click a notification by pressing Numpad Slash. By default notifications stay open for about 5 seconds before closing, but you can increase this time to give yourself more time to click them, as described in the Time notifications remain open section of the Customizing section.

Customizing the taskbar

Taskbar and Navigation properties dialog

Nearly all the settings for the taskbar are in the Taskbar and Navigation properties dialog, or in a Control Panel page which you can open from this dialog. There are a number of ways of opening the Taskbar and Navigation Properties dialog, including:

• Press Windows key + W to search settings, type all or part of “taskbar and navigation” into the search box, and then press Enter.
• Open the Control panel, and then open Taskbar and Navigation.
• Move to any of the items on the taskbar, and press Alt + Enter. For example, press Windows key + T to move to the first taskbar button, and then press Alt + Enter.

This dialog has four pages: Taskbar, Navigation, Jump Lists, and Toolbars. On the Taskbar page you can open the Notification Area icons page of the Control Panel by pressing the Notification Area Customize button.

Customizing Jump Lists

To change the number of recent or frequent items in Jump Lists:

1. Open the Taskbar and Navigation Properties dialog, which was described in the previous section.
2. On the Jump Lists page, there's a “Number of recent items to display in Jump Lists” spinbox.

Customizing the taskbar buttons

Combining of taskbar buttons

On the Taskbar page of the Taskbar and Navigation Properties dialog, there's a Taskbar buttons combo box which contains three options for how the opened windows of a program are represented:

• Always combine, hide labels. This is the default option, and it means that a program can only have a single button. This guide assumes this option.
• Combine when taskbar is full. Given that users of screen readers don't know when the taskbar is full, this intermediate option probably isn't very useful.
• Never combine. Using this option, each open window has its own button. The disadvantages of this option include that there are more buttons to navigate, it's not so obvious what button belongs to what program, and that the keystroke Ctrl + Windows Key + number doesn't work.

Show windows store apps on the taskbar

On the Taskbar page of the Taskbar and Navigation Properties dialog, there's a “Show windows store apps on the taskbar” check box. If this is checked, which it is by default, then when a windows store app is open it has a corresponding taskbar button, just like desktop programs. Note that the ability to pin windows store apps to the taskbar is unaffected by this setting.

Customizing the Notification area

Showing and hiding notification area icons

You can open the Notification Area Icons page of the Control Panel by opening the Taskbar and Navigation Properties dialog, and on the Taskbar page, press the Notification Area Customize button using Spacebar.

This page of the Control Panel contains:

• A number of combo boxes, for setting whether each icon and its associated notifications is shown or hidden.
• A Turn system icons on or off link. Note that you have to use Spacebar to open this link, rather than Enter. Opening this link takes you to a System Icons page, where there are combo boxes for turning the icons such as the clock and the volume on or off.
• A Restore default behaviour link, if applicable.
• An Always show all icons and notifications on the taskbar check box, which is unchecked by default. If it's checked, then this overrides the settings of the combo boxes for individual icons on this page, and indeed the combo boxes are unavailable.
• OK and Cancel buttons.

To Show all icons and notifications, set the check box to checked, and then Tab to the OK button and press it. Alternatively, you can choose a setting for each icon, using the combo boxes. The options are:

• Show icon and notifications.
• Hide icon and notifications. Note that if a program uses notifications to let you know that an update is available, this option stops these notifications.
• Only show notifications.

Time notifications remain open

To change the time that notifications remain open:

1. Open the Ease of access center by pressing Windows key + U, then Tab to the Use the computer without a display link, and open it.
2. On this page there's a “How long should Windows notification dialog boxes remain open?” combo box. Set the time that you want, and then Tab to the OK button and press it.

Keystrokes

General keystrokes

Command	Keystroke
Cycle round the Start button, the taskbar buttons, notification area, Show desktop button, and Desktop	Tab
Maximize a window	Windows Key + Up Arrow
Show Desktop	Windows Key + D
Open the taskbar and navigation properties dialog	Windows Key + T, then Alt + Enter

Taskbar buttons keystrokes

Command	Keystroke
Cycle round taskbar buttons	Windows Key + T
For the focussed button: open the program if it's not running; or switch to a single open window or tab; or move to the task switcher list box if there's more than one window or tab open	Enter or Spacebar
Cycle forwards through the titles in a task switcher list box	Right Arrow or Tab
Cycle backwards through the titles in a task switcher list box	Left Arrow or Shift + Tab
Open the Jump List for the focussed button	Application Key
Open a new instance of the program for the focussed button, whether or not the program is already running	Shift + Enter
Open a new instance of the program for the focussed button, running with administrative privileges	Ctrl + Shift + Enter
For a program at a given position: open the program if it isn't running; or switch to a single open window or tab; or switch to first one opened	Windows Key + number (1 through 0)
For a program at a given position which has more than than one window or tab open, switch to any window or tab	Hold down the Windows Key and then press a number key to cycle round the titles in the task switcher list box
For a program at a given position: open the program if it isn't running; or switch to a single open window or tab; or switch to the last one viewed	Ctrl + Windows Key + number (1 through 0)
For an app at a given position which has more than than one window or tab open, cycle round them in the order in which they were last viewed	Hold down Ctrl and Windows keys and then press a number to cycle round these windows
Open the Jump List for a program at a given position	Alt + Windows Key + number (1 through 0)
Open a new instance of a program at a given position, whether or not it's already running	Shift + Windows Key + number (1 through 0)
Open a new instance of a program at a given position, running with administrative privileges	Ctrl + Shift + Windows Key + number (1 through 0)

Notification area keystrokes

Command	Keystroke
Open the Select a system tray icon dialog	Insert + F11
Read the time	Insert + F12
Read the date	Insert + F12 twice quickly
Move to the first icon in the notification area, if no notifications are open, or to the icon with an open notification	Windows Key + B
Click a notification	Numpad Slash