The Productive |
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by Will McKee |
Taskbar Productivity. The Taskbar can be dragged to any of the screen sides. Thus visually challenged, one-eyed persons may put the Taskbar as a title at the top, an underline at the bottom, vertically left or right. I'm read right-eyed so I put running Tasks below the START button on the that side. Running tasks are activated consecutively so my mouse pointer has the shortest distance to move to flip flop between full screen activities. Too the flashing of icon cloud captions is facilitated by moving vertically across them. It eases a "paperless" desktop by recording events in an active document or organizer. My personal organizer is next to the phone/fax operator.
Keyboard Mouse Substitute. Can't or don't want to Mouse around your PC screen any more?
Doesn't your Mouse move or accelerate fast enough? Well, turn on to the ACCESSIBILITY features and the MOUSE KEY option.
Accessibility Menu Location. Punch up the START button, choose SETTINGS, select CONTROL PANEL, and use the hi-lighted ACCESSIBILITY Options icon; the one displaying the International Handicapped Access symbol - the stick figured wheelchair user. A menu of ACCESSIBILITIES PROPERTIES pops up; offering selections enabling adjustments in tabbed order to: KEYBOARD, SOUND, DISPLAY, MOUSE, and GENERAL functions.
Easy Hotkeying. The Keyboard STICKYKEY option will temporarily lock either the SHIFT, CTRL, or ALT key. Accept USE STICKYKEYS option if parallel keying - combined key pressing - challenges you or serial keying - only one at a time - accommodates your Hotkeying. For example; the Ctrl-Alt-Delete hotkey set, that restarts your PC without powering down, is no longer a three finger gambitting exercise. Also, features like MOUSEKEY are reachable directly without all the steps described in the paragraph above when hotkeying is enabled. Strike the space bar to put a check mark in the STICKYKEY usage box. Move forward to STICKYKEY SETTINGS by pressing the tab key. Press the ENTER key to see stickykey settings; shortcut (hotkey stickykey on/off), options (key lock & stickykey error off switch), notifications (sound & sight).
Choose Properties. I never reset my stickykeys so I leave the shortcut, hotkey box blank. Since my PC is set up for multiple Windows users, each with their own, passworded environment via WIN95, my choice of stickykeys does not confuse others who would want it turned off. Tab to the key lock function modifier property box and strike the space bar to turn it on. Again, to reboot will now become the key presses; HOTKEY: Ctrl-Ctrl-Alt-Alt-Delete-Delete.
Handle Miss Hits And Signals. Tab forward to the next option which turns stickykeys off if multiple keys are hit at once. This feature assists those unpracticed or dexterity challenged keyers. A space bar press will display the on, check mark. Another tab forward will shadow the notification sounds choice. I've left this turned off because the next, visual notification is on. However, sight challenged persons would be warned by it. The last stickykey will display a three key icon on the right or lower Task bar near the time clock. Each key of the icon will be shaded when its respective key is locked. The icon's broader key image is the SHIFT key's status, the lower left is the CTRL's, and the lower right is the ALT's.
Keep Choices. Tab forward to the OK and press ENTER to set your choice of settings; then tab forward to shadow the APPLY button and strike it to immediately install the stickykey functionality and continue without leaving the other accessibility features. Note the modifier keys icon shown on the Task bar. If the icon cloud or cartoon speech feature is on a functional description will flash.
Wish #1. Bill, I hope another release will code the icon keys with initials S-C-A and give each letter a unique primary color and sound pitch when struck or when the cursor passes over the icon.
Setup Mouse Keys. Now that stickykeys work, strike the SHIFT-TAB keys to move backward to shadow the Keyboard tab and proceed rightward via right arrow directional keying to the Mouse tab. Press ALT-M to check mark the MOUSEKEYS status to on. Key ALT-S to pop up SETTINGS FOR MOUSEKEYS menu. The USE SHORTCUT hotkey will be shadowed. Activate the hotkey, Left ALT-Left SHIFT-NUM LOCK, via the space bar or ALT-U. Mouse's pointer speed and acceleration adjustments can be chosen from a scalar bar. Tab forward, it's faster then ALT-T, outlining the top speed control. The directional arrows move the scalar arrowhead between low & high speed choices although the mouse left-hand button can point & click it also. Similarly, the acceleration speed is selectable via tabbing or ALT-A and picking a speed rate. I use one notch less than top speeds.
Numlock Usage. Because of my stickykey choices I don't use the next mousekey property, pointer speedup alternative of ALT-H which activates the depressed CTRL for faster moves and ALT for slower. Tab forward to select the NUM LOCK's on-off status for the keyboard activation. I use off because I don't like my keyboard's NUM LOCK light lit all the time while I use the NUM LOCK keys for mouse buttons & directionals. My CONFIG.SYS file was amended with an initial NUMLOCK=OFF statement. Thus when my WINDOWS system boots up my NUM LOCK keys replace my mouse functions immediately. Since I'm left handed my text & numbers are keyed on the left keyboard and my mousing is on the right.
Wish #2. I wish for a keyboard consisting of multiple sections; a NUM LOCK, an ALPHA/NUMERIC, a FUNCTION, and DIRECTIONAL. Their edges would connectable by velcro. Then, I could position each section as I chose.
Status Icon. Tab forward and strike the space bar if you want to show a mouse icon on the Task bar near the clock icon that depicts its availability and button status. Then proceed to enter OK or ALT-A to apply. Note the mouse image appears on the Task bar. When your mouse pointer shadows the icon a cloud can describe the icon.
Other Accessibility Features. Additional challenge addressing options of the KEYBOARD are: Filter keys to "ignore brief or repeated keystrokes or slow repeat the rate", Toggle keys to hear tones when using CAPS, NUM, or SCROLL LOCK keys. SOUND assistants are: the SOUNDSENTRY which signals system sound events with flashing visual alerts; the SHOWSOUNDS which pops up cartoon speech, cloud captions describing sounds. DISPLAY aid is High Contrast font & colors. General accommodation includes automatic turn off, adjustment signals, and Serialkey support for alternative keyboard and mouse devices.
Will McKee, a HAL-PC member, is physically challenged, founder of the ChallengedWare SIG and a Computer Specialist Consultant.
E-mail me at webmaster@hal-pc.org with any comments you have and tell me what you want to see here.
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