Using the ElBraille Easily and Efficiently.

As many people will know, the ElBraille is a portable computer combining the Windows operating system with the JAWS for Windows screen-reader. Let's not think of it in any other way. It is not a notetaker; it is a Windows computer. To that end, driving it and getting around all the applications required for day-to-day use to my mind is something of a tall order.

As you are using a Focus Braille display, JAWS makes it possible to control the computer with the Braille input keyboard. However, while it is a clever feature, it is for many people difficult to learn; not impossible but it is hard work. This has always really bothered me. The ElBraille could be a good product but this is one of its limitations.

In our Leasey product, I did write a special mode which would possibly overcome this and make the learning curve easier. However, it is not quite as I wanted it to be as it still involved a number of steps. I have now written something new which I hope is really going to simplify matters. It works wherever you are on the device.

The concept is as follows.

Press a key on the Braille keyboard. We will call it the ElBraille key. From this point, you are in a special ElBraille mode, so now we can instruct the ElBraille to do whatever we want.

If you want to press Control+O, you type
control space O
or
C Space O.

If you want ALT+F4 you type
alt space F4
or
A space F4.

If you wanted Insert+F7 you would type
Insert space F7
or
I Space F7.

You see I am developing my own shorthand here so as to speed things along.

When you have typed any of these command sequences, which are basically limitless, you press a key to terminate the special mode which carries out the action.

However, it gets slightly better than that.

For a reason which is unknown, some of the buttons on the ElBraille do not undertake the action you expect. Certainly on my machine, one of those is the button to bring up the ElBraille main menu, and some other people have had the same issue. So, in our special ElBraille mode, we can create abbreviations. Typing the abbreviation MNU will terminate ElBraille mode automatically and activate the main menu every time. It is always going to work.

Better still, you can create your own key sequences which automatically terminate ElBraille mode and carry out the keyboard action. So for example, if you need help with your ElBraille, ironically one of the most difficult things to do is to get into JAWS Tandem. There is a keyboard command for it, ALT+Insert+T, for which of course you would need to remember the Braille input sequence. But you could create a key sequence called Tandem which would press that keystroke instead. So from that point, all you would do is press the ElBraille mode key and type tandem, where Tandem is the name you had given to it. As soon as you type tandem, JAWS Tandem launches.

In conclusion, I hope that this will help people use the ElBraille more. Nothing has ever been done to make the learning of the device easier and assuming Vispero do not implement a similar feature soon, it is certainly something I would like to make available this year. It even helps me, and I do know the Braille input commands.