Grand Valley State University Disability Support Services Guide to Assistive Technology WebbIE 3 Quick Reference Manual Prepared by Jeff Sykes, Assistive Technology Coordinator, Disability Support Services
WebbIE 3 is a text-based web browser designed to simplify web browsing for individuals who are blind or have a visual impairment. WebbIE re-presents the information on a web page in a text-only view, just as a screen reader would read the text outloud. Links are underlined and designated with the term link. Web pages are navigated by using the arrow keys for movement, and the enter key to follow a link. WebbIE is compatible with JAWS, Window Eyes, Thunder, and Non-Visual Desktop Access screen reader programs. WebbIE is also capable of displaying a graphical view of a web page. WebbIE is an excellent tool for developers to use to test web page accessibility. Since WebbIE displays web pages just as a screen reader would read them, developers can experience the web just as a screen reader user would. This is a quick reference guide to WebbIE, and is not intended as a comprehensive user s manual. Using WebbIE To launch WebbIE on a home PC, click on the Start button, select All Programs, and click on the WebbIE icon. Screen reader users can navigate to the WebbIE icon and press enter. To launch WebbIE in the GVSU computer labs open the Applications folder on the desktop, and then open the Assistive Technology folder. Double-click on the WebbIE 3 icon. WebbIE opens to the manufacturer s home page, and can be easily redirected to any page, including the Grand Valley State University home page by typing the appropriate web address in the Address Bar. The Favorites Menu gives access to the Internet Explorer Favorites folder. Links saved in WebbIE can be access in Internet Explorer, and vice-versa. Browsing with WebbIE may be controlled using a mouse or by using the keyboard. 2
WebbIE 3 in text-only view on the Grand Valley State University website The WebbIE interface is simpler than most other browsers. Back and Forward buttons move between web pages. Stop button stops loading a web page. Refresh reloads the current web page. Home returns to the browser s preset home page. View Webpage (available when viewing web page in text-only view) displays the current web page graphically as it would appear in Internet Explorer. Hide Webpage (available when viewing web page in graphical view) displays the web page in text-only view. 3
Skip Links (available when viewing web page in text-only view) navigates through the text of the web page, but skips over all the links. Magnify (available when viewing web page in graphical view) magnifies the view of the graphical web page. Closing and restarting WebbIE resets the magnification level to the default. Basic WebbIE key commands: A full list of keyboard commands can be found by opening the Help Menu and selecting WebbIE control keys. Go back Home Forward Refresh Stop loading Go to address bar Go to text contents Next link Previous link View/Hide graphics View links Crop page Go to form Go to page headline Show/Hide images Find on page Find next Find on Google Print Copy Paste Select all Backspace or Alt + Left Alt + Home Alt + Right F5 or Control + R Escape Alt + D Alt + T Control + Tab Control + Shift + Tab Control + W Control + L Control + K F6 F7 Control + I Control + F F3 Control + Shift + W Control + P Control + C Control + V Control + A 4
WebbIE special menu commands: WebbIE includes a number of unique and useful menu commands. Some of these are listed below. A full list of menu items can be found by opening the Help Menu and selecting WebbIE menu commands. File Menu, Print (Alt-F + P) prints text view of web page when browsing in textonly view Edit Menu, Websearch (Control + Shift + W) opens a dialog box for text entry, searches using the Google Search Engine View Menu, View or Hide Webpage (Control + W) toggles between text-only and graphical web page view View Menu, Crop Page (Control + K) removes links and other non-text content from text-only view View Menu, Launch IE (Alt-V + L) launches Internet Explorer to run side-byside with WebbIE. Users can toggle between both browsers to view a webpage. When Internet Explorer is running this menu item becomes Update IE. View Menu, Update IE (Alt-V + U) commands Internet Explorer to go to the same page that WebbIE is currently on. Favorites Menu lists Internet Explorer Favorites. This is a shared list. This list can be updated by WebbIE and used later with Internet Explorer. Navigation Menu lists seven navigation commands used to browse the web using the keyboard. These are listed in the table below, as are common shortcut keys. Back Forward Stop Home Refresh Go to form Go to headline skips over navigational links to the main page content Alt-N + B, or Alt + Left Arrow, or Backspace Alt-N + F, or Alt + Right Arrow Alt-N + S, or Escape Alt-N + H, or Alt + Home Alt-N + R, or Control + R, or F5 Alt-N + O, or F6 F7 (No Navigation menu shortcut for this command.) 5
Links Menu lists five options for navigating links on a webpage. These are listed in the table below, as are common shortcut keys. Skip links down Moves cursor past links at the top of a webpage to the first text element Alt-L + S, or Control + Down Arrow Next link Moves to next link Alt-L + N, or Control + Tab Skip links up Moves cursor up past links to first text element Alt-L + U, or Control + Up Arrow Previous Link Moves to previous link Alt-L + P, or Control + Shift + Tab View Links Displays all links on a webpage in a separate window Alt-L + V, or Control + L Options Menu lists options to control WebbIE behavior. Two noteworthy options: Fetch PDFs from Google (Alt-O + F, spacebar toggles option on or off) when this setting is turned on WebbIE will attempt to obtain downloaded PDF documents from Google. Google PDFs are more likely to be accessible to screen readers. Invert colours (Alt+O + V) displays the text view of the webpage using a black background and white text. 6