Reading Pages with Frames

Some web pages use frames to display content. A frame is an area of the page that browsers treats like a separate window. Each frame is capable of displaying an independent Web page. The Freedom Scientific Company Info page is a sample web page that uses frames to display different types of information. One frame contains addresses for Freedom Scientific locations, another contains a brief history of the company, and the last frame contains some general information about Freedom Scientific.

In the following exercises, you will use a sample web page to learn how to navigate frames:

  1. Go to the Freedom Scientific Company Info sample Web page. Notice that JAWS says there are three frames.
  2. When you first open the sample Web page, you are in the Company Locations frame. Press INSERT+F9 to display a list of all the frames on this page.
  3. Select "Corporate History" and press ENTER. JAWS moves you to the Corporate History frame.
  4. Use the JAWS reading commands to read all the text in this frame. Notice that as you navigate, JAWS does not indicate when you leave the current frame and move into the next frame. This is the default behavior and is explained below.
  5. Press M to move to the next frame on the page. Notice that JAWS reads the first line of text in the frame which in this case is a level 1 heading.
  6. Press SHIFT+M to move back to the previous frame.

By default, JAWS does not announce when you enter or leave a fframe. This is because many frames on websites are not labeled properly and most of the time, a frame's title does not accurately reflect its content. One example is a Google Maps frame that is used on some websites to show the location of the particular company. Many times, the lable for these frames is just a series of letters and numbers, which provides no useful information when announced by JAWS.

If you would like JAWS to indicate when you enter or leave a frame, do the following:

  1. Press INSERT+F2, and select Settings Center.
  2. In the Search edit box, type "web verbosity" without the quotes.
  3. Press DOWN ARROW to move to "Configure Web Verbosity Levels" in the filtered search results in the tree view and press ENTER.
  4. Press RIGHT ARROW to expand the "Configure Web Verbosity Levels" group.
  5. Press DOWN ARROW to move to Medium and press SPACEBAR. A dialog box opens containing a tree view listing the structural elements that can be announced by the Virtual Cursor.
  6. Press F until you reach Frames and press the SPACEBAR to toggle the announcement of this element.
  7. Select OK to exit this dialog box and select OK once more to close Settings Center.

Now, to see how this works:

  1. Go to the Freedom Scientific Company Info sample Web page. JAWS now says "Contact Information Frame" which is the first frame on the page.
  2. Begin using the arrow keys to read the text. As you move through the page, JAWS announces the name of the previous frame and says, "Frame end." JAWS then announces the name of the next frame.
  3. Press M and SHIFT+M to move between frames. JAWS now speaks the actual name of the frame instead of reading the heading as it did in the previous exercise when frame announcement was disabled.

Inline Frames

Inline Frames are embedded directly within a Web page and display the contents of another page. Visually, these types of frames usually look like images or banners. Inline frames are often used by Websites to display advertisements. To ignore inline frames use Quick Settings as follows:

  1. Press INSERT+V. Quick Settings opens with focus in the search edit box.
  2. Type in inline. The tree view below the edit box changes to filter out results that do not match.
  3. Press DOWN ARROW to move to the item Inline Frames Show. The default is On.
  4. Press SPACEBAR to toggle this setting to Off.
  5. Press TAB to move to the OK button, and then activate it with the SPACEBAR. Quick settings closes and the changes are saved.