You are not logged in. Please login or register.
AudioGames.net Forum → General Game Discussion → getting jaws to work properly with bgt games
yo all. so as some of you know. the games which are coded in bgt doesn't properly work with jaws. they work, but the problem for most games are taht it doesn't interupt when you press another key. if you for example, let's say in stw press s, then p it'll anouns both events with no way of interupting it. so, it would be nice if we can find a way to solve this, by writing a script for example or something else that'll make jaws work as NVDA when it comes to play games coded in bgt
Personally I'd suggest just turning Jaws off and using Sapi or nvda, indeed back when I used Supernova as my screen reader I used Sapi all the time for games, these days it's either Sapi or Nvda.
I believe this is a more general problem with jaws output and not one it'd be easy to solve with a script, particularly if this happens in all Bgt applications.
This problem is literaerly impossible to fix without FS changing the way JAWS does keyboard hooking. As it stands, JAWS checks all the keys and then sends them back to Windows. And for apps that just use the Windows API this is fine. However for anything trying to access the keyboard directly, like directX, what JAWS sends back is lost. So BGT installs its own keyhook, which gets around the problem of JAWS, but as a result it doesn't know what keys are being pressed which is why you don't get speech interrupt.
So as Dark said, the only thing you can do is either play using SAPI or with another screen reader until FS fixes this problem. And considering it's been around for many many years (this is why older audiogames told you to quit your Screen Reader, as most people did use JAWS at the time) it's unlikely you'll get a JAWS fix.
at sito. Why do you use jaws? why not just use NVDA? I will not give VFO any of my money. NVDA is better and has the potential to put VFO out of business anyway. Especially if someone makes powerful addons duplicating stuff like jaws skim reading and rules, object reclass and graphics labelers, grade2 input for braille displays, client and server NVDA for installing over a lan local area network and more.
BGT is, per say, jaws aware. The catch is that anything that is written in BGT has to check for jaws and take the correct action when a kee is pressed. That is a little extra work and I do not know if everyone who code with bgt is willing to take that extra step. You can do that by checking with a few lines of code, but still... The few lines of code would be basicly setting up a while loop and the like. Nothing to major....
first, joshua. i will never use NVDA for daily work as long as i live. there are a few good things with it i admit but this topic isn't about which screan reader is best.
so basicly something needs to be done from eather blastbay or fs's side which won't happen i'm afraid.
BGT games can see jaws, but it's the the game writers that has to tell bgt to checkfor jaws and it is the game writers that has to tell BGT what to do about jaws. Here is one BGT game that should work with jaws. Also, here is the source to the game. Yes, I converted it from basic, and did not change any of the text. I thought about adding sounds or something else, but I haven't got around to it. Anyway, I took the time to make sure it works with JAWS. It is worth noting that none of the screens that came up is the stander windows screens. I just used the default includes for those who know what those are.
the problem with that is that for a large game, the dev has to code so that jaws works for each action which will be a pain in the ass. if philip updates his key hook what you're saying could actually work
I basicly assigned a key stroke to call a function in to play. Yes, the bigger the game the longer it may take to do that for every action, but it is mostly a copy and paste job after the code is written. you are going to have away to interup speech with sapi anyway, so why not have a function that makes the correct call for you anyway? That is from the writer side anyway. I do agree with you that it will take longer though. As a side note, it took me nore more than lines to see if I needed to install the hook. I also check to see what screen reader was running along with storing that info so that my speech interrup funcion works. Anyway, better go before I did into what I done there.
Well leaving aside the "which screen reader is better" debate, this is perhaps one argument as to why in this instance Jaws is not the best choice for working with certain games, and why perhaps it would be worth the time to invest in a decent sapi voice, indeed since there are still games with Sapi as their main output method that won't output to any screen reader at all it's probably a good idea generally.
Myself, since Supernova was rarely supported, I used Sapi output a great deal and had no problems with it at all.
@Pitermach it always amused me when, back in the xp days games like Shades of doom would say "turn off your! screen! reader! before playing", when in effect the only screen reader you needed to turn off before playing was Jaws 
.
i also really see it as blastbay studio's task to provide support for all screan readers in their coding language. they're basicly forcing everyone to NVDA cuz they don'don't update their shit which is bad. especially sinc e all games are coded in bgt today and you don't really have much other chois than using NVDA to play the games that's coded in bgt.
lol sometimes i wonder if NVaccess payed him to only get bgt to work with NVDA
I think bgt is doing as much as it can. Basically the following is happening, I'm not an expert in jaws's keyhook, but I'll do my best:
1. Jaws captures all the keys you press. It's basically a gate between your keyboard and the normal keyboard handling in Windows. It captures all keyboard shortcuts, if it is a Jaws keystroke it doesn't send it to the normal peace of software that handles keyboard input(whatever that might be).
Now apparently, when it does send it to Windows, it sends it in such a way that it doesn't work in many games, or in applications where you have to hold down your arrow key. I guess it sends many key press events, instead of a keydown event, from what I have gathered.
Now how bgt overrides this is by destroying jaws's keyhook or gate, how I called it, and putting it's own in it's place. This causes all keyboard shortcuts to work again, except for jaws's, since bgt destroyed the keyhook. So basically you have to choose between not playing the game at all, but having jaws function correctly, or playing the game, and not being able to use jaws keyboard shortcuts like control to stop speech.
The reason nvda works flawlessly is because it uses a different keyhook apparently. I have no idea what the difference is, but I know because:
All old games work with nvda out of the box, while in the documentation they often state to shut down jaws.
bgt works with nvda, because nvda allows it to. All philip had to do is implement speech support for nvda, and he did the same thing for jaws. I bet you he spent more time on jaws support than he did with nvda. The other problem is that audiogame programmers don't use Jaws that much, and don't test there games with it. So the fact remains: either use sapi or nvda for games of any kind. THis just isn't a bgt issue.
ok, do you have any ideas why this thing that i gonna describe now happends? i know a guy who is using jaws 18, he had a same problem but he reinstalled jaws and now for some reason it works perfectly fine. as if he used NVDA. have any ideas why it did happen to him? he's using windows 7 64bit
AudioGames.net Forum → General Game Discussion → getting jaws to work properly with bgt games
Generated in 0.027 seconds (59% PHP - 41% DB) with 9 queries
