City temp: temperature in major world cities, direct from JAWS
It’s hard to believe, but it was almost a decade ago that Andrew Heart wrote some JAWS scripts to convert the temperature between Celsius and Fahrenheit. The code for these scripts is still available online and thus I’ve incorporated part of the functionality into my new scripts for JAWS. If Andrew reads this, or anyone can get me in touch with him to ask his belated permission, please leave a message here.
These scripts (written on suggestion of brian Hartgen) allow you to type in the name of a City and have the temperature there announced. If you want to hear the information again you simply need to press the keystroke a second time, or a double-tap of the key will ask you for a new city, or allow you to update the weather for the first one. You can choose how long the scripts will keep the old weather before disregarding it for updated information from the web, and also whether to hear your temperatures in Celsius or Fahrenheit. The results are spoken and displayed on a Braille display, and once installed the scripts are very easy to use.
You can download the scripts by clicking this link. Before you do, please remember that they are very untested and new. Whilst they don’t effect your default scripts in any other way than to be included and have a key, you should still be cautious.
cityTemp (89)
Once downloaded, you’ll need to paste them into your JAWS settings directory. Here are step-by-step instructions for installing them. If you are unfamiliar with installing JAWS scripts, you might want to seek some help, or at least back-up your jaws settings before continuing.
1. Unzip the files to your JAWS settings folder, which you can find through the “explore my settings” of the JAWS folder in your start menu.
2. Load up script manager with insert+0, and press ctrl+O to open a file.
3. Type “CityTemp” into the box (without the quotes). cityTemp is the name of these scripts.
4. press ctrl+s to compile the scripts. JAWS should say “compile complete”.
5. press ctrl+shift+d to edit the default script source. Go right to the bottom of the file with ctrl+end, hit enter for a new line, and type:
use “cityTemp.jsb”
6. Press ctrl+o again, this time opening default.jkm. This is a keyboard file for jaws, to which you need to add a key.
7. Cursor down to “[common keys]” hit end, then enter, to make yourself a blank line just below the section title.
8. You need to type the key you want to use, an equals sign, then the script name, which #is CityTemperature. For example, my key is
ctrl+insert+shift+t=cityTemperature
If you prefer, copy and paste my key, you can take away the shift+ or the insert+ if you like to make it easier to press.
9. press alt+f4 and choose yes to saving changes to both files. Things should compile and exit just fine. The scripts are now installed.
Using the scripts is very easy. Press your chosen key - mine is ctrl, shift, insert and t, and you’ll be asked to type the name of a city. If you type settings, you can choose how you want your temperatures announced etc. if you type a dot or period, by itself, you’ll be able to choose any cities you’ve previously entered. Failing that, just type a city and hit enter. JAWS will go online, find the information, and announce it for you. You can press your key to hear it again, or double-press it to choose a new city.
\I must thank brian and Kevin for the idea, Andrew for his fabulous scripts, and the Geonames website for the use of their web services. Hopefully, you will extend some appreciation their way too, for without them, we’d be without this.