Randy Laptop

Dropbox is a great little service that lets you synchronise your files between computers. it sits in your system tray, keeps an eye on a special “dropbox” folder and lets you access anything you put in that folder on any computer, anywhere in the world. not only that but you can put files into a public folder (for sharing with people that don’t have Dropbox), and you can share a folder between Dropbox users (so if you’re working on something with a friend, you can both keep the very latest copies of all the work).

The reason i’m mentioning this is that there’s a little tray icon that changes it’s information whenever something happens with Dropbox and I’ve written a
small JAWS Script to tell you the status of your Dropbox with a single keypress.

If you’re already a Dropbox user then you can skip this paragraph: if you aren’t but want to try it out, I’d be grateful if you’d go there By Clicking This link. This will take you to a Dropbox sign-up page, but will also give you and me some extra space. dropbox free comes with a 2 GB limit, but you can get an extra 250 Mb by using the referral link above. if you don’t want the extra space and don’t wish to give me any either, then you can visit Dropbox itself at GetDropbox.com

The JAWS script has two functions. if you press the key once, you’ll hear your Dropbox status. this may be something like “all files up to date”, or “connecting,, or if uploading or downloading a large file you’ll hear the speed and remaining time left. pressing the key twice will open your Dropbox folder, so you can modify the content or view changes to any shared folders.

Installing the script requires the editing of your default” JAWS scripts (because the key needs to be available wherever you are in windows, not just in a single application). Follow the installation instructions very carefully, and make a back-up of your JAWS settings before you proceed.

the first step of the installation procedure involves copying the script to your clipboard. Click This link to open the script code in a new window. When you have it, right near the top is a line that says “;start copying from this line: Dropbox Code”. it’s easy to copy - just press Home to ensure you’re at the very beginning of that line, press ctrl+shift+end to select right to the bottom of the page, and ctrl+c to put the whole thing on your clipboard.

Now you just need to follow some simple step-by-step instructions to get the sscript installed.

• Open the JAWS script manager. To do this, press insert+0, or if you’d prefer go to your JAWS window, find utilities, and choose “Script manager”.
• open the Default JAWS scripts. To do this, press ctrl+shift+d from within Script manager, or go to the file menu and choose “Open Default File”.
• navigate to the very bottom of the file (with ctrl+end), hit enter for a new line, and paste what you’ve copied. You will be at the bottom if everything has pasted properly and pressing the up arrow you should hear “;this is the end of the Dropbox code”.
• you now need to tell JAWS what key you wish to use. I use ctrl+alt+shift+d, which requires four of my fingers but can be pressed entirely with the left hand. To do this, Press the Up arrow again until you hear “endScript”. The idea here is to have the cursor inside the code of the script. When that’s done and your cursor is on a line saying “endScript”, press ctrl+d.
• here is where you modify the script information. the only thing to worry about here is the “assign to” option. you can tab through, or press alt+a. in any case you are listening out for the words “assign to”. When you hear them, hit the key sequence you want to use, then press enter.
• Finally, alt+f4 out of the script manager and anser “yes” to saving changes. the scripts will be recompiled and the key will now work.

that’s as easy as it gets, i’m afraid - hopefully by following the instructions precisely all will be well. once again, you can sign up to Dropbox here and I hope you find the service as useful as I do.

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 4th, 2009 at 10:56 pm and is filed under jaws scripts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.