Note: These scripts are no longer supported in this form but remain here as the proof of concept as which they were initially designed. The set of sound files used by this project are provided separately as Gauge Sounds for other projects. For current JGauge scripts, visit JGauge Progress Bar Monitoring Scripts For JAWS 12 and Later.
Though out of date, the original documentation for the JGauge scripts follows:
Here you will find my scripts for monitoring Windows progress bars using sounds or speech.
The installation instructions for these scripts are removed as of March, 2017, as they are significantly out of date and could cause harm to modern JAWS installations if applied incorrectly.
These scripts are hereby released into the public domain. At this writing, I consider them more a proof of concept than a final product. They are based on an idea from a guy named Jason on the JAWSScripts list (I don't think I ever did see his last name). I wrote them before JAWS began reporting progress bar percentages, but as JAWS now does this, many people will likely find these scripts unnecessary. I still find them cool, but then I'm a bit biased.
What follows is a description of the scripts. Click here to download the current version.
This is a set of scripts and a set of 105 wav files comprising an audio gauge. The idea is to have a tone sweep from 220Hz to 880Hz (i.e., one octave below A 440 to one octave above it) as a progress bar advances. 101 wav files are assigned to the 101 values of a percentage (101 because they include both 0% and 100%; the other four wav files are used for special conditions). When a progress bar's position changes, the corresponding wav file is played. If a progress bar remains unmoving for five seconds, its last position is indicated so you can detect stalled downloads, etc. Each tone file is only 0.05 seconds long, so it amounts to a very short blip. Actually, each file contains three simultaneous tones: the one indicating the current progress percentage, plus a quieter tone for the starting position and one for the ending position. The upshot of all this is that, as a progress bar moves, you hear not only that it's moving, but also a very fast and accurate description of how far it is relative to its endpoints. Easier to hear than to explain, no doubt. If you don't install the wav files, JAWS will announce the percentages instead of using the wav files to report them.
The wav files were created using Perl and a Unix tool called augen. The volumes of the tones should be such that JAWS speech is not eclipsed by progress indications. The wav files are small (1,294 bytes each) and so don't require much time to load.
A note from author Doug Lee about the source code: It is split into three files: the main file, called jgauge.jss, and two code modules named progress.jsl and IEGlobe.jsl (JSL means JAWS Script Library). Progress.jsl contains the progress bar watching code. IEGlobe.jsl contains code for watching the Internet Explorer globe for movement, as well as a bit of code for reporting when Windows is busy.