The information below has been taken directly from Freedom Scientific. Check out my brief comments in the All Wrapped Up section, after the new features are listed. Updates are separated by headings making it easy to jump to your software of choice. Note that some of the features may overlap between JAWS, Fusion, and ZoomText as they routinely share features among the three products.

Enhancements in JAWS 2022.2206.9 and Fusion 2022.2206.6 (June 2022)

The following is a list of improvements made between the April 2022 release and the June 2022 update.

Notification History

In JAWS 2021, we introduced a keystroke for quickly announcing the most recent notification. However, due to the sheer volume of notifications that can potentially be received on a daily basis depending on the applications in use, there was no easy way to review prior notifications you may have missed.

JAWS and Fusion 2022 now allows you to display a history of recently received notifications and gives you more control over which notifications you hear or whether they are displayed in braille. For example, you may want JAWS to announce notifications from an application only if they include specific text, or play a sound instead of interrupting you with a spoken message. You can even choose to exclude specific notifications from appearing in the recent notifications list. For instance, there may be certain repetitive messages you may want to hear, such as notifications from Edge confirming the loading status of a page, but you may not want these messages cluttering up your history.

To open the Notification History dialog box, press INSERT+SPACEBAR, followed by N. This feature can also be accessed from the Utilities menu in the JAWS main window, or through the Run JAWS Manager dialog box (INSERT+F2). Once open, focus is placed in a list containing notifications received from Windows and applications during the past 24 hours, as long as JAWS or Fusion was running. Use the ARROW keys to navigate and review items in the list. Pressing the APPLICATIONS key on the selected notification opens a context menu where you can choose to create a rule to customize how it is spoken or shown in braille , or don’t show the selected notification at all in the history. When you are finished reviewing notifications, press ESC to close the Notification History.

You can also access the Notification History using the Voice Assistant by saying “Hey Sharky, Notification History,” or “Hey Sharky, Notifications.”

If you only want to hear the most recent notification without opening a dialog box, press INSERT+SPACEBAR, followed by SHIFT+N.

For more details on creating and managing your own notification rules, refer to the Notification History topic in the JAWS Help.

Other Changes

• You can now say “Hey Sharky, Say Version” or “Hey Sharky, What Version,” to get the version of the current application. This is the same as pressing CTRL+INSERT+V.
• Addressed reported issues where JAWS was not working reliably with iTunes.
• Resolved a reported issue where a script load error was displayed when attempting to open the Math Viewer or Math Editor to view or edit an equation.
• When activating a button on a web page that opens a modal dialog, such as a calendar, resolved an issue where JAWS was reading the entire contents of the dialog all at once as soon as it gained focus.
• Added a new Quick Settings option, Indicate text inside INS and DEL Elements, which is on by default. When enabled, JAWS or Fusion indicates inserted or deleted text on web pages as you navigate with the Virtual Cursor.
• In addition to web browsers, JAWS and Fusion now announce live region updates in all applications where they are supported. In situations where you need to turn off these announcements, open Settings Center and search for “Announce live region updates.” This option can be configured for all applications, or for a specific app or website domain.
• If Forms Mode is set to Manual, addressed a reported issue where Forms Mode was turning off automatically instead of remaining active when moving away from edit fields.
• Resolved issues navigating tables on web pages containing multiple header rows.
• Added Keyboard Help (INSERT+1) for the commands to move to a prior heading level (SHIFT+1 through 6).
• When using the mouse to visually select text in Outlook messages while running JAWS or Fusion, resolved an issue where pressing CTRL+C was not copying the selected text to the Clipboard as expected unless text was selected using the keyboard.
• Resolved a reported issue in Outlook where JAWS was saying “read only edit” when opening a message. You now only hear “read only edit” if the Messages Automatically Read Quick Settings option is turned off, so you know when you move in to the message.
• When typing in the body of a new message in Outlook and you type the @ symbol followed by part of a user’s name to open the @Mentions menu, JAWS now reads the position and total number of names in the list of suggestions.
• After using the JAWS Math Editor to insert an equation in to a Word document, addressed a reported issue where the application window was no longer maximized.
• When inserting a text box into a Word document, addressed an issue where JAWS was not displaying descriptions of the different text box types in braille.
• In response to customer feedback, the INSERT+C command is now available in the Office 365 spell checker to read the current spelling error in context.
• Addressed an issue with the Playback tab of the Change System Sounds dialog box where JAWS was not correctly reading the list of devices.
• Resolved an issue with Thorian Reader, an app for reading ePub books, where JAWS was not able to focus on descriptions of images when selecting the link to view the description.
• Resolved an issue where the feature to help Avoid speech cut off when using Bluetooth headphones or some sound cards, accessed from Setting Center, was not working as expected over a remote Citrix connection.
• Resolved a reported issue with navigating ribbon controls in a specific application used by several customers in France.

Enhancements in ZoomText 2022.2206.7 (June 2022)

The following items have been addressed in the June 2022 update.

• The ZoomText UI now supports Macedonian, Latvian, and Albanian.
• Resolved an issue with focus tracking when running Acrobat DC Pro with ZoomText or Fusion.
• Resolved an issue where AppReader would not read when running Acrobat DC Pro with ZoomText or Fusion.
• Resolved an issue where CAPS LOCK+V was not moving the mouse point between multiple monitors.
• Resolved an issue where ZoomText would close while trying to insert a header or footer in an Excel worksheet.
• Improved focus enhancement and cursor enhancement performance when running Excel 365.
• Resolved an issue where cursor enhancement was not tracking correctly when running Notepad on Windows 11.
• Improved character-smoothing of text that appears in the Windows Start menu and Teams chat window.
• Resolved an issue in Outlook where cursor enhancement and keyboard tracking would disappear after opening a context menu.

All Wrapped Up

That’s it for JAWS, ZoomText and Fusion this time around.

What I like:

I really missed the Insert+C command for reading contextual information in the spell checker. I’m very glad to see it has made a comeback.

Getting the Updates

If your version of JAWS hasn’t offered the update to you yet, go to the JAWS help menu, then arrow to Check for Updates.

If your ZoomText/Fusion hasn’t offered the update to you yet, go to the ZoomText/Fusion menu, navigate to Manage Licenses, then Check for Updates. Note, because this is a new version entirely you will need to manually download JAWS, ZoomText, or Fusion.

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