ButtonBar - Updated Feb 9, 2020

What is ButtonBar?

ButtonBar with all 5 buttons showing, and scan highlight around button 2

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ButtonBar, a programmable on-screen keyboard utility for Windows computers that offers users up to 5 buttons, is designed to improve accessibility for interactive whiteboards, many computer programs, and some websites. Frequently, when school districts buy whiteboards, they buy the biggest one they can afford rather than making their buying decision based on the reach of their smallest students, or the needs of students with disabilities. (It's OK, really. I'm glad they got the whiteboards.)

ButtonBar can help to overcome some of the hurdles presented by whiteboards by displaying 5 buttons at the bottom of the screen that you can configure to issue mouse clicks where you want them, or to send strings of characters, or to do both. Your students can interact with the whiteboard by just pressing the ButtonBar buttons at the bottom of the board. ButtonBar can be moved elsewhere, if desired.

ButtonBar is useful for creating, simple, single-click buttons that can issue a complex set of keyboard commands for tasks like increasing font size that might be challenging, but helpful, for some students.

ButtonBar also supports switch access using virtually any switch interface. It offers options for direct one switch to one button accessibility, or single switch scanning, or two switch scanning. Optional auditory support is available for switch scanning, but requires a helper application to be launched to provide text to speech (details below.)

ButtonBar can store setups under separate names for quick reconfiguration.

ButtonBar is free!

How do you setup ButtonBar?

First, once you've launched ButtonBar, hold down the Alt key and briefly press s (for setup.) You should see a new window, the Setup Window:

Press Win-s and the ButtonBar setup screen opens - be sure to read the Help file!

On the left side of the Setup screen the column of labels describes what the rows of buttons do. Each column of buttons represents the attributes of each of the five ButtonBar buttons as explained below:

Button Pictures: Press one of these buttons to locate an image (.jpg, .gif, or .png) to decorate your button. Buttons can only show pictures. So, if you need text you will have to save it as some sort of picture file. ButtonBar will automatically re-size the picture to fit. It is a good idea to collect all your pictures and put them in some convenient location - like a folder called "pics", or similar. After you select a picture you will be asked to enter text that can be used as an auditory description of the button during switch scanning. If the Auditory Scan box is checked, ButtonBar will copy the auditory cue text to the clipboard when a button is highlighted during scanning. There are many clipboard text to speech readers that will provide speech output like SpeakEasy, Simple TTS Reader, Orato, or ClipSpeak - all free programs.

Alternate Trigger: You can select from the drop-down menu common keystrokes, clicks, or joystick button options found on commercial switch interfaces to activate the associated button. You can assign the same trigger for more than one button, but only the lowest numbered button trigger will fire. It is therefore a good idea to have a unique trigger for each button. Finally, you can set the trigger to none (as in no trigger at all.) Alternate triggers can be disconcerting if you forget that an alternate trigger was defined. So, unless your user really needs an alternate trigger, none is the safest choice. If you select a scan type, the triggers associated with scanning take precedence over alternate button triggers. You can suspend or re-activate alternate triggers by pressing the ~ key. The ButtonBar title will indicate whether the triggers are ON or OFF.

Message to Send: Here is how you assign an outcome to a button by selecting an item from the drop-down menu. The options on this menu reflect the typical choices available on most switch interfaces. You can also concoct a custom message that combines keystrokes and/or mouse clicks as discussed below in Set Custom Messages. If you choose to send a click (or clicks) you also need to define where the click(s) will be sent. You do this by hovering the mouse cursor over its intended target, and then holding the Win key down and briefly pressing a number key corresponding to the button number you are programming (See the Keyboard Shortcuts below for details.) This allows each of the five buttons to have different targets that will get clicked when the buttons are activated. For whiteboard, touchscreen, or mouse users, the button action is delayed until the user releases the button.

Set Custom Messages: Below the "Set Msg. #" buttons is a text field into which you can type anything you want. When you click the Set Msg # button the contents of the text field is assigned to its associated button. Custom messages can contain special characters like Tab and arrow keys. These characters must be enclosed in braces as in {Backspace} for the backspace key, and {Left} for the left arrow key. You can also include key combos using special modifiers as in ^a for issuing Crtl-A. The special modifiers include:

! = Alt

# = Win

+ = Shift

^ = Control

For example: ^p{Enter} opens the print dialog and prints the open document in many programs. Add a space to the end of a phrase like this: This is my phrase{space}

Here is more complex example from the setup "Word Helper for WordTalk": ^a!of^s25{Enter}{Left} which has the effect of setting the font size of an entire document in Microsoft Word 2003 to 25. This custom message can be translated as a sequence of keyboard commands: ctrl-a (select all) alt-o (select format menu) f (select font) ctrl-s (select size) 25 (set size to 25) Enter (apply change to font) Left (press left arrow to deselect all).

You can also send clicks as in {Click 2} which has the effect of sending a double click, but do remember to tell button bar where the click should go.

ButtonBar was created using the incredibly useful but not-so-user-friendly Autohotkey to perform its magic. Let me know if you are having trouble getting some a custom message to do what you want, and I will suggest a solution, if it is possible. There is much more detail at the Autohotkey website on what you can have a button "send" which can be found here: http://www.autohotkey.com/docs/commands/Send.htm .

Show/Hide Buttons: Check boxes to show or hide associated ButtonBar buttons. Hidden buttons are skipped during scanning, but can still be activated via alternate triggers.

Enter Setup Name and Save Setup - Once you are happy with a particular setup, type a name in the text field and click the Save Setup button. The saved setup will appear in the list under the Get Saved Setup drop down menu. Pick a setup from the list and ButtonBar will assume the settings associated with that setup. These settings are stored in the BB_main.ini file which must accompany the ButtonBar application in the same folder.

Set Scan Type - You can choose Single Switch Scanning, Two Switch Scanning, or none. You can set the scan rate for single switch scanners from the Scan Rate drop down, and you can define what keystroke, mouse button, or joystick button will act as a trigger for either scan type by selecting from the associated Scan Trigger drop downs. For two switch scanning the left scan trigger button defines the trigger to move the highlight, and the right trigger button defines the trigger that selects the highlighted item. Scan Triggers take priority over Alternate Triggers. Check the Auditory Scan box to enable an auditory cue for switch scanners. As the highlight advances during scanning the auditory cue text associated with a button picture will be copied to the clipboard. A clipboard text to speech utility like the freeware programs SpeakEasy, Simple TTS Reader, Orato, or ClipSpeak, will provide speaking out loud support and must be up and running ahead of time.

Set Slow Send mode - Check this box to slow down the rate that ButtonBar sends keystrokes. In many instances a slower send rate will make for a better user experience. Changes to this check box are not immediate and only take effect upon restarting ButtonBar.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Win-s - Show the Setup Screen

` or ~ - (Back-tick or Tilde key) The tilde key acts to toggle the alternate button triggers off/on. This is useful if you are using keystroke or clicks to trigger buttons, and you want to use the keyboard or mouse temporarily for their natural purposes. Turning triggers OFF or ON is denoted in the ButtonBar's title.

Win-h -Hide or show the ButtonBar.

Win-t - Optionally save a setup with the name of the active application's title, which you can edit.

Win-F1 - Show this help file in the default web browser

Win-1 - Record the position of the mouse cursor for button 1 (leftmost button.)

Win-2 - Record the position of the mouse cursor for button 2.

Win-3 - Record the position of the mouse cursor for button 3.

Win-4 - Record the position of the mouse cursor for button 4.

Win-5 - Record the position of the mouse cursor for button 5.

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