Is it possible to force a buffer refresh in JAWS 9 or 10?

Question

Is there some way, through either JAWS scripting or HTML, to force JAWS to refresh its virtual screen buffer (normally Ins + Esc)? I'm working on an AJAX-heavy web application that requires JAWS support, but the users don't particularly like the solution "hit Ins+Esc after performing any action to catch possible changes".

Answer 1

The only way I know to do this is through Jaws scripting. According to the script documentation

Refresh (1)

Will force a refresh of the screen and

Refresh (0)

will only refresh if needed. There's also a RefreshWindow(Handle) that refreshes the window with the given handle but I don't know how well that will work in an internet browser since I'm not sure weather all the content you need is in one window.

Answer 2

Rather than refreshing the entire JAWS virtual buffer and doing something that is JAWS-specific, I would recommend using the ARIA aria-live property for this. Place it on an element which contains dynamic content, i.e. which you update with JavaScript, and the portion of the JAWS virtual buffer corresponding to that element will be automatically updated when you change the content of the element.