JAWS Scripts For Wireshark
Doug Lee
Last Revised October, 2023

This document describes the JAWS scripts for Wireshark and provides tips for using this application with JAWS. This document can be opened from within the application via a double press of JAWSKey+F1 (or Insert+F1) when the scripts are running.

Table of Contents

System Requirements For JAWS Users

In addition to any system requirements for the application, the following apply for JAWS users:

Script Installation Instructions

To install these scripts on a new system:

  1. Load JAWS if this has not already been done. This will require administrative privileges on the computer.
  2. Run JAWS as the user for whom the scripts are to be installed. This and the following steps must be performed for each user of the computer who will be using JAWS with these scripts.
  3. Download and run, or run directly, the installer for these scripts; and follow the on-screen directions. Be sure to install the scripts in the currently running JAWS version if a JAWS version list is presented.
  4. To verify successful installation, type Insert+Q from within the application. Part of the JAWS spoken response should be a revision number. If you do not hear a revision number, the scripts are not correctly loaded. In some cases, restarting JAWS may fix this issue.

Key Sequences

These scripts incorporate commands that consist of sequences of keystrokes, all beginning with a common prefix, or "command keystroke." This approach allows many script commands without the risk of conflicting with application keystrokes. See the "Multi-Key Command Sequences" section of the "Common Script Elements" document for further details, including how to explore the available script commands (similar to exploring a menu system), and how to change the Command keystroke if necessary.

By default, the Command keystroke for these scripts is [. This document may refer to this keystroke as [ or Command; so, for example, [ Tab and Command Tab both refer to typing the prefix keystroke, then separately the Tab key. Some sequences may consist of more than two keystrokes, or "levels"; for example, [ d r would refer to typing [, then d, then finally r.

Script Commands and Features

These scripts provide the following commands beyond those provided by the application itself:

These scripts also provide the following features:

Known Issues

Sometimes, JAWS may be overzealous at field naming, including the names of all fields in a screen region as the "name" of a single field. This occurs with and without scripts, though the scripts reduce the frequency of this issue.

Rows in the Packet Details control can often be expanded with the Right arrow key, sometimes to several levels of depth; but JAWS does not indicate this because there is no indication in UIA as to which rows allow this. Testing for details often in this control is recommended.

Navigation in a tree of packet information can become slow in a very large tree when focus is many rows down from the top. This author tested a packet information tree containing over 215,000 rows (which caused Wireshark itself to consume about 12 gigabytes of system memory).

Braille support is not well tested and is likely incomplete.

Revision History

This is the revision history of these scripts, most recent revision first:

Revision 37, released October 6, 2023, tested against application version 4.0.10

Revision 31, released January 20, 2022, tested against application version 3.6.1

Revision 14, released May 18, 2020, tested against application version 3.2.3