In this episode, Shaun Preece discusses the process of finding files, folders, and websites on a Windows computer using a screen reader, as well as navigating File Explorer and creating shortcuts.
In this episode, Shaun Preece discusses the process of finding files, folders, and websites on a Windows computer using a screen reader, as well as navigating File Explorer and creating shortcuts.
He provides tips and demonstrations on using the Start menu, File Explorer, and keyboard shortcuts to efficiently locate and access files and folders. Additionally, he demonstrates the creation of desktop shortcuts for files, folders, and websites, along with assigning keyboard shortcuts to these shortcuts.
Highlights
- [Narrator] "Shaun of the Shed". An AMI original podcast.
- Hello and welcome to another episode of "Shaun of the Shed". I am Shaun Preece. I am sat in my garden shed, and this is the show where we talk all about technology and how useful it can be to us as blind or visually impaired people. In today's episode, I'm going to answer some questions that I've received, both actually in my inbox and some questions I've seen on social media. I want to talk about finding files, folders, even websites, whatever it may be. Navigating around your Windows computer. You know that document you just spent two hours typing and you hit control S to save it? Where did it actually go and how can I quickly find it? Firstly, I'm gonna show you some, well some really basic tips, but they're very handy of what to listen out for in File Explorer, what parts are actually important and what parts you can just sort of skip on by most of the time. And secondly, I wanna show you a feature built into Windows, which allows you to create shortcuts directly to files or folders or even websites that you use regularly. And you can quickly just create a little icon, a little shortcut that you can quickly get to, hit enter on it, or even create a keyboard shortcut for it, that will jump you directly to where you want to go. It's incredibly handy and I use it all the time. So how do you find that all important file or a folder, that document you've been working on all weekend on your Windows computer? Well, there's a couple of different ways. Usually the easiest and most convenient way is to simply use the start menu. Just press the Windows key and then type the file name or part of the name of the file or folder you are looking for. So if you're looking for the downloads folder, hit the Windows key and start typing downloads. Hit enter, and you should be in the downloads folder. Nice, now that's in theory. The trouble is the start menu is, well, quite frankly, a bit too smart because it's not consistent, it's not constant, it's dynamic. So if I've recently watched a movie called "Download Two: This Time It's Personal", or I've downloaded a program called download.exe, for example, then the next time I hit that Windows key, bring up the start menu, and start typing downloads, it'll probably show me those first, the most recent files. And I'll have to search around or up or down through the list of search results in order to find the downloads folder. Not a massive deal, but it can sort of get in the way a little bit or just complicate matters. And also I think it's very important that if you are a Windows user, you should get to know something called File Explorer. It does exactly what it says on the tin. It allows you to explore all the files and folders and even the devices such as smartphones or hard disks that are attached to your computer. The trouble is, File Explorer can be a bit of a scary place, there's quite a lot to it. It can seem a little bit daunting, but I've got good news because there's only basically two areas in File Explorer that you need to worry about. So let's just get to that straight away. Firstly, how do you open File Explorer? Well, we can use the friendly start menu, hit the Windows key, type File Explorer, and hit enter. But we're not gonna do that, obviously. We're gonna use a keyboard shortcut, far quicker. Simply press the Windows key and the letter E for Explorer. Let's do that. File Explorer is made up of quite a few different areas and that's where it can get a little bit daunting for people. So let's just have a tab around to explore what's in File Explorer. So I'm just gonna keep hitting tab.
- [Narrator] Name split button collapsed, sorted, ascending.
- [Shaun] Okay, so there's a column headed there, how it's sorting the files by name and in ascending. Again, okay, not really interested, right? Let's hit tab again.
- [Narrator] Status bar, status bar.
- [Shaun] Yeah, not interested, tab.
- [Narrator] Tab control, list, this PC tab.
- [Shaun] List of tabs like you'd find in your browser. Not interested, tab.
- [Narrator] Add new tab button.
- [Shaun] Ugh, tab.
- [Narrator] Up one level, all plus up arrow.
- [Shaun] Okay, I'm just gonna keep pressing tab now until I get back to where we started, which was the item view.
- [Narrator] Refresh this PC, F5.
- [Shaun] No.
- [Narrator] Search this PC edit blank.
- [Shaun] Tab.
- [Narrator] Sort button collapse.
- [Narrator] Tab.
- [Narrator] Details button show.
- [Shaun] Ah, tab.
- [Narrator] Tree view this PC.
- [Shaun] Tab.
- [Narrator] Items view list.
- [Shaun] Ah.
- [Narrator] Devices and drives grouping.
- [Shaun] And we're back to where we started. Now if you weren't counting and why would you be? That was 13 key presses to get all around the different areas of File Explorer and back to where we started, the item view. That's a lot of navigating around and it's easy to get lost. Where am I? How do I get back to my item view? As a screen reader user, I'm sure lots of you will know that problem. Firstly, there is a way to cut that number of navigating key presses, dang. Instead of pressing the tab key to move around File Explorer, just hit the function key F6. So let's try that.
- [Narrator] Name split button, collapsed, sorted.
- [Shaun] Okay, F6 again,
- [Narrator] Status bar, data spa.
- [Shaun] So far, exactly the same as pressing tab, right? F6 again.
- [Narrator] Tab control, list.
- [Shaun] List F6 again.
- [Narrator] Tree view, this PC collapsed.
- [Shaun] Oh wait, that cut a lot of stuff out. The tool bar, the search, everything at the top, F6 again.
- [Narrator] Items view list
- [Shaun] Items view list. And we're back to where we started. That time it took only five key presses to get back and move around File Explorer, a lot easier to get back to where you want to be. On that, where do we want to be? But again, as I mentioned, there's only two areas we should care about. And that's the tree view and the item view, that's it. Now the tree view is a vertical list of every folder and every hard disk, every device that's in and on and attached to your computer. You will find absolutely everything in that tree view list. Oh, and by the way, if you're using a different screen reader, some of them may call it navigation pane, I think, narrator, but it's the same thing. You can simply use the up and down arrows in the tree view list to find what you are looking for. A download folder, documents folder, Dropbox folder, the external hard disk, whatever it may be. Or you can type the first letter of the folder you're looking for. We are currently in the item view list and I'll explain why that's important in a second. Let's just jump back to the tree view list. Now, visually on the screen, the tree view list is to the left of the item view list. So you can do shift F6 to jump back one area or a shift tab to jump back one area.
- [Narrator] Tree view, this PC collapsed, 12 of 14.
- [Shaun] Okay, so now I'm in the tree view list. It says I'm in 12 of 14, so I'm towards the bottom of the list. So I'm just gonna hit the home key to jump to the top,
- [Narrator] Home, one of 14 level one.
- [Shaun] So now let's just arrow down through our tree view.
- [Narrator] Gallery two of 14, level one, Shaun, person, start of quick access, downloads, pinned documents, pinned pictures, pinned music, pinned, end of quick access, Double Tap Dropbox, collapsed 10 of Dropbox personal.
- [Shaun] So as you heard there, there's the main folders. I can keep going, but you get the idea. Now you can, as I said, use the arrow up and down keys to go through that list. Or you can simply type the name of what you're looking for. So let me jump to the bottom of the list. Let me hit end.
- [Narrator] Network collapsed 14 of.
- [Shaun] Let's hit D and see what that brings up, D.
- [Narrator] D, level zero, desktop OneDrive.
- [Shaun] And again.
- [Narrator] D level one start of quick access, desktop.
- [Shaun] Now I've got two desktops 'cause I'm using OneDrive, but let's not complicate matters. Let's hit D again.
- Downloads, D, documents pinned, not D, Double Tap Dropbox collapsed 10 of.
- [Shaun] So as you see, it's just jumping through every folder that starts with D. Now we can be even more concise and quicker than that, I want the downloads folder. So I'm gonna type DOW.
- [Narrator] Level one downloads.
- [Shaun] And now it's jumped directly in that long list of files and folders to downloads. Now we found where we want to be. Let's select that folder. To do that, you can either hit space bar or hit enter on it. I'm gonna hit enter, now it doesn't say anything, doesn't gimme any feedback, but now I'm gonna jump to that item view, where we started from. To do that, I'm just gonna hit tab or you could hit F6.
- [Narrator] Items view list, temp not selected, one of five.
- [Shaun] So now I'm in the item view and why this is the second important area is because it shows us all the files and folders that are in our selected folder. Everything that's in the downloads folder is shown in the items view list. So there's five items in here, if I arrow down.
- [Narrator] The 2023.3.3.exe.
- [Shaun] Oh an old install program for NVDA screen reader, arrow down again.
- [Narrator] OBS Studio 31 for installer X64.
- [Shaun] That's for recording these videos, down again.
- [Narrator] Vocaster Hub 1.60 exe.
- [Shaun] That's for my audio interface, down again.
- [Narrator] WebEx.exe, five of five.
- [Shaun] And that's a video conferencing program that I downloaded. All I'm doing is arrowing up and down, on your system, depending on how it's set up, you could have to go left and right. It may be a grid of files rather than a list. But a quick tip, if you press control alt one, it will change the view. One is massive extra large icons on your screen, which may be useful if you've got low vision. Control alt two is slightly smaller icons, three, normal size, four is really tiny ones, five is a list, and six is the details view, which is what I use and one I recommend. It means that all the files and folders that are shown, all the items in the items view will be just a vertical list. All you need to do is arrow up or arrow down to find what you want. Let's find a file here, let's go.
- [Narrator] Vocaster hub 1.6.
- [Shaun] Just like the tree view, I can just type the name of the file or folder I'm looking for. Let's find that old NVDA file, I'm just going to type N.
- [Narrator] N the 2023.3.3.ex.
- [Shaun] Which has jumped me directly to that NVDA file. We could hit enter on that to start installing NVDA, which I don't need to do obviously, or let's just delete it. Hit the delete key boosh, it's gone. That's the basics of File Explorer. Of course, the other areas may be important and I will show you the toolbar in a minute. Basically, you're gonna spend 99% of your time in the tree view area or the item view list and be able to find anything you want in there. If you are anything like me, you'll find that you spend a lot of your time in the same old files or folders. Maybe it's a document that you are constantly updating or taking notes in, or a folder where you're constantly downloading files or creating files. Well, you don't have to use the File Explorer to jump there directly. You can use a shortcut. They're very handy and really easy to set up. So let's do one right now. Let's jump back to File Explorer. So we're still in the downloads folder, but I wanna create a shortcut on my desktop. So I'm gonna hit shift tab to jump back to that tree view.
- [Narrator] Tree view.
- [Shaun] I want to find my desktop. So I'm gonna type DES.
- [Narrator] S, start of quick access, desktop.
- [Shaun] Let's try that, let's hit enter on that. I'm gonna tap to the item view.
- [Narrator] Items view list, audio projects, not selected one of four.
- [Shaun] Now there's four things on my desktop at the minute, a folder where I keep all my audio projects, arrow down.
- [Narrator] Temp two of four.
- [Shaun] Temp for just rubbish files. Anything I dunno where to put, I throw in there, arrow down.
- [Narrator] Work, three of four.
- [Shaun] My work folder for all my important stuff, arrow down.
- [Narrator] Notes.text, four of four.
- [Shaun] And a text file where I just take notes, almost like a scrapbook if you will. So there's five things there, I want to create a shortcut. How do we do that? Well, we're gonna go to another area in File Explorer. I'm gonna jump to the toolbar. I'm gonna simply press the alt key.
- [Narrator] New button, collapsed one of nine.
- Now this jumps me into the toolbar and the first item in there is new. If I hit space on this to open this button up, we will see a list of all the different things that I can create, do that space.
- [Narrator] Space popup, window menu folder one of 12.
- [Shaun] Okay, so the first thing I can create is a new folder. So if I wanted to create a folder for music, for example on my desktop, I would hit enter on folder and there it would be, but that's not what I want. So I'm gonna arrow down through this list.
- [Narrator] Shortcut two of 12.
- [Shaun] Ah, and second in the list is shortcut, beautiful. Let's just arrow down a bit more and see what else is here.
- [Narrator] Microsoft Access database three of 12.
- [Shaun] Ugh, far too complicated, arrow down.
- [Narrator] Bitmap image four of 12.
- [Shaun] Oh, create a new bitmap.
- [Narrator] Microsoft Word document five of 12.
- [Shaun] There you go, you get the idea. You can arrow through yourself and see what's in your new menu. But let's go back up to shortcuts, arrow up.
- [Narrator] Shortcut two of 12.
- [Shaun] And hit enter on here.
- [Narrator] Create shortcut, type the location of the item. Edit all plus blank.
- [Shaun] Okay, so now what we get is a popup window and it's a wizard. It will walk us through creating a shortcut. So it's asking for a address or the location of where we want this shortcut to go. This can be anything. You can type in a web address if you want. You can type in the path to a file or folder, but who knows the path to anything. It's far too complicated, all those slashes and colons. So if we just tab
- [Narrator] Browse.
- [Shaun] There's a browse button. If I hit enter on that.
- [Narrator] Browse for files or folders, dialogue, select the target of the shortcut below. Select the target of the shortcut below tree view.
- [Shaun] Okay, again, we're in a tree view. So there's a list of all the locations on my computer. I'm just gonna arrow down.
- [Narrator] Libraries collapsed, 13 of 20, level one. NewSeagate Drive, network collapsed, fifth, audio projects collapsed, six.
- [Shaun] When you hear that something is collapsed, that means there's sub folders or sub locations there. If you press the right arrow, it will open that up. And when you arrow up and down, you will go through those sub folders or sub locations. That sounded really tech jargy and nerdy. Let me just show you, let's go up to.
- [Narrator] Temp collapsed, set audio projects collapsed, network collapsed, NewSeagate Drive, libraries collapsed for NewSeagate Drive.
- [Shaun] Let's go to my external hard drive there. If I right arrow.
- [Narrator] Expanded, 10 items.
- [Shaun] Expanded and now there's 10 more items underneath or in my external drive, if I just arrow down.
- [Narrator] Level two, 2024, backup collapsed, one of.
- [Shaun] My backup.
- [Narrator] Applications collapsed two of.
- [Shaun] Various applications and so on. So that's what expand and collapse means. And if I press the left arrow when I'm on this external drive,
- [Narrator] Collapsed.
- [Shaun] I've collapsed it again now. Let's do the downloads folder again, it's easy.
- [Narrator] W, downloads collapsed, date of 20, level one.
- [Shaun] Downloads. So that's the folder I want to open up or this shortcut to point to. I've selected, it focuses on it. I don't have to hit space or enter, I just tab.
- [Narrator] Make new folder button or plus N, okay button.
- [Shaun] Okay, let's hit enter.
- [Narrator] Create shortcut, type the location of the item. Edit all plus selected C, user Shaun downloads.
- [Shaun] There you go, so now it's filled that in the path to that folder. That could have been a file, that could be an MP3 file. That could have been a document, it could be anything at all, but let's tab.
- [Narrator] Next button navigates to the next page or.
- [Shaun] Next.
- [Narrator] Unavailable.
- [Shaun] Hit enter on that.
- [Narrator] Type a name for this shortcut. Edit all plus selected downloads.
- [Shaun] So now we can give this shortcut a name, what it's gonna show up as on our desktop. And downloads, well that's a great name for it, so I'm gonna keep it at that. I'm just gonna hit enter.
- [Narrator] Desktop, items view list, notes.text, not selected five of five.
- [Shaun] And that's it, it's done, how easy was that? It's thrown me back to the File Explorer, but now hopefully there should be a new file in here if I arrow down.
- [Narrator] Downloads four of five.
- [Shaun] There it is. That's the shortcut that I just created. And if I hit enter on that.
- [Narrator] Items view list, temp not selected, one of four.
- [Shaun] It's opened up the downloads folder directly. Amazing, right, not cool? Are you a little bit underwhelmed by that? Okay, well let me show you some more of what we can do with shortcuts. That was to open a folder. As I said, you could open a shortcut that would open a file or a folder, but also a website. So let's create another desktop shortcut. I'm gonna go to the tree view in File Explorer, shift tab,
- [Narrator] Tree view, home one.
- [Shaun] Let's find that desktop again,
- [Narrator] Start of quick access.
- [Shaun] There it is, hit enter on that, tab to the item view.
- [Narrator] Items view list, audio projects.
- [Shaun] And let's create a new shortcut. Alt key to go to the toolbar.
- [Narrator] New button collapsed one of nine.
- [Shaun] Space or enter on the new button.
- [Narrator] Folder one of 12.
- [Shaun] Arrow down.
- [Narrator] Shortcut two of 12.
- [Shaun] And enter.
- [Narrator] Create shortcut. Type the location of the item, edit all plus blank.
- [Shaun] Okay, so now I'm gonna do a website that's doubletaponair.com, it's great. If I just arrow up to check.
- [Narrator] Www.doubletaponair.com.
- [Shaun] Yeah that's probably right, I'm just gonna hit enter.
- [Narrator] Type a name for this shortcut.
- [Shaun] Let's call it.
- [Narrator] Double Tap website.
- [Shaun] Hit enter.
- [Narrator] Desktop, items view list, audio projects not selected.
- [Shaun] And we are done, now if I press D.
- [Narrator] Doublet tap website, four of 6.
- [Shaun] There's our new shortcut, I could just hit enter on that. In fact, I will.
- [Narrator] Loading complete.
- [Shaun] And if I jump through this website,
- [Narrator] Clickable link, skip to content, main landmark, latest from Double Tap heading level one.
- [Shaun] So there you go, it quickly opened up the website. There's another shortcut which instead of taking you to a file or folder, will take you to your favorite website, but we can do more. Let me just double check where I am, up and down arrow.
- [Narrator] Work, three of 6. Double tap website, four of 6.
- [Shaun] So I'm on the shortcut. I can add a keyboard shortcut for this shortcut. I'm gonna hit alt enter to open the properties for this file.
- [Narrator] Double tap website properties dialogue.
- [Shaun] I'm just gonna tab through the options here.
- [Narrator] Shortcut key, hotkey field, non alt plus K.
- [Shaun] The first tab takes me to a shortcut key, the hotkey, so I can give a keyboard shortcut to activate this shortcut. Let's try and find a shortcut that isn't used anywhere in the system. I'm gonna try Control alt and D.
- [Narrator] Hotkey Field Control plus alt plus D, alt plus K.
- [Shaun] Okay, control Alt and D, that sounds good to me. Let's hit enter to accept that.
- [Narrator] Desktop items view list.
- [Shaun] That means that don't need to be on the desktop. I don't need to be in the same area as that shortcut. Anywhere, I can press control alt D.
- [Narrator] Loading, complete.
- [Shaun] And there it is. It's taken me directly to that website. And again, it's important to remember that those shortcuts can be to absolutely anything. They can be to websites, files, folders. They could be to other computers that may be on your network. Absolutely anything, they are incredibly useful. Actually, I've got a folder in my work folder in my desktop with a, oh, I dunno, I've lost count of how many shortcuts. And all of those are for various Zoom meetings or clean feed or whatever video conferencing meetings that I attend regularly. So instead of having open up an email with an invitation link or keep a note of it somewhere, I have a list of shortcuts I can quickly jump through, hit enter, and bang, I'm in that meeting. I'm on that website, I'm in that folder. It's as easy as that, so there you go. I hope that answered a couple of questions that a few of you had. File Explorer, as I said, it can seem a little bit overwhelming because there is quite a lot there. But to start off with, the only areas you're gonna spend most of your time is in that tree view and the item view. Other than that, you can have an explore around in there, have a play. You can't do anything too wrong as long as you don't start deleting files all over the place. Have a play around, get familiar with it because File Explorer is by far the best way to navigate around everything that is on your computer and it's something you should get used to. Anyway, hope that helps. That was File Explorer and how to create shortcuts. If you've got a question or if you want me to demo something, please get in touch. You can email Sean, that's S-H-A-U-N, at double taponair.com, Shaun at doubletaponair.com. Take care, and I'll see you next time.