Important Note

You can search for issues using JIRA search screen and then using an SQL-like language called JIRA Query Language JQL. Only the following items in the search screen are accessible and should be used for interaction.

  • List View
  • Share Link 
  • Export Button
  • JQL Editable field

Please note that the Detail View for search results is not accessible and should not be used. Instead always stick to list view and use JQL to query the search screen. With that in mind, lets proceed to the steps required to do JIRA search.

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Steps to Do the Search

Step 1: Hit Alt + Q to come to JIRA search box. Make sure you are in forms mode by hearing the beep. Then hit enter.

Step 2: Hit Insert + F7 and select the link Advanced. If the link is there, hit Enter on it, else proceed to the next step. Note, sometimes, the link Advanced does seem to appear in the list of links even if its not there. So the best way to verify that you are using the Advanced mode is to confirm if you can see the editable field that begins with parse Query line .... Edit ...., by hitting Ctrl + Insert + e.

Step 3: Make sure you are in list view. For this, hit Ctrl + Insert + b and then select the Change view button. Once this button is selected and moved to, JAWS will read out a message to confirm if you are in list view or not. Follow the instructions accordingly. If you are in detail view, JAWS will prompt you to hit Insert + 3 , followed by t , to switch to list view. If you are in list view, JAWS will ask you to proceed with the search results, in which case you proceed to either the search results or to step 4 depending on your need. 

Note, Steps 2 and 3 above need to be done only for the first time, if you haven't been using list view and JQL before. Once this is done, JIRA remembers your settings, so you shouldn't be required to do this the next time you access JIRA.

Step 4: Select the JQL input field , by hitting Ctrl + Insert + e, then selecting the editable field that begins with parse Query line .... Edit ....

Step 5: Make sure that you are in the forms mode by hearing the beep.

Step 6: Start typing the JQL query.

Step 7: If you want to select the options from the drop-downs that get updated on the fly based on your query, hit down arrow, make a selection, hit Enter key. Then, very important,  to continue with your query you have to again jump to the correct editable field that was mentioned in step 4. For that , hit Shift + e, make sure you hear the label of the editable field mentioned in step 4, select that field and hit Enter and then make sure you are in forms mode. Then continue typing your query. Note sometimes, though very rarely, JAWS might take you to quick search edit box, in which case, you just have to repeat step 4.

Step 8: If your query needs to select options from more drop-downs, repeat step 7 , else hit enter to submit your query after making sure that you are in the editable field containing the query AND in forms mode. JAWS will alert you of any error messages, else it will display the query results.

Step 9: If there are any error messages, modify your JQL and resubmit. Else, you can go ahead and access the search results. To do that , hit Ctrl + Insert + b, then select the button named "Columns". Make sure you don't hit Enter on the button. Instead , when on the button, keep hitting down arrow key to access the table of results.

Alternatively, when on the Columns button, hitting up arrow twice will tell you the number of issues. It will say something of the form x-y of z, where z is the total number of issues found by the search and x and y are the lower and upper counts of the issues that are currently displayed. If there are more results, they would be accessible by hitting Insert + F7 , selecting the link Next >>. If you need to go to a specific page number of the results, select the links 1,2,3,4 and so on from the Insert + F7 option.