My question: How do I customize the announcement of app icon badges when switching between apps using Command+Tab.
My problem: I would like app icon badges to be announced when I Command+Tab through my open apps. This happens by default if I change verbosity to Medium or High, but I would like it set to low.
In VO Utility, I can open a table of additional speech verbosity options, but I have been unable to determine which of the several options applies in this situation. Experimentally, I have set many of them from default to high, but I'm still unable to get app icon badges to be announced.
Any idea how to have app icon badges announced when verbosity is set to low?
Bonus point: For any given screen element, how would I determine its type so that I can customize its verbosity in the additional speech verbosity options table?
Thanks.
Comments
An ugly workaround
I've got a workaround, but it's ugly. The workaround is to set VO verbosity to Medium, then set the custom verbosity for pretty much every single customizable element to Low. I hope someone has a better solution than that. Thanks for any help.
Response from Apple
I got a nice reply from apple, pasted below, with a couple suggested workarounds and a promise to file an enhancement request.
Begin Apple response.
Thank you for your email. We systematically worked through all the speech verbosity controls and found that none of them affected the output of an app having a new item in the App Switcher. That designation appears to come from the default speech verbosity value.
We have a couple ideas that can help. One is to set the default to medium and then lower all the verbosity designations to low. You can also set up Activities to modify VoiceOver’s verbosity whenever you are working in specific apps or contexts. This would allow you to maintain the default at medium, but experience a low verbosity setting while in Safari. To read more about this feature, please visit the following link:
https://support.apple.com/guide/voiceover/use-voiceover-activities-vo35752/10/mac/12.0
We’ve also passed along an enhancement request asking for verbosity control for the App Switcher.
Smile. Don't deny it -- you love my stupid questions!
Hi Paul.
Forgive me for asking, but is your goal to know which app you're switching to, or is it simply to hear the app being announced?
If the former, why not simply create custom keyboard commander shortcut keys for your apps? This would allow you to use a single keystroke to switch to the exact app you want each and every time.
Joy!
Bruce
No stupid questions
Don't sell yourself short, Bruce. Your comments help make AppleVis the great resource that it is.
I just want to hear if the app has anything new. For example, if I've got a new email in my inbox. When I Command+Tab through my list of open apps, and I get to the Mail app, I want to hear VoiceOver say "Mail, one new item". It works that way when verbosity is medium or high. But when it's low, which is what I want for 99% of what I do, I don't get the extra information about the number of new items. And there's no good way to change that behavior.
The information about new items is displayed visually with an app icon badge. App badges are part of Mac OS's notification system. Any app, not just Mail, can do this. It was the Discord app that got me working on this issue. Messages and FaceTime do the same thing, and I'm sure there are many others.