Hi everybody.
I’ve been trying to browse with a Bluetooth keyboard, both in Safari, and Firefox, which I’d prefer. I normally browse on Windows, so this is a learning experience for me. So here’s an example of how I typically browse, and maybe somebody has suggestions on an equivalent on iOS.\\Let’s say I’m reading something with chapters or articles, we can use Cracked (www.cracked.com) as an example. Typically what I do is use headings to find an article, and then open it in a new tab. That way, I can close the tab and be right where I was to hit ‘h’ to get to the next article I want to read.\\I’m quite willing to not do that if just opening a link and going back would be easier, but I don’t know of a keyboard equivalent for the forward and back buttons on either browser. I’m working on the touch screen too, but often I’m using a BT keyboard anyway, e.g. if I’m checking mail or whatever. So I feel like it’s just simpler to keep using it to browse. Plus it’s just another alternative input method, and since iOS’ keyboard shortcuts are pretty robust with VO, I figure I may as well figure out how to do both efficiently.
Thanks in advance for nay help. Hopefully somebody’s already doing this, and has a good strategy worked out. Basically, any tips for browsing with a keyboard would be great.
Comments
The first thing to ask is,…
The first thing to ask is, is this an iPhone or an iPad? if it's an iPhone, the big annoyance when browsing or really doing anything else with it is that app shortcuts generally don't work. In other words, if there *is* a go forward or go back shortcut, it probably won't work on an iPhone. If it's an iPad, just hold down the command key to get the Shortcuts you can use in the app.
Assuming this is an iPhone, it's VO Shortcuts only. The easiest thing to do is go into quicknav with left and right arrows. Possibly even single letter quick nav, but you'll have to experiment a bit. I'm a die hard iPad touch screen user, so my opinions should be taken with a grain of salt, ☺️. Anyway, once you're in quicknav you can do the same thing, navigate my headers until you find the article you want. From there, Either just follow it and read it - vo-` is the equivalent of the scrub gesture and should take you back, or use vo-shift m which is a long press and then select open in new tab.
If you open in tabs, you should be able to use containers to get up to the tab bar and select the tab you want - although it might be more efficient to batch it and open a bunch of tabs then read them - not sure.
Anyway, flick through the commands bit in VO settings to get a list of all VO keyboard commands.
Thanks!
It is a phone yeah. Might make things trickier but it shouldn't be impossible. I mostly use tabs and such on a PC to keep my place in whatever page I'm coming from, so maybe that won't be as important in iOS.
Well, the whole thing of…
Well, the whole thing of whether it keeps your place in a page when you come back can definitely be a bit hit or miss. Again, you'll have to experiment. Heck, in a situation like that where you're reading multiple articles, you could even find adding them to Safari Reading List instead might be useful. Again though, that's batching - adding multiple articles to reading list then reading them after you've finished with the page.
I honestly don't have much experience with using an iPhone in Safari, never mind with a keyboard, so I'm not sure how easy adding a page to a new tab then jumping to it straight away then jumping back would be.
The jumping back would be easy.
In firefox on Windows I hit ctrl-enter to open in a new tab. Then when I'm done, I just hit ctrl-w to close the tab, and I'm right back on the link I opened in a new tab. I'm pretty sure you can do cmd-w to close tabs on the iPhone, which is why I wondered if this method would be transferable.
Are all the keys in the VO help then, even for app specific stuff like Safari? I don't know why they don't just do cmd-left arrow to go back and all, it would be way simpler.
No, app-specific stuff isn't…
No, app-specific stuff isn't in the VO help. As I said, on an iPhone, app-specific Shortcuts rarely work, and if they do it's trial and error or maybe in the docs for the app itself.
Generally speaking, app-shortcuts only work on iPads, not iPhones. If cmd-w closes a tab, awesome, same with anything else that works, and let us all know. Unfortunately, I don't have a new enough iPhone to experiment myself.
if on the web
You can long press on the link. Then a popup menu will come up. select open in a new tab.
I did that.
But see my topic over in iOS. The whole experience is terrible. Maybe it would be better if I just stuck to the screen, I dunno. I suspect it would have its own problems though, e.g. getting back to the place you're at on the page, because both Safari and Firefox seem to lose page placement really easily, whether just clicking on a link and going back, or opening that link in a new tab.