So after leaving the Mac world in 2022 and using Windows as my daily driver, after hearing the news about the new M4 Mac Minis, decided to dip my toes again in the Mac pool so I could stay current on the goings on in Mac OS. I can already say that, going from whatever version of Mac OS in 2022 on an Intel based Mac and now using an Apple silicon Mac with Sequoia, there are definitely many differences in how the UI is laid out now.
I'm enjoying trying to recall how to use VoiceOver on the Mac and trying to troubleshoot issues I'm encountering in this new OS.
The main issue now that I'm encountering is, when certain popups appear, it seems as though VoiceOver focus doesn't jump to them. For example, if I go to my dock, navigate to the Trash icon, right-click and select to empty the trash, VoiceOver starts to read the confirmation message, but if I use the VO+Arrow Keys to move focus to the buttons on the dialog box, focus remains on the dock. I'm not sure if this is a bug or perhaps there's a setting I'm meant to change, or perhaps a workaround, but this has begun to drive me bonkers.
I know there's a lot I still need to do and figure out, especially since it's been a couple of years since I've had a Mac, but was wondering if someone out there knows if this is a bug or know of a workaround or fix for this?
While on the desktop, I've also heard VoiceOver read out things, kind of like the "What's New" announcements, and other notifications, and I've gone to the Notification Centre and tried to read the various notifications, but can't seem to do that. So to make it simpler, just cleared them all for now. Also, what is the simplest keyboard shortcut I could use to quickly open the Notification Centre and the Control Centre? I've checked with Chat GPT but keep getting hallucinations with it.
Thanks!
Comments
Menu of apps and windows
VO+F1 tells you the current app with focus. Press it a second time to get a menu of apps, which you can arrow through and press enter to select, and VoiceOver focus jumps to that app.
Similarly, VO+F2 tells you the active window, and pressing it a second time presents a menu of windows associated with the current app, plus any open system dialogs.
When I select to empty the trash, I get a confirmation dialog stating, "Are you sure you want to permanently erase the items in the Trash? You can’t undo this action." VoiceOver focus is in the dialog. I navigate to the empty Trash button and select it. I'm unsure why you don't see the same behavior. I believe Finder settings might have an option to turn off this confirmation. Is it possible you've done that?
It used to be that
It used to be that one could press command, shift, delete to empty the trash from the Finder. Has this changed?
Follow-Up
I did manage to figure out that VO+F2 twice, but noticed that the Empty Trash confirmation window wasn't part of the list. As for setting it up to have it empty the trash without that confirmation message, where would I find that setting?
I also tried the other shortcut, Command+Shift+Delete but it doesn't seem to empty it.
Also, on many occasions, if I try to open certain areas in the Finder, like the Applications folder, the window doesn't seem to pop up. I find that doing a Force Quit on the Finder sometimes helps, because once I force a relaunch of the Finder, then the keyboard shortcut to open the Applications folder sometimes works.
Mac OS seems like it's gotten many more bugs or glitches since the last time I used it back in 2022.
Finder settings
In Finder, open settings. From the toolbar, select Advanced. Then you should see an option to disable trash confirmation.
Trash can woes
Sorry to hear Command + Shift + Delete(Backspace) no longer works. Used to work on the old Intel-based Macs. 🤷
Emptying the trash and working with notifications
For me, when in Finder, I can press Command-Shift-Delete to empty the trash, and because the "Empty trash" button is the default button in this dialog, I can just press Return to activate it, no need to manually navigate to this button.
Regarding notifications, pressing VO-O from anywhere in macOS should reveal the Notification Center, and pressing VO-Shift-O should reveal the Control Center. When focused on a notification, pressing VO-Space should cause it to open in the app that sent it, or you can view additional actions for a notification by focusing on it and pressing VO-Command-Space to reveal the actions menu.
HTH
Vo-cmd-space on a…
Vo-cmd-space on a notification in notification centre has been broken after 15.1/15.1.1 when you are in other than the standard navigation mode.
Actions menu works for me
Regardless of what navigation mode I'm in, VO+Command+Space opens the action menu on a notification. But I'm not sure the OP is seeing a notification.
Back to topic: I thought maybe he had mouse pointer set to follow VO cursor, but I just turned that on, and still couldn't reproduce the reported behavior of VO focus stuck in the dock.
Follow Up!
Good morning, so did managed to find the setting to toggle off the deletion confirmation dialog box and disabled it.
As for the shortcut, I haven't tried it again, but when I had, I think I may have pressed the wrong keys. I had pressed Shift+Command+Delete (the delete key above the arrow keys). I hadn't noticed it was the Backspace key that was required. I'll try that one again.
As for the shortcuts for the Notification/Control Centre, thanks for that one as it works as expected.
I did manage to get WhatsApp installed and setup, granted I had to bring the entire Mac Mini to my living room and hook it up to my TV in order to scan that barcode. Here's hoping it doesn't ask me again for a long while.
I did manage to get the Actions menu to appear, but when I tried, it was in the list of VoiceOver voices as I was trying to delete a downloaded voice.
I also figured out that Command+up/down arrow keys can be used to reorder items. I wanted to reorder the items that are read aloud when navigating through web elements, like headings and links.. For example, by default, VoiceOver reads the type and then the name (ex. "Heading Level 1, "Welcome"). Being primarily a Windows user with JAWS, wanted it to read the name first then the type and figured that out.
I'm slowly getting back to a point where I'm able to use a Mac comfortably like I once did back when I had my MacBook Pro.
There's still some things I have to figure out, but I'm sure I'll get the hang of it eventually.
@PaulMartz
I'm surprised, as this bug started somewhere after 15.1 (in the betas) and I can always reproduce it on separate partitions of 15.2 and the betas of 15.3, and the notification bug (with the action menu problem specifically as we had more than one bug) was reported by other users as well... But it's big complicated software so... Okay.
Re: notifications
I am experiencing and issue where the only notifications I can read in the notification centre are those forwarded from my iPhone. Any notification pertaining to a Mac app is spoken by Voiceover at the time a banner pops up, but even if it exists in the notification centre cannot be read. If I disable notification forwarding from the iPHone, my Mac behaves the same as in the OP - notifications appear but cannot be read, so I have to 'clear all' to get rid of them.
Unlocking Mac with Apple Watch
So a new issue has arisen. I've setup my Apple Watch to chime in when I have to enter my admin password, and it has worked when I was asked to enter the password, but for some odd reason, I can't seem to get it to work in order to unlock my Mac Mini.
Not sure if there's an additional setting that has to be configured, besides turning the toggle on for your watch in the Login Password section within System Settings.
My Mac Mini has wi-fi enabled and both my Mac Mini and Apple Watch S6 are logged into the same iCloud account.
I know the Apple article says that your Mac and watch have to have wi-fi enabled, but I did manage to get the admin thing working without wi-fi being on on my watch. I guess I may have to try turning wi-fi on on my watch and try again then.
Perhaps this only works for Mac laptops and not Mac Minis.
Curious to know if any other Mac Mini users ever got this to work?
Try enabling Wi-Fi on the watch
A lot of times Services like this require both devices to be running on the same network, so try doing that and see how it goes. Best of luck!
Follow Up!
Well, wouldn't you know it, Apple was right all along. Their help article did say that both the Mac and Apple Watch had to have Wi-Fi enabled.
Not sure why, when reading the article the first time, I could have sworned I heard my screen reader say that only the Mac needed to have Wi-Fi on. Even after enabling the setting in Mac OS and getting that haptic chime when changing settings, I thought I had read correctly.
Maybe it's about time I get my hearing checked? LOL
So after clearing the cob webs from my ear canals, I turned Wi-Fi back on my watch and placed my Mac Mini to sleep, then pressed a key to wake it back up, and as expected, felt that wonderful haptic tap on my wrist and noticed that my Mac was ready to rock and roll.
Gadd Zukes! Who knew Apple was right all along.
Thanks to everyone that helped me out. I still got plenty of other areas to explore, so I'm sure more questions will follow.
Thanks again!
Links Verbosity and iPhone Mirroring
So after configuring my verbosity settings so the name of a web element is read prior to the type being read, I've noticed that when navigating to links, VoiceOver does read the name of the link prior to saying "Link". But in between, I hear this loud harsh sound. Now this sound could be VoiceOver pronouncing the "L" harshly, but I'm hoping it could be something else as this is starting to drive me nuts.
Now I've opened the VoiceOver Utility, went to Verbosity, then Text and made sure that Links are announced as speech instead of making a noise. Anyone else encountered this odd behavior? If so, any helpful hints on maybe correcting this?
Secondly, I've also played and configured the "iPhone Mirroring" app and got it to work. The only thing is, when navigating the iPhone screen through the Mac, when VoiceOver reads my folders, it reads the number of apps in the folder prior to reading the name. Unlike the phone, that reads the folder's name prior to telling me how many apps are in the folder. Anyone know if there's a way of correcting this? Not sure if it'd be the same place as where I tweaked the verbosity for the web elements.
Yeah iphone mirroring is a…
Yeah iphone mirroring is a mess. Your points (and more) are valid but so fare no way to change it, keep reporting.
Re: Folders
You might be able to adjust the way folders read items within folders, the same place you adjusted the way headings are read aloud with VoiceOver.