Hello,
I am trying to figure out how to sort bookmarks with VoiceOver in Safari. From the instructions I have found, you can create folders (which works fine) and then drag them under the bookmarks bar or bookmarks menu. Likewise, you can drag bookmarks into folders.
I have tried two ways to drag and drop with no success. In the sidebar in Safari, after interacting with the table with bookmarks, I have tried using VO drag and drop--with vo-, to mark what I wanted to drag and vo-. to insert on the destination. I cannot get this to work. Secondly, I turned cursor tracking off, moved VO to what I wanted to drag, moved the mouse cursor to that location with VO-command-F5, and VO-command-shift-space to lock down the mouse. I then moved Vo to the destination, still interacting with the table, moved the mouse pointer to there, and unlocked the mouse. Neither of these methods work.
Has anyone had any luck organizing bookmarks in Safari?
Thanks.
Comments
A few tips for managing bookmarks in Safari
I can offer a few tips for organizing Safari bookmarks, and hopefully someone else can explain how to sort them.
These tips apply to Safari 7x on OS 10.9. YMMV on other versions.
Bookmarks are managed within the Bookmarks editor, which can be opened from within Safari by pressing Command+Option+B.
Once you are in the Bookmarks editor, navigate to the item unhelpfully labeled simply as “Table” and interact with it. In this table you will find folders named "Favorites Bar" and "Bookmarks Menu.” There might also be other folders and/or individual bookmarks, depending on how your Bookmarks are organized.
If you want to move bookmarks and/or folders from one location to another, use Command+X / Command+V, rather than the Finder’s keystroke combo of Command+C / Command+Option+V, which does not seem to work here.
The VO keystroke to select multiple non-contiguous items, VO+COmmand+Return, seems to work OK here.
I try to avoid VO drag & drop, but have had success using VO’s mouse down/up keystroke to drag & drop single bookmarks or folders and found that this method is properly verbose as it speaks the bookmarks/folders being passed.
Organizing bookmarks
You will not be able to do what you want in the bookmarks sidebar, because VoiceOver won't drag and drop the bookmarks there, regardless of what method you use, even though a sighted user can drag and drop them just fine. I have no idea why VoiceOver doesn't work, but it doesn't.
To organize bookmarks, you must bring up the bookmarks editor. From the Bookmarks menu, select Edit Bookmarks. This will bring up a page with a bookmarks table, much like the list view in Finder, with columns for the bookmark name and web address.
The easiest way to move bookmarks around is to cut and paste, by pressing Command-X on the bookmark you want to move and Command-V where you want to move it. This works provided you have cursor tracking on. You can select multiple bookmarks consecutively by pressing Shift + Arrow, or by using the VO-Command-Return method suggested above. Drag and drop also works, but it's catchy.
Note that when you press Command-V to paste, the bookmark you're moving will appear one line below wherever you currently have VoiceOver focus. So if you're on bookmark A, press Command-X, move to bookmark B, then press Command-V, then bookmark A will appear directly below bookmark B.
To the previous commenter, the Finder implements copy and paste differently for files. It cannot do a proper cut of a file, only a copy, which technically just puts a pointer to the file on the clipboard. When you paste by pressing Command-V, the Finder then duplicates the file pointed to on the clipboard, but if you press Command-Option-V, the Finder simply moves the file without duplicating it. This is completely different from how copy and paste works in the rest of the operating system, so you would only use these keystrokes to perform a move in the Finder, nowhere else. Use the conventional Command-X and Command-V everywhere else.