I have created plenty of shortcuts using Voiceover on my phone, but I am having a lot of difficulty using the Shortcuts app and editing shortcuts in iOS 16.
For example, many of my custom shortcuts have the "Show Alert" function.
When I try to edit the text to be displayed when the shortcut is run, a keyboard appears on the screen, but I cannot find any edit box in which I can use actions such as "Select" or "Select All".
Also, when I run actions using Siri that I previously created using the "Show Alert" function, when run, the Show Alert function would say something like "Ok or Cancel", and then I would speak "OK" or "Cancel" to finish the shortcut.
Now when I run these same actions using Siri, rather than prompting for spoken input, the shortcuts show "Yes" and "No" buttons on the screen that one has to activate manually.
Many of my shortcuts used to run fine under iOS 14 and 15 but now they are not working properly and I can't even edit them!
What is going on here? Any hints or suggestions on working with and editing shortcuts using Voiceover in iOS 16 would be appreciated.
Thanks.
--Pete
Comments
That's an apple Problem.
I've noticed similar issues,but that's not a Voiceover accessibility problem. Apple fixed what wasn't broken and broke the shortcuts app very nicely. They've known about this issue for months on end and they've not fixed it. The buttons and so forth you're not seeing with Voiceover are simply no longer there, fullstop.
Some thoughts
Ok, this is kind of a vague post, so my answers are going to be a bit vague too.
It looks like the show alert action doesn't actually have a text box, at least not one Voiceover can identify. You can backspace, but not much else. You can see what's there, though, if you go up and look at the action. It might be worth writing to Apple Accessibility with a detailed description of the issue, since that control probably exists in other actions.
As for a work around, my suggestion would be to use the text action for the message and then use show results to display it. Siri likes that action better than show alert anyway, and you don't have to say anything for Siri to go past it. Actually, from what I can see, if you don't say anything to show alert, it defaults to cancel, so if it's at the end of the Shortcut it shouldn't matter anyway.
As for some general advice for editing Shortcuts, I tend to avoid group mode in the Shortcuts app, or at least I did in 15, since I found it confusing. Drag and drop can be a bit flakey, so try using the options menu next to the action and copy and paste the action instead if you have to. Just remember to delete the original one after you copy.
If you can't find a parameter that should be in an action, it's probably under more in the VO actions rotor. Title and enable cancel get expanded in show alert, for example.
As for Shortcuts that don't work, that can be a lot of things, often removed or rewritten actions. Notes got completely overhauled this time, for example, so those Shortcuts probably have to be edited. You'd need to be more specific about which ones don't work and why for me to help any more, I'm afraid.
Let me know if any of this helps and if you have any other questions.
Re: Some thoughts
Thanks for the suggestions. I will give those a shot and also make Apple Accessibility aware of some of these issues.
the Shortcuts app was never easy to use on an iPhone, but at least it was workable. Also, as you say, when they change what some of the actions you've been using for years, that can be an issue.
I will give the Show Results action a try. What I am really looking for is a function that will read some text and to which one can anser OK or Cancel to either have the shortcut continue or terminate.
Thanks again.
--Pete
My God, you read my thoughts!
Not so long ago, I think less than a week ago, that I reported to Apple's accessibility team about the difficulty of finding the text editing field of the talk action, as well as about creating shortcuts in general having become a complicated experience. I can guarantee that this has been happening since iOS 15, but it got worse in 16. If you are interested in following, here is the case identifier, for future reports: Case-ID: 973463
Ongoing Issue.
I first informed Apple Accessibility about the issues with the shortcuts app two months ago. At that point, they screen shared with me, as well as bringing up the app with a phone not using voiceover. at that point, it became clear that the issues aren't just for Voiceover users, but across the board.
Hmm, I don't know about it…
Hmm, I don't know about it being worse in 16 than 15. given that when 15 came out there was a bunch of stuff I couldn't do at all, I do think they're slowly improving the experience. I guess that's what you get when you completely rewrite the app from the ground up to allow for the Mac, and as I said, editing shortcuts in group mode is definitely a pain.
As for a function to continue or cancel, the suggestion for that is usually the "choose from menu" action. Have Show results speak the text if you have to and then have a choose menu action after that. In this case you'd just have two options, stop which would have the stop shortcut action and continue which could probably be completely empty, since it'd just continue the Shortcut after that.
Re: More on shortcuts in iOS 16
First, I don't know what "group mode" is. Sounds like this isn't workable with Voiceover, but I'd be happy if I could get the basics to work in iOS 16 as I did in earlier versions.
Problems: For example, after I add the "Show Results" action and swipe up/down to get to "Edit", I try and activate the Edit action to see if I can add text, output from a previous command, etc., but nothing seems to change on the screen.
In fact, trying to activate many of the items associated with added scripts using a single finger double tab doesn't seem to do anything.
I remember in previous versions when editing scripts that activating the script will bring up all kinds of options for input, output, variables that could be used etc. I am not seeing any of this any more. Very confusing and frustrating. Ready to give up.
Is there a document or tutorial on creating scripts using Voiceover?
Thanks.
--Pete
Hmm, ok. This is a little…
Hmm, ok. This is a little tricky for me, since I edit most of my Shortcuts on an iPad, and my iPhone is now so old that it's on 15 and not 16, ☺️, but let's try a quick example.
Create a new Shortcut. Have the first action you add be the text action. There'll be a thing that says "show options menu" which let's you do things like copy and paste and duplicate. Flicking past that it'll say text, which is the action name. Past that, it'll say remove action from Shortcut, which is self-explanatory, ☺️. After that, you'll get an edit box. Double tap on that, and add any text you like.
This should be a standard text box, but you should notice that the keyboard has a bar above it, with things like "select variable", and "ask each time" etc. When you're finished entering your text go all the way over to the right on that bar and it'll say "done". Hit that and the keyboard goes away.
Next, add your "show result" action.
Hopefully, this will now say "show, text", meaning it's already going to show the result of the text action above it. If you flick down so it says "edit result, text" then double tap, you'll get a sheet that let's you clear the variable and change its type and things like that.
If it doesn't get filled in, or you clear the variable, it'll be empty. If you flick down it'll say "edit, result". Double tap and you'll get the keyboard again. You *can* actually type here, but it's got the same problem as the "show alert" action, in that it's not a standard edit box. but again, there's a bar above the keyboard. Your "text" action should already be there, as well as select variable, clipboard, date etc. Again, pick "text" go all the way to the right and pick "done" and it should display whatever you typed in the text action. If the action or variable you want isn't in that bar, select variable brings up your shortcut in a mode fairly similar to how it did in 14, and you can choose which action you want to see the result of.
As always, written descriptions make this stuff look harder than it is, but let me know if this helps at all.