Reading documents in a web browser, Youtube play controls, browser gestures.

By Khomus, 23 January, 2023

Forum
iOS and iPadOS

Hi everybody.

So I installed Firefox, so I can get stuff to sync between browsers, my main machine is Windows. If this is different in Safari, do let me know, though obviously I'd like it solved in Firefox, if possible.

Suppose I load a long web page. It has a bunch of links at the top, then a bunch of text, then page links at the bottom. So I set my rotor to headings, and navigate to where the text starts, no problem. Then I swipe down with two fingers, and VO starts reading the text, great! The problem is this. Sometimes, it will stop, whether that's because I put it in my pocket and it shifts and announces orientation changes, or it just stops. If I don't get the swipe right, it will announce some link back toward the top of the page. I have to navigate by headings again, and then I'm back at the top of the text.

So what I'd like, obviously, is a way to get back to roughly where I was on the page, and start reading from there by swiping two fingers down. But I can't seem to do it, I've tried touching the screen near the bottom, assuming the text was past the links, but I just get the page header stuff. Maybe I'm not touching the proper area of the screen? I can use Safari if I absolutely have to, but Firefox seems to work fairly well on iOS, and like I said, then all of my stuff gets copied over, so I don't have to set stuff up and learn an entirely new browser.

Also while I'm at it, and I haven't tried this in FF yet, I loaded a Youtube video into Safari, I'll probably end up getting Youtube's app but I'm curious about this. When I opened Safari again, the video started playing again, cool, that's what I'd expect. But I couldn't get to the controls to pause it and so on. How do you find them? I tried exploring and swiping through, no luck with either, though I'm not the greatest at screen exploration yet, so maybe I'm missing something.

Finally, are there lists of VO gestures for Safari or Firefox, hopefully both? For example, I can get to the tabs in Firefox with the show tabs button or whatever it is no problem, and move through them and double tap to open one. But I'm wondering if there's an easier way to do it. I haven't really messed with Safari much because I'd like to use FF if I can, but I realize Safari has had longer in the iOS accessibility space, so it might be a better experience.

Options