Quick tips and advice for Voice Over for iMac in Mavericks

By Daniel Bull, 28 November, 2013

Forum
macOS and Mac Apps
I am new to the forum, and to voice over. I have learned a fair bit, but there are still gaps in my knowledge. I am training a blind friend how to use the interface and need a few tips and pointers. Thank you in advance for your help. email: how does one navigate to the newest email in the inbox. I currently interact with left table, settle on the 'inbox' button, then VO+J to preview the emails in the adjacent table. But flicking up emails one by one is very time consuming if the app places the user on an email received months ago. browser navigation: how does one navigate back a page. Is there a simple shortcut for this, as currently I am navigating to the 'back' button in Safari, but this is time consuming and clumsy. Facebook app: which Facebook app is the best to use? I currently use 'Menu Tab for Facebook' app, and it works very well mostly. Except that it resides in the menu bar at the top left of the screen and disappears occasionally and is then difficult to open again. This is because the app is still running, but I don't know how to navigate to the top right corner menu to make it visible again. Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

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Comments

By mehgcap on Monday, December 9, 2013 - 01:29

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team
1. In the Messages table, try option-up arrow. This works most of the time, but if it doesn't, interact with the table and use vo-home. On MacBooks or Apple keyboards, that's vo-fn-left. I usually hit enter on a message or conversation to open it, then cmd-w to close when I'm done. 2. Cmd-left bracket moves back a page in Safari. 3. VO-m twice moves you to the status menus. You can also go into Menu Tab's settings (cmd-comma while it is open) and set a shortcut key to bring up the window. I don't know of any other Facebook apps that work as well.

By Maria on Monday, December 9, 2013 - 01:29

Hi. to bring up menu tab from anywhere just press control f. Or press the voiceover keys and m twice to bring up the extras menu and navigate to menu tab and press VO plus space bar to open it. I hope this helps.

By Daniel Bull on Monday, December 9, 2013 - 01:29

Thanks for your advice. I will try it out and get back to you.

By Daniel Bull on Monday, December 9, 2013 - 01:29

Hello. I use 'cmd + (' to navigate back a page in VO on Mavericks, as I understand this is the usual shortcut. However, my friend has a Mac Mini Mi7, running Mavericks, and when he tries this shortcut nothing happens. Has he accidentally altered this shortcut, or is there a way to turn it back on? I also noticed blank spaces in the VO keyboard shortcuts help menu. Is there a way to set these shortcuts yourself? If not, why are they blank? Is there an easy way to navigate straight to text in a web page? Navigating past buttons is proving to be a real pain. What is the best function for browsing web pages? We haven't settled on the best way yet. Trying different rota settings, but none are failsafe. Also, does anyone use web spots? If so, what for exactly? I'm just wondering if it will be of use to us. Also, how does one toggle the Reader on and off. Thanks for your help in advance.

By Chelsea on Monday, December 9, 2013 - 01:29

To hopefully answer some of your questions: Safari: I use the reader extensively to get rid of fluff on Web pages and get to the important bits. Quickest way to access it is with cmd shift r. This is a toggle. As with any site, if you know how it is structured, use that to your advantage. Look for headings, landmarks, form fields, etc. You can invoke a keyboard version of the rotor (similar to a links/headings/form controls list in a Windows screen reader, except all at once) by pressing VO U. Cycle between elements with left and right arrows. Type in letters to narrow down your query on a site's element. If that fails, invoke the item chooser with VO I. note that this may take a few seconds to compile. Mail: Using the Trackpad commander in Vo utility, I have created shortcuts to move to the top/bottom. In my case, they are flick up/down with the command key as a modifier. This intuitively makes sense to me and is slightly easier to perform on a MacBook keyboard. Works every time. Feel free to ask for more details on this one. There may not be a shortcut assigned to every key; some may be for VO, some may be system, and some may be unassigned. You can fix this by using Keyboard Commander, also found in VO utility. There is a nifty guide on this site on how to get started with this tool. Once I set up shortcuts, I forget I manually added them to my Mac. One of the neat things is you can make Keyboard commander run AppleScripts; there is a nice one for the time of day and another for battery status so you don't have to keep looking in the menu extras bar for these items. Hope this helps, and feel free to ask for clarification if needed, Chelsea

Thanks for your help. Any idea why the cmd + left bracket isn't working? Shall I just create that shortcut manually? Or is there a quicker way?