Darcy On 15-Dec-07, at 10:11 PM, Esther wrote:
Hi Darcy and David, OK, dumb question time. Darcy, when you say:No matter where I am in the preference pane with VO enable, once I turn of VO and hit tab, I'm back in the toolbar.you mean that you're in the Systems Preferences Menu Bar (the one with Edit, View, Window, and Help) or do you mean (as I think you do) that you're in the Universal Access preference menu, but at the place where using right arrow or VO-right arrow would take you through "Seeing, Hearing, Keyboard, and Mouse & TrackPad"? Because I've found that I can get different behavior on that panel if, say, instead of Lou's way of getting to Universal Access from the View menu and typing "u", I try Command-F to search for Universal Access or if I use Command-F when Systems Preferences is selected from the Apple Menu instead of using item chooser and tabbing. Somehow that Search Text field still has a focus when I move into the selected pane whether Universal Access or some other preference pane. Also, it's my understanding that tabbing navigation is supposed to work in all those panels without VoiceOver, so is it only Universal Access that goes weird with tabbing when you turn off VoiceOver? I can't help feeling that this is some weird bug because of our tracking option settings. Cheers, Esther On Dec 15, 2007, at 04:34PM, David Poehlman wrote:not if vo is off. I wonder if you have to hide or can hid the toolbar inthis case. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Esther" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>To: "General discussions on all topics relating to the use of Mac OS X bytheblind" <[email protected]> Sent: Saturday, December 15, 2007 9:12 PM Subject: Re: Extremely Useful Tip WhenVoiceOverStopsTalking[Re:Command-F5/Restarting Computer does not turn VO on]Hi Darcy, On Dec 15, 2007, at 03:46PM, Darcy Burnard wrote:Hi Esther. If I move to the radio buttons with VO turned on, I canturn vo off and on by arrowing left and right. However, if VO is off,as soon as I hit tab, focus jumps back to the tool bar, and doesn't move again. No matter where I am in the preference pane with VO enable, once I turn of VO and hit tab, I'm back in the toolbar. DarcyAargh! This doesn't sound good. But I thought a couple of peopletried this under Leopard. Any chance that it's the way your navigationor cursor tracking options are set? Cheers, EstherOn 15-Dec-07, at 7:16 PM, Esther wrote:Hi Darcy, What happens if you turn VoiceOver off under the Universal Access pane and then try to run through Lou's suggested procedure? I've found (this is with experiments on the inaccessible parts of the iTunes Store) that if you've managed to click in somewhere that you wouldn't normally navigate to with VoiceOver, and if you've left yourself there or if someone else (sighted) has left your app there, you won't get the same behavior when tabbing that you'd get if you only tabbed through with VoiceOver. I don't know whether that makes sense, but sometimes if there have been entries in the Search Text Field on the Universal Access Field, I think you don't get the same number of tab moves. So try to switch off the radio button with VoiceOver, and then run through Lou's exercise. If that doesn't work, assume that when you get back into the Universal Access pane with Lou's instructions that you're at the "VoiceOver Off Radio Button" and instead of tabbing, right arrow to "On" and see if that works. (Note: only Darcy should try this. I don't want anyone for whom Lou's instructions actually work in Leopard to mess up their settings). Cheers, Esther On Dec15, 2007, at 02:03PM, Darcy Burnard wrote:Hi. Have any of you Leopard users tried these steps? That is, haveyou tried them with VO turned off, to see if it will turn back onagain? I ask because I can't make it work. It appears that when vo is off, the tab key has no effect in the universal access preferencepane. When I turn on VO to see where I am, I'm still in the tool bar. Any thoughts? Darcy On 15-Dec-07, at 5:12 PM, David Poehlman wrote:hi darcy, maybe it can work from the extras menu with universal access showing up there. I just use shift tab in system prefs by the way, it should take you to the universal prefs. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Darcy Burnard" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>To: "General discussions on all topics relating to the use of Mac OSX by theblind" <[email protected]> Sent: Saturday, December 15, 2007 3:59 PM Subject: Re: Extremely Useful Tip When VoiceOver Stops Talking [Re:Command-F5/Restarting Computer does not turn VO on] Hi everyone. I've not had this happen myself, but because it has happened to others, I thought I would try and create an automator application that would perform the steps. So far, I haven't had muchluck, but if I do have success with it, I'll make it available foranyone who wants it. Darcy On 15-Dec-07, at 6:04 AM, Scott Howell wrote:This does work in Leopard and thanks for sharing this info. Iencourage everyone to try this and more than once, make a note of the steps and just periodically try them out so you will rememberthem or write them down. This might really help you out in a jam one day. On Dec 14, 2007, at 3:16 PM, Esther wrote:Hi Lou, This is very useful infomration, indeed, that can help people. I've retitled the thread in hopes that more people will read it. I didn't realize there was this reproducible, testable way of dealing with VoiceOver when it stopped speaking and gettingit restarted, and that the standard things we try might not work.Thanks on behalf of everyone.! Cheers, Esther On Dec 14, 2007, at 10:08AM, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:Hello!I know this problem has already been resolved for Simon, but thisinfo might help others experiencing the problem of VO not talking... It did not dawn on me to provide this info previously until I heardSimon's solution was, with sighted assistance, to physically turnon VO using the mouse. Ever since I installed Mac OS X 10.4.11, this problem has beencropping up for me. I will be working in Safari, Mail or Viennaandthe Mac becomes "busy." After clearing the application's "busy"state in one of the many ways described in this forum, Voice Over occasionally stops speaking and cannot be turned back on again withCommand-F5 (generates the "invalid" beep) -- or even restartingthe computer. With sighted assistance, I discovered that:- the "Command-F5 check box in "KeyboArd Shortcuts" was, indeed,checked (even tried unchecking and rechecking this box to see if it had any affect),- the Voice Over "Off" radio button was selected in the UniversalAccess/Seeing Pane of System Preferences. Because the computer was not accepting the Command-F5 keyboardcommand, the only way to turn VO back on was to use the mouse toclick the VO "On" button. This happened several times while I had no sighted assistance around -- *** VERY FRUSTRATING! *** I figured there must be a way to turnVO back on again without sighted assistance. Here is what I did:1. Press Control-F2 to move the mouse to the Menu Bar. 2. Press the Down Arrow to open the Apple Menu. 3. Quickly type "sy" to jump to System Preferences. 4. Press Return to open System Preferences. 5. Press Control-F2 to return to the Menu Bar. 6. Press "v" to jump to the "View" menu. 7. Press Down Arrow to open the View Menu. 8. Press "u" to jump to "Universal Access." 9. Press Return to open the Universal Access Pane of System Preferences. 10. Press Tab twice to select the Voice Over On/Off controls.12. Press Left Arrow to select the Voice Over "On" radio button.At this point, Voice Over starts talking again and (miraculously)Command-F5 starts working again. Notes: - I am running Tiger 10.4.11, so I do not know if these steps will be the same under Leopard.- In step 11, the first time you press the Tab key takes you tothe "tab bar" where the various tabs for Universal Access sections are located. I have the "Seeing" Tab already selected, so I do not haveto mess with it. If the "Seeing" tab is not selected for you, you will have to move to a different Tab with the Left and/or RightArrows -- but, because there is no feedback, I think this may havethe potential of causing some problems... I suggest setting thetabto "Seeing" while you have VO working as a precaution. This way,you,too, could just press the TAB key twice like I did and not worryabout it.- Maybe, one of you Apple Script/Automater geniuses might be ableto create an app that could, in emergencies, do this for us automatically. Hope this helps someone... Lou. === Original Messages === Dear Simon,Delighted to hear that you are connected and that Voiceover is upand running. Thank you for providing us with the details of what happened. <snip> Dear Esther and All, I have finally got my Voceover back!!! I'm delighted, relieved and very veryexcited at the quality of the default voice in Leopard. A sightedfriend of mine came over a couple of hours ago, and using the mouse, activated Voceover in the system preferences. It works! <snip>Scott Howell [EMAIL PROTECTED]
