Hello Fred, If your Tab key action has changed, you may have pressed Control-F7. This switches your Tab key action between moving keyboard focus between "Text boxes and lists only" and "All controls". Check whether pressing Control-F7 restores your Tab key to the focus behavior that you expect. This can be tricky to troubleshoot, because if you have been in the mode where you used the Tab key to move focus between "all controls", the controls that you moved focus to might depend on what toolbars, etc. you had showing (e.g., under your "View" menu options). So in the specific case of your question about using the Tab key in Mail, you might want to check that when you're in your Message Viewer window that your focus is on one of the mailboxes or in the messages table before you try to toggle the Tab key behavior with Control-F7. More generally, speaking of the Tab key behavior in other applications, this behavior can also depend on what "View" mode you are using, since you might not hav e "lists" to move focus to.
In applications like iTunes, it can be quite convenient to use your tab key to cycle between the search text box, the table of your libraries, playlists, etc. and the table of the tracks in your selected library, playlist, etc. (I'm assuming that iTunes is set up in the "Classic" view that was used before iTunes 11, and that can be restored by showing the sidebar either with the Command-Option-s keyboard shortcut to toggle the sidebar between show and hide, or by using the "View" menu option to "Show Sidebar"; that you have selected the "Songs" radio button and are using list view, and that optionally you have used the Command-/ keyboard shortcut to toggle the status bar between show and hide, or by using the "View" menu option to "Show Status Bar".) What's confusing about using Control-F7 is that it appears to tab you to the next control, but it can change your tab key action of moving focus depending on whether you have pressed this an odd or even number of times. I think David Woodworth mentioned this in one of his early Mac training podcasts at the Vision Australia site, but I don't remember which one. I don't know the answer to your second question about VoiceOver reading message content vs. header. Do you mean the subject line when you say "header"? And how are you opening your messages? HTH. Cheers, Esther On Mar 27, 2013, at 11:29 PM, fred smith wrote: > Using Mail on my MacBook Air, I'm suddenly encountering two problems: > > 1) I can no longer jump use the Tab key to jump between the mailboxes and > the messages table. Now, Tab just does nothing. There is a workaround, > using VO-J, but Tab is more convenient. I've checked all the setting I can > find but haven't been able to fix this. > > 2) When I open a message, sometimes Voiceover will start reading the > message content. Other times, it will start reading the header. I can't see > any pattern -- the choice seems to be random. On my desktop machine I don't > have this problem -- Mail always starts reading the message text. > > Any suggestions? > > Thanks, > Fred <--- Mac Access At Mac Access Dot Net ---> To reply to this post, please address your message to mac-access@mac-access.net You can find an archive of all messages posted to the Mac-Access forum at either the list's own dedicated web archive: <http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/pipermail/mac-access/index.html> or at the public Mail Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/mac-access@mac-access.net/>. Subscribe to the list's RSS feed from: <http://www.mail-archive.com/mac-access@mac-access.net/maillist.xml> As the Mac Access Dot Net administrators, we do our very best to ensure that the Mac-Access E-Mal list remains malware, spyware, Trojan, virus and worm-free. However, this should in no way replace your own security strategy. We assume neither liability nor responsibility should something unpredictable happen. Please remember to update your membership preferences periodically by visiting the list website at: <http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/mac-access/options/>
