Hi Ian and Others, Ian asked about sorting by columns in iTunes, and I thought I'd expand on my answer that mentioned that in order to use the VoiceOver shortcut of VO-Shift-backslash (on an English language input keyboard) to sort on any column in a table, whether it is in iTunes or in some other application such as Finder, Safari's bookmarks table, Mail, etc. that you have to interact with that table. I also thought I would expand on my explanation that when you move to a table by tabbing with VoiceOver, you will automatically interact.
The behavior of your tab key is set under "System Preferences" in "Keyboard" under the "Keyboard Shortcuts" tab. If you navigate past the tables of keyboard shortcuts in that window, there are two radio buttons following the text: "Full Keyboard Access: In windows and dialogs, press Tab to move keyboard focus between:" You can either select the radio button for "Text boxes and lists only" or "All controls". Generally, people select "All controls", which lets you move through all controls in a window each time you press the tab key, either moving to the next control when you press tab, or to the previous control when your press Shift-tab. However, there are instances where it is very convenient to be able to tab only between text boxes and lists for navigation, especially because of the automatic interaction when using tabbing. Below the two radio button options is a note: "Press Control+F7 to change this setting." Pressing Control+F7 will toggle your radio button select ion between moving through all controls when you press tab, and just moving between text boxes and lists, as well as execute the actual tab movement. You will not hear any announcement of this change, which will occur without your having to navigate to this system preference pane. The only way you'll be able to tell this has taken effect is by trying to tab, or alternatively you can navigate back to the Keyboard Shortcuts tab and check which radio button is now set. This also means that if you issue an even number of Control+F7 commands, you will be toggling between the two radio buttons and be left in the original setting, and if you issue an odd number of Control+F7 commands, you will be left in a different radio button setting. I usually answer list questions about iTunes, but because I have resisted upgrading to iTunes 11, I can't give reliable step by step directions unless I visit an Apple Store and check out instructions on another computer. However, I'll try to give an answer here, based on the assumption that people have configured their iTunes 11 into something that approximates the "Classic" view of iTunes that was used in earlier versions. The steps for changing to this from the default iTunes 11 settings are described in the TUAW article on "iTunes 11 for old fogies: goin' back to the way it was" by Erica Sadun: http://aol.it/ShCsm3 1. Press Command-Option-S to restore the Sidebar in iTunes 2. Select the "Songs" radio button 3. Press Command-slash to restore the status bar Once you are in the traditional list view after selecting "Songs", you can sort by any column you like. Typically, I tab to the tables I want to navigate to. One way to do this without changing your tabbing behavior is to use Command-Option-F to move to the search text field, and then press tab to move to the sources table, where you can move to any selected library (Music, Apps, Books, etc.) either with your arrow keys or by simply typing the first few letters of the library you want. Then simply tab (or, if you prefer, use VO-J, which will jump between linked tables, and will also preserve the automatic interaction) to view the detailed listing of music or other tracks. To sort by the "Date Added" column, just move to this column (e.g., with Right arrow or VO-Right arrow keys), and then use VO-Shift-backslash to sort (assuming you are using an English language input keyboard). To reverse the sort order, do another VO-Shift-backslash. This answer provides a solution that does what Ian wants (e.g., sorting on his music by date added without having to click a mouse on the column headers), and also provides a keyboard shortcut that always moves you to a known location in iTunes (Command-Option-F to move to the search text field), without changing any of your default settings. But there's a more powerful way to use tabbing for navigation, if you take advantage of it. In many instances, when I am working with apps that have table list views, I only want to navigate between text boxes and lists most of the time. For example, in the case of iTunes, I usually want to press the tab key to cycle between the search text field, my list of sources (libraries, devices, playlists, etc.) and the list of tracks corresponding to my source selections. If I want to navigate to any other controls I can use my arrow keys (or VO+arrow keys). The place where tabbing really comes in helpful for me is when I toggle on the iTunes Column Browser with Command-B. You configure the items that you want to be shown in the column browser when it is visible by navigating to the "View" menu on the iTunes menu bar (Control-F2 or VO-M to move to the menu bar, press "V" to move to the "View" menu, arrow down, then VO-Down arrow to "Column Browser" and VO-Space, then VO-Down arrow to any of the entries you want selected for the column browser and VO-Space to select them , one by one. I have my column browser set to show genres, artists, and albums, and to be displayed on top, and also to group compilations and use album artists, but you can set this any way you like. The reason the column browser is powerful is that it allows you to search and locate items by any of your selected categories of Artist, Album titles, etc. as well as using this in combination with anything you type in the search text field. And if I set my tabbing to move between just text boxes and lists, I can quickly move between any of the column browser fields (when toggled on), the sources list, and the table of resulting items (that gets filtered down as soon as I apply column browser settings, by selecting a particular Artist or one or more albums from the list of that Artist's albums). Entries typed into the search text field alone apply to any of the fields that are viewed under iTunes -- there's no way to distinguish between a song that happens to also be the title of an album, and a specific song in a particular album. This type of navigation efficiency by only moving between lists and text boxes can work in a number of other apps, such as navigating your bookmarks in the show all bookmarks view of Safari (really best done with everything else like tab bars, bookmarks bar, status bar, toolbar, etc. hidden) or in Mail, since you can quickly move to the areas of interest, and you also get the automatic interaction that comes with using the tab key to navigate. I didn't realize that Ian was a low vision user, but he must be, if he can see the column headings in iTunes to move his mouse there and click. I use VoiceOver shortcut keys to sort all my columns. HTH. 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