Welcome questions and VoiceOver Tiger Resources [was Re: Two small mail and VO questions]
Hi Stan, You wrote: Hi Esther and Anna, I have taken a long time before I replied, as I have been trying and trying to get this to work. I now have it working, and yes I should have said, I am using tiger. The VO H H has no sort option, and yes VO Shift backslash does not work for me. I found that I first had to go to the date collumn, and then using mouse keys 8 14 times to get to the heading,and then mouse key 5 to select the collumn, and then VO backslash, and Yippy It Works. Cheers Stan Tiger. Congratulations on getting your mail messages sorted. Some of the commands are indeed slightly different under Tiger, but I thought that you should have been able to use VO Shift-Backslash, which you correctly stated is announced as VO vertical line, to sort the Date Received column in your mail messages table. At least, I thought so until I went back to my version of Tiger, and found that the sort command did indeed work in Finder list and column views and in iTunes, but for some reason no longer in Mail's messages table! So good work finding a fix. Let me explain that a few of the VoiceOver command keys that use symbols, like the backslash and vertical line keys, don't have easy to type counterparts on non-English input keyboards. On French or Danish keyboards, for example, I believe that typing the backslash or vertical line characters may require pressing the Option key in combination with other keys. The fix that Apple introduced in Leopard was to add options for these hard-to-type functions to the Commands menu. So holding down the Control and Option keys and tapping the H key twice (or VO-H twice), brings up the Commands menu with extra options in Leopard and Snow Leopard for operations like sort (VO-Shift-Backslash) and expanding or collapsing folders (VO-Backslash). This last option shows up in the Leopard Commands Menu as Toggle disclosure triangle by the way -- quite a mouthful. I added a description of the Commands menu option to my reply, because I wasn't sure that you were using a standard English input keyboard. Apple has lots of different English language keyboards -- U.S., British, Canadian, Australian, etc. As far as I know, the sort keys are in the same place in all of them. Since you're posting from South Africa I suppose it's remotely possible that you're a native Afrikaans speaker and using some other input keyboard, so I wanted to cover all bases (smile). I'm puzzled that you had to use Mouse Keys to sort your columns, though this should certainly work. (I'm also impressed that you found this way to do it, using other Universal Access options). There are two different ways to sort columns on the Mac. Sighted users can sort columns by clicking their mouse or trackpad with the mouse cursor focused on the heading of a column. Each time they click the sort order will flip between ascending and descending order. VoiceOver users have a sort command (VO-Shift-Backslash on an English input keyboard) that requires they are positioned with their VoiceOver cursor on the column they wish to sort, but this command does not require that they first also have their mouse cursor routed to this column or, indeed, that the mouse cursor has to be on the heading area for the column. VoiceOver announces the header information automatically in Leopard; in Tiger you had to use VO-Shift- C to read the name of the column heading. However, the VoiceOver cursor does not actually move to the heading of a column. Turning on Mouse Keys in the Universal Access menu lets you move your mouse cursor with numeric keypad, independently of VoiceOver. It's usually used in situations where people need fine motion control of the cursor, since each press of the keypad moves the cursor by one screen pixel. When Mouse Keys are activated, you use the numeric keypad to to move the mouse from its current position by one screen pixel in the direction of each key relative to the central key in the keypad -- the 5 key. So, in the description you gave, by pressing the 8 key on the numeric keypad that is directly above the 5 key, you were able to move your mouse cursor from what was probably the top line in the messages table up to the column heading with 14 upward key presses. I'm not quite sure why using VO-backslash at this point activated your sort. At this point, clicking with a mouse (or trackpad on a laptop) should have allowed you to sort the column without recourse to VoiceOver. (It doesn't matter whether VoiceOver is turned on or not, when you click at this point to sort that column.) Also, you should have been able to sort the column just using VoiceOver (without Mouse Keys turned on), if you first interacted with the table (VO-Shift-Down Arrow), then navigated to the column (e.g. VO-Right arrow to the Date Received column in the mail messages table, optionally
Re: Two small mail and VO questions
Hi Esther and Anna, I have taken a long time before I replied, as I have been trying and trying to get this to work. I now have it working, and yes I should have said, I am using tiger. The VO H H has no sort option, and yes VO Shift backslash does not work for me. I found that I first had to go to the date collumn, and then using mouse keys 8 14 times to get to the heading,and then mouse key 5 to select the collumn, and then VO backslash, and Yippy It Works. Cheers Stan Tiger. On 24 Sep 2009, at 5:29 PM, Esther wrote: Hi Stan, This isn't Anna, but her instructions for sorting on a column should work. In any table (e.g., mail messages, finder, the iTunes songs table) you can sort the column by interacting with the table, navigating to the column of interest, and using VO-Shift-Backslash. And yes, on an English input keyboard the Shift-Backslash is a Vertical line. One other input language keyboards these symbols are mapped to other keystroke combinations. An alternative way to bring up the sort command is to use VO-H twice to bring up the Command menu and choose Sort Column. Are you holding down the Control and Option keys (VO keys) when you press Shift-Backslash? Have you interacted with the table and are on the Date Received column? Cheers, Esther Stan wrote: Hi Anna, Sorry, the sort keys, will not work on my keyboard, for the shift changes backslash to vertical line. So how does it work. Cheers, Stan. Woody Anna Dresner wrote: Hi Frank, If you don't care about seeing status - unread, replied, etc. - go to the View menu with Control-F2, V, Enter. Arrow down to Columns and press Enter. Check or uncheck columns to show or hide them by pressing Enter. If you want to keep status on screen but don't want to hear it all the time, interact with the messages table and move to the column you want, such as subject. Then as you arrow up and down, all you hear is the subjects of the messages. You can move to other columns as needed to hear other info, such as the sender. As for sorting, interact with the Messages table and move to the column you want to sort, in this case Date Received. Press VO-Shift- Backslash to sort by that column. Press it again if you want to reverse the sort order. HTH,. Anna Cheers, Stan Telephone; +27396992700, KwaZuluNatal, South Africa. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups MacVisionaries group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Two small mail and VO questions
Hi Frank, If you don't care about seeing status - unread, replied, etc. - go to the View menu with Control-F2, V, Enter. Arrow down to Columns and press Enter. Check or uncheck columns to show or hide them by pressing Enter. If you want to keep status on screen but don't want to hear it all the time, interact with the messages table and move to the column you want, such as subject. Then as you arrow up and down, all you hear is the subjects of the messages. You can move to other columns as needed to hear other info, such as the sender. As for sorting, interact with the Messages table and move to the column you want to sort, in this case Date Received. Press VO-Shift- Backslash to sort by that column. Press it again if you want to reverse the sort order. HTH, Anna --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups MacVisionaries group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Two small mail and VO questions
Hi Anna, Sorry, the sort keys, will not work on my keyboard, for the shift changes backslash to vertical line. So how does it work. Cheers, Stan. On 24 Sep 2009, at 4:17 PM, Woody Anna Dresner wrote: Hi Frank, If you don't care about seeing status - unread, replied, etc. - go to the View menu with Control-F2, V, Enter. Arrow down to Columns and press Enter. Check or uncheck columns to show or hide them by pressing Enter. If you want to keep status on screen but don't want to hear it all the time, interact with the messages table and move to the column you want, such as subject. Then as you arrow up and down, all you hear is the subjects of the messages. You can move to other columns as needed to hear other info, such as the sender. As for sorting, interact with the Messages table and move to the column you want to sort, in this case Date Received. Press VO-Shift- Backslash to sort by that column. Press it again if you want to reverse the sort order. HTH,. Anna Cheers, Stan Telephone; +27396992700, KwaZuluNatal, South Africa. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups MacVisionaries group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Two small mail and VO questions
Hi Stan, This isn't Anna, but her instructions for sorting on a column should work. In any table (e.g., mail messages, finder, the iTunes songs table) you can sort the column by interacting with the table, navigating to the column of interest, and using VO-Shift-Backslash. And yes, on an English input keyboard the Shift-Backslash is a Vertical line. One other input language keyboards these symbols are mapped to other keystroke combinations. An alternative way to bring up the sort command is to use VO-H twice to bring up the Command menu and choose Sort Column. Are you holding down the Control and Option keys (VO keys) when you press Shift-Backslash? Have you interacted with the table and are on the Date Received column? Cheers, Esther Stan wrote: Hi Anna, Sorry, the sort keys, will not work on my keyboard, for the shift changes backslash to vertical line. So how does it work. Cheers, Stan. Woody Anna Dresner wrote: Hi Frank, If you don't care about seeing status - unread, replied, etc. - go to the View menu with Control-F2, V, Enter. Arrow down to Columns and press Enter. Check or uncheck columns to show or hide them by pressing Enter. If you want to keep status on screen but don't want to hear it all the time, interact with the messages table and move to the column you want, such as subject. Then as you arrow up and down, all you hear is the subjects of the messages. You can move to other columns as needed to hear other info, such as the sender. As for sorting, interact with the Messages table and move to the column you want to sort, in this case Date Received. Press VO-Shift- Backslash to sort by that column. Press it again if you want to reverse the sort order. HTH,. Anna Cheers, Stan Telephone; +27396992700, KwaZuluNatal, South Africa. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups MacVisionaries group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Two small mail and VO questions
Hi STan, That's right, the command is VO-Vertical LIne. I just wrote it the other way because I figured more people know where the Backslash is then where the vertical line is. best, Anna On Sep 24, 2009, at 10:14 AM, Stan wrote: Hi Anna, Sorry, the sort keys, will not work on my keyboard, for the shift changes backslash to vertical line. So how does it work. Cheers, Stan. On 24 Sep 2009, at 4:17 PM, Woody Anna Dresner wrote: Hi Frank, If you don't care about seeing status - unread, replied, etc. - go to the View menu with Control-F2, V, Enter. Arrow down to Columns and press Enter. Check or uncheck columns to show or hide them by pressing Enter. If you want to keep status on screen but don't want to hear it all the time, interact with the messages table and move to the column you want, such as subject. Then as you arrow up and down, all you hear is the subjects of the messages. You can move to other columns as needed to hear other info, such as the sender. As for sorting, interact with the Messages table and move to the column you want to sort, in this case Date Received. Press VO-Shift- Backslash to sort by that column. Press it again if you want to reverse the sort order. HTH,. Anna Cheers, Stan Telephone; +27396992700, KwaZuluNatal, South Africa. --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups MacVisionaries group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Two small mail and VO questions
Hi Anna, If I go up to the view menu and go to columns and expand the menu there is no choice for the status column or the thread column. Am I in the wrong place? Is this how it is for everyone else? Strangely my voiceover rarely announces if a message is unread even if it has the graphic stating that the message is unread. Thanks, Christina On Sep 24, 2009, at 7:17 AM, Woody Anna Dresner wrote: Hi Frank, If you don't care about seeing status - unread, replied, etc. - go to the View menu with Control-F2, V, Enter. Arrow down to Columns and press Enter. Check or uncheck columns to show or hide them by pressing Enter. If you want to keep status on screen but don't want to hear it all the time, interact with the messages table and move to the column you want, such as subject. Then as you arrow up and down, all you hear is the subjects of the messages. You can move to other columns as needed to hear other info, such as the sender. As for sorting, interact with the Messages table and move to the column you want to sort, in this case Date Received. Press VO-Shift- Backslash to sort by that column. Press it again if you want to reverse the sort order. HTH, Anna --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups MacVisionaries group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Two small mail and VO questions
Hi Christina, I'm sorry. You're right; Status isn't in the Columns menu. I found the menu and that it controlled which columns were shown, and I assumed Status was there without actually looking for it. You know what happens when you assume. sorry about that. Best, Anna --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups MacVisionaries group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Two small mail and VO questions
It's absolutely no problem. :) I just thought I was doing something wrong. I had hoped I could find a solution to get voiceover to say unread while going through my-messages table. :) Christina On Sep 24, 2009, at 11:49 AM, Woody Anna Dresner wrote: Hi Christina, I'm sorry. You're right; Status isn't in the Columns menu. I found the menu and that it controlled which columns were shown, and I assumed Status was there without actually looking for it. You know what happens when you assume. sorry about that. Best, Anna --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups MacVisionaries group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Two small mail and VO questions
Hi all, I have two really simple but frustrating issues with the Mail program in SL that I cannot figure out with VO. Firstly, when I arrow up and down in my list of messages the unread ones start with saying unread and the read ones start with saying blank. How can I stop the read messages from saying blank before each one? Also, how can I change the sort order of my messages in that list. Right now the newest is at the bottom I would like the newest at the top. Thanks Frank --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups MacVisionaries group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
