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 checking the heading label with VO-Shift-C -- only in Tiger, not Leopard), and used VO-Shift-Backslash. The "Mouse Keys" option is mainly used by VoiceOver users to get to places that VoiceOver cannot navigate to. The prime example would be instances where you want to play flash content on a web page, and where you know from the context that the place to click to activate the flash player is just beside some element that VoiceOver can navigate to. Maybe you're on a web page for Audible.com's audiobooks, and there is text for "Play sample" so you know that if you could just move your mouse cursor a little bit to the right of that text and click, you'd be able to turn on the flash player with your mouse or trackpad. Sorting columns is something you'll want to be able to do frequently, so it's fairly important that VoiceOver should be able to handle this. My guess is that it was the upgrade to Safari that may have broken the sort behavior in Mail under Tiger, but I'm not sure about this. I held off upgrading to Safari 3 in Tiger until I was forced into this, because Apple's dot Mac service would only support Safari 3. Up until then, I was able to use mail services accessibly through their web interface as well. Since there was a block of time when the transition to from dot Mac to MobileMe really messed up mail services, I can't tell whether this affected the way the sort command worked (or failed to work) in the mail messages table. However, apparently the Safari web browser installation is linked to some behavior of the mail application. I moved onto a new MacBook with Leopard shortly after (although this was already about a year after most list members had upgraded to Leopard). Maybe someone else with a running Tiger installation can check on this. As a point of historical interest, when iTunes first became accessible, the list discussion went through the points you managed to get through, with some people finding they were able to use Mouse Keys to sort on columns before someone pointed out that VO-Shift-Backslash should work in VoiceOver. You've managed to reconstruct all this by yourself (grin). So you're using a Mac mini with Tiger, and have just set up a wireless router and sorted your mail messages table. Are you trying to run your Mini without a monitor? That's the only other VoiceOver specific issue that may come up for the Mini. Some functions, like using the Safari web browser, run very slowly without a monitor connected. If you don't have a monitor connected, you can get around this by using an "Apple DVI to Video Adapter", which you'd have to buy separately. In the U.S. this would cost about $19. It's not the same adapter that is used to connect to monitors, but one that can connect up to television sets that use composite video. It may also be called a DVI to Composite or SVGA adapter, and will also allow you to play DVDs without a monitor. A few other questions: are you running an Intel or a PowerPC mini? You can find out by pressing VO-M (that's Control-Option-M) to go to the Apple menu on the menu bar, then pressing your down arrow key to select "About this Mac" and pressing return. The window that comes up will describe your operating system (probably version 10.4.11), along with your processor and memory. The processor description will give the speed, and will also tell you whether your machine is a PowerPC, Intel Core Duo, or Intel Core 2 Duo. Use VO-Right arrow to read the description and VO-W to close the window when you're done. Second question: are you using an Apple Keyboard or a PC keyboard? Most list members who have Mac minis will probably recommend that you get an Apple Keyboard to use with VoiceOver. The current Apple keyboards have volume controls in different locations on the top row of F keys. I still have Tiger running on my first Mac, a G4 Powerbook laptop (now over 5 years old). On the old (built-in) Apple keyboard the volume controls for mute, decrease, and increase volume are on the F3, F4, and F5 keys. On the Apple keyboards made since 2007, the same volume controls are on the F10, F11, and F12 keys. Also, the F7, F8, and F9 keys on the Apple keyboards made since then can be used as media function keys to rewind, play/pause, and forward your tracks, even when you're playing iTunes, a movie, or using other third-party music player programs like VLC in the background. If you're not already familiar with Mike Arrigo's podcasts about the Mac on Blind Cool Tech, I suggest you listen to them, especially the earlier episodes. They were made on a Mac Mini (smile). Although these done for Leopard, most of the key commands will also work for Tiger. Leopard added a lot of new options for navigating web pages and moving through headers, support for Braille devices, and a great voice, Alex, for use with VoiceOver. Most of the relevant older VoiceOver related podcasts can be found at the podcasts page for this group: http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries/web/podcasts You can also go to the Blind Cool Tech podcast feed at: http://www.blindcooltech.com/bct.xml and find Mike's podcasts. I'm giving you the feed page instead of the main page, because it will load much more quickly and responsively, especially for Tiger, and minimize the "Safari busy" messages. Do you have the VoiceOver Getting Started manual for Tiger? The PDF version is available from Apple's Support web site: http://manuals.info.apple.com/en_US/VoiceOver_Getting_Started_Tiger_10.4.pdf There are other formats available from the page that Greg Kearney helped set up at Curtin University: http://www.cucat.org/books/vogs/ There are also podcast mp3 files of the chapters available through iTunes. I don't know whether the current version of the iTunes application will give you problems, but the VoiceOver Getting Started podcast page for Tiger in the iTunes Store is: http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=275302338 I'll give you another old link to the VoiceOver Tiger guides in mp3 and PDF form: http://web.archive.org/web/20070905083417/www.apple.com/accessibility/voiceover/manual.html I hope that address doesn't wrap in your mail. If it works, it is probably easier to use for the mp3 download files. Another really useful web site, especially for information on Tiger, is Tim Kilburn's VoiceOver Information pages at: http://homepage.mac.com/kilburns/voiceover/ He has separate links to Tiger and Leopard applications. Although it hasn't been updated for a while, so the information on iTunes (for example) is out of date, it's a really well written resource and full of useful tips. Another good source of information is the "icanworkthisthing" site: http://www.icanworkthisthing.com/docs/mac_with_voiceover/ This turned out to be a much longer email than I intended! Hope this is useful. Let us know if you have more questions. I'm appending a list of the descriptions for Mike Arrigo's podcasts from the Blind Cool Tech site. Cheers, Esther Mac Accessibility Demo 5/24/2008 Mike overviews the accessibility features in the Mac and demonstrates web browsing, email, and word processing. 28.6 MB Mac Accessibility Demo Part 2 6/12/2008 Mike Arrigo continues the tour of the accessibility of the Mac using the built-in screen reader, Voice Over. Mike demonstrates streaming audio and using the Voice Over web find feature. 23.9 MB Mac Demo Part 3 8/12/2008 Mike Arrigo answers questions from the first two episodes in this series about the Mac and Voice Over, its built in screen reader. He explains how to boot from the system DVD, shows a slick technique for moving through mail messages more quickly, and tours the Voice Over Control Panel to show the customizations you may make. He also demonstrates using the web browser on the internet and demonstrates how it works with Ebay. 22.0 MB Mac Demo 4 12/16/2008 Mike Arrigo continues this series by answering questions, showing the improved accessibility in iTunes 8, playing a DVD, and using the web with dynamic web pages. 22.8 MB Mac Demo 5 1/18/2009 Mike Arrigo continues this series about built-in accessibility on the Mac by demonstrating running Windows on the Mac. He discusses the reasons why you would want to run Windows on a Mac, then talks about how it works, runs both the Mac operating system and Windows at the same time, and shows running Window-eyes, System Access, and Kurzweil 1000. 17.8 MB Mac Demo 6 2/9/2009 Mike Arrigo describes how to walk up to a Mac in the store and get it talking, so you can try it there. He also demonstrates using Voice Over on the numeric keypad and shows how to copy files. He copies a book to an SD card for use on the Victor Reader Stream. 18.1 MB Mac Demo 7 3/17/2009 Mike Arrigo looks at the software update feature on the mac, goes through most of the system preferences, and mentions things that blind users may want to change. He shows how to enable the option so you can see file extensions, shows how to change what programs are used to open different types of files, and demonstrates how to install programs on the mac. 24.5 MB Mac Demo 8 6/16/2009 Mike Arrigo offers another perspective than that presented in the June issue of The Monitor about the useability of the Macintosh with its built-in screen reading software, VoiceOver. 29.3 M Mac Demo 9 7/24/2009 Mike Arrigo shows how Voice Over on the Mac interacts with three commercially available programs that were not written by Apple to emphasize the universal access to a wide variety of applications. 18.4 MB Install Snow Leopard 9/1/2009 Mike Arrigo independently installs the Snow Leopard operating system using Voice Over, the Mac's built-in screen reader and discusses some of its enhancements. 21.4 MB New Features In VoiceOver 9/6/2009 Mike Arrigo discusses the new features in VoiceOver with the release of Snow Leopard. 21.7 MB --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. 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