Hi Søren, You wrote: >Thank you so much. Command up and down arrow works. I'm wandering why >they also have made VO commands for that. > >Best regards >Søren Jensen
Command up and down arrow to go to the beginning and and end of a document in TextEdit and using these in combination with the shift key to select parts of a document are part of the general (non-VoiceOver specific) set of keyboard shortcuts that work in TextEdit, Mail, and the terminal. As Greg described in his post, these are a subset of the commands that are used in the emacs editor, so users who are familiar with unix or linux, and have used their editors (emacs and vi) both in regular editing and on the command line of terminal, may be familiar with this syntax. The emacs key bindings can do much more than simple navigation and insertion/deletion of text. I think one of the reasons there are specific VoiceOver commands is simply the issue of standardization and optimizing command selection for multiple keyboards. For example, the standard convention for VoiceOver is to apply these commands when you interact. Sometimes you can apply commands without interacting with text, but common problems that new users have -- such as reading an entire document in TextEdit but then losing their place if interrupted -- do not occur if you have first interacted with the text. The VoiceOver commands have other consequences for behavior or cursor tracking etc. in that environment. I suspect that Anne's question about whether you were interacting when you failed to get the VO-keys-FN-Shift-Left and Right arrow keys to take you to the start and end of your document may be key. Another problem is the issue of choosing key commands that are easily used from multiple keyboards for VoiceOver. A third issue is that it could be quite confusing to wander into the much larger set of commands that have (for most users) obscure usage. >When using the danish keyboard layout, it's impossible to use VO \. >The \ sign is made by pressing option shift 7. If I go into the VO >help, I can use the command anyway, but it's annoying the command >doesn't work. >What does the VO virtical line command do? > The vertical line is used for the sort command, and this command is VO-keys-Shift-backslash on US keyboards. The vertical line key is at the right edge of the US and UK keyboards, just below the delete key and above the carriage return key. This is the backslash key when pressed without a shift key, and a vertical line key when shifted. I found I could check the Danish keyboard layout by checking the box for this option under the input menu tab of the International menu under system preferences. Then, when I use VO-keys-m twice to move to the part of my menu bar that gives status of wireless connections and battery power, and right arrow to Text Input to choose the Danish input keyboard, I can type these keys in TextEdit and have VoiceOver identify the corresponding characters. If you are in list view under Finder, or are in the Songs outline of iTunes, issuing the VO-keys-shift-backslash (or VO vertical line) on a US or UK keyboard should sort the items by that column header. A second VO-keys-shift-backslash reverses the sort order from ascending to descending. For example, I might use this if I were on the column that shows "Date Modified" and wanted to find the most recently modified files in the folder at the top of my list. In iTunes, I might use this to sort on the Album field to ensure that my tracks appear in the order they appear on a CD album. There's a work-around to sort on columns by using Mouse Keys, but it's somewhat tedious. You can also activate sort on a column if you click on the column header. In iTunes, I would have to check on my mouse cursor position by using VO-keys+F5 (or VO-keys-FN F5 on my laptop). If I've interacted with the songs outline, and am on row 1 in a given column, and have either routed my mouse cursor to my VoiceOver cursor or have checked "Mouse cursor tracks VoiceOver Cursor" in the VoiceOver navigation options, then pressing VO-keys+F5 twice will tell me the first what is under the mouse (e.g., the text field) and second what the mouse cursor position is in x and y screen units. (This depends on the resolution of your display, and differs for each computer). So, if I VO-keys+down arrow to row 2 and use VO-keys+F5 again, I can determine there is a difference of 17 screen units in y between each row. I have set up Mouse keys to turn on and off when the option key is pressed 5 times quickly in succession. (This is a checkbox on the Mouse & Trackpad tab of the Universal Access menu under System Preferences). If I position my mouse cursor on row one in the iTunes songs outline in the column I wish to sort on, I can turn on mouse keys (press option keys 5 times quickly in succession), then hold down the FN key (since this is a laptop) and tap the "8" key 17 times to move my mouse cursor up 17 screen units in y from the current position. (On a full keyboard you would simply use the numeric keypad without the FN key, I think). Then I would turn off Mouse keys by pressing the option key 5 times quickly in succession. I could use VO-keys+F5 (or VO-keys+FN+F5 on a laptop) twice to check that my mouse cursor had, indeed, been moved up 17 screen units in y from the row 1 position. Then I could click (with either VO-keys shift space or by clicking the trackpad key on my laptop) on the column header to sort on that column in ascending order. A second click generally reverses the sort order to descending order. One oddity is that if you click on the header column for "Album" this way in the iTunes songs outline, it cycles between "Album", "Album by Artist", and "Album by Year". "Album by Year" sorts albums by artist with albums ordered according to the year, while Album by Artist sorts albums by artist. As far as I know, if you can't use the VO-keys-vertical line sort command, you might have to use Mouse Keys to sort columns. Anne might have another solution. Another question: we often use Command-accent (where accent is "accent grave" and is located at the left end of the keyboard just below the escape key and above the tab key on US keyboards) to cycle between the different windows of an application. Does this work on the Danish keyboard? This key appears to have the less than symbol on the Danish keyboard. Also, you had asked earlier about not being able to use the Command-right bracket and Command-left bracket keyboard shortcuts to open and close all podcast folders at once (when positioned on a podcast folder in the songs outline of iTunes). These keys are to the right of the "p" key on a US keyboard: left bracket, right bracket, and back slash (all unshifted). On a Danish keyboard this is a-ring, dieresis (also the accent for the umlaut in German) and accent in the same locations. HTH Cheers, Esther
