You are correct. I had the VoiceOver getting started guide up on my Windows
PC and was trying to follow it on my new Mac. But the problem was that if I
did what the tutorial said, it didn't work. I think the problem was that I
was using a standard USB keyboard and not an apple keyboard. The option and
command keys were swapped around at the very least. I knew about this
problem from using the keyboard testing mode, what is it?, control-option-k
I think. But who knows how many times I pressed the wrong key combination or
how many other little glitches there were. Once i got my bluetooth keyboard
to work, I made a lot of progress really fast.
Thanks to all for their help. I hope I won't have too many more questions
for a while. With any luck, I'll be jaws free soon.
----- Original Message -----
From: "erik burggraaf" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "General discussions on all topics relating to the use of Mac OS X by
theblind" <[email protected]>
Sent: Saturday, April 26, 2008 11:17 AM
Subject: Re: Finally took the plunge
Hi dan, think total newbie here, smiles. For some reason he didn't get
the human voice in the quick start, and he probably doesn't know that the
vo keys are the control and option keys.
The control and option keys are the second and third keys from the left
on the bottom of the keybord.
Best,
Erik
erik burggraaf
Certified Technician
Assistive Computing LTD Support and training
Sales department: 888-828-2445
Support and Training: 888-255-5194
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Website coming soon
On 25-Apr-08, at 7:32 AM, Dan Eickmeier wrote:
Hi John, I'd use your VO keys, along with your arrow keys to read the
rest of these pages. Hope that helps you.
On 25-Apr-08, at 10:22 AM, John Heim wrote:
I finally took the plunge and bought the low-end Mac Mini. First, 2
quick questions... Is there a way to get vo to read the entire contents
of a dialog box like hitting Insert+b in jaws? Also, can I get it to
say the title of a data entry field?
I am still in the setup program and when I press the continue button,
it goes to the next dialog box but it doesn't read the box. You know
what I mean? You press the continue button after entering whatever data
it's asking for and it goes to the next data entry screen but it
doesn't say anything. So I've been pressing tab and then shift+tab to
get it to read the title of the data entry field. But I would guess
there's more text in the dialog box than just the titles of the data
entry fields.
On to my story. You may or may not find this interesting. I'm not
complaining. I'm just telling my story. Well, maybe I'm complaining a
little bit. But I haven't even gotten though the setup program yet so
I'm sure I'll have lots of positive things to say once I get going.
I bought the low-end Mac Mini last week Thursday. I'm not even through
the set up yet. But a big part of the reason for that is that I opened
the box at work last Thursday and took out the pieces. And then I
couldn't get them back in the box and accidently left the power brick
in my office. So Friday I stuffed the brick into my backpack and when I
got home, I discovered that I had also left the power chord extension
in my office. So then I couldn't do anything all weekend either. It's
an extremely minor complaint but Apple should have made that chord a
standard power chord.
Another minor complaint is that I had to take a printer/scanner/ copier
along with my Mac. I'd have rather they'd taken $50 off the price.
I took Monday off work so I couldn't pick up the power chord until
Tuesday. Tuesday night I got the thing powered up but then I couldn't
get it to talk. Maybe I didn't wait long enough for it to boot but I
wasn't getting any speech. I started pressing keys hoping to remember
the hotkey for starting voiceover. I finally got on my Windows PC and
googled for it. Command+F5. It started talking but in French or German.
I dunno. I putzed around with that for a while and then turned it off.
Wednesday I turned it back on and it came up speaking in English. But
it didn't seem to want to do anything. I have a standard USB keyboard
and I thought maybe I needed an Apple keyboard. I was told my standard
keyboard should work I was listening to the Apple tutorial on voiceover
on my Windows PC but none of the keys did what it said they would.
Thursday, I borrowed a bluetooth Mac keyboard from my boss. She told me
i'd probably need sighted assistance to set it up. That may be correct
but as it turns out, the problem I was having was that the Mac wanted
to run some kind of system check probably because I had just cut the
power to the thing the day before. That's my theory anyway. I pressed
enter, it played some funky music, obviously was running some program,
and then came up speaking English. In fact, it asked me which language
I wanted. So the first time, I must have accidently selected another
language. I can't explain it but I sure didn't hear it ask me that the
first time. This time I selected English and was able to get through
several pages of the setup procedure. As I mentioned, my problem right
now is that I am a bit uncertain of what it's asking me because I don't
know how to get it to read all of the instructions in the dialog boxes.
For example, it asked me for my email address but it doesn't seem to
like what I've entered. It's asking for my mac.com email address and I
don't know what that is.
