Hi Simon,
>Hello, May I just ask where I could learn more about using mousekeys
>on my Mac? I am not familiar with this facility or its use or even its
>usefulness for a blind user, I mean totally blind user.
Since you enjoy the benefits of the more accessible (U.K.) Audible web site,
you probably don't need to read up on using Mouse Keys, but this is described
under the section on using the mouse in the VoiceOver Getting Started Guide for
Leopard. One of the options is using the numeric keypad to move the mouse. For
blind Mac users, most operations with the computer can be performed with the
standard set of Mac keyboard shortcuts or VoiceOver commands. However, I'm
sure you've read instructions that say "click here" with no reference to where
"here" is. Mouse Keys provide a way of moving the mouse cursor left, right,
up, down, or diagonally in a controlled fashion even if there is no anchor
point for VoiceOver to focus on. In some cases, it's clear where to click, but
there's just no way of moving your VoiceOver cursor there.
For example, a few days after iTunes became accessible, people on the list were
trying to figure out how to sort song entries by Album. The general iTunes
instructions are to click on a column header to sort that column. Well, all we
had to do was move the mouse cursor up from the first line in the songs outline
and click, and the first suggested solution was to use Mouse Keys to do this.
It was then pointed out that we already had sort capability in VoiceOver with
the VO-keys-Shift-Backslash sort command that is also used under Finder, so
using Mouse Keys was, in fact, not needed for that case.
The situation is different with Adobe Flash content. Here, playing sound
samples by clicking on a "play" button in a web site works for us, but Flash
provides no hooks for Apple's API to locate it for VoiceOver. Josh's post uses
the clue that the item "Listen", which VoiceOver can focus on, will be located
near the Flash play button. I used the fact that most web content is laid out
in a grid (not always true!), and so, if the play button was located to the
left, possibly with some icon, the entire line (Icon, Play button, and
"Listen") would be centered under the previous links for "Add to Cart", Price,
and the Book link. We simply used Mouse Keys to move the cursor and VO-F5
(twice) to read it's position as we moved it.
Mouse Keys are really used for fine motion control from the keyboard, so it's
not a good solution for large moves. It was set up to use the numeric keypad,
so it also requires that the numeric keypad be turned on by using the Numlock
key (F6 on Apple laptops made earlier than November 2007). On the new Macbooks,
the default is to set the F6 and other function keys to their software
functions, so we use Fn+F6 to turn on the right-hand side of the keyboard for
Mouse Keys motions, and we don't have the full numeric keypad -- only the keys
that used to correspond to numbers 0 through 9. The top row "7-8-9" maps to
the same "7-8-9" numbers on the numeric keypad. The next row "U-I-O" maps to
numbers "4-5-6". And the next row letters "J-K-L" map to "1-2-3" with the "M"
key on the bottom row as "0". Then the idea was that the center of the 3 by 3
grid of numbers ("5" or letter "I") acts as a reference for the current cursor
position, and pressing keys above or below it ("8" and "2") would move the
cursor up or down,. Keys to the left or right ("4" and "6") would move the
cursor in those directions when pressed, and the corner keys ("7","9", "1", and
"3") would move the cursor diagonally when pressed.
Actually, the situation for learning Mouse Keys for visually disabled VoiceOver
users new to the Mac seems much more complicated now. Before Apple removed the
numlock key, you could go into VoiceOver keyboard practice mode (VO-keys+K),
start typing, and if you pressed the numlock key, you would hear "4-5-6"
instead of "U-I-O", etc. And you could toggle off the numlock key in the
middle of keyboard practice mode and return to the letter keys. Alternatively,
you could leave the numlock key off, but press the Fn key with one of the
letters on the numeric keypad and hear the number instead of the letter (e.g,
Fn+I is the same as "5"). After the numlock key was removed, you obviously
could not turn it on in VoiceOver's keyboard practice mode, and pressing "Fn"
together with the a letter like "I" no longer gave numbers. For the newer
laptops without Numlock function keys, the Mouse Key functions only engage when
you BOTH turn on Mouse Keys and either engage numeric entry mode with Fn+F6 OR
press Fn+<the corresponding numeric keypad letter>. Since engaging numeric
entry mode is just one more "invisible" layer on top of turning on Mouse Keys,
I would avoid it and just get used to pressing the Fn key along with the
individual "7-8-9, U-I-O, and J-K-L" keys. The most notable consequence of
turning on Mouse Keys mode is that you can navigate with VoiceOver, but not
type letters. With numeric entry mode turned on, the mouse moves, but you
don't get additional feedback about this unless your check the mouse cursor
position (VO-F5 twice to read the cursor position) or happen to land on
something that makes an announcement. (And, of course, you can't see the cursor
move or otherwise easily check that your second Fn-F6 command has turned
numeric entry mode off again.)
Apple also advises against turning on Numpad Commander when you use Mouse Keys.
In the case where I used Mouse Keys to navigate down the U.S. Audible site's
search results sound samples, experimentally turning on Numpad Commander didn't
prevent my navigating and listening (since I had cursor tracking turned off).
However, it did have the rather weird effect (in general) of sending my
VoiceOver cursor to different locations across the screen while I worked with
my mouse cursor, since the same numeric keys are bound to functions in Numpad
Commander.
If you want to turn on Mouse Keys, you must either go to the Universal Access
menu of System Preferences and turn this on or off at the Keyboard & Mouse tab
or, you can check the box there that allows you to turn Mouse Keys on and off
using the shortcut of pressing the Option key 5 times quickly in succession.
HTH
Cheers,
Esther
