can you do this on a macbook with out a numeric keypad?
When I read the manual it seemed to be refering to the desktop
keyboard layout.
Thanks, Olivia
On Aug 30, 2008, at 5:11 PM, Esther wrote:
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
