I am a voiceover user using Leopard 10.5.5.
I have noticed this issue as far back as the first release of
Tiger.
Basically, it's gonna be hard for me to type out what is
happening, being
this is more an auditory based thing, so try to stick with me
on this. I
really hope I don't confuse you all.
OK, I have a document up, o... let's just say, in, o? I
dunno. Text Edit,
we'll just say for sakes being.
OK, I have typed the following line of text in a new, blank
text document.
Please pay extremely close attention to how I've typed this
both
gramatically, and also spelling:
The colors of tHe flag r red. white. and blUe?
Boy, this sentence is r'r'r'really! messed up!
Let's edit it.
OK, I go to the beginning of that line with command+left arrow.
I hear the word, The.
OK, so now I move word by word, with option right arrow.
The
colors
of
tHe
Whoops? We gotta booboo here. OK, so, I hit right arrow.
I hear space. UM? OK?
I hit left arrow. I hear again: Space. What in the heck?
I hit left arrow again. I hear E. aa, K. now we're getting
there. I
left arrow again. I hear cap H. There we go. I need to
delete this and
put a lower case h, instead of capital. So I hit the delete
key, then
type lower case h.
Now, if I read the current line with vo+L, I hear:
hhe colors of tHe flag r red. white. and blUe?
What? in the world? Why did it do? that!
I called a friend for help, and what he told me is the
following. I've
pasted his response below:
Wo wo wol Chris! Hold on here. Wol! Ur'r'r'rk?
Um? You're kind a failing to see something here: You're
thinking Windows
again. Stop doing that. Voiceover, thank God, doesn't work
like JAWS.
You can't edit that way. The thing is, Chris, as you left
and right
arrow, you know how in Windows, your insertion point is gonna
be right on
the actual character that it speaks? Well, un? fortunately,
in Voiceover,
it's not quite that simple. In VO, it is actually reading to
you the
character that your insertion point passes over, rather than
the way
Windows does it, with jfw, by reading the character you're
sitting on.
This is why when you hit the left arrow then delete, it did
what it did.
Let's say, Chris, that you type the word Hello, but instead
of h, e, l, l,
o, you did: h, e, k, k, o. Hekko? What the hell kind a
word is that!
So, you wanna get rid of those two k's, and replace them with
l's. Right?
OK, What I'd! do, Chris, is I would option right arrow, until
I hear
Hekko. Now remember, Chris, you're not on the word Hekko.
Because you
were working to the right in the document, where are you
really? cor,
rect! You're to the right! of the word hekko. That is
definitely not
where we wanna be, is it? So hit option left arrow one
time. You'll hear
again: Hekko. Can you explain to me Chris, why that is?
The reason's,
because now, you moved to the left! of the word Hekko.
See... you're not
on the word actually. That's where you're getting confused.
On the Mac,
unlike in Windows, there is! no such thing, as being quote,
unquote, on! a
character/word. You have to be on either trailing side of
it, and
depending on whether you've done left arrow, or right arrow,
will
determine which side you're on. OK, so now. We're to the
left of the
word Hekko. hit you're right arrow. You'll hear cap H.
however, watch
this. read your current character with vo+C. Did you see
what it did? It
said E. It didn't say H did it. ok, now hit left arrow.
What did you
hear? You heard E again didn't you. Now, hit vo C. Notice
it said H?
See? it's telling you what your cursor passed over! not!
what it's
actually on. so hit right arrow once. You heard E. Actually
though, it
passed the letter e, and since you're working to the right,
it now is
sitting on the right side of the letter E. So I betcha, if
you now hit vo
C, it'll say K. See that? You're now actually sitting on
the first
letter K in Hekko. So, hit your delete key twice. now, type
ll.
Now read the current line with vo+L.
Hello
See? Mission accomplished!
End of response from my friend.
God! blessid! That confused me. I don't totally get what
he's saying
about it passing over things etc. That's driving me to
drinking, as I
can't hardly edit a document this way.
Is there any way to think about this differently, or at
least, maybe a way
in a future update, maybe under navigation in the vo utility,
yall could
make a checkbox, to make it behave more like Windows and
speak what it's
actually under instead of what it passes? God. I'm sure I'm
not the
first newly migrating user from Windows to a Mac, who's ran
into this. I
dono if it's a bug, that yall didn't really fix, as most
people don't
really seem to care, they just deal with it, or if you all
purposefully
made it this way, but no offense. In all do respect though
guys, this! is
outstandingly disgusting!
Ewww! Yoyk! You can imagine for people who have to work in
other
languages that don't use the standard lattin based alphebet,
you can
imagine for someone like that, how Godly hard this would be
to edit.
Say in Arabic, you're wanting to type Allah.
Yes, you could do: A, l, l, A, h. but what if you're really
typing
arabic.
Alif, lam, lam, heh.
now that is Not! gonna read with vo if you use the actual
Arabic letters,
so, editting that? being you don't know what you're
literally, on, as it's
passing things, not reporting what you're sitting on? Now
you got
yourself a double! challenge. Trying first to figure out
what characters
you got, and B, figuring out where your cursor really truely
is sitting,
not what it's passed over.
just, ya know:
Be aware of this. It is something that I really think you
all may wanna
consider looking into as it's so confusing to me, it's almost
making me
scared of Leopard, and really wanna use it less and less. It
just cfeels
so awquard! Any suggestions?
Chris.
