Dear Simon,
You're very welcome, but in fact, none of these recent topics that are
providing you with new and useful tools is about VoiceOver per se. It
just happens to be a fact that many of the features built into Mac OS
X work very well in conjunction with things we want to do with
VoiceOver. For example, the list of keyboard shortcuts in the linked
archive post I gave are all commands that any Mac user can employ in
Cocoa apps -- whether in TextEdit, Mail, Preview, Safari, etc. They
don't just work in VoiceOver, although they work very well in
combination with VoiceOver commands and follow the same kind of
organization and logic. Similarly, the Services Menu functions, and
the ability to assign keyboard shortcuts to those commands, or to
AppleScripts, are built into Mac OS X. Jacob's suggested use of
hotspots to return to your last read location (using VoiceOver) in
Preview is another general OS X feature. So we don't have to go out
of our way to have VoiceOver support special scripting functions or
keyboard shortcut additions, since they're already built into the Mac
operating system.
I suppose this can be more confusing to new users who don't see
detailed VoiceOver-specific instructions on how to accomplish more
tasks in the VoiceOver Getting Started Guide for Leopard. On the
other hand, general Google searches for how to do things on the Mac
turn up a lot wider range of resources and information.
Cheers,
Esther
On Dec 11, 2008, at 12:27 PM, Simon Cavendish wrote:
Dear Esther, this is so very helpful and exciting in that I seem
discover more and more very useful stuff about Mac and Voiceover.
Thank you for these instructions. I shall put them into good use
forthwith.
With best wishes
Simon
On 11 Dec 2008, at 19:57, Esther wrote:
Hi Simon,
On Dec 8, 2008, at 12:07 PM, Simon Cavendish wrote:
I suspect Will's strictures regarding preview are to do with
having to switch over to a dictionary while reading ortranslating
text that's open in Preview. That was my issue and that is why I
tend to copy and paste the text from Preview into Textedit. The
ability to set bookmarks is very interesting, and thank you for
posting it: I shall certainly use it. Butwhen I have to switch to
another application every so very foten, it is less useful. Unless
I'm totally misunderstanding Will's needs, this is what he would
have found so irritating.
If you want to simplify sending selected text from Preview to
TextEdit without having to copy and paste, you can set up shortcut
keys to do this. The trick here is to make use of an option under
the Services menu: "New Window Containing Selection" under the
TextEdit submenu of the Services menu. The other thing you'd need
to do is open System Preferences and navigate to "Keyboard &
Mouse", then go to the "Keyboard Shortcuts" tab. VO-right arrow to
the first button past the table (where VO-H gives you "Click to
define shortcuts in applications), and press (VO-space). In the
dialog window that opens, keep the setting for Application as "All
Applications" on the popup button, then VO-right arrow past "Menu
Title" and type or paste in "New Window Containing
Selection" (without the quotation marks) in the text entry area
where you're prompted to enter the exact name of the menu command
you want to add. Then VO-right arrow past "Keyboard Shortcut" and
type in the shortcut you want to assign in the text area. Either
press return to complete the dialog (or escape to cancel), or more
formally VO-right arrow to the "Add" or "Cancel" button and press
(VO-space) your selection to complete the dialog.
In order for a keyboard shortcut that is defined for "All
Applications" to take effect, you must restart your computer. This
is analogous to the requirement that any shortcut key assignments
made for specific applications must be done while that application
is closed. Again, the challenge seems to be finding a keyboard
shortcut combination that is not already in use. I tested this
with "Command-Shift-period" which is "Command-greater than" on my
keyboard, and it worked, but I suspect I should assign it to a more
esoteric combination like pressing the Option key, too.
In any event, when you select text and then use your "New Window
Containing Selection" shortcut, you'll get the results saved into a
TextEdit window. You can use select all (Command-A), or any of the
selection combinations (by word, line, paragraph, etc.) that are
defined for the Mac. See, for example, this post from the archives
that lists some of the standard combinations:
http://www.mail-archive.com/discuss%40macvisionaries.com/
msg36031.html
(post listing some movement and selection command shortcut
combinations in Mac OS X)
A nice feature of using this services menu option for sending
selections to TextEdit, whether by shortcut assignment, or simply
by navigating to this option in the menu bar (VO-m, Right-arrow to
your current app, Down-arrow into menu, Press "S" to go to
"Services", Right-arrow to Services sub-menu, Press "T" to go to
"TextEdit", Right-arrow to go to "New Window Containing Selection"
option of TextEdit submenu), is that it's a good way to quickly
copy content from web pages that are busy with image links. For
example, I find the ilounge web pages are a good source of
information about iTunes and the iPod, but they're filled with
advertising links and images that were particularly difficult to
deal with in Tiger, and also likely to generate "Safari busy"
messages. So if there were an article or review I wanted,
selecting all and sending this TextEdit with the Services menu was
a good way to get the content.
When you use the services menu to send your selection to TextEdit,
be warned that (without the keyboard shortcut) the resulting file
does not get keyboard focus, even though it gets created. Be
prepared to command-tab from your current application (Safari,
Preview, etc.) to TextEdit to see the results. When I use the
assigned shortcut, the TextEdit window does appear to get focus
after I do the selection.
The Services menu options are features that were part of NeXTSTEP
-- the operating system of NeXT Computer, which was the company
Steve Jobs founded when he was forced to resign from Apple in
1985. They got built into Mac OS X. The "Start Speaking Text"
Services menu option received quite a bit of discussion on this
list. There are also useful features such as "Send selection"
under the Mail submenu of Services that will excerpt your selected
text into a mail window.
HTH.
Cheers,
Esther
