Hi,
I posted this to the wiki. I hope this is OK with you Ester.
The guide needs editing though.
It is here:
http://www.vipbc.org/wiki/index.php/Dealing_With_Inaccessible_Webpages
Thanks for listening,
Alex,
On 13-Dec-08, at 2:30 PM, Esther wrote:
Hi all,
I recently posted about how you could set up a keyboard shortcut to
send selections to TextEdit by using the Services Menu option of
"New window from selection", and I've been surprised to find there
are web pages that I could not read at all with either VoiceOver or
with text-to-speech options like "Start speaking text" that are
accessible by selecting all (Command-A) and sending the selection to
TextEdit (with my assigned shortcut or via "New window from
selection" in the Service Menu). There have been earlier
discussions on list about using "Start speaking text" under the
Speech submenu of the Services Menu (with a keyboard shortcut
assignment) or using "Speak selected text when the key is pressed"
checked under the Text-to-Speech tab of "Speech" in System
Preferences as supplements/alternatives to using VoiceOver,
especially in the case of web pages where one wants to "Read all".
For background, these are text-to-speech options, and work whether
or not VoiceOver is enabled. They also differ in that the voice and
rate, volume, etc. assignments are made under "Speech", and that
they're not meant to be paused (as VoiceOver can be with the Control
key) once the selection starts speaking.
One of the reasons that VoiceOver may not read continuously on web
pages, is that sections with problematic HTML coding will stop it.
Also, VoiceOver organizes web elements for use with item chooser,
links chooser, etc. (so if I go to somewhere like the Blind Cool
Tech podcasts page, there's a pause before item chooser announces
the 3,740 items). So, for many purposes, a number of us may choose
to assign a keyboard shortcut to "Start speaking text" so we can go
to a web page, select all (Command-A) or select some section, use
the shortcut, and then start reading the selected text with this
text-to-speech option.
People who are interested in reading/re-visiting the discussion
about this in the archives for this list can go to Yvonne Thomson's
post from February and (in Safari) use the Control-N access key
sequence to read through the rest of the thread:
http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg29106.html
(interesting discovery about reading highlighted text)
I'm also appending Scott Bresnahan's useful tip about getting around
VoiceOver's interrupts when using this (by basically toggling
VoiceOver off and then on again just before/after using the
shortcuts):
http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg30770.html
(tip: speaking selected text: service menu v. speech pref)
Now, the references to using the services menu option for "TextEdit
> New window containing selection" are not new; I think Cheryl
posted about this on list over two and a half years ago as a way of
saving content in TextEdit from other applications. And there have
been other posts about using this option to read web pages with a
lot of graphics content and links. What is new is the realization
that selecting the content of the web page (Command-A) and sending
it to TextEdit this way lets you read web pages that you can't even
access with "Start speaking text" (also from the Services Menu). I
suspect we never checked up much on these, because without a
shortcut key assignment it's far less obvious what's happening and
harder to run experiments. However, over the last year or so
there's been much more activity on list about assigning shortcuts to
AppleScripts, using them to change keyboard input languages, and
setting them up to read selections via text-to-speech.
As an example of a web page that I easily read with "New window
containing selection", but couldn't read with VoiceOver or "Start
speaking text" or "Speak selected text when the key is pressed" try:
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/295305.Wolf_Brother
The sequence to send this to TextEdit without the keyboard shortcut
definition set up is:
1. Select all (Command-A)
2. Navigate to Services Menu (VO-M, right-arrow to application, down-
arrow to menu, press "S" for "Services")
3. Navigate to TextEdit submenu (right-arrow to services submenu,
press "T" for "TextEdit")
4. Navigate to "New window containing selection" and select this
(right-arrow to "New window containing selection", press return)
5. Switch application from Safari to TextEdit (Hold down Command key
and tap Tab key until you reach TextEdit)
If I use my shortcut key assignment, (Command-A on the web page and
the shortcut I've chosen), TextEdit pops up and immediately starts
reading the page.
The embarassing thing about this is that I included the above link
to an inaccessible page of reviews about the Wolf Brother podcast
that I suggested as a way to teach an 11 year old VoiceOver and keep
it fun. When I went back to the post, I was wondering how I had
included that link, and realized that I'd posted immediately after
posting my keyboard shortcut instructions to Simon for sending
selected content to TextEdit. Although he was interested in making
the selection in PDFs in Preview, the shortcut works for all apps,
and I'd still been testing this for web pages.
The original post about setting a shortcut to send selected content
to TextEdit is here:
http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg47094.html
Another few comments: using the Services Menu is NOT the same as
copying and pasting. For one thing, it doesn't use the clip board,
so it doesn't have the same space/memory limitation about what can
be sent, and is also faster. It also discriminates non-text
information (in this case) in a way that copy and paste cannot. The
Services menu is a left-over from Steve Jobs' development of
NextSTEP computers when he stepped down from Apple in 1985 and
started that effort. It got incorporated into Mac OS X, and has
some slick features, although it gets very little press.
HTH. I'd be interested in hearing how other people find this. Also,
I'm not really expert in what problems render web pages inaccessible
to VoiceOver, so it would be neat to know what kinds of problems
this method could get around.
Cheers,
Esther
