Hi Anna, On Jul 20, 2009, Woody Anna Dresner wrote: > > Thanks so much for your post. I tried installing Window-Eyes, and it > almost works. When I start Windows, Window-Eyes functions. I can open > the Start menu and browse the Web with Internet Explorer. I can switch > to Finder, change VoiceOver preferences, and then switch back to > Windows. All is fine until I press the VO keys while on the Windows > side. Even if I press VO-Tab and then press those keys, the Windows > side becomes inoperable. I can occasionally hear window-Eyes if I > switch to the right place, but otherwise all I get is the Parallels > toolbar for shutting down or starting Windows. I'd guess these problems are solvable, by analogous behavior in Fusion. And, incidentally, there are a number of list users who run Window-Eyes in a virtual environment on the Mac, and even more JAWS users. At least some users prefer to turn off VoiceOver (Command-F5) while they're running in the virtual environment and using another screen reader. Under the Fusion preferences menu I know that you can disable Mac keys, Fusion-specific keys, assign profiles that use different setups from the default settings, etc. in the keyboard and mouse menu. There are also prefix key sequences that allow the Mac OS X to grab or un-grab key presses once you've set the Mac keys to be disabled in the VM. There may be a similar configuration menu for Parallels, but I don't think you can re-assign or ignore the VO keys, which may be why the VO-Tab pass through is not working. In general, you can access the preferences menu of an application with Command- comma. A few applications will not use a preferences menu. Also, I know that one of the touted features of Parallels is its "Coherence Mode" to enable you to view and switch to active Windows applications from the Mac side. I'm not sure how that works with VoiceOver. You should make sure that you don't use a visually based window switching system, like the Mac's Exposé keys (F9, F10, and F11). Be careful of pressing these three keys. They are a visual analogue to running a window chooser menu, and if you press one of these keys with VoiceOver activated your display will appear to freeze as the system displays icons of various window combinations on your screen and waits for you to select one of these windows by clicking your mouse into your selection. Pressing the same key F9 F10 or F11 key again should restore the response, but it may be easier to disable this key. I recall a question on another list from someone trying to use Shift-F10 on his Mac on the Windows side in a VM and wondering what had happened to his session. The Shift key here makes the icon view display of Windows display in slow motion, so this is even more confusing! Be aware that those Exposé key combinations can appear to make your Windows session unresponsive.
> Another irritating thing, even when Windows is running okay, is that > VoiceOver says, "New window" every time a new window opens. I don't > see anything in VoiceOver's verbosity settings that would make it stop > doing this. > Toggling VoiceOver off with Command-F5 would solve this in the VM. > So my question at this point is whether these problems are Parallels > issues or general problems you encounter when running Windows on a > Mac. If the latter, is there a work-around? Perhaps someone using Window-Eyes or JAWS in a VM can make some suggestions. In addition, if you want to read up more about the Exposé keys and how to disable them, you can Google on: Exposé macvisionaries rewinding and read the earlier list post on "Rewinding and Fast forwarding in iTunes". This was posted after this list moved to Google Groups, but before archiving at the Mail Archive site was activated, so I can't give you a simple link to use, and only members who are logged into Google Groups can read the posts. Some of the Exposé keys overlie the media functions keys on the Mac keyboard, which is why the topic was discussed in that post. The Mail Archive site is great, and supports access key navigation, as well as searching by keywords, Boolean arguments, author, date range, etc. For example, on the subject of using the VO keys in a Windows virtual environment, you can read this thread from the archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/discuss%40macvisionaries.com/msg42013.html (Voice-over commands active in a windows VM session with Fusion.) and follow the discussion down through the thread by press Control-N to read the next message in the thread with Safari. I think that Internet Explorer under Windows may use the Alt key as an access key in place of Control, and Firefox may use Alt-Shift, but there are combinations for each browser. To read up the thread use Control-P for the previous post. For instructions on how to search the archives see: http://www.mail-archive.com/discuss%40macvisionaries.com/msg46243.html (searching mail archives?) Then press Control-N (in Safari) to read the next post in the thread: http://www.mail-archive.com/discuss%40macvisionaries.com/msg46245.html Those instructions pointed to the old archived location for the Macvisionaries list that was active up through the end of January 2009. The new archived location after the list moved to Google Groups is: http://www.mail-archive.com/macvisionaries%40googlegroups.com/ HTH. Cheers, Esther --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
