Hello, Gary, I took a look at Caffeine, and I'll outline how to get around the inaccessibility of the status menu bar icon via an AppleScript, since they the authors provided hooks for this. However, this is an issue I've seen with a few other apps, including a couple that have counterpart iPhone apps, and the link Benjamin posted to Apple Developer forums applies to these cases. The issue of placing an icon on the status menu bar that VoiceOver can navigate to in ExpanDrive has been solved. I don't know whether the developer used the private API or the public API solution, but here's the background. I reported the accessibility issue with the ExpanDrive status bar icon to the developer back in November. When a member on another list enthused about this app (which allows you to integrate files on FTP and SFTP servers with your desktop GUI and Finder with a fast, robust interface and a lot of nifty features) and its accessibility a few months later, I asked whether you could now navigate to the icon on the status menu bar with VoiceOver. (This was not really an issue for the usability of the application with VO, since the menu bar is only one way to navigate the app.) His first report back from the developer was that they didn't think it was possible for apps that Apple didn't release. However, I pointed out that the freebie tool, SoundSource, from Rogue Amoeba used a status menu bar icon that VoiceOver could navigate to, and that it was also possible to get to the DropBox status bar icon and menu (albeit in a weird way -- you bring up window chooser menu and VO-F2 twice, then select "Untitled". If your cursor is routed to your mouse, you'll hear "Dropbox menu" and then you can click with TrackPad or Mouse to open the menu). That led to the posts from the ExpanDrive folks and a fix to the service menu icon.
For Caffeine, I found that opening the Application bundle with the contextual menu to "Show Package Contents" gave me a Caffeine.sdef file in the Resources folder. That showed there were definitions to turn on or turn off Caffeine via AppleScript. So you could create a "Turn On" AppleScript as follows: 1. Launch your Script Editor (with Spotlight, or by going to "/ Applications/AppleScript/Script Editor" and opening the file) 2. Type or paste in the following line (You may want to change 3600 to some other number -- this is the time in seconds, so the example I gave turns Caffeine on for 1 hour): tell application "Caffeine" to turn on for 3600 3. Compile the AppleScript with Command-K. (Optionally, run the script with Command-R) 4. Save the AppleScript with Command-S. You can save it as a script, in which case you'll have to run it (Command-R) to use it, or save it as an application that will execute when opened (but then you won't be able to edit it to change the time; you could probably code this to prompt for the time to use). You can also create an AppleScript to turn Caffeine off, by pasting in: tell applications "Caffeine" to turn off Just out of curiosity, wouldn't it be easier to go to your Energy Saver preferences (in the menu for the battery on your status menu bar) and just set the slider to never go to sleep mode when you want to make these changes? HTH Cheers, Esther Gary wrote: > > That's exactly the problem i'm having.. I wonder if he got a response > to the question? > Thanks for the info. > > > On Aug 15, 2009, Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis wrote: > >> >> On 15/08/2009 Gary wrote: >>> I installed it but found it not to be accessible >> >> It appears it adds an item to the Status Bar. I can't work out how to >> access that item with the keyboard. >> >> I wonder if this is because of a similar problem to that described >> at: >> >> http://lists.apple.com/archives/accessibility-dev/2009/Apr/msg00007.html >> >> Apparently you can script Caffeine with AppleScript. That might be an >> alternative. >> >> -- >> Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis >> >>> > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ 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 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
