Hi Mary,
I guessed you wanted to use the Apple Wireless Keyboard paired to your iPad or
iPod touch for text editing, which is why I wrote the reply in two sections:
one outlining behavior when paired to the Mac under OS X 10 (only, covering the
Fn key combinations) and one part that was generally applicable. I gave the
example of forward deleting by words, because that's less obvious, but if you
want to forward delete by characters use the same principle: hold down the
Shift key as you tap the right arrow key in order to select and advance by
character, then press the delete key to delete your selected text.
Selection of text can be by character, word, line, or to the end of the
document, and you can change the unit of selection as long as you continue to
hold down the Shift key. So, for example, if I want to forward delete two
words and the first two characters at the start of the next word I can press
the Shift and Option keys and tap the right arrow key twice (which will select
and highlight the next two words), then I can release the Option key (while
still pressing the Shift key) and tap the right arrow key two more times (which
will select the first two letters of the next word). When I press the delete
key, my entire selection will be deleted. To undo the deletion I can press
Command+Z. To redo the deletion I can press Command+Shift+Z.
One thing to keep in mind (that was explained in the link to the longer
archived post) is that selections may be made in either the forwards or
backwards direction -- and if you move past the original insertion point in the
opposite direction, you undo the selection. So, for example, if I press the
Shift key and the Option key, then tap the right arrow twice, I have selected
the two words following the position of the insertion point. If I press the
delete key at this point, I remove those two words. If, however, I continue to
hold down the Shift and Option key and then tap the Left arrow key three times,
the first two taps move back over my original selection, and undo them. At the
end of the first tap of the left arrow key, I've undone the selection of the
second word. After the second tap with the left arrrow key, I've undone all my
selection, and am back where I started. When I tap the left arrow key for the
third time (all the while holding down the Shift and Option keys), I move to
the left of the original insertion point. I have now selected the word before
my original insertion point, and when I press delete this word is now deleted.
You can also extend your selections to encompass several lines by simply
holding down the Shift key and tappng your down arrow (or up arrrow). It's
easiest to do this at the beginning of a line, because otherwise your arrow may
move your selection to the middle of a word in a later line.
One further thing to keep in mind if you use a paired Bluetooth keyboard with an iOS device and change input keyboard languages with
Command+Space: VoiceOver will only announce languages with non-Roman letters if your language rotor is set to the "Default"
voice. If Russian is one of my selected input keyboard languages, and I have the voice set to Karen, the Australian voice, although my
default region is the U.S., I will not hear VoiceOver announce anything when I switch to a Russian input keyboard with Command+Space. The
same goes for any other language with non-Roman characters -- Greek, Chinese, etc. I'll only hear VoiceOver announce these input language
keyboards when I press Command+Space if I have switched to the Default voice in the language rotor -- otherwise there is just a silence.
If you never change your input language to a keyboard which does not use Latin characters then this will not be an issue for you. But
since you do use a Russian voice on your Mac, this might come up as a problem for you if you try to type Cyrillic characters. There's both
a setting for the standard Russian input keyboard and one that is phonetically based (where the letters you type correspond to their
closest English counterparts -- so that for "yes" you would press the "d" and "a" keys, instead of the
letters that would be the "l" and "f" keys on an English input keyboard, for example.) Of course, after you switch to
a Russian input keyboard with Command+Space, you would want to switch to a Russian voice, as well
Hope this is not too confusing.
Cheers,
Esther
On Mar 29, 2011, at 03:10 PM, Mary Otten wrote:
Thanks, Esther. I am using the Apple bluetooth keyboard on an IOS device, not a Mac. I'm too connected to num pad commander to give that up on a Mac without a fight. <smile> I was looking for single letter forward delete. But it is helpful to know the command for doing a word or more as well.
Mary
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