• RT @ppatel Webaim is conducting a screen reader user survey o gather more definitive data on screen reader users: http://tinyurl.com/3rmwte # 2008/12/18
• News: Apple Releases Mac OS X 10.5.6 http://www.lioncourt.com/?p=250 # 2008/12/15
• Retweet: @cookiecrook BusinessWeek: Apple is greener than Greenpeace says. http://tinyurl.com/57v4fp # 2008/12/08
• Retweet: @vmwarefusion : Fusion 50% off today, one day only. Details: http://is.gd/9Gqi Coupon code "CyberMondayDeal" # 2008/12/01
• It's Thanksgiving Day in the United States. We're thankful for Apple's commitment to accessibility in their products. # 2008/11/27

Mac-cessibility Quick Tips is a feature of Lioncourt.com to provide brief tips and tricks to assist blind and visually impaired Mac users improve their Apple experience. Not all tips will be specific to VoiceOver, and most will work on either Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger or Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. Now for this week’s tip!

Did you ever wish there was a quick and easy way to copy the text from a dialog box? A way to copy a serial number or password from one window to the next when it isn’t provided in text that can be copied? Maybe you just want to copy an error message to a friend who is trying to give you some tech support. VoiceOver provides an easy way to do this. Simply move VoiceOver to the item in question, and then press VO-Shift-C. This command will copy the last thing spoken by VoiceOver to the clipboard in a textual form that can be pasted anywhere text can be placed with the standard Paste functionality. (i.e., Command-V).

Until next time!

Mac-cessibility Quick Tips is a feature of Lioncourt.com to provide brief tips and tricks to assist blind and visually impaired Mac users improve their Apple experience. Not all tips will be specific to VoiceOver, and most will work on either Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger or Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. Now for this week’s tip!

Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard includes a new VoiceOver feature to select text that is not editable. (i.e., text on a web site.) To do this, interact with the text in question, and then use VO-Return to start the selection mode. While this mode is on, move the VoiceOver cursor through the text that you wish to select. You will hear a sliding sound as the text is highlighted. When you’re done press VO-Return to stop the selection. VoiceOver will beep to confirm the action. Now you can perform a copy with Command-C or any other valid command with the selected text.

This function will work with any text that can be selected.

Until next time!

Mac-cessibility Quick Tips is a feature of Lioncourt.com to provide brief tips and tricks to assist blind and visually impaired Mac users improve their Apple experience. Not all tips will be specific to VoiceOver, and most will work on either Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger or Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. Now for this week’s tip!

One often overlooked feature of VoiceOver in both Tiger and Leopard is its ability to select non-contiguous items from lists, tables, and the like. This is useful if you have a group of files you wish to copy from one folder to another, for example. If the files you are choosing are all in a row in the Finder’s listing, you can use shift and the arrow keys to highlight all the files in a row. If they are scattered throughout, say one at the start, one in the middle, and one at the end of the listing, you have to use non-contiguous selecting to choose them.

Here are the steps to get this done:

1. Use VoiceOver to interact with the Table, Icon View, or Column Browser where the items you wish to select are displayed.
2. Navigate using VoiceOver navigation commands to the first item you want to select.
3. Turn off Cursor Tracking with VO-Shift-F3.
4. Move to and select each of the other items you wish by pressing the VoiceOver Multiple Select command, VO-Command-Space.
5. When you’re done selecting items, perform the keystroke for the command you wish to perform on them, such as Command-C to copy, Command-Delete to move to the Trash, etc.
6. Turn Cursor Tracking back on again with VO-Shift-F3.

Of course, these steps may vary if you keep your Cursor Tracking off, but chances are if you do that, you already know this tip.

Until next time!

Mac-cessibility Quick Tips is a feature of Lioncourt.com to provide brief tips and tricks to assist blind and visually impaired Mac users improve their Apple experience. Not all tips will be specific to VoiceOver, and most will work on either Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger or Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. Now for this week’s tip!

Many visually impaired users use the Finder’s built-in ability to jump to and select files by typing the first few letters of the desired file’s name. This proves to be a quick way to navigate through large file lists, as long as you know what you’re looking for. In Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, this can be a problem, however, if the file in question includes a space in its name, especially if that space appears early in the file name. An example might be a file named "A letter to Jane.rtf". As soon as you press the spacebar, QuickLook launches, and chances are you are not on the file you wanted. To avoid this, press Option-Space in place of the spacebar alone. This adds the space character to what you’re looking for, without activating QuickLook.

Until next time!