iCal with VoiceOver

A Visually Impaired User’s Guide to iCal

by Anne Robertson

Editor’s Note: This article applies to Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard and is not meant as a guide for anyone wishing to use iCal with VoiceOver under Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger.

iCal comes with two predefined calendars: Home and Work. These are completely blank and ready to have events put into them. You can create as many calendars as you like, as well as subscribing to published calendars showing public holidays and sporting events, etc. Each new calendar has a different colour which may be of use to people with low vision. In the Calendar List table, you can select the calendars you want to see at any given time by checking the boxes to the left of each name. The selected calendars are merged in the Calendar Area canvas. In the Toolbar, you can select what is shown in the Calendar Area: a day, a week or a month.

Creating a New Event

A New Event automatically goes into the calendar that is selected in the Calendar List. It goes on the day that is currently selected in the Calendar Area.

To create a New Event, press Command-N and type the Name for the New Event. Press Return, then press Command-E to edit the event. VoiceOver will give you little or no feedback during these operations.

Editing an Event

Press Command-E to edit an event. The event name will be highlighted so that you can change it if you want to. Below this, you will find Event Details Scroll Area. Interact with this and you land on Location to the right of which is an editable field where you can enter the location of the event.

Navigating with VO-Right Arrow, you find:

• The All Day checkbox (only check this if the event lasts all day)
• From
• Date and Time (interact with this field to edit it)
• To
• Date and time
• Repeat Pop Up Button (none, every day, every week, every month, every year, custom)
• Calendar Pop Up Button (offering you a choice of calendars for this event)
• Alarm Pop Up Button (offering none, message, message with sound, email, open file, run script)
• Attendees, click this to get the Edit Text field (typing in a name will offer suggestions from your Address Book)
• Attach File, clicking this opens a standard file browser
• URL, you can type in a website address which you will see if you use the Inspector to look at this entry in detail, and if you make it a clickable link, clicking it will take you to Safari
• Note (this is free-form editable text in which you can type whatever you like).

Stop interacting with the Scroll area, go right and click Done.

Editing Date and Time

• Interact with the Date and Time field.
• Use VO keys with Left and Right Arrows to ove from field to field.
• Use VO keys with Up and Down Arrows to change each field (Year, Month, Day Number, Time).

Note: If you do not use VO keys, you may find you have changed the wrong field.

Inspecting an Event

You can inspect any event in your calendar by pressing Command-I. This will also give you the opportunity to edit the event if you so wish.

Deleting an Event

Select the event and press Delete or Backspace.

Deleting a calendar

Select the calendar in the Calendar List Table, go to the Edit menu and down to the Delete command.

Mini-Month

iCal also includes a "Mini-Month" but this is currently very temperamental and best left alone.

Finding Events

Press Command-F and type any string from the event you are looking for, stop interacting with this field and any other you might find yourself in, VO-Right Arrow until you hear “Search Results Table”. Interact with this and you will see the event in question or all events containing that string.

Enjoy using iCal.