Hi Geoff,
The keyboard on the MacBook Pro has exactly the same layout as your
Apple Wireless Keyboard, and should feel pretty much the same (except
for its laying flatter on the MacBook Pro surface). The Command
key(s) are next to the space bar. If you want to check this on your
iPhone, try using the commands to move and select text. For example,
if you are in a text file and are at the start of the file, pressing
Command+Right Arrow will move you to the end of the first line, and
Command+Left Arrow will move you back to the start of the line. Apple
has designed things so that using the Control Key will also work with
the movement commands, presumably in case people use Bluetooth
keyboards that don't have the Apple Command key. However, if you hold
down the Shift key while you press the movement key combination (Shift
+Command+Right or Left Arrow), you'll hear VoiceOver say "selected"
after the text. It will actually also select text when you press the
Shift key in combination with Control+Right or Left Arrow, but it
won't announce "selected", at least on my iPod Touch running iOS 4,
and not on my iPad with OS 3.2.1.
The keys on the bottom of the Apple Wireless Keyboard (and MacBook Pro
Keyboard) are, from left to right:
Fn, Control, Option (or "Alt"), Command, Space Bar, Command, Option
(or "Alt"), inverted T of arrow keys.
So you have left and right Option and Command keys. To start VoiceOver
speaking, press Command+F5, where the Command key is next to the Space
Bar and the F5 key is above the "5" key. On some laptops the setup
will require that you press the Fn key to access software function key
definitions, so you might need to press Fn+Command+F5 to start
VoiceOver, but in most cases (and particularly if this is coming as a
clean setup from Apple) pressing Command+F5 will work.
You can also tell which is the Control key from working with a text
file on your iPhone running iOS4 -- pressing the Control key will
pause VoiceOver's speech the same way it will if you want to stop
VoiceOver from talking on the Mac. Pressing it again will resume
whatever it has to say. In the text files, the Option key (between
Control and Command key) combined with the Right or Left Arrow keys
will let you move by words. Again, if you press the Shift key along
with Option+Right or Left Arrow you'll hear VoiceOver say "selected"
after the word, just as it does when you use Shift along with the
Command+Right or Left Arrow combination.
The Control+Option keys, the two keys in the middle on the left side
of the space bar, are the "VoiceOver keys", and when you see
instructions that people write like VO+F8 (to bring up the VoiceOver
Utility to configure your VoiceOver navigation, tracking, voice rates,
etc. selections), that means pressing the Control and Option keys
together with the F8 key.
Paired with the iPhone, the Fn key at the bottom left corner doesn't
do anything. On your Macbook Pro, you'll use it to switch to hardware
F-key controls (e.g., Fn+F7, F8, and F9 will give you control of the
media functions to rewind, play/pause, and fast forward playback, as
with the same keys used for your iPhone; Fn+F10, F11, and F12 will
mute, lower, and raise volume, and Fn+F1 and F2 will dim and raise
brightness). On a Mac laptop you'll also use the Fn key in
combination with the arrow keys for Home (Fn+Left Arrow), End (Fn
+Right Arrow), Page Up (Fn+Up Arrow), and Page Down (Fn+Down Arrow).
Incidentally, just as the iPhone has a "Practice VoiceOver Gestures"
area, on a Mac you can turn on "Keyboard Practice Mode" with VoiceOver
by pressing VO+K. At that point VoiceOver will tell you what the keys
you're pressing do, until you exit this mode by pressing the "Escape"
key at the top left. So you'll be able to hear where the Command,
Control, and Option keys are located, and be able to hear "Home" or
"Page Down" when you press the Fn+arrow key combinations I listed above.
You can also bring up the VoiceOver Quick Start guide that plays when
you first press Command+F5 at any later time by pressing VO+Command+F8.
If you want a copy of the VoiceOver Getting Started Guide for Snow
Leopard in Daisy format (instead of the HTML version that Apple
links), you can get it from the following URL:
http://www.cucat.org/tmp/vogs_sl.zip
This is a full text full audio DAISY version 2.02 digital talking book
with navigation at the chapter and subsection level and page numbers
supported.
For a good source of podcast demos of using the Mac with VoiceOver,
check the episodes that Mike Arrigo has been churning out at Blind
Cool Tech.
HTH. Cheers,
Esther
On Aug 10, 2010, Geoff Waaler wrote:
Greetings y'all,
I just received shipment notification for my 13 inch 2.4GHZ
MacBookPro. BTW, thanks Brian for suggesting the refurbished store
-- the model and warrantee were identical.
I've been poking around Apple's site, and among other things found
the voiceOver getting started
documentation. That doesn't seem very useful until you have a Mac
to play with though.
I thought I'd ask here for suggestions on what to do after I take it
out of the box and plug it in. I assume I can press command+f5, and
if I don't know which key is command can keep trying until VO
starts. Then do I check for updates? Are there any gotchas like
with some Windows computers where you can't proceed until you enter
the serial number? Will I need to enable the trackpad? Since I've
been using the iPhone I suspect I'll probably mostly use those
gestures to interface with VO.
I located the MacBookPro manual, but it was a PDF document. If an
HTML version exists I have not been able to locate it. Perhaps I
should be reading about Snow Leopard instead of my specific model
anyway?
Any advice would be most appreciated.
TIA and best regards.
Geoff
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