Hi Kevin, If you want to move to the "File" menu or the "Edit" menu on your menu bar, after you use VO-M to move to the menu bar, just type the first letter of the menu item (e.g., VO-M, and then press "f" and you will be at the "File" menu). This works quite generally in Mac OS X, and is independent of VoiceOver use. Actually, I generally use the OS X default shortcuts in place of the VoiceOver specific shortcuts where they are available, and instead of using VO-M to move to the menu bar, I use Control-F2. To move to the status menu bar I use Control-F8 instead of VO-M twice. And to move to the Dock, I use Control-F3, instead of VO-D.
In each of these areas (menu bar, status menu bar, dock, and the individual menu and submenu items), and also in Finder, tables in iTunes and other apps, playlists. etc., you can move to items either by using your arrow keys or by quickly pressing keys for the first few letters of the item name. You can also combine moving by using arrow keys and moving by pressing the first few letters of an item name. For example, let's say that I'm in TextEdit and want to open a recently used file. I can press Control-F2 (or VO-M, if you like) to move to the menu bar, press "f" to move to the "File" menu, press down arrow to move into the "File menu", press "o" to move to "Open Recent" (which will be announced as "sub-menu"), press right arrow to move into the submenu, and then arrow down to find the recent file I want to use. I then press either "Return" (or the "Enter" key from Windows parlance), or VO-Space to select that item, and I'm moved to the that file in TextEdit. Incidentally, VO-Space is a general command for "perform the default action". This can be selecting an item, checking a check box, pressing a button, etc. Also, the rule for pressing the first few letters of an item moves you to the first item that matches what you type, so on the "Mail" menu bar, where arrowing through gives you multiple menu items beginning with "m", such as "Mail", "Mailbox", and "Message", pressing "m" takes you to the first match (e.g. "Mail"), and to move directly to "Message" I would have had to press "m e". Hope this makes sense. It actually takes longer to type the explanations than it does to navigate. Also, in using item chooser menu (say on a web page), if I want to go to a link with a particular name, after using VO-I, I might press "l i n" in quick succession to get a list of links, and then press the first few letters for the name of the link on the filtered list of results that I want to go to, in order to filter the matches even further. I can also use my arrow keys to more through these entries. In other words, if you think you're doing too much work to navigate in VoiceOver, you probably are, but the equivalent way of shortening this won't necessarily be the same as what you're used to using with JAWS and Windows. We also use shortcut key sequences for frequently used menu items. Cheers, Esther On Feb 24, 2011, at 08:37, Jim Barbour wrote: > When you say "I should be able to", you really mean "windows allows me to" > > I'm afraid the mac doesn't have menu keys like windows does. It does > have short cut keys for individual menu items. > > If you want to navigate around the menus, you need to type VO+M and > then use the arrow keys and VO+space to find and select an item. > > Take Care, > > Jim > > On Thu, Feb 24, 2011 at 10:27:16AM -0800, Kevin Gibbs wrote: >> Guys, >> I'm still learning to move from JAWS to VO, and from Windows to Mac. >> What I'm looking for is the equivalent of Alt F for file menu, Alt E >> for edit menu and so on. I don't want to always type VO M and then >> right arrow tot he menu I want. I should be able to type something >> like Command F for file, Command E for edit and so on. What's the >> answer? >> Thanks, >> Kevin -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en.
