I'm going to trim quoting and write again below and I hope it helps. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Tony Baechler" <tony@xxxxxxxxxxxx> To: "Linux for blind general discussion" <blinux-list@xxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Monday, March 17, 2008 6:52 AM Subject: Re: My experiences with a Mac ... I don't own the Mac I'm working on, so I don't have the flexibility to randomly try too much except what's already installed or what's on the install DVD. dp: except you mentioned installing some things through ssh. Second, the FN key is already turned off so I don't need to hold it for function keys. I don't know if I did that or if VoiceOver does that automatically but somehow it got set that way. dp: That is a function of vo in leopard. Finally, I'm running version 10.5.2 of Mac OS X, a 2.2 GHZ core 2 processor and 2 GB of RAM. dp: this is helpful. did you look in the user guides and documentation folder off the root and read the user manual for the system using preview? It's a .pdf and preview does a nice job with it and many other pdfs and it's built in to the os. ... Please elaborate. I'm running 10.5.2. What has changed? I saw mentions of help but since that seems to be in html and browsing html pages looks difficult, I hadn't bothered thus far. So far the manual seems to be mostly correct and I saw no what's new document. dp: it did not ship with leopard and you will have to brazen it out and take the short climb o reading html. you may find a couple of keystrokes useful: control-option-f8 will open the voice over utility. control-option-f7 will open the voice over menu. control-option-h pressed twice quickly gives a list of commands. ... Ah, Spotlight. I forgot to talk about this earlier. Yes, it's probably the easier method of running programs if you know what you're looking for. It seems to be like the new Start Menu in Windows Vista. You just type the name of what you want, such as "term" for Terminal, and it searches on the fly. In my case, it showed 22 items. The first was a dictionary definition for the word "term." The second item was Terminal. That is so far the only way I've found to quickly get to Terminal. The drawback is that there is no way of seeing a list of all installed programs. I didn't try just a wildcard character but I don't think that would work because that would match everything. If there is an easier way to browse applications from Spotlight, I'm unfamiliar with it. For a new user, it helps greatly as long as you have an idea what you're looking for. I would have never found Chess with it for example because I didn't know it was there until I browsed the Applications table in the Finder. dp: this would be true of any environment but a bit of detective work shows that ap file names end in .app. ... No, I haven't. I have not however found any other way to see all installed programs in a menu structure. If I press the Windows key right now, I can arrow down to Programs or press the letter P. From there, I can arrow through all the programs I've installed. I saw no easy equivalent to this for the Mac except to use the desktop to open "Macintosh HD" and arrow down to Applications, expand, and arrow through about 90 different directories. I certainly hope I'm wrong on this but the manual didn't give any other methods apart from Spotlight which I discussed above. dp: I partially addressed this in my previous message, but from your well written description above, you appear to be using column view. there are three views, icon, column and list. icon view provides you with a table of the apps, you can tab and arrow through them and use type ahead to find them so if you want calculator, type cal; chess, type ch and so on. ... Nope, not in this case. I tried that several times and it still never came up. I had no idea it was there until I asked my sighted help to look at the "About this Mac" screen and he said he couldn't see it because the network dialogue was in the way. I tried to close it myself but I never found it and it never read it. If I could browse the full screen with the VO cursor, I could've closed it that way but there is apparently no way to do that. dp: there are ways to browse the full screen and some of this is addressed further on in the manual. One way to get round a problem like this is to turn vo off and then back on again with command-f5. You may also find that moving the mouse around can sometimes provide you with means to ends. you can get a list of open windows with control-option-f2 pressed twice quickly. ... Ah, I didn't know that. Do the menus close automatically if you arrow past the right-most menu? dp: no. ... You keep referring to the "Apple" key. I think you mean Command. The "Apple" key disappeared a long time ago according to what I've read. dp: last I checked it still had an apple logo on it. ... Again, this is not documented in the manual. dp: control f8 is not in the voice over manual because it is not a voice over command but the manual does say that there is other documentation to read for your mac. ... Yes, I stand corrected. On the DVD, there is gcc 3.3 and 4.0. There is also X11 and some other tools. The problem with the above "sudo" command is that it still asks for a password and nothing I try works. I'm sure that sudo is the preferred way to do things but not without a password. dp: to fix this, go to to /applications/utilities/directory.app and click the "click the lock to make changes" button, type the admin password and press enter. the input will not echo. Once that is done, you need to enable root under the edit menu. press enter and then you will need to type a password for root in two edit boxes. Works like a charm and is not documented in the voiceover manual why? ... How do you determine this? There is only one default user and apparently it doesn't have this. The default user has no password. Does this need to be turned on or changed in System Preferences? dp: the default user has a password. it is just set to login automatically at start up. you created the password during system setup. ... Thanks, but again I only have about a week so probably no point. So far, I'm not impressed enough to buy one. dp: there's always a but. You are not giving your self a fair shake. You'll miss out on a real opportunity if you pass on the Mac. One thing I didn't discuss was the calculator. Yes, it has one. However, you can't press numbers on the keyboard and get meaningful results. You have to use the VO cursor to press buttons for each digit you want. That means, for example, you have to use the left arrow to get to the digit 2, press Control, Option, Space, right arrow to 5, repeat the Control, Option, Space, right arrow a bunch of times to plus or times, press the button as described above, left arrow back to the number 2, press it, right arrow to 5, press that, and go all the way over to Equals. All of this must be done while holding down Control and Option. Then what happens? Absolutely nothing. That's right, the result is never spoken even though it appears on the screen. Arrowing around will never read the answer. I only found out that it showed an answer because I had sighted help. That's the first time ever that I had an inaccessible calculator. Please, someone tell me I'm wrong and it isn't as hard as all of this. Someone tell me there is an easier way that I missed. If I press numbers, I get no feedback at all in the calculator, which is why I resorted to the VO cursor. dp: the calculator was one of the first truly accessible apps on the Mac because it does not rely on vo but its own speech or rather the system speech. to use it, you will need to activate the speaking of keys as they are entered. As always, don't hesitate to ask about any specific things you want me to look at or try within the next week or so. Thanks for your feedback. dp: I want you to play a cd, a dvd, browse the ITunes web store after being guided through the final step of activation. I want youto play with the say command in the terminal. man say will get you going. BTW, on terminal, I'm not having any issues on my early macbook or my new macbook pro with it. Of course, that does not mean it does not have issues but It's reading fine for me. I want you to open and explore every app. I want you to finish the manual and I want you t write a lengthy positive experience document when you are done or at least a fair knowledgeable critique. Enjoy! -- Jonnie Appleseed With His Hands-On Technolog(eye)s Reducing Technologies disabilities one byte at a time _______________________________________________ Blinux-list mailing list Blinux-list@xxxxxxxxxx https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list