Hi all,
I'm asking specifically about Stage Manager on the Mac, but I'm also curious about this same kind of thing on Windows PCs. Is there any point to using Stage Manager or Mission Control or things like that as a blind user? I grew up on Windows 98 and XP, and if there's one element of tech advancement I wonder if I've fallen behind on its multi-tasking. Is there any benefit, as a totally blind user, to have multiple windows up on a computer simultaneously? Or is there any point to having multiple desktops? I just command + tab or altogether + tab, or use the Dock or Task Bar depending on the OS. On Windows if I've got a consistent set of apps pinned to the Task Bar I even use windows + the number row keys to speed things up, which is a feature I wish macOS had by the way. But is there any advantage to using these more modern multi-tasking features as a totally blind person? I can see multiple windows on a touch screen being very useful because you can jump between them by just touching them, but other than that I'm not sure how to use any of it effectively.
By Nicholas Stanford, 31 October, 2024
Forum
macOS and Mac Apps
Comments
Visual
From what I can tell, Stage Manager is purely visual. If Apple would add an option in macOS to restrict Command-Tab to only the applications in the current space, this would be useful for a blind user. Send feedback about that.
ou realize.
That switching between things with alt or cmd tab means you've got multiple windows on the screen, right? So you already see the point of having multiple windows open, unless you just forget you have them open and you only use alt-tab to switch to them to close them.
On Windows I used multiple desktops to keep apps like Skype and Messenger open. It's simpler to switch desktops than to alt-tab through two or three windows just to get to whatever else is open. So it keeps things separated. Same thing with the other desktop, if I switch to the communication desktop, I've only got to alt-tab three times maximum to get to the window I want.
I'm pretty sure Stage Manager is visual yes, but Mission Control and spaces and such do have a point. Which isn't, of course, to say that you have to use them. If you're happy alt-tabbing through things, go for it. I will say that cmd-tab is a lot faster on my Mac than alt-tab is on Windows.
You can set up the equivalent of windows plus number row on Mac
If you want to set this up, you can assign option keys to open apps and or run scripts of your choosing. There is an applevis podcast discussing this in further detail on how to set it up for macOS 15.