Using Safari with a Braille Display

By Tikva, 22 December, 2023

Forum
Braille on Apple Products

Hi. I have an iPhone 14 mini running iOS 17.2.1 with an NLS eReader from Zoomax for a braille display. I'm a lifelong Jaws user, and in Jaws you can navigate to headings or links or form fields by pressing a letter. I haven't been able to get the iPhone to do that, even though I've heard that that feature is available. Does anyone know how I can get my braille display to do this in web browsers? Thanks.

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By Scott Davert on Sunday, December 17, 2023 - 21:57

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team

The answer is yes and no. Yes, it can be done, but not easily without some set up. I've never found single letter QuickNav to be reliable with braille, but it is also possible to set up specific braille display commands to jump among HTML elements such as headings or form controls. Here are some instructions which I hope help.
To assign a new command for your Braille display, go to Settings>Accessibility>VoiceOver>Braille>the name of your Device>More Info>Braille Commands”. Within
this screen, you will find seven categories for configuring new or existing commands. You will also find the option to “Reset All Commands” at the bottom
of this screen. There are too many options to list, but I will describe how to add or change a command by example below.

let's say you wanted to set up a command to jump to the next heading. To do this:
1. After navigating to Settings>Accessibility>VoiceOver>Braille>More Info>Braille Commands, activate the "navigation" button.
2. Scroll down to the “next heading" button.
3. Navigate to "Assign New Braille Keys", and activate it.
4. Press a key, or combination of keys, that you wish to be assigned this command. Be sure to either pick something you do not ever use, or a brand new command altogether. I use dot 8 with h myself, but that's a personal preference.
5. If the command you have chosen doesn't already have something assigned to it, you will be done with this process. If the Braille keyboard assignment does have a command already associated with that keyboard combination, you will get an alert telling you what the already assigned action is, and asking you if you wish to change it.
6. Choose "OK" or "Cancel", and the appropriate option will be chosen.

By Tikva on Sunday, December 24, 2023 - 21:57

Thank you so much. I'll try this.

By Tikva on Sunday, December 24, 2023 - 21:57

It worked. Thanks for explaining it so clearly.

By Ekaj on Sunday, December 24, 2023 - 21:57

This is good to know. My brother helped me out yesterday connecting my HumanWare eReader to USB on my Mac. I don't have a power strip here, so we'll see what happens but I did get some stuff on the eReader which I didn't before. I'll definitely circle back to this and the other Braille display posts on here. Or at least the relevant ones.