I recently "upgraded" to 15.4.
While composing email messages, VoiceOver VO+Right Arrow navigation is now skipping over entire paragraphs. Is anyone else seeing this?
I don't know how reproduceible this is, but I've got a mail message open right now that consistently reproduces the behavior. I selected all, copied, and pasted into TextEdit, but couldn't reproduce the problem there. Seems to be just the Mail app.
Here's what I'm seeing: My composing default is HTML. I'm replying to a friend's email, the contents of which are indented at the bottom. I've composed four individual paragraphs at the top, separated by blank lines. My signature immediately follows the fourth paragraph.
I go to top with Command + Up Arrow. Then I read each of the paragraphs I've written using VO+Right Arrow. VoiceOver reads the first paragraph, then the second, then the third. But the next VO+Right Arrow skips the fourth paragraph and takes me directly to my signature.
The fourth paragraph really is there. Unmodified up and down arrow lets me read the text.
While playing with alternatives, I found that Option+Down Arrow works fine. However, when reading in backwards order, Option+Up Arrow seems to want to read the entire email message from the beginning every time I land on a blank line.
And I'm unable to get the VoiceOver read next/previous paragraph commands to function at all in a Mail message window. VoiceOver just gives me the thunk sound.
How are other people reviewing their email messages? Do you have some technique that doesn't use Option+Up and Down or VO+Right and Left?
In place of a rant or a commitment to move to Windows, I'll simply sit here slackjawed and let you all imagine my thoughts.
Comments
I just use the normal arrows.
I make enough mistakes typing that it just makes sense to read line by line and move to words and such. In that sentence I missed the space between "to words". I didn't even know VO had commands for reading by paragraphs. I've never felt the need to use screen reader commands like reading sentences or such. I either justread all for larger texts, use VO-left/right, or regular arrows, as seems appropriate.
Is thids new?
I opened a new mail and typed in a couple of paragraphs, and found that vo+left and right did navigate between the paragraphs.
I can't say I have any idea what it did before 15.4.
What are you expecting?
I guess I would have thought that vo+left and right would just immediately take me out of the text area.
Seems like new behavior to me
I've been composing and reviewing emails on MacOS with VoiceOver the same way for the past ten years, and this is the first time I've ever seen VoiceOver skip an entire paragraph. When it first happened, I literally wondered if I'd actually written the missing text, or just imagined I had.
After I posted this, I continued to play with the email message. I found that adding a carriage return after the fourth paragraph's final period, just before the signature, made the problem go away. And when I deleted that carriage return, the problem stayed away.
But the fact that this problem occurred at all is a sign of the further decay of accessible text editing on the Mac.
maybe not just the Mac
Sorry I rh
maybe not just the Mac
I think I also managed to skip a paragraph or two. (And then in my haste to reply I think I esssentially managed to submit a reply that sounded like a cat walking across my keyboard).
In which case, no I’ve not noticed this. In Outlook I have sometimes noticed it skip over a sentence when I m reviewing so it sounds like a paragraph is starting half way through. I’ve also noticed this on the iPhone as well, which I don’t think gets as much attention for poor text editing probably because we don’t use it as much for that. I actually experienced that exact thing here reviewing the the rubbish I’ve just written.
Some questions
Our paragraphs still being defined, by pressing of the return/enter key?
Also, have you all tried using trackpad commander, and setting the rotor to “navigation“, and using swipe up, and swipe down, to read your emails?
@mr grieves
VO+right/left arrows would take you out of the text editing area unless you interact with it. If you interact with the text edit, then you're supposed to be able to review it with VO text navigation commands, but even that is broken, I guess. Navigation by Arrows are available system-wide; so your navigation method isn't specific to VoiceOver.
Very repeatable
This issue isn't limited to replies. I can reproduce it easily in a new message.
The skipped paragraph is always the last paragraph, and it must be adjacent to the signature, without a blank line separator. If I do that, which I do quite regularly, then VO left right arrow navigation does not read that paragraph.
I know, I know. The availability of two workarounds - add a trailing carriage return, or use Option plus down arrow - makes this a very minor issue. (Well, one workaround, at least, because I shouldn't need to alter the formatting of my mail message for VO's sake.) But I'm already using VO left right arrow navigation as a workaround for the non-functional move by paragraph commands. Now I need to find workarounds for my broken workarounds. As I've said before, the accumulation of issues is quickly rendering MacOS a non-viable computing platform.
Yes
Proper native editing (as exemplified in TextEdit) has been broken for yonks now in Mail, so that, yes indeed, it's best to simply avoid all VO navigation commands in that widget, and rely exclusively on system keyboard shortcuts to move by line/character/word/to top/to bottom etc. Nothing else is reliable enough to be useful, sadly.
And, yes, this sort of thing is appalling, but it's where we stand right now. I guess if you could find a global move-by-paragraph command you might be able to find a solution with a good chance of remaining operational for the long-term. Meantime I'm afraid it's another email to Apple Accessibility.
It's funny.
I get that yes, this is a bug, and it should work. But I'm pretty much doing exactly what I did in Windows to edit text, in email or otherwise, and it works just as well. So for me, nothing's changed, well aside from the differences in editing due to the way the Mac's cursor works.