Until recently, if I used the VoiceOver Find command VO+F to search for text that was not present, I would get an audible "thunk" sound indicating the search had failed. But in current Mac OS, all I get is an announcement of the alphanumeric last letter of the search.
Here's an example.
1. If VoiceOver's not on, enable it with VO+F5.
2. Open Safari. Open any app, really it doesn't matter.
3. Press VO+F.
4. In the find dialog, enter text that doesn't exist, such as "clown robot", then press Enter.
I would expect to hear the "thunk" sound. Instead, VoiceOver says "tango", the alphanumeric code for the final letter T.
Investigating further:
5. Press VO+G to repeat the search.
Again I would expect the "thunk" sound, but this time there is no audible feedback whatsoever.
I've reported this to accessibility@apple.com but haven't heard back yet. I'm on a 2019 Mac Mini running OS v12.2.1.
Is anyone else seeing this behavior?
Comments
Again, this broke a while ago
Monterey 12.1: I don't even get the last alpha-numeric character, just a whole lot of nothing.
Can anyone tell me why people don't use command-f instead?
Hi there.
I've never used the vo-f search function, preferring instead to use command-f, which is still working fine for me, although I never upgraded from Big Sur.
Have you tried command-f, Paul?
Command+F doesn't move VoiceOver focus?
I didn't see this in the AppleVis bug tracker. Good to know I'm not the only person seeing this. Again, I upgraded from v12.0, so many of the breakages I've been reporting lately are new to me.
As for Command+F, obviously it requires underlying app support. whereas VO+F works globally.
There's also a difference with VoiceOver focus. Press VO+F, type the search word, and press Enter. This leaves VO focus on the first search result. Now do the same with Command+F. It seems to leave VoiceOver focus in the search box (at least, that's what I see with Safari), and there's no obvious way to move VoiceOver focus to the search result.
command-f
Command-f has worked for me in every app I've tried, particularly pages and text edit, although I admit I do use vo-i (item chooser) for other apps.
The way I use command-f is:
1. press command-f.
2. Type the search term.
3. Press command-g to search forward, shift-command-g to search backwards, or tab or vo-left arrow to the search forward or back buttons, at which press vo-space to make your selection. Do not press return at any point.
4. Press up arrow, then press down arrow, and then start looking at your location. You will be in the line or next to the line where the search term occurred.
5. M22onkey with it. Sometimes there is a done button. It's good to vo-space on the done button, after which you can continue using command or shift command g to search for the term you entered. Just up and down arrow after each time you use the forward or back commands, and you'll be fine.
Game changer!
Thanks so much for the command F shortcut. It behaves how VO F used to, as in reading the search string in context. For me, VO F just reads out the search string which is no use if there are several examples of it on a page.
Not working for me
I just tried Command+F with the Mail client, searching for text inside an open email message. I could not get VoiceOver to tell me whether the text was found or not, and could not get VoiceOver focus to move to text that I knew was present. Thanks anyway, but I'll stick with VO+F. Much simpler.
On second thoughts
It's frustrating because command F does everything I want... Except moving focus to the item. I'm guessing it is possible to muck about with voiceover cursor and binding it to keyboard cursor but that will probably mess something else up.
If only they coudl fix VO F... They won't though, it's been broken for years.
Oliver?
You arrow up and down a couple times after pressing command or shift-command-g or after pressing the search forward or back button, right? That always brings focus to the found search term for me.
Let's take this web page, for example.
Bruce, it's pretty wild that this works so well for you but so poorly for me. If you've got the time, I'd like to explore further what it is I'm doing wrong.
Once you open this web page, let's try to bring VoiceOver focus to the heading that reads "More like this". Obviously, a quicker way is to use VO+U, but this is just for the sake of example. Here's what I'm doing that doesn't work:
1. Press Command+F, then enter the text "more like this".
2. Press Command+G to search forward as I'm after the heading text, not the text I'm creating in this post. LOL.
3A. According to your instructions, I should now press VO+Space, and VoiceOver focus should be on the desired text of the web page.
3B. According to your other instructions, I should press up or down arrow.
Whether I do 3A or 3B or both, VoiceOver focus is still in the Find dialog. If I select the Done button or press escape, VoiceOver focus is back in the web page, but unchanged from where it was before I launched the search. It is not on the desired heading text.
Did I misread your instructions? Any suggestions to get this to work?
Oops
Sorry about that. I just ran a command-f search in a file I have in Pages. Here's what I did, and I apologize for my error.
1. Command-f
2. type search term
3. command-g
4. press escape.
5. arrow up and down once. (You might not need to do this, but I always do.)
6. Without pressing escape again, continue with Command-g and/or shift-command-g to your heart's content. smile. I do the up and down arrow after each, but I don't think you need to.
Note: Do not press escape again unless you command-f to enter a new search term.
Note: When you have the command-f window open, tab and you will see additional options, like replacing the search terms with a different term, either one at a time or replacing all found search terms automatically.
Joy!
Bruce
Better
Okay. I had missed closing the find dialog with escape then using Command+G. So, in Safari at least, the easiest steps I've found are as follows:
1. Press Command+F and type search term.
2. Press escape.
3. Navigate through search results with Command+G or Shift+Command+G.
Thanks for being patient with me.
got it working...
What a crap work around... Thanks so much for sharing, but this soudl be the behaviour of our voiceover specific search. having four keystrokes to do this is a bit mad, a lot of room for error. Still, until accessibility at apple address this on our painfully expensive computers, I guess it is the best we have.
Thanks again. :)