Hello everyone, today is January 9th, 2024.

On behalf of everyone here at BITS, let me say Happy New Year and welcome to the first MacBytes presentation for 2024.

My name is Brad Snyder and I'm here with my co-host or sidekicks or whatever, well, like they call themselves, I got both Sri Roy and Pete Lane here with me tonight.

Hello guys, how are you guys doing?

Great.

How's everybody tonight?

Survived New Year's and the holidays and you've made it out the other side.

Very good.

We have our Zoom host joining us tonight, Marci Doody.

Hello, Marci.

Hello, how is everybody doing tonight?

Thank you for being at the controls.

You know, there's a little bit of Mac news.

We had the big Scary Fest event.

We talked about that back before the holidays, all the new Macs.

I did see in the news, they're talking about the new iMac, MacBook Pros, M3, the M3 Pro and the M3 Max, but nothing for the studio.

I have read that they are expecting a, what is it?

M3 Ultra or the Mac Studio, which means there will probably be an update to the Mac Studio with the M3 Max as well.

Then all the other big news has been Vision Pro.

And they're going to drop the Pro, I hear.

Oh, what do you mean?

The MacBook Pro computer?

No, the Vision Pro.

They're going to change the name to just the Apple Vision.

Vision Pro, yes, yes.

Well, when I'm talking about that, Mac Ultra, actually the article I read said no mention of anything for the Mac Pro.

Of course, they're always wondering about the future of that one, but yes, Vision Pro.

I read an article today that says they will officially start doing, you can go to an Apple store on February 2nd and start being, apparently you have to go be fitted for them.

They have some kind of thing.

I don't know.

It's not a Mac thing, but everybody's interested in it.

I don't know about you guys.

I'm kind of, it's awfully expensive that I'm going to take a wait and see before we decide if there's anything in this that'll help.

Yeah, definitely.

Blind, vision impaired, $3,400.

It's pretty steep, especially considering I've got some Envision glasses sitting here that I just don't use that often.

So I just can't see, but we'll see how it goes.

But we're here to talk about the Mac and we have someone here amongst us who got a brand new shiny Mac for Christmas.

So let's see how they're doing.

Marcy, put you on the spot.

Tell us about your new Mac and most importantly, how are you doing?

Because this is your first Mac.

How are you doing with it?

Getting set up?

Tell us about it.

I am liking it very much.

I thank you very much for telling me that I just didn't need to touch it for 30 seconds and voiceover would come on automatically.

That exactly happened.

It was so cool.

I could actually sign on to my web, choose everything that I needed to choose and it came on for me.

I love it.

Absolutely love it.

I have everybody, which Mac you got.

So I got the M3 MacBook Pro with 16 gigabytes RAM, 512 gigabyte SSD.

Very nice.

What did it cost you?

$3,000.

$3,000.

$3,000.

$3,000.

A good deal.

Brad gave me a really good deal.

No, I didn't give her a good deal.

I sent her a notice from Apple Insider.

She got it from B&H in New York.

Okay, good.

Yeah.

I think, what was it?

Like $1499 or something?

$1500.

Exactly.

$1500.

Yeah.

They had a special where they bumped it up the RAM from 8 to 16 and something like that.

I think they bumped up the storage from 256.

I think it starts at 256 to 512.

Anyway, I saw that and said, "Oh, I know somebody who's asking Santa for a new Mac."

Well, very good.

So you're getting used to voiceover and navigating and...

I've emailed some people on this call who teach class and I'm ready to take the class in the spring and I'm super excited.

Exciting.

Well, exciting.

So is this new that you don't have to do anything to turn voiceover on?

Is that a new thing?

This is what Brad told me and so I just totally didn't touch it.

I picked up the lid and then just let it sit there.

Yeah, it's been that way as long as I've been using a Mac.

If you turn it on and don't touch anything, don't touch the keyboard.

And after about, I don't know, 30 seconds or so...

Mm-hmm.

Voiceover just started talking.

We'll just start talking.

And then it gives you a dialogue, comes up and you can either start the voiceover tutorial or dismiss voiceover.

Say, "I know how to use..." or "I'm not using voice..." or something like that.

Or turn it off.

I started the voiceover tutorial and went through each section of the tutorial.

Yeah.

And then it'll do that before you do the other initial setup.

You know, what country are you in?

What's this?

You know, all those setup things.

What language do you use?

Please enter your Wi-Fi.

So it's really pretty cool.

And I'm glad that it did that because going over the tutorial let you know how to switch between those different things and how to tell it that this is what you wanted to select.

That's right.

So if you touch it while it was before the 30 seconds, does it kill that setup then?

Or...

It just doesn't talk.

I see.

It's just like...

Command F5, I guess.

Yeah.

Then you have to do Command F5 to turn it on or command and hold the command down and press the touch ID sensor three times real quick.

Kind of like...

Triple click on the phone.

Kind of like the accessibility shortcut on a phone.

Yeah.

I think the iPhone now does the same thing.

If you turn it on and don't touch it, it'll start talking.

Did not know this.

Thank you.

Yeah.

He showed me that and I was like, "Okay, I'm going to do this.

I'm going to lift up the lid and I'm not going to touch it."

So I totally didn't touch it and voiceover totally came on.

Wow.

So Marcy, if someone is listening to us right now and they're thinking about getting a Mac laptop, would you say the whole setup process is pretty straightforward and easy?

It is.

It is very easy.

But you just have to go through the tutorial so that you can see that VO space will move you to the next options and you'll use, I mean, the VO left arrow and VO right arrow to go next and previous and then VO space to activate the option that you want to select.

Taught you about interacting and stop interacting and some of those concepts that don't exist on other platforms with other screen readers.

Exactly.

So definitely go over the tutorial.

It's something that I can definitely recommend to people listening.

And how long did this whole process take you to get the laptop set up for you?

Oh, not very long at all.

I mean, once I knew exactly what I was doing, I wouldn't think.

Maybe 10 minutes?

I remember the voiceover tutorial seemed painfully slow when I did it.

The speech is very slow.

Yeah.

Yeah, but they've got a program for a beginning user, which is totally normal.

Right.

And you can actually, if, well, you don't know this if you've never used it.

Right.

You can use the speech attribute rotor to speed it up and things of that nature.

But, you know, if you're a new user, you don't know that.

Right.

They have it set pretty, I don't know what it is, 55, 50.

It's pretty slow.

So you can understand what it's saying.

Yeah.

Which voice does it start out with?

Is it?

Samantha.

Samantha.

Did you figure, you know, it used to be that Alex was the default, but you now have to download Alex.

I don't know if you've figured that out yet.

I'm not there yet.

Well, and did you set up the fingerprint for it?

I did.

Was that pretty easy set up for our audience?

Very easy.

It tells you exactly lift, raise your finger, you know, lift your finger.

Talks you right through it.

I just a tip I have found go through and using the very same finger set up fingerprint number two.

So you have the very same finger on fingerprint one and fingerprint two, and it eliminates.

I found at least that it eliminates getting it saved.

It doesn't recognize your finger for some, you know, I do the same finger two different times.

I did that on the iPhone back when I had, you know, touch ID, iPhone, I learned to do the same finger, finger one and finger two.

And Marcy, for you, would you buy anything external to that laptop or do you think everything that you need to do is in that laptop for you?

So I went back to listen to some of the classes that were available on YouTube, and I figured out how to make the trackpad do what the iPhone does.

So I can use a lot of the commands that I used on the phone.

So I'm really happy with it.

I like it a lot.

I can't wait to learn more about it and to do more things with it.

You, did you connect your, what is it, it's Mantis you have, right?

Yeah, I haven't connected the Mantis to it.

Okay.

You'll get to it.

And did you buy an external keyboard?

I did not.

You're just still using the one that's on.

It's a good keyboard.

Either that one on the laptop or the one on the Mantis.

The one on the Mantis, the one I connected.

Okay.

Yeah.

I would suggest, you know, also setting up a time machine.

Okay.

Yeah, we'll talk about that.

You probably don't know what that is.

I don't know what that is.

There's some software inside it.

If you connect an external drive to it, it will do a, if you leave it connected, it will constantly do incremental backups and it will back up your local hard drive to the external drive that you've designated as a time machine.

There's also a way to set this up with a drive, a network drive that can be wireless or connected to your your Wi-Fi.

You know how a lot of Wi-Fi routers have a USB or an Ethernet port on them?

You know, you can connect drives to Ethernet or USB and they can be designated as a network accessible drive and you can...

We have Herbie with their hand up.

One point of caution, Marcy, you got to be careful because if you hit the wrong button on time machine, you'll end up in 1987.

Oh no!

Even without the DeLorean.

That's right.

Let's see what Herbie's got.

Hey, Herbie!

Herbie, you're still muted.

Okay.

I really should be doing this for my Mac, not the phone.

So I also got a brand new Mac Mini M2.

Oh!

Yay!

Cool!

Tell us about it.

So it's a cute little box.

Yes.

It has some nice little ports on the front, including an air vent that looks like a USB port, but it's just an air vent.

It's super quiet.

I was a little bit surprised to find that, and I didn't realize it, like it actually had Ventura on it, so not Sonoma.

By default, so that's rather interesting.

So I have to remember that if I ever have to reformat for any reason.

It's been sitting on a shelf someplace in inventory somewhere.

Yep.

What's interesting though is it was custom made because it's like 16 gigs RAM, a terabyte hard drive.

So yeah, I'm kind of a little bit surprised too, but yeah, they must have had it just sitting on the shelf ready to go.

You would think that would have updated.

In Shenzhen, China.

And then they send it to you.

Exactly.

Your voiceover didn't come on automatically, right?

My voiceover did not come on automatically.

I had to, I think it did do like the pre-talking thing, and then I just had to do a command F5, which I luckily at least knew to do.

Right.

It didn't though.

Did you connect a keyboard and everything to it before you turned it on?

I just connected a keyboard.

And when I turned on voiceover, the first thing it asked me to do, did I intend to use a mouse and/or a trackpad and whatnot?

And I said, nope.

And then I had a very smooth setup process, got connected to Wi-Fi, got signed into iCloud, all that jazz and like moments.

But the first time you turned it on, did you let it sit a while to see it and it didn't come on automatically?

That's interesting.

No.

Interesting.

And you didn't need a mouse or a trackpad.

Nope, I did not need a mouse or a trackpad or a monitor.

Right.

I knew you could get away with that, a monitor.

I've told, I think I told you before, I've had, last time I set up my wife's M1 iMac, I couldn't get it to do anything.

And then I finally figured out, I don't know what dawned on me, let's plug in a mouse and see what'll happen.

And it all of a sudden started talking and I was able to proceed with the setup and all that stuff.

So I had to get rid of that.

Yep.

So now like this one uses the Samantha voice now on the logon screen.

But I got set up, like a lot of things set up like almost right away.

Like I got loopback and audio hijack set up so I could, and I had helped enough people do what I was doing in the security window to go enable the, switch the secure mode and all that.

That's tricky.

Yeah.

So thanks to me doing tech support with other people, I knew what I was doing.

It was a little, it's always seems to be a bit inconsistent to find that window, but I did it.

Exciting.

Now, because- You said you get to M2?

Yep.

Okay.

How are you liking it?

Is it fast?

Oh yeah, it is fast.

Bluetooth is a lot better on it too than my old laptop.

Which was, you had a i9 Intel, right?

With that top of the line i9.

And really in the M2, you notice it's significantly faster than even the i9 processor.

I do actually, because I was starting to have issues with apps hanging up and stuff like that, like I suspect if I used an older OS on the i9, that might bring it back to a faster thing, but I was having problems just in general, like just the number, it's a processor level.

I'm getting the commentary from the audience here, but I like, it does respond better overall.

And so I've noticed that, overall response, and just even doing actions like, for instance, hosting on Zoom is now a breeze on that thing, like it just responds better overall.

So I'm very impressed.

I'm glad that I got it.

I'm also more inclined now to use voiceover with Bluetooth and like some of the AirPods Max, not all the time, because it's still better with a wired keyboard than with Bluetooth, but it's a lot better than what it was with the older Mac.

And so I also like, that's where I've also noticed some significance with like the speed and stuff.

I will say that as a lavish user of Dropbox and iCloud Drive, I don't use Time Machine myself.

I just, because I have all my data backed up and then with the apps and stuff, I needed to get new, in some cases I need to get M1 versions of the apps anyway that I previously had.

So Time Machine would not have helped in my case anyway.

But- So Herbie, you've had laptops, right?

This is your first desk.

Yes.

So how has your environment changed now that you went from a laptop world to a desktop world?

Do you find it any different because now you can't easily move things around?

So I'll tell you how my environment's changed.

So you should see my command center.

I'm running three Macs now.

One is a Windows machine.

So I've got my old laptop sitting where they were sitting before.

And then I've got my little desktop just sitting off to the side.

But I can still access everything.

So that is already a big change.

It's weird having some USB-A ports back as well too because my previous laptop did not have those.

So I have some built-in USB-A ports.

So at the moment I've not needed an extent, like one of those hub things.

And I don't know if it's because it's a desktop and that's why Bluetooth is better or it's also like I said, it's- Newer.

It's super quiet now.

So the Mac does not make any noise.

It's also a lot easier to pack because I was in Washington State when I got the Mac.

So it's a lot easier to pack up my- I was having fun.

I was like, "All right, I'm now carrying my first desktop."

So yeah, I was literally carrying a desktop back with me in my backpack from Washington to Houston.

I still have to take it out to be scanned.

But- It's pretty small.

The one thing I have missed the internal keyboard at times when I've had some keyboard issues.

I will say that.

What kind of keyboard are you using with it?

The Apple Magic Keyboard.

Okay, the full size?

Yep.

That's a Bluetooth, right?

Yeah.

Did you get one with the Touch ID sensor?

I have not gotten that yet.

So far I've not needed it actually.

Okay.

Because my watch can unlock the Mac.

And then of course, I mainly use it for like auto-fill and whatever.

I'm thinking I'm still going to get one though, just so I have a third keyboard and that one, knowing the Touch ID might come in handy.

But, so the other thing I will say I do miss is because like one time my desktop got unplugged.

And so I do miss having, you know, the battery as a backup, you know, when, if that ever happens.

But that's only happened to me one time.

So that's a couple things to get used to with the desktop environment.

But otherwise, it's worked out really well for me.

Well, awesome.

How exciting.

New Macs for Christmas.

Both of you.

Yes.

Very good.

Well, thank you for sharing that with us, Herbie.

Yep.

I hate to put a stop to the talk about new Macs, but we have a little demo that I'd like to go ahead and proceed with.

We're going to take a look at how we can use keyboard commanders.

I believe we've talked about keyboard commanders in here at some point.

It's always good to talk about stuff again.

Tonight we're going -- we talked about once about keyboard commanders, how they can just be used for, you know, set up a command, open a program, open, you know, open mail with a keyboard.

I know there's several in there by default.

It's set up for mail.

There's one for Safari.

There's some other things in there.

But what I want to show in this demo here is there are a number of voiceover keyboard, voiceover actions that do not have a way to do them straightforward with a keyboard command.

Some of them can be done through the speech attributes rotor.

And then another one, such as muting or unmuting your voiceover speech, requires you to enable the trackpad commander and do the three-finger double-tap gesture.

Well, wouldn't it be nice if there were keyboard commands for these things, such as toggling, unmuting and muting a voiceover speech, or increasing and decreasing voiceover volume relative to the system volume, or even increasing or decreasing voiceover speech rate.

So let's take a look at that.

I mean, there's all kinds of things.

I just picked those three because those are a couple that I have discovered and I've been using.

And they're just -- they don't have native keyboard commands for them.

So let's take a look at this.

I'm going to start screen share.

I have learned I could share my sound, but I'm often surprised that I'll have a low-vision person and they want to see the screen.

So I'm going to go -- what is it?

Why does it say host as disabled participant screen share?

>> You're the host.

>> No, I'm not.

>> You're not a co-host anymore.

>> Oh, Marcy, can you make me a co-host?

>> Sorry, I can't.

>> That's okay.

That's why.

>> That's true.

>> I always screen share in here.

>> I made Pete and I just didn't make you, huh?

>> That's right.

>> That's okay.

>> Na, na, na, na, na.

>> Exactly.

>> While you're getting that figured out, one other thing I forgot to mention that has definitely changed now with me running the M2 Mac.

>> All right, you are co-hosting.

>> I'm sorry, I didn't hear you.

My screen reader was talking.

What did you say?

>> I said I was just going to mention one other thing that has changed now with me using an M2 Mac, being able to run iPad apps on the Mac.

>> Right.

That's right.

>> Wow.

>> We'll have to get you back on at another time and you can show us some of the things you've been doing with that.

So anyway, I got my screen share going.

I'm going -- >> Are you doing this on your phone, Brad, or on a Mac?

>> I'm going to share sound.

>> He's doing it on the Mac.

>> You are screen sharing.

You are screen share.

You have started screen share.

Zoom.us has new system dialog.

Finder desktop.

>> Okay.

I'm going to open -- everybody hear my voiceover?

>> Zoom.

Transcend volume.

>> Hopefully you hear that well enough.

I'm going to open my voiceover utility with VO and F8.

>> Opening voiceover utility.

Voiceover utility.

Window.

Utility categories.

Table.

Row 1 of 11.

General.

Selected.

>> Is that talking too fast?

I hope not.

I'm sure we all are used to listening to screen readers, so you're fine with that.

When I open voiceover utility, I'm on the categories table.

We all know how to get to different categories.

>> Commanders.

>> I'm just going to type a CO and it will go straight to commanders.

>> Trackpad.

Selected.

Tab.

NumPad.

Tab.

>> I'm looking for keyboard.

The fourth one is -- >> QuickNav.

Tab. 4 of 4.

Keyboard.

Tab. 3 of 4.

>> You want keyboard.

>> Selected.

Keyboard.

Tab. 3 of 4.

>> Okay.

>> QuickNav.

Tab. 4 of 4.

Enable keyboard commander.

Check.

Checkbox.

>> Mine is turned on.

There is a keyboard command to turn this on and off.

It is VO shift K.

And that will turn on your keyboard commander without having to open up VO utility.

You may be familiar with VOK.

It is keyboard help.

Add a shift to it and the VO shift K will toggle keyboard commander on and off.

And this thing we'll get here is -- >> Both option keys.

Use pop-up button.

>> Both option keys.

By default, it's set to the right option key.

You can have it be the right option key, the left option key, or both or either option key, I think it should be called.

I had somebody ask me one time, does that mean you have to hold them both down at the same time?

No.

It just means either.

So I do that.

That way I don't have to crisscross my hands.

If I just got one, I might have to reach across.

I don't like doing that.

So I enabled both.

Okay.

>> Keyboard commander.

Table.

No selection.

>> I've got a table of keyboard commanders.

There's a number of things in here.

Some of them I've added.

I have to interact with this table.

>> Keyboard commander.

Table.

Row 1 of 15.

Cap L.

>> I've got that set to run a shortcut.

There's a number of things you can set up.

I can set up a keyboard commander, like I said, to open an application, to run a command.

I can set it up to run an Apple script or a shortcut.

There's lots of things that you can do.

And for the sake of time, we're just going to focus on a couple of voiceover items.

So I've got -- let's see.

Script.

>> Run Apple script script.

Mute or unmute microphone.

>> I'm going to run a script.

>> Open application.

Cloud deck menu button.

>> Okay.

You see I got it.

I type an option key and a C.

It will open cloud deck.

>> Open application.

Open the text checker.

Menu button.

Open application.

Text edit.

Menu button.

>> Yeah, text edit.

So I've got that.

I think that letter -- E.

That's going to give us time.

>> Open application.

Run shortcut.

List menu button.

>> Anyway, you get the idea.

Let's go down here to -- >> Help button.

Help button.

Remove button.

Add button.

>> Add.

Okay.

>> Edit text.

Blank.

>> Now, it has added a line to this table.

And I'm going to set up one to mute and unmute my voiceover speech.

Now, there's already an S, a lowercase S in here.

And that's for Safari.

So what I'm going to do is I'm going to hold down the shift key and type an S, and I'm going to make this be an uppercase S.

>> Cap S.

>> Cap S.

Okay.

>> Menu button.

>> Now, it says menu button.

So I'm going -- I VO to the right arrow.

VO right to the -- there's two columns here.

One for the shortcut letter or key.

And then the button, I'm going to open a menu.

So I'm going to do VO space bar.

>> Menu, 15 items.

>> I've got a menu with 15 items here.

>> General, submenu.

>> General.

>> Information, submenu.

>> Some of these can be pretty long.

I think -- let's see.

>> General, general, submenu, 83 items, actions.

>> There's 83 items under the general category.

Okay.

>> Menu, information, submenu, information, submenu, 14 items, describe item in mouse pointer.

>> Okay.

That's where I'll find time in there, things of that.

And describe item, you can imagine.

>> Navigation, submenu.

>> Navigation.

>> Submenu, web, submenu, find, submenu, tables, submenu, size and position, submenu, audio, submenu, braille, submenu, visuals, submenu, speech, submenu.

>> Speech, that's what I'm looking for.

So I'm going to VO right arrow to open the submenu.

>> Speech, submenu, eight items, decrease pitch.

>> It's got eight items it says.

Okay.

We're going to go down and we're going to look for mute, unmute, voiceover speech.

>> Decrease rate, decrease volume, increase pitch, increase rate, increase volume, mute speech toggle.

>> Mute speech toggle.

>> Closing menu, closing menu, mute speech toggle, menu button.

>> So I have now made one for mute speech.

>> Tap S.

>> Tap S.

So what I'm going to do, just to get this out of the way, I'm going to VOH and hide my voiceover utility.

>> Finder, desktop.

>> And now if I hold down either of my option keys along with the shift key and I hit the letter S, it muted my voiceover speech.

It didn't say it when it muted it.

Now when I unmute it, it still didn't say it.

That's probably because I have screen share.

>> Zoom desktop, transcend volume.

>> Make sure it did do it when I -- let's do this.

Okay.

>> Zoom desk, transcend volume.

>> No, it didn't do it.

I wonder why.

It does it.

Let's see if I -- >> Voiceover utility, voiceover utility, window, mute speech toggle, menu button.

>> I'm going to close voiceover utility.

I always hate it when I do these demos.

>> Finder, desktop.

>> It should give you some feedback because mine does.

>> Okay.

Well, I wonder if it's doing something because I'm screen sharing.

>> Screen sharing maybe.

>> Speech muted.

>> There it goes.

>> There you go.

>> Speech unmuted.

>> There it goes.

>> Speech muted.

>> And I like it that it tells me I muted the speech.

>> Speech unmuted.

>> Okay.

All right.

So success.

Okay.

Let's go back and -- >> Opening voiceover utility, voiceover utility, voiceover utility, window, utility category, commanders.

>> Okay.

Commanders.

>> Trackpad, numpad, keyboard, quick nav, tab, four of keyboard, tab, three, selected, keyboard, quick nav, enable keyboard, both option keys, keyboard, commander, table, no selection.

>> Let's make another one.

Now, I find it useful particularly when I'm on a Zoom call.

Sometimes I want to adjust the volume of my voiceover speech because I may be on a call, the sound of my voiceover relative to the sound of the people on the -- the voices on the Zoom call, I might find that it's best just to reduce the volume of my voiceover relative to the system volume.

So if I have to do anything, it's not just really loud.

So at least that's one of the things I like to do.

So let's go down here.

If I do -- there's a couple of ways you can raise and lower voiceover speech.

I got a habit I picked up from when I had a Touch Bar Mac was to hold down the VO modifier and the two keys to the left of the delete key on my MacBook Pro.

I'm using a 2021 M1 MacBook Pro.

And that's the key, the one to the left of the -- immediately to the left of the delete key is the -- it's plus when you hold the shift key down, equal sign without the shift key.

And then the next one to the left is the hyphen or minus key, and it's underscore when you hold down the shift.

And so when I just hold VO and touch any one of those, the one on the -- immediately to the left of the delete key will increase my voiceover volume.

Let's listen.

It got louder.

It just makes it pop.

That's my system volume, excuse me, not my voiceover volume.

Okay?

So I'm going to use those same two keys, all right?

But I'm going to do it so I'll have to hold the shift key down.

So -- but I'll use the same two keys to increase and decrease my voiceover volume as I used to increase and decrease my system volume.

So -- >> Add button.

Keyboard command or tap add button.

>> Add.

>> Edit text.

Blank.

>> Okay.

First what I'm going to do is decrease my voiceover volume.

So I'm going to holding down the shift key.

No more -- I'm not holding down VO now.

Just shift key.

And I'm going to hit this key.

>> Underscore.

>> And it did the underscore.

Okay?

Now I'm going to -- >> Menu button.

>> VO to this menu button and VO space bar on it.

>> Menu, 15 items.

General, submenu, information, navigation, text, web, sub, find, submenu, tables, submenu, size and position, audio, submenu, braille, submenu, visuals, submenu, speech, submenu.

>> I'm going to go back to the speech menu.

Right arrow to open the submenu.

>> Decrease rate.

Decrease pitch.

Decrease rate.

Decrease volume.

>> That's what I want.

>> Decrease volume.

I'm going to VO space bar on this.

>> Closing menu.

Closing menu.

>> Actually, I could also have done just the enter key.

That would have selected it.

So now I've got -- >> Underscore.

Decrease volume.

Menu button.

>> Okay.

Decrease volume.

Now I'm going to get out of this table.

>> Out of keyboard commander.

Add button.

>> I'm going to go back to add.

>> Edit text.

Blank.

>> Now on this time, I'm going to hold down the shift key and I'm going to hit the key immediately to the left of the delete key and that should be a plus.

>> Plus.

>> We heard it do plus.

Now VO right arrow.

>> Menu button.

>> Okay.

I'm back on that menu button.

>> Menu. 15 items.

General.

Sub.

Information.

Navigate.

Text.

Web.

Find.

Tables.

Size and audio.

Braille.

Submenu.

Visuals.

Speech.

Submenu.

>> Submenu.

Increase volume.

Increase pitch.

Increase rate.

Increase volume.

>> There it is.

Increase volume.

>> Closing menu.

Closing menu.

Increase volume.

Menu button.

>> All right.

So now I'm going to close.

Let's do -- let me close this now and we'll go play with that.

>> Finder.

Desktop.

>> Make sure it did it.

Now I'm going to hold the right option key and I need to hold the shift key because the key I assigned for this is uppercase, requires me to hold down the shift.

So I'm going to -- tell me if you hear my voiceover.

>> 50%.

50%.

60%.

Volume.

>> And it tells me how much I've increased it.

I like that.

So -- >> 55%.

50%.

45%.

Volume.

>> Okay.

>> 50%.

Volume.

>> Do you hear it getting louder?

>> It is.

>> Very good.

>> 50%.

50%.

Volume.

45%.

Volume.

50%.

Volume.

>> All right.

Is that loud enough for you guys?

You hear that okay?

>> That is great.

>> All right.

Now let's look at another one.

Open my voiceover utility.

>> Opening voiceover utility.

Voiceover utility.

Window.

Command.

>> Do you have the T set already?

>> I do.

And I'll tell you about that in one second.

>> That's really cool.

>> Trackpad.

Numpad.

Tab.

Two of four.

Keyboard.

Tab.

Three of four.

Selected.

Keyboard.

Tab.

Three of four.

Quick map.

Enable keyboard.

Both option keys.

Use keyboard.

Command or table.

No selection.

Add button.

>> I'm going to add.

What I want to add now is a way to increase or decrease my voiceover speech rate.

Okay?

I don't have it real fast right now.

Sometimes I speed it up.

I slow it down.

It depends on what I'm doing.

If I'm reading an article, if I'm listening to voiceover, I'm doing things, I'm going -- stuff I do all the time.

I may have it a lot faster.

So because I hear that all the time and I know what it's doing.

But if I'm reading an article or reading an email, I might want to slow it down.

And it sure is nice, like on some other screen readers, to just have a keyboard command that'll speed it up or slow it down instead of having to go into that voiceover speech attributes rotor.

So I'm going to use what I had set before is number one and number two on the number row.

Kind of the other end of the number row from where I was increasing or decreasing my speech.

So let's see.

Did we already hit the -- >> Add button.

>> I'm going to hit the add button.

>> Edit text.

Blank.

>> Now this one, I do not have to use my uppercase.

I'm just going to simply hit a number one.

>> One.

>> Okay.

And I'm going to via right arrow.

>> Increase volume menu button.

>> Oh, what?

>> One.

Increase volume menu button.

>> Oh, I didn't delete it.

>> One.

>> What?

>> One.

>> Oh, I already had it.

I thought I'd gotten rid of it.

>> Increase volume menu button.

>> One.

>> Apparently I did not delete it.

>> Out of keyboard commander table.

>> Yeah, that's your volume, though.

You're looking for range.

>> Keyboard commander table.

Row one of 19.

One.

Increase add button.

>> Hold it.

>> Keyboard commander table.

Zoom dot US menu button.

Row 19 of 19.

One.

Row one of 19.

>> Oh, there it is.

Okay.

Well, I'm going to.

>> Increase volume menu button.

>> It is there.

>> One plus.

One.

>> You're looking for speech right, though.

>> Increase volume menu button.

>> Yeah, it is.

>> One.

>> Okay.

>> Increase volume menu button.

Menu. 15 items.

General.

Submenu.

>> How did it get to that?

That threw me.

>> Information.

Sub.

Navigation.

Text.

Web.

Sub.

Audio.

Braille.

Visuals.

Sub.

Speech.

Submenu.

>> Okay.

>> Speech.

Submenu.

Eight items.

Decrease rate.

>> There you go.

Decrease rate.

That's what I want.

>> Closing menu.

>> I wonder why it was increasing volume.

That threw me.

Okay.

>> Plus.

Decrease rate menu button.

>> Decrease.

>> One.

>> Okay.

Now, let's get out of here.

>> Out of keyboard command.

Add button.

Edit text.

Blank.

>> I'm going to hit two.

>> No, that was a shift.

>> Add it.

Two.

>> Okay.

Two.

>> Menu button.

Two.

>> Okay.

Good.

So, apparently, the backspace works when you push the wrong key.

>> Menu button.

>> Now, it says menu button.

Now, why did the first time it said to increase -- that's strange.

Okay.

>> Menu. 15 items.

General.

Sub.

Information.

Navigation.

Text.

Web.

Find.

Tables.

Size.

Audio.

Decrease rate.

Decrease volume.

Increase pitch.

Increase rate.

>> Increase rate.

>> Closing menu.

Closing menu.

Increase rate.

Menu button.

>> Okay.

Let's go back and double-check.

Two.

>> Two.

>> One.

Decrease rate.

Menu button.

One.

Two.

Increase rate.

Menu button.

Two.

>> Now, what happened to -- >> One.

One.

Two.

>> Okay.

>> Plus increase volume.

>> Okay.

>> Shortcut.

Litma.

Cap L.

Cap S.

Underscore A.

>> There it is.

>> Underscore.

Decrease volume.

Menu button.

>> Okay.

That's what we did.

So let's get out of here.

>> Out of keyboard.

Commander.

Table.

Finder.

Desktop.

Transcend.

>> Okay.

I'm going to hold down the right option key, and I'm going to hit this number two. >> 50 percent.

Rate. 55 percent. 60 percent. 65 percent. 70 percent. 75 percent. 80 percent.

>> Okay.

>> Now, there's all kinds of other things you can do.

So we've set one to increase and decrease my speech rate, increase and decrease my voiceover volume relative to the system volume, and I've set up one to mute and unmute my voiceover speech at the toggle.

Same key for that one.

Now let's go back.

>> Opening voiceover utility.

Voiceover utility.

Window.

Utility categories.

Table.

Row one of 11.

General.

Selected.

Has key.

Keyboard.

Selected.

Keyboard.

Quick nav.

Enable keyboards.

Both option keys.

Keyboard.

Commander.

Table.

No selection.

>> Now, by default, you have one in here that says a T, and actually it's a lowercase T, and it's running in AppleScript, and it tells you date and time.

But I didn't want it to say date and time.

I wanted it to say just time.

And not only did it say date and time, but it gave the time in AM/PM time.

And I have my time set for 24-hour time.

I've just always done that.

Don't ask why.

Just something I did, maybe.

>> Because you're weird.

>> Well, I thought it was cute.

Once upon a time when all we did was -- before there were these things called PCs, everything that was in school and everything was on a mainframe, or I learned Unix before I learned DOS, because that's what we used at work.

And once upon a time, computers only told time in 24-hour time because they weren't smart enough to figure out AM/PM.

And I just got used to time that way and filling out my time sheet that way.

And I just started doing that when I got a Windows PC or everything.

I could set my time for 24-hour time.

I thought it maybe hid myself into thinking I was real smart or something.

I don't know.

But anyway, so this is how I've always done it.

But it drove me crazy.

Every time I would hit that option key, and then the T would tell me the date and the time.

And I don't need to know the date.

I just want to know the time.

So I hit the T, and then the T tells me the time.

And I can't even tell you what time it is.

I can't even tell you what time it is.

>> Use default.

Run Apple script script.

Time of day.

General.

Submenu.

Use default.

Run Apple script script.

Time of day.

>> Interesting.

Oh, use default.

See, it wants to put it back.

Interesting.

I got rid of it, and I've never come back and looked at this.

But there's the default.

Use Apple script.

Time of day.

That script's still somewhere on the computer.

>> General.

Submenu.

>> It's under -- >> Information.

Submenu.

>> It's under information.

>> Information.

Submenu. 14 items.

Describe item in mouse pointer.

Describe item in voiceover.

Describe mouse pointer location from top left.

Describe mouse pointer look.

Describe open app.

Describe position.

Describe size of item.

Describe window.

Speak battery status.

Speak the date.

Speak the time.

>> There it is.

I get it.

Speak the date.

>> Speak the time.

Speak the time and date.

>> Speak the time and date, but I don't think that's the same as the Apple script.

Let's see what that does.

>> Closing menu.

Closing menu.

Speak the -- >> Let's see what it does.

If I do option key T.

>> 19, 44, January 9, 2024.

>> Okay.

It's not working.

>> 19, 44, January 9, 2024.

>> Okay.

It still says my 24-hour time followed by the date, but let's go back to this.

>> Menu, 17 items.

Unassign.

Speak the time and date.

Unassign.

Speak the time and date.

>> Unassigned.

Interesting.

>> Use default.

Run Apple script script.

Time of day.

>> Let's do that one and see what it does.

>> Closing menu.

Run Apple script script.

Time of day menu button.

>> I'm going to close this.

>> Finder.

Desktop.

Transcend volume.

>> Brad, do you have a hand?

>> Okay.

One second.

>> Okay.

>> Zoom.

Finder.

Desktop.

Transcend volume.

>> I'm going to do option key.

>> January 9, 7, 45 p.m.

>> See?

That's the script.

So what I did was -- let's go back.

>> Opening voiceover utility.

Voiceover utility.

Window.

Utility category.

Commanders.

Track.

NumPad.

Keyboard.

Tab.

Three of four.

Selected.

Both option keys.

Use keyboard commander.

No selection.

>> Let's see if I can interact.

>> Keyboard commander.

Row 1 of 20.

T.

>> Okay, good.

I just hit the T and it went straight to it.

>> Run Apple script script.

Time of day menu button.

Menu. 15 items.

General.

Submenu.

Information.

Submenu.

Information.

Describe.

Open application.

Describe.

Battery status.

Speak the time.

Voiceover utility.

Closing menu.

Speak the time.

Menu button.

Voiceover utility.

Voiceover.

>> Okay, speak the time.

Now let's close this.

>> Finder.

Desktop.

Transcend volume.

Now in Brad window.

List view.

Table.

No selection.

>> If you do the right key.

>> Zoom.

Us.

Finder.

Zoom.

Us.

Finder.

Brad window.

List view.

>> I'm going to do this again.

Option key T.

>> 1946.

>> And now I get just my time.

Anyway, okay.

You said you had a hand?

>> Yes.

>> Let's take a hand.

>> Chanel, go ahead, please.

>> Yes.

>> Well, I was just going to say, yep, you figured it out.

But I think they just added this in Sonoma because I used to modify that Apple script.

So it would only give me the time.

I would change that Apple script.

>> Was it not there before?

>> No.

>> Okay.

I wondered about that because I knew you had modified the script.

>> Yeah.

But now I don't have to do that.

And I love military or 24-hour time.

And I didn't realize -- I should have realized.

But one thing you were going -- I didn't realize you could use a keyboard commander to run a shortcut.

So I just set that up.

And that is the greatest thing, too.

>> And the thing about that is there's a -- well, I can show us all the time.

>> What kind of shortcuts are you guys using?

>> Well, Darcy made one for those of us who are -- well, there's all kinds of shortcuts.

But the one I have set up, Darcy made a shortcut for those of us who, you know, host on ACB Community.

And he's got two of them.

One tells you your whole schedule for the week.

And another one tells you what your schedules are for the day.

>> And I have another one for opening rooms.

>> Yes, and you have yet another one, correct.

It tells you your assignments.

So I can do -- like if I do option key and let's do -- I'm going to do uppercase L and it will tell me what mine is for today.

So let's listen.

It's running.

Application, list my community events for today.

Text, you are involved with three events today.

On mute presence at 1, 0, 0, p.m. eastern.

The Zoom account is -- the facilitator is Michael Babcock and Marty Soto.

The host is Sheila Young.

You are the broadcaster, you are the streamer.

It is being streamed on ACB media 5.

Helpful hints on using homophones at 3, 0, 0, p.m. eastern.

The Zoom account is com3.

The facilitator is Mary Hought.

The host is Diane Scalzi.

The host is Marcy Duty.

>> There you go.

Cool.

>> And I go here to -- >> Done button.

>> Plus it also takes all that information and copies it to my clipboard.

So when I run the one for the whole week, I -- it tells me everything I'm doing this week.

And then I go and put it in a text edit document.

And then I'm able to use that to just go down the list and I add these things to my Apple calendar so that I can set an alert and it reminds me 30 minutes before the event.

In case I lose track of what I'm doing.

And so it's very, very useful.

But I used to have to -- I didn't know about keyboard commander that I could do that.

I would go to shortcuts, open the shortcuts app, and then find the shortcut and execute it from there.

Or I'd ask Siri to do it.

One or the other.

I would do Siri on my phone.

At first I didn't realize that when you add them to your phone, the shortcuts app communicates between your phone and a Mac through iCloud.

So once you add the shortcuts on your phone, it also shows up on your Mac.

Doesn't mean that the shortcut will work on your Mac.

Depends on the shortcut.

But most do.

One that Darcy wrote does.

So it goes out to the web, finds that Google sheet, and reads that information off the sheet.

So I don't even have Google sheets open on this Mac.

So it's pretty neat.

You can run an Apple script.

I have a friend of mine wrote one.

Let me see.

I'll have to open my e-mail.

>> We have ten minutes until the top of the hour.

>> Okay.

That's fine.

Good to know.

Thank you.

I'm going to do left option key and M.

Open my e-mail.

I don't even have to -- a friend of mine wrote this.

She's like much smarter than I am.

>> Can we find a time on red?

>> Trying to find one that I know.

>> New contact. 1850 on red.

LinkedIn expert answers.

>> Let's just do this one.

If I do this, I believe it's R.

So if I do option key and the letter R, it will tell me the recipients.

This one will probably just say me.

If I had people in -- I know one.

Hang on.

What did I have?

I had -- >> Column one, row 107.

Larry Gassman, one@gmail.com.

>> No, that's not it.

I have one from -- I can't find it.

I have one from our tech talk planning committee.

I know that one has got like probably eight or nine people.

>> Wouldn't Larry Gassman's Christmas newsletter have a bunch?

>> Yeah, that's a good point.

No, because he'd beefy feed everybody.

But the -- let's go over here.

Hang on.

I don't want to give everybody's e-mail out on the recording.

But I'm just going to go to one.

And if I do -- what is this one?

>> On red.

LinkedIn.

>> One recipient.

WBSJR.

>> Okay, one recipient.

Now, even if I have the e-mail open, just -- it went to the -- and if I had it open, let's see.

>> Your highlights.

Usable net.

>> Okay.

It is still -- the e-mail is open and it is in focus.

But behind it is the window that's got the inbox.

And there's an item in it highlighted.

It still goes and reads that window.

So you can tell who is in there.

How useful is that?

I don't know.

She figured out how to write a script that tells you that.

So I can call up a script.

I can call up a shortcut.

There's all kinds of things you can do with keyboard commanders and what I was really trying to do.

In this demo, we'll show you there are some things in voiceover that aren't so easily gotten to with just a -- they don't have a keyboard command.

There's a way to do them.

But things I do all the time.

And you can see in that list, there were tons of stuff in there.

And so you can go through.

And if there's something that you do all the time that you would like a keyboard commander for, now you know how to create it.

>> Can I add a comment?

>> Yes, please.

>> Having done a couple of these myself, not to the extent that you just showed, Brad, but my advice, if anybody wants to go in there, once you get into the voiceover utilities, get used to just playing in there.

Because that's how you find all of those different, like, little goodies, little actions that you can assign.

And a lot of them are already assigned a letter or a key.

And just sometimes all you have to do is interact in a table, and that's the difficult thing.

And then when you want to add one to make it active, then as Brad went down to find the add button, it's at the very bottom of the screen.

So I do, like, a VO end on my keyboard, and it takes me to the very, very bottom.

And then I just do a VO left arrow twice, and it gets me to the add button, and then you're right in the menu that Brad was talking about.

>> Just like I was in here, and I'm able to use first letter navigation.

>> Okay, and then I'm going to -- >> Trackpad, numpad, tab, 2 of 4.

Keyboard tab, quick nav tab, keyboard tab, selected keyboard tab, 3.

>> And I'm going to go -- >> Help button.

>> I did VO, and I held down the FN key, because I'm not using an extended keyboard.

>> Right.

>> FN makes the right arrow end.

And now I go backwards.

>> Remove button, add button.

>> And there it is, two stops backwards.

>> Just go to the left twice.

>> Yep, yep.

>> So, Brad -- >> And, you know, I even made a keyboard -- go ahead, was that a question?

>> Yeah, I'll wait until you're done.

Go ahead, finish.

>> I even made a keyboard commander for something that has a keyboard command, because on my MacBook Pro, I only have a control option on one side of the keyboard.

And I don't want to have to reach across to do VOQ.

Beginning in Sonoma, turning on quick key navigation is not part of quick nav.

Well, you get to it in quick nav to turn it on or off, but it is separate.

It used to be you would go -- let's go up here to -- >> Search, voice up utility, trackpad, numpad, tab, keyboard, selected, tab, three of four, numpad, tab, key quick nav, tab, selected, quick nav, enable arrow key, quick nav, uncheck, check box.

>> Enable arrow key, quick nav.

Okay.

It used to be you'd turn this on.

>> Check, enable arrow key, quick nav, check box.

Enable single key quick nav, uncheck, check box.

Enable arrow key, quick nav, uncheck, enable single key quick nav, uncheck, check box.

>> Enable single key.

So when you're on the web or something, you just use H to go by heading, L to go by -- you don't have to hold down other keys, okay?

And it used to be prior to Sonoma that you had to turn on quick nav with your right and left arrow key to enable quick nav in order to use quick key navigation.

Even if you had the check box checked to turn it on, you had to have quick nav on.

Well, like it or not, they took it out.

And it is now separate.

I do not have to turn on quick key -- quick navigation with my arrow keys in order to use quick key navigation.

The keyboard command for quick key navigation, as always, this existed before, is V O Q.

>> Enable arrow key, quick nav, uncheck, check box.

>> I'm going to show you what I did.

>> Quick enable arrow key, quick nav, uncheck, enable single key, quick nav, uncheck, check box.

Enable arrow key, quick nav, uncheck, check box.

>> Okay, good, they're off.

>> Quick nav, keyboard tab, three of four, selected keyboard tab, three of four.

>> Here's what I did.

>> Help button, remove button, add button.

Keyboard commander, table in keyboard command, open application, zoom Z, Zulu.

>> No, that's not what I want.

Let's go here.

No, it's got to be above it.

>> Plus, row one of 20.

>> Q, go back.

>> I make Q.

>> Toggle single key, quick nav on or off menu button.

>> Toggle single key, quick nav on or off.

That way, I don't have to do V O with my left hand, which requires me to reach across then with my right hand to the Q.

I can simply hold down the right option key and reach up with my left hand and hit the Q.

>> Single key, quick nav on.

Single key, quick nav off.

>> And I just, you know, to me it's more efficient than having to reach across.

On my desktop Mac with a full-size keyboard, I can do V O on either side, but I can't do V O with my right hand on the MacBook Pro keyboard.

>> You don't get carpal tunnel trying to do it.

>> I don't get brain crisscross either.

>> Right.

>> So I'm able to just do it.

>> Yes, sir.

>> You know, you created some of these shortcut keys.

If you do the V O K, the help menu, and you try to go through those keyboards, will it tell you that you assigned those commands?

>> No, they're not, because those are a list of voiceover, native voiceover commands within voiceover.

It will tell you that V O Q is quick key navigation, but it will not tell you that they're, because they're not, it's not a native voiceover command.

That's what's in that command list.

>> So if you hit option T, it won't tell you time shortcut or anything?

>> No, it will not.

Just look.

>> Commands help menu, 14 items.

>> If I do option T. >> 296 items, actions control option command space.

>> It just did T, what did it say?

>> It's a command space.

>> Yeah, I did option T. >> 18 items, find next button.

>> Nope, find next.

>> Find next button.

>> It says find next button, so that's not it.

I'm doing option T.

>> Find next button.

>> Let's see, because T is probably.

>> Find next button.

>> I guess that's find next.

It just says find next.

I don't know what.

>> And you got keyboard help on?

>> No, I opened VO.

Oh, I see what you're saying.

>> Yeah, I'm sure he was asking if you did VO.

>> Let's see, let's look at that.

>> Starting keyboard help, type keys, option T, Tango, speak the time.

>> Yes.

>> You are correct.

It does.

>> That's great.

>> I was thinking the command list.

It did not change the command list.

>> So let's see if I do.

>> Option Q, Quebec, toggle single key, notification center, notification center, window, scroll area.

>> Interesting.

>> Well, it did say quick single key navigation.

>> Oh, you know why?

Because it turned it on.

>> Single key quick nav on.

Single key quick nav off.

Starting keyboard help, type keys to hear their names.

Hold down the voiceover keys while typing to hear voiceover control.

>> Let's listen to option Q.

>> Option Q, Quebec, toggle single key quick nav on or off.

Turn single key quick nav on or off.

>> Toggle single key.

>> That time it didn't do it, but something kicked me out before.

Okay, that's good to know.

>> It's good that it can do that because I was just trying to figure out what's a good way to remember these things.

>> No, I was thinking when you would do VOH.

>> Voiceover help, commands help menu, 14 items.

>> You would go into the commands help menu.

That's what I thought you meant.

>> Can I add one point?

>> I didn't know it would show up either.

>> On a similar note, I use numpad commander, which makes shortcut keys out of all of your numpad keys, including all those odd ones.

Like there's a period and an insert and a clear.

>> Right.

>> And when I turn on keyboard help, like you just did, if I hit those keys, it does tell me their shortcut function, which is very easy.

>> If you have -- >> Because I don't remember those keys.

>> Zoom.

>> If you go and double check it, you have to have numpad commander enabled.

>> Yes, you do, which I do.

>> Or else if you hit a key, it's just going to tell you that it's a five or a four.

>> Right.

>> Yeah.

>> Same thing with -- >> Chanel has her hand up again.

>> Okay, go ahead, Chanel.

>> Yeah, the numpad commander is truly amazing because I have my -- like you said, those odd keys, like I have my period set to the double -- the magic tap.

Because I don't do well using a trackpad.

I have some combinations set to route my mouse to my voiceover cursor.

And, yeah, sometimes I forget the commands that I've set.

So I'll turn on keyboard commander and go look at them.

And it's really awesome.

And, I mean, I operate my Mac now pretty much wherever I can from my numpad.

>> Well, yeah.

>> So, yeah.

>> To interact, all you have to do is press one key.

>> I know, and that's a lot.

I'm a much happier Mac user now that I finally quit being stubborn a couple -- like a year and a half ago and started using the numpad.

>> Got rid of your purebred instincts.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah.

Yeah, I've used numpad commander almost the entire time since I started.

Saves a million -- >> It does.

>> Usually when I teach it, I go through keyboard commander and then I will introduce numpad commander.

And by teaching keyboard commander, you set up each key the same way.

>> Yeah.

>> And it's that same -- when I open that menu with that list of options, which has got like -- I haven't even counted how many.

There's got to be several hundred things in there, at least two or three.

>> Yeah.

>> Because like one menu alone I think had 87 items.

>> There's a lot, yeah.

>> It's the same list of stuff.

>> Well, you know, Brad -- >> I wish I had time to cover all that in my basic class, but, you know, I don't.

>> I can demo, Chanel, if you want to listen to it.

I can send you my demo that I'm almost done with.

It's about 5 a.m.

>> It's over on the New York Public Library.

I have a basic Mac with voiceover class, and then I recently for the first time did what I called a pro tips class.

>> Ooh.

You know, Brian Fischler did a demo of the numpad commander on your -- >> Yes, he did.

He did it a year for us. >> -- on your Bits thing back in October or something like -- a year or so ago.

>> Yeah.

>> Very elaborate.

You can really get fancy with the keyboard commander, but I keep it very simple.

>> He's a big keyboard commander.

That's why -- yep.

>> Yeah.

>> And I was never -- I knew about keyboard commander, numpad command.

I would teach them and just, you know, show people what they are in the intro class, and I didn't really get into it.

And then it wasn't until I did the pro tips that I started looking at more stuff I could do with it.

And I said, "Why aren't I using this?"

This is -- >> I think they scare people off.

>> Well, yeah.

If you get too -- that's why, like I said, like Chanel said, you don't have time to get to it in a basic class.

>> Right.

>> And even if you did, it would make their head spin.

So I just showed them -- >> Yeah, it's just a high-level overview.

But I do actually -- because I did a numpad commander demo actually for Herbie's call on ACB Community.

>> Cool.

>> There's that, too, that I've done.

Yeah.

>> I just showed how you can set this to open an app.

You know, I added pages.

I added text edit.

I showed here by default is Safari and mail.

That's neat.

Here you can tell the time.

Then I started looking at it.

I knew you had modified that script, but I did the pro tips class for the first time in the fall, and that was since I had updated -- upgraded to Sonoma, and I had wondered if that had been there all along.

I don't know.

But -- >> Yeah, and I just -- I read an article about -- you know, and this is kind of talking about people who are sighted who use the mouse versus just using the keyboard.

And it said that they waste about 60 hours a year by just using the mouse.

If they not used the mouse, they would have saved 60 hours just using the keyboard.

>> Yeah, I heard that, too.

>> When I was at the lighthouse here in Dallas, we would have an open house, and one of the things we would show people was how much more efficient a blind or vision impaired person using a screen reader -- of course, everything was Windows -- using a screen reader, mostly, you know, JAWS is what we were showing, how much more efficient you could be.

And we had just a common task, going through email, reply.

You know, you'd be surprised how many people have no clue control R will reply.

I mean, and people were just shocked at that, you know.

And we just showed a demo to, you know, people that would come by and see, and they had no -- first of all, they have no idea a blind person could use a computer.

They had no idea, like, where have you been?

>> I think it was in the version before Sonoma, but it wasn't -- >> That would make sense.

>> I think I was using it last year, but it wasn't in -- I lose track, honestly, of which versions do what, and even the name of the previous version.

So, but it wasn't the one before Sonoma.

>> And you know what, that would be true, because after I did it on my MacBook Pro, I exported my keyboard commander keys and then imported them into VoiceOver on my Mac studio that was still at the time running Ventura.

And it did work over there now that you mention it.

I'd forgotten about that.

>> So, yeah, Ventura is when they made the -- they probably added a bunch of stuff.

Ventura was a big change.

Redid system settings, became settings instead of preferences and lots of other little things in there.

Anyway, that was my demo.

Do we have any more hands, Marcy, or -- >> We are currently clear.

>> All right.

Well, we are already after the top of the hour.

Thank everybody for joining us.

>> I enjoyed this presentation.

This is cool.

As always, my live demo always has a hiccup in it, but that's what makes them fun.

>> Yeah, but still, it's so cool what you can do with keyboard commander.

There's so many things.

>> Yes, it's very -- it's, you know, it's so cool what you can do with a Mac, you know.

It's pretty neat.

So you, Marcy and Herbie, have your new Macs for Christmas.

I know your guys are going to continue to enjoy them.

Everyone else who's been here tonight, I hope you got something out of this.

And I don't know what we'll cover next month.

We'll figure that out.

Sometimes I plan ahead.

Sometimes I plan ahead and then something comes up and, oh, we're going to do that instead.

So anyway, I hope you'll come back.

And let's see, today is the 9th.

It will be the 13th.

That's correct.

The 13th.

All right.

Well, thank you, everybody, for joining us.

And we'll see you next time.

Thank you, Sheree.

Thank you, Pete, for helping me out.

>> Thank you.

Pleasure.

>> Thank you, Marcy, for being our Zoom host.

Thank you, Chanel, Herbie, everybody that helped us out with questions.

And if you'll go ahead and take us out, Marcy.

>> All righty.