Unable to select text with Apple VoiceOver

By ivan.fe... on August 30, 2013 13:47 (imported from Google Code)

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What steps will reproduce the problem?

1. TUrn on Apple's VoiceOver by pressing Command+F5.
2. In iTerm2, move the VoiceOver cursor to the beginning of some text to highlight, using Ctrl+Option and the arrow keys.
3. Press Ctrl+Option+Enter to begin highlighting text. INstead of VoiceOver speaking "select," it will make a "ping" sound, indicating that the key combination to select text does not work.
4. Had the select operation in step 3 been successful, you would move the VoiceOver cursor (Ctrl+Option+arrows) to select text. Then press Ctrl+Option+Enter again to stop selecting. YOu can then use the standard copy / paste commands with the selected text.

What is the expected output? What do you see instead?
VoiceOver would be able to select text in the iTerm2 window. While text can be read with the VoiceOVer cursor, text can not be selected for copy/paste.

What version of the product are you using? On what operating system?
iTerm2 Build 1.0.0.20130624
OSX 10.8.4 (Mountain Lion)

I opened issue #2606 (closed) before it was completely filled out - issues 2606 can be closed as a duplicate of this issue.

Comment 1 by gnach... on September 03, 2013 02:12

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I can reproduce the problem, but I can't find any documentation on the ctrl+option+enter key combo. Do you know where I can find it in preferences or what it's officially called by Apple so I can Google for the right thing?

Comment 2 by ivan.fe... on September 03, 2013 15:52

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THe use of Ctrl-Option-Enter to select text, is a VoiceOver construct, to select text when you can not use SHft-arrows to make a selection. Perhaps there is a property of a UI control which helps VoiceOver to know that it is able to select text from within that control.

A snippet from chapter 4 of the VoiceOver manual, at http://www.apple.com/voiceover/info/guide/_1128.html
"If you can’t select text using standard Mac OS X keyboard shortcuts, as in an email message that you have received, press VO-Return. Then press VO-arrow keys to read the text you want to select, and then press VO-Return again. The text that was read is highlighted and selected."

Comment 3 by gnach... on September 20, 2013 04:56

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Thanks for the clarification. I can't see what I'm doing differently than Terminal. I'm going to tag this for v3 so it doesn't slip through the cracks.

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Labels: Milestone: Release3.0

Comment 4 by ...@dusek.me on October 27, 2013 11:40

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For this to work, the AXSelectedTextRange (or AXSelectedTextRanges) attribute needs to be implemented as settable, and when the attribute is set, the selected text range should be highlighted as if the user would select it with mouse dragging.

Comment 5 by ...@dusek.me on October 27, 2013 13:01

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Also one more thing: you have to first interact with the text area for VO-Return to work this way (you can interact with VO-Shift-arrow down, stop interacting with VO-Shift-arrow up).

Comment 6 by ivan.fe... on October 27, 2013 13:38

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Hello,
Great, thank you very much. Will this fix be available in the next nightly build?

Comment 7 by ...@dusek.me on November 07, 2013 21:50

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I just outlined the way this should be fixed. It will be available when someone actually fixes it :-)

Comment 8 by gnach... on November 13, 2013 22:38

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Thanks, @dusek. It's tagged for v3 so I'll try to get to it soon.

Milestone changed to Temporary Milestone

Milestone changed to Ship 3.0

Reassigned to @gnachman

Fixed in commit dc6b13dc

Status changed to closed