Virtual Mouse gives you more information about the programs you run. It also allows you to customize the way that graphics are labeled in these programs. Sometimes you just might want to get an overview of how an application is visually laid out. Virtual Mouse can help you do that by just using your keyboard! When Virtual Mouse is active, you cannot edit text in a document or access the menu bar via the Alt key, or the Alt plus letters combinations. Virtual Mouse takes over your keyboard for the purpose of navigating and manipulating the window with the mouse cursor.
Virtual Mouse is most valuable when an application's controls, such as list boxes, check boxes, buttons, or icons, cannot be accessed just by tabbing or arrowing around the window. When you encounter this in an application, just press Modifier+M. You will hear a sound and you will also hear the voice change. Now you can use your up and down arrow keys to move up and down through the controls in the window. If you just want to have a look around, you can either press Modifier+M again or tap Escape to return to normal operation. Note that as you are using the up and down arrow keys you will only hear one control on each line.
To move left or right through the window, press Alt+Left Arrow or Alt+Right Arrow. If you want to hear the control that you are on, press Modifier+Up Arrow, which is the "say line" command or, in this case, the "say control" command. Tab and Shift+Tab move you to the next and previous clickable control respectively, regardless of what that control is.
To jump to the top of the window, press Control+Home. To jump to the bottom of the window, press Control+End. When you want to activate a control (or left-click) press either the Enter key or the space bar. Note that these keys perform a left click. If you need to do a right click, press Shift+Enter or Shift+Space. You can also get a list of all clickable objects in the window by pressing Modifier+F7. This is useful if you don't want to tab or arrow around the window. After you've chosen an object using the up and down arrows or the object's first letter, you can tab to the mouse function that you want to perform on that object. For example, if you wanted to right click something from this list, just tab to Right Click and press Space to activate that button.
Label Applications for Yourself, and Others!
If you find that a particular graphic is not labeled correctly or isn't labeled at all, you can label it by pressing Alt+L. Then, just type in what you want to call the graphic and press Tab. You'll then come to a check box which you can check if System Access should treat this graphic as a clickable button. Then press Tab again, and press Space to label the graphic. If you want to have System Access try to auto-label the graphics in a window, just press Alt+A. If you are still having difficulty labeling graphics, enable Tool Tip announcement by pressing Alt+T. Tool tips are generally handy for sighted mouse users. Here's an example of Tool tips: a sighted user hovers the mouse over the Windows Start button and a tool tip pops up that says, "Click here to begin." You can sometimes put tool tips to good use by using the tool tip as part of your label for a particular graphic.
When you are done labeling all your graphics, you can send them to the System Access Mobile Network just by pressing Alt+S! The next time anyone using System Access uses the application you have been working on, they will hear those graphics nicely labeled!
Use the Mouse, Even If You Are Blind!
One nice thing about Virtual Mouse is the fact that a blind individual can use the mouse. When the mouse moves over text or graphics, System Access tells you so. If you are a blind System Access user, we recommend that you use the mouse in restricted mode. This mode will ensure that your mouse stays within the window that you want to explore. To enable restricted mode, hold down the System Access Modifier and move the mouse. System Access will prompt you to define the top left corner and click. We suggest that you pick up the mouse at this point, and place it in the top left corner of the mouse pad, or the top left corner of any surface, if you are using an optical mouse. Once you have done this, left click the mouse. Caution. Try not to move the mouse as you are clicking; doing so would cause you to start at a position other than the top left corner of the surface. Now you can move the mouse around the window, with the System Access modifier still held down. As you move, musical tones will indicate your position in the window.
Pressing Tool Bar Buttons
If an application, such as Internet Explorer, has a tool bar, you can use Modifier+F8 to get a list of the tool bar buttons. Then you simply arrow down through the list of tool bar buttons and tap the Enter key when you hear the button that you want to activate. Note that this command also works whtn Virtual Mouse isn't active.