Can anyone tell me how to use Voiceover in conjunction with the option key shortcut for menubar?

Submitted by Megan on Tuesday, January 5, 2016.

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macOS & Mac Apps

The subject is a bit sketchy, I know, but bear with me and I'll explain. On some menubar, if you h old down the option key while accessing them, you get additional options (I.E. force reboot in the VMware fusion menubar instead of shutdown). How do you do this with Voiceover? I can't for the life of me get it to work.
thanks,
Megan

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Comments

I opened the menu bar and

I opened the menu bar and focused reboot. Instead of enter I pressed option plus enter and the system just rebooted without asking, so I guess there is your answer LOL.

I just hold down the option

I just hold down the option key wile hitting down arrow. If you are quick you can get it to work. I know this is just about as clear as mud, but practice and luck is what I'm suggesting.

Good luck.

Often, Holding Option Is Enough

I find that, often, I can just hold Option while on a menu item. When I do, VO announces the secondary item, and I can space or enter while holding Option to activate it.

Thanks, Guys

Hi,

Thanks. That helps a lot, and explains why the option enter keystroke works. It worked for me as well. I think Megan might have done the same thing I do, which is hold the option key before setting VO focus to the menu item, as that's how it's done in the regular Mac community. But reversing it makes a bit more intuitive sense. I wish they didn't have the command hidden so much; now I'm going to be trying it a lot. I think shift option enter might work in the same way.

Another way

If the menu item in question has a keyboard shortcut, you can simply press Command + Option + whatever the key command is.

For example, in the Finder you can press Option + Command + O to open a file and close the Finder window containing the file, instead of pressing Option while selecting Open from the menu.