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.

Forum

macOS and 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

Options

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.