Google Drive has several keyboard shortcuts for navigating and working with files. For example, with a list of files open in Drive using Safari, the j and k keys move focus down and up the list of files. Up until Ventura, VoiceOver would read each file name as focus moved through the list. It worked very well. Never had a problem with it.
Since Ventura, rather than read the file name, j and k cause VoiceOver to say, "List Box, Loading". This makes it impossible to know which file has focus. As a workaround, Google Chrome behaves just as it always has.
Ventura introduced other issues for Safari and VoiceOver, all of them fairly serious. But since I do a lot of work with Drive, this issue stands above the others as the most critical.
Comments
And By Extension,
Same goes for the Orion browser that Safari is based on.
In addition to bo mentioned above, Facebook is also affected.
Interestingly,
http://pinafore.social
(the Mastodon client), and
http://twitter.com/
, are both not affected by this bug.
Why not just use the google…
Why not just use the google drive app?
No collaboration
The Google Drive app syncs your Google Drive files to your local system. It does not allow team collaboration or simultaneous editing. To do that, you must use the Google Drive website.
I use google drive a lot
I use Google Drive nearly every day, and it works well in Google Chrome
Ventura 13.1 no help
I'm still seeing the same incorrect behavior after upgrading to Ventura 13.1.
good luck getting Google to fix it
I have found Google is slow to respond to user concerns. I've given several suggestions to the Accessibility help desk over the years and they have yet to be added to Google products. so if its a Google issue good luck.
Ventura 13.2 no help
This issue is still present after upgrading to Ventura 13.2.
As a workaround, I now use VO+F3. This reads the item with VoiceOver focus, and will tell me the name of the focused file or folder in the Google Drive list. Note this workaround is not satisfactory if your current Google Drive folder contains more than a handful of files and folders.
Still a problem in Ventura 13.2.1
This issue is still present after the latest upgrade.
Worse in 13.4
I recently upgraded to Mac OS 13.4. The previous issue still persists, and the only workaround no longer works reliably.
To recap: the Google Drive website presents documents and folder in a grid or list that users navigate with the J and K keys. As I move through the contents of my drive with these keys, I expect VoiceOver to announce the folder or file name. But ever since Ventura, VoiceOver says, "list box," and sometimes, "list box, loading."
Up until recently, I had a workaround. I could press VO+F3 to have VoiceOver announce the item with VoiceOver focus. This would read the file or folder name. This worked reliably until Mac OS 13.4, Safari 16.5 (18615.2.9.11.4). While this still works most of the time, VO+F3 often reads the name of an adjacent file or folder rather than the one with focus.
Other times, VO+F3 announces the table of list items rather than the item with focus. For example, if I move to an item with the J key and hear VoiceOver announce, "list box," then press VO+F3 to read the file or folder name, VoiceOver instead incorrectly announces, "table, 1 column, 9 rows." If I use some combination of Google Driver shortcuts such as G N, G D, and G L, I can move focus out of the list, then back in, and VO+F3 will once again correctly announce the file or folder name. Refresh also works as a workaround.
But what I'd really like is for the J and K keys to cause VoiceOver to announce the file or folder name, as it used to do back before Ventura.
The problem doesn't occur with Chrome.
Yes, this has been reported to Apple Accessibility. But perhaps if other Google Drive users would report the issue, Apple might address it.
macOS 14
I go to my drive, I go down to the table and then press Jay and Kae, list box, loading, Page loaded, listbox, yeah I think I have the same issue
Google Drive and Collaboration
Hi Paul. As I understand it, when you say Google Drive does not allow collaboration, you mean you cannot access files from the Shared With Me folder right?
Just wonder if you have heard and ever used a new function called Add Shortcut to My Drive?
A workaround that would help me to grapple as little as possible with the broken Google Drive web interface is that to add a shortcut to each file that I need to work with from the Shared With Me folder. I will either leave that short in a folder called Temp, or point it directly to what ever project that it is supposed to belong.
To do that, select the folder or file from the Shared With Me Folder, and press Shift + Z. A dialogue will pop up asking where you'd love to place the shortcut. Just follow the onscreen instruction.
Yes, you do have to open the webpage every time you have a new shared file or folder to create a shortcut to. And yes it is rather quirky for such an approach. But still at least for me, it does help to keep the need to interact with it the minimum.
Work around for navigating Google Drive on the web
I just realised in the las comment, I didn't include the work around I'm using with Safari (in case I don't want to use Brave for any reason haha).
It's simple. I just don't use any Google Drive specific navigation shortcut at all.
I use Voice Over standard navigation keys such as VO+Command+H to jump to headings. In this case it's Folders and Views. Right next to it is the Folders and Views table, which is the Navigation pane previously accessible by G, N. I can just press VO+Shift+Down to interact with this, and VO+Space to active an item.
Then, VO+Shift+right should move me to a number of tables in which the list of files are contained. The good old standard VO navigation keys will help to browse though them all.
After interacting with a table with a list of folders and files, you can do the following.
• VO+Left/Right: Move through each item
• VO+Space on a file (without first interacting with it): Seems to trigger a context menu for that item but because the Voice Over cursor does not automatically focus on the pop up region, I tend to avoid doing it this way
• Interact with the item, and then press VO+Space on the item name: Select the item (which then will enable you to either add a shortcut with the Shift+Z, or open a context menu by pressing A etc…)
The behaviour can be erratic at times, but that approach so far seems to be the most reliable for me. It is particularly helpful to have occasional brushes with the web interface, such as to create a shortcut to the shared file as I said above.
Good luck 😹.
Google Chrome
Hi @Jimmy. When I said "no collaboration" above, I was responding to the previous comment, in which @Tristo asked why not just use the Google Drive app. The answer is that the Google Drive app does not allow collaborative editing. It gives me a copy on my local system. The only way to collaborate is to use the web interface.
Thanks for your suggested workarounds. I've been using Google Chrome to work around the "list box, loading" issue. I navigate folders in Chrome and open documents to edit. Then I copy the URL from the address bar and paste it into Safari. Once the document is open in Safari, I make my edits there.
Another use for Chrome: If I want to move a document to another folder, the move dialog is almost impossible to navigate in Safari. It works fine in Chrome, though.
In my post "Worse in 13.4," I mentioned VO+F3 is unreliable. On those rare occasions when I do navigate Google Drive folders with Safari, I've found that moving away from an item, then back, often causes VO+F3 to work correctly.
I really hope Apple addresses these issues. I had what seemed like a productive discussion with their accessibility team. On their request, I submitted a video screen capture illustrating these issues along with a sysdiag. It's all up to Apple now, and whether or not they are committed to Safari as their flagship browser.