[SC-CSTD] FW: [tech-vi Announce List] Guide From AppleVis: Directly editing text under Braille Screen Input without moving the rotor

[Frank Loza]

From: tech-vi at groups.io <tech-vi at groups.io> On Behalf Of David Goldfield
Sent: Sunday, October 9, 2022 5:20 PM
To: Tech-VI Announcement List <tech-vi at groups.io>
Subject: [tech-vi Announce List] Guide From AppleVis: Directly editing text
under Braille Screen Input without moving the rotor

 

Original Source
<https://www.applevis.com/guides/directly-editing-text-under-braille-screen-
input-without-moving-rotor> 

 


Directly editing text under Braille Screen Input without moving the rotor


By Paweł Masarczyk, 9 October, 2022


Introduction


The following guide has been inspired by
<https://apfel-fleger.de/punkt-fuer-punkt-eine-gute-idee-textnavigation-mit-
der-braille-bildschirmeingabe/> this episode of the Apfel-Fleger Podcast, a
podcast in German for blind users of Apple products. All credit goes to
Jürgen Fleger and his friend for discovering and presenting this little
trick.

One thing that Braille Screen Input apps for Android, the likes of Soft
Braille Keyboard or Advanced Braille Keyboard, seem to have mastered very
well is the ability to write text and then simultaneously navigate and edit
it without leaving the keyboard's interface. Under iOS, it seems, it is
necessary to leave the BSI mode in order to find the desired granularity
using the rotor, spot the places where corrections are necessary only to
return to BSI once again to type whatever we wanted to in the first place.
This sounds pretty tedious and I personally resort to making the corrections
using the standard on-screen keyboard. It turns out, however, that there are
gestures that allow for direct navigation and editing of the text written
using Braille Screen Input and this tutorial serves to demonstrate how to
use them. I haven't found this being mentioned anywhere else so I hope I am
not reopening the same door again.


Usage


I would like to preface the following instructions by saying that I use my
BSI in the screen-away mode on an iPhone 13 mini running iOS 15.6.1. Your
mileage may vary, especially in terms of gestures you might be performing to
trigger the actions described below.

In order to enter the mode in which the gestures described below will be
working, hold down any of the dots on the screen the same way when entering
the exploration mode. Upon hearing the first beep, try performing one of the
following gestures while still holding your finger on the screen:

*         A vertical swipe up or down with two fingers - switches between
navigation units: characters, words and lines;

*         a horizontal swipe with two fingers - moves back or ahead in the
written text;

*         A horizontal swipe with three fingers - selects or removes the
selection of the text while navigating through it.

Once we have reached a place where we want to make our edits, we can use the
usual gestures to delete text by character or word, we can also start
writing right where we are with the cursor or use actions such as copying,
cutting or pasting for which we need to define the gestures ourselves in the
Commands -- Braille Screen Input section of the VoiceOver settings.
Four-finger swipes in all directions are unused by default and sound like a
good starting point.

A couple of things of note:

1.	It might happen that the gestures will not start working the first
time we try, even though we heard the first beep. They should work as
expected on the next try.
2.	When writing in contracted Braille, it is necessary to finish
writing the current word so that the back-translation buffer is freed up,
otherwise the cursor will still remain at our current spot and the word
being currently written will not count as one anyway.
3.	The direction of navigation and selection is opposite to what could
be logically assumed i.e. moving to the right moves the cursor backwards,
while moving to the left navigates ahead.


Final remarks


Again, I did not seem to find this method being widely discussed, perhaps it
is undocumented or did not use to work reliably when it was first
introduced. It does certainly seem to be working fine at the moment and I
hope I could help you discover it through this tutorial. I believe it was
also on this forum that somebody discovered a while ago that if you hold
down a finger anywhere on the screen and start moving with two and three
fingers, some text navigation and selection is taking place. It intrigued me
back then and I would like to congratulate that person on their
attentiveness - you were very close indeed! I'm not sure whether these
gestures were also intended to work globally or just within the BSI but I'm
glad to see they work flawlessly with the latter.

Happy editing!

Tags

 <https://www.applevis.com/guides/braille> Braille

 <https://www.applevis.com/guides/ios> iOS

 <https://www.applevis.com/guides/ipad> iPad

 <https://www.applevis.com/guides/ipados> iPadOS

 <https://www.applevis.com/guides/iphone> iPhone

 <https://www.applevis.com/guides/voiceover> VoiceOver


Disclaimer


The article on this page has generously been submitted by a member of the
AppleVis community. As AppleVis is a community-powered website, we make no
guarantee, either express or implied, of the accuracy or completeness of the
information.

 

 

David Goldfield,

Blindness Assistive Technology Specialist

 <https://www.freedomscientific.com/Training/Certification> 

NVDA Certified Expert <https://certification.nvaccess.org/> 

 

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www.DavidGoldfield.org <http://www.DavidGoldfield.org> 

 

 

 

 

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