Especially when you’re doing something like trying to order food, the sites will always seem to have a bunch of these Javascript enabled buttons / images / paragraphs and screen reader just says “clickable”. They’re just a bunch of span / div tags, so Orca will read out the contents, but the selected aspect will not be what I’m reading.
Obviously, pressing Enter isn’t going to work, so I try pressing which is the left mouse key in Orca, but that’s also a no go. I’ve tried literally everything, but simply can’t click on these things.
Although once in a blue moon I can click on them somehow, but doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason as to how. I have no idea what that’s about, but would love to be able to duplicate however I clicked on it, but to no avail.
Anyway, any tips or tricks on how to click on these things via screen reader?
Hello,
I think the most error prone way on how to activate clickables with orca on the web is either to use list of clickables by default bound to alt+shift+a when orca is in the browse mode, finding your clickable in the list inside a dialog that shows up and activating with the Activate button.
If you are already reading a clickable element in browse mode that clickable should get preselected in the list.
Also when orca is switched to browse mode there are quick navigation keys shift+a and a to move back and forth by clickable lements.
When you would like to use numpad slash to synthesize a mouse click on a particular element, you can try a few things to prepare for the action. Currently you have to be running your desktop environment or window manager under Xorg. Manipulating the mouse is not yet supported on wayland.
Maximizing the browser window may help to locate the flat review item on the screen. Use numpad keys when the numlock is turned off to verify you can see the clickable you are going to click with flat review. If you can find it press orca+numpad slash to route the mouse to the flat review item before pressing numpad slash to synthesize the click.
I know this is not the definite one click solution to your query but I think knowing all this may help you to try various things and ultimatelly you can train your-self which technique to use with the particular websites.