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A little background: I'm helping a friend who had a stroke a few years ago and who has global aphasia; as a result it's very difficult for his brain to consistently derive meaning from written words and letters. (You can almost think of it as an extreme form of dyslexia.) He has no trouble with understanding pictures or anything spoken.

MacOS Ventura has a built-in accessibility tool for text-to-speech, a floating box with play/pause/speed buttons that can read aloud almost any selectable text on screen. Apple docs refer to this box as the 'controller'.

This is a lifesaver for my friend! But the option to make the window appear is buried in a system settings menu tree, to the point where it's impossible for him to open it again on his own if he accidentally closes it.

There is a keyboard command to re-open it that can be customized, but because of my friend's written language processing disorder and some motor issues, it's not viable for him to press the correct keys on the keyboard. I need something on the screen that he can double-click.

My best thought for the simplest solution was to use Automator to set up a desktop shortcut that would automatically re-open it if it gets closed. Has anyone had experience with this? I'm completely open to other solutions to make the TTS controller as easy as possible to summon, without using the keyboard.

The options box within System Settings / Accessibility that the TTS controller is triggered through. "Show Controller: Always" is currently selected, but this does nothing to prevent the controller from being accidentally closed.

enter image description here

The TTS controller. https://i.stack.imgur.com/TK7F4.jpg

TTS Controller

I have very little experience with Automator, but from my explorations so far, I don't see a way to access very specific parts of the system settings. I've tried recording the cursor, but if the system settings window is in an unexpected place, it doesn't work.

Ventura has Shortcuts, but it seems like the same issues there -- no pre-baked way to access system settings.

Allan
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Ckenn
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  • Maybe I’m missing something, but isn’t the shortcut to turn this on Option-Esc? You can create a shortcut/automation that presses this shortcut. You could also program a macro keyboard/button to do this with no interaction on the screen. – Allan May 07 '23 at 18:19
  • Also, a screen shot using Shift-Cmd-5 is a much better way to capture screen output. Taking a picture with your phone produces an image that’s difficult to view due to the angle, glare, and moire patterns etc. – Allan May 07 '23 at 18:22
  • @Allan Thanks, this is helpful. Apologies for the photos-of-a-screen; I took these of his computer for my own reference (my Catalina machine doesn't have this function) thinking I could easily look up this problem at home... and now here I am. Could you point me toward a newbie tutorial on how to get Automator to perform keyboard shortcuts? I can't figure out ho to make Watch Me Do record keyboard inputs. – Ckenn May 07 '23 at 18:51
  • Start here for scripting a keyboard shortcut. As for taking screenshots, they are universal and I am positive it’s available on Catalina. See this page on screenshots – Allan May 07 '23 at 19:03

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