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Comment by raldi | Hacker News Reader

Recently I was using a Mac without a mouse, and tried to figure out how to turn on "Mouse Keys", which lets the keyboard emulate the mouse. The problem is, the only way to do that is to tick a checkbox in System Preferences, and I couldn't figure it out way to check it with only a keyboard. Tab, arrow keys, nothing would move the cursor to the box so I could check it.

Anyone else want to give it a try?

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Just did it. Cmd+Space to bring up Spotlight. Type "Syste" and hit [enter]. The search box in the top-right corner should be active. [Tab] to it if it's not. Type in "Mouse" and arrow down to "Make mouse and trackpad easier to use". Hit [enter]. Hit [Tab] twice to move focus to "Enable Mouse Keys". Spacebar.

I have a feeling that I got lucky. There's another setting under "Keyboard" > "Accessibility", at the bottom, called "Full Keyboard Access". Mine is set to "All controls". I have a feeling yours is set to "Text boxes and lists only", which may be the default.

So I am kinda proving your point here :)

Indeed -- if it's set to the default (Text boxes and lists only), there seems to be no discoverable way to change the setting, and thus no discoverable way to turn on Mouse Keys.

(The non-discoverable way is to press Ctrl-Fn-F7; it's non-discoverable because the only place these instructions are shown is the Keyboard -> Shortcuts tab, but you can't get to that tab without a mouse.)

Keyboard access is definitely something Windows does better than Mac, what with all the `[Alt],` shortcuts you can quickly chain together. My favorite: [Alt],e,s,v in Excel, for pasting values.

You could probably be told that instruction over the phone... but knowing you needed to call it or what to call.

Very close Apple. Just a little more polish for your next update.

I've long thought that box should be checked by default (but I need it "on" so I would say that ;-) )

Anyone with mild RSI and a functioning TAB key would likely agree.

Try doing this: http://osxdaily.com/2010/02/26/use-the-tab-key-to-switch-bet...

Then when I go to the panel, I tab and it only highlights the left-side of the portion. Confused me at first but after mashing some keys I found that you need to press up/down on the left page to select the "mouse portion" THEN tab again and it will go "into" the place with the mouse keys. Here's a gif http://imgur.com/a/SedKz.

That's so weird -- everything's the same for me up until the Tab part. When I press Tab, nothing happens. "Mouse & Trackpad" just stays highlighted.

Edit: See nearby replies -- the reason you were able to do this is that you had previously changed a default setting which has no obvious way of being changed without a mouse.

Yeah, I've had this enabled for years.

In System Preferences » Keyboard » Shortcuts you need to have enabled Full Keyboard Access. The shortcut to toggle it is (fn-)Control-F7. After that you can tab through all controls and navigate to the Mouse Keys checkbox and check that.

Thanks -- this works! Too bad it's totally non-discoverable.

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