Release Notes for HearIt, a Control Panel to allow you to speak the currently selected text in most applications.
Please send comments to Tim Fredenburg:
AppleLink: FREDENBURG or CIS:76566,2347
and a copy to Tim Schaaff:
AppleLink: TIM
If you like HearIt send positive comments so that we know to continue development on it. If you like the idea but think it needs work, say so. If you don't like it, I'd like to know that too.
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To use HearIt you must be running System 7.0 or later. You must also have the Speech Manager and a Speech Manager compatible Text-to-Speech synthesizer installed.
As of 12/20/93, the Speech Manager and TTS synthesizers are not widely distributed yet. The AV Macintoshes have the Speech Manager built-in and come with Apple's high quality MacinTalk Pro synthesizer (but called PlainTalk* Text-To-Speech). The Speech Manager as an extension (with Apple's low-end MacinTalk II synthesizer embedded) and MacinTalk Pro were distributed on the Aug. 93 and Nov. 93 Developer's CD's from Apple. Or, if you have access to the Internet, some of these files are available via ftp from ftp.apple.com in the directory /dts/mac/sys.soft/speech.
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The HearIt Control Panel allows you to pick a "hot key", a key combination used to trigger HearIt. The default is control-H. Pick a hot key that is not likely to be used by any application you use. For example, command-S would be a bad choice because when you tried to save a document, you'd speak some text instead!
To hear some text spoken, select it just as like you would if you were going to Copy it to the Clipboard. Then hit the hot key. There may be a pause (particularly if this is the first time you've used HearIt since you started your Mac), and then you will probably hear your selected text spoken aloud. If HearIt was installed when you started your Mac, you can try it right now!
I said you will "probably" hear your text because HearIt can't get the selected text from all applications, just most of them. Nothing bad should happen, you just won't hear anything, or maybe just a beep. Sometimes you just can't use HearIt in a particular situation in an application (e.g. in a modal dialog) but you can use it in other situations (e.g. in a document).
If HearIt can't speak, the reason will be displayed in the message box near the bottom of the Control Panel window. HearIt remembers the problem until the next time you speak, so if you don't have the Control Panel open when an error occurs, you can open it to see what the problem was.
In many applications, when you hit the hot key to speak, the front window will blink in some fashion; the title bar, scroll bars, or the selection may unhighlight and then re-highlight. This is normal, but a bit annoying. I haven't found a safe way of eliminating it in all applications but am continuing to work on it.
Occasionally, HearIt will have the side effect of finishing up some operation you were in the middle of. For example, if you are editing the name of an icon in the Finder and then hit the HearIt hot key, the Finder will take you out of name-editing mode. Another Finder quirk is when you select some text in the Comments box of a Get Info window, and trigger HearIt. The Finder will unselect your text before HearIt has a chance to see it and nothing will be spoken.
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Version 1.0d3
There are still DebugStr's in. Let me know if you hit one.
To stop speaking once it's started, don't have any text selected and hit the hot key again. This will be improved.
