Application Commander is an utility that takes advantage of Apple’s Speech Recognition System in conjunction with the Application Switching Manager to enable you to control and manage your running applications by speaking some simple commands.
The Application Switching Manager is a public interface that several third party utilities support. It is currently support by ClaireWare Software’s Program Switcher and Binary Software’s PowerSwitch. For more information on these programs, please visit one of the following web pages:
Apple’s Speech Recognition System v1.5 or later (comes with MacOS 8.5)
PowerPC processor
Program Switcher v4.4.0 or PowerSwitch v1.0.0 or later
MacOS 8.0 or later
How do I use it?
All you need to do is enable the Speech Recognition Manager in the Speech control panel and then launch Application Commander. Application Commander is a “background only application,” so there are no options or other user interface to mess with. To cause Application Commander to do something, all you have to do is say a command that Application Commander recognizes and it will act on that command. Application Commander recognizes the following commands:
Switch to the Finder
Switch to the Last Application
Switch to <running application name>
Hide Other Applications
Hide the Current Application
Hide All Applications but the Finder
Show All Applications
Quit All Applications
Quit All Other Applications
Quit Application Commander
Launch <item in launch folder>
Most commands should be self explanatory. The “Switch to <running application name>” means that you say “Switch to” and the name of a running application and Application Commander will take you to it.
The “Launch <item in launch folder>” command will launch/open any item in a special folder that Application Commander creates when it is run for the first time. This folder is titled “Launchable Files”, and it is located in the “Application Commander” folder created in the “Application Support” folder in the System folder (MacOS 8.0 and later). Place any file into the “Launchable Files” folder that you wish Application Commander to be able to launch. It is recomended, though, that you only place alias of files into “Launchable Files”. Both applications and document files can be launched by Application Commander.
Note: There is a bug in the Application Switching Manager in versions 4.5.2 or earlier of Program Switcher and 1.0.1 or earlier of PowerSwitch that cause the “Quit All Other Applications” to not work properly - basically, it quits all applications. Future versions of Program Switcher and PowerSwitch should fix this.
What does it cost?
Application Commander is free!
Does it have a warranty?
No, and if it did, it would look like this:
USE OF THIS PRODUCT, APPLICATION COMMANDER, IMPLIES THAT YOU WILL HOLD MICHAEL F. KAMPRATH HARMLESS TO ANY DAMAGES CAUSED BY THE PERFORMANCE OF THIS PRODUCT. YOU ALSO AGREE THAT MICHAEL F. KAMPRATH CANNOT BE HELD LIABLE FOR ANY OTHER DAMAGES YOU MAY INCUR BY THE USE OF THIS PRODUCT. MICHAEL F. KAMPRATH PROVIDES NO WARRANTY, EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, OF THIS PRODUCT, INCLUDING ITS MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AND NONINFRINGEMENT.
Version History
v1.0.0, 7 November 1998: First Release!
v1.1.0, 27 February 1999: Added the “Launchable Items” capability.
