ProfitPress Mega CDROM2 …eeware (MSDOS)(1992)(Eng)/ProfitPress-MegaCDROM2.B6I/MISC/HANDICAP/ASAP0392.ZIP/READ.ME

Text File | 1992-03-01 | 15.4 KB | 333 lines

This file outlines changes to ASAP since the recorded or printed
documentation's publication.  It doesn't fully describe each of
the features you read about here. refer to the disk-based manual
for complete information. The manual is in a file called
ASAP.TXT.

March 1992

Some of you don't like the beep you get when hitting Alt twice.
It has been removed.  Also added to the silence feature, though,
is the temporary turning on of noise with DOS output when you
press Alt twice while using an application that sends its output
through DOS.  You can press Alt another time to turn even this
clicking off.  Pressing Alt yet another time turns the clicking
back on.  The effect of this change is that if you're not using
an application that goes through BIOS, hitting Alt twice has no
effect.  If you are using an application that sends its output
through BIOS, you'll be able to get both the last line read plus
be able to tell that there is still activity by the clicking
sound.  Recall that the clicking happens when a character is put
on the screen, one click per character.

February 1992

Those of you who use off-line mail readers will love ASAP's new
Filter Quoting command.  If you're familiar with echo mail,
you'll know that often the quoted part of a message is longer
than the actual message.  With the Filter Quoting feature, ASAP
filters out the lines that contain quoting, so you can cover some
serious ground in these messages.  Access the Filter Quoting
feature with Ctrl-F.

There are times when the space character doesn't serve as a word
delimiter.  ASAP's new Delimiter Define command lets you specify
any character to treat as a word delimiter while looking at the
screen.  To use the Define Delimiter command, move your reading
cursor to the character you want to treat as a word delimiter,
then press Ctrl-D.

January 1992

There is an additional choice on  the Use a Software Cursor menu.
That additional choice is "ASCII".  The ASCII selection works by
letting you point at a character on the screen that is used as
the cursor.  You then press keypad 0 followed with the window
number in which the cursor appears (usually, just window 1 will
do), then you press "U" for "Use a Software Cursor."  At that
point, press "A" to specify that the program uses an ASCII
software cursor.

ASAP now works with version 2.1 of the Kurzweil Personal Reader.
With the release of 2.1, Kurzweil somehow changed the Dec-Talk
interface so screen access programs (like ASAP) had a difficult
time shutting the speech up when they needed to. This problem is
now corrected.

You may now remove ASAP from memory.  There is probably no reason
ever to do this under normal circumstances, but you might find it
useful in some unusual situations.  You can, for instance, unload
ASAP then start it back up with a new lex file or even with a
different synthesizer.  The command to remove ASAP from memory is
Ctrl-Q.  If it is safe to unload from memory, ASAP says, "Press
Enter to remove ASAP" and waits for you to either press Enter to
remove it or any other key to cancel the operation.  If it is not
safe to remove ASAP from memory, ASAP lets you know by saying,
"Warning: ASAP cannot be removed."  If you get that message,
there is some reason that makes it unsafe for ASAP to remove
itself from memory.  This usually happens if you load another TSR
after ASAP.  You may still be able to remove ASAP by removing
TSRs you loaded after ASAP, then unloading ASAP.

ASAP now works with formally speech hostile programs that
completely take over the keyboard.  Such programs include the
Irma board, IBM's 3270 emulator, and Quick'n 5.0.  These kinds of
programs are difficult for screen access programs to work with
because they completely take over the keyboard.  ASAP now detects
this situation and grabs the keyboard right back from the
application.  Of course, if ASAP doesn't want the key, it sends
it right along as if the other program had direct control of the
keyboard like it thinks it does.  If ASAP does use the key,
though, it gets a chance at it.

You tell ASAP to intercept keystrokes with Ctrl-I.  You should
give ASAP the CTRL-I command before you run the application that
requires the keyboard interception feature.  Never issue the
Ctrl-I command from within an application--this can cause
problems.  Once we've done more experimentation with a wider
variety of programs, MicroTalk will probably make Intercept Keys
the default, but for now, you'll have to turn it on before
starting such a program.  The Intercept Keys feature is a global
setting.

You'll know when ASAP detects the keyboard has been stolen--it
beeps.  Once it beeps, ASAP grabs the keyboard right back from
the offending application and you carry on like nothing happened.

There is a new command that adds a little speed and flexibility
to your work during a DOS session.  Recall that if you press Alt
while DOS output is in progress, ASAP makes a bonking noise to
let you know the computer is ready for more input from you.
Think, for a moment, of all the times you've used that command,
then immediately followed it with a couple of presses of the
Previous Line command to find out what the last non-blank line
said.  Now, you can press Alt twice to make ASAP do all that for
you.  In other words, when you press Alt a second time, ASAP
knows that you'll want some information about the screen when the
computer is finished with its current task, so in addition to the
bonking sound, ASAP reads you the first non-blank line above the
cursor and the subsequent lines on the screen.  (ASAP beeps to
confirm that it has recognized your request when you press the
Alt key a second time.)  If you hear the beep during some other
operation, don't worry about it.  The beep has no effect, it just
lets you know that ASAP recognized your request.

December 1991

Now you can identify capitalized words while reading.  ASAP's
Jiffy Caps Identification feature pronounces words that contain
capital letters in a high pitched voice.  Recall that you could
always identify capital letters by using the Read by Character
commands.  The difference with Jiffy Caps Identification is that
you hear the pitch raised as the word is announced.

The command character for Jiffy Caps Identification is Alt-J.
Jiffy Caps Identification is a global setting, so it does not get
saved with your set files.  This is the kind of setting you'll
want to use across application boundaries.

ASAP finally has a Quiet Zone command.  A Quiet Zone is an area
on the screen where no speech will happen.  This is often used to
mask out such annoyances as clocks or counters that serve as
little more than a bother for blind users of an application.  The
MicroTalk staff argued that such a feature wasn't needed in ASAP,
but a couple of you have shown us cases where one could be used,
so here it is.  It is accessed with a number to indicate the
window to treat as a quiet zone followed with the letter "Q."
See the disk-based manual for complete details on its use.

November 1991

The Set Top Left and Set Bottom Right commands now show the
previous value of the window you are defining.  You confirm the
setting with "Y" or Enter, or cancel it and maintain the previous
setting by pressing Escape.

The Find command was significantly enhanced.  You may now search
for both text and specific attributes.  See the disk-based
documentation (in the file ASAP.TXT) for complete details on its
use.

Two new commands were added to the control panel's review
capabilities.  These commands are alt-up arrow and alt-down
arrow.  While the regular up and down arrow commands read the
previous and next lines on the screen, the alt-up and alt-down
arrow commands move the reading cursor to the previous and next
line, but instead of reading the whole line, the commands read
only the character at the cursor.  These commands should prove
useful for checking screen formats, etc.

October 1991

ASAP has now skirted the problem introduced into the ANSI.SYS
device driver when MS-DOS 5.0 was released.  This was not an ASAP
problem, but MicroTalk felt it necessary to work around this
annoyance for the sake of convenience.

                         September 1991

ASAP's command character to enter the control panel has changed.
It used to be Alt-Space.  Now, it is Control-Backslash.  This had
to be done to maintain compatibility with future revisions to the
program.  This change was not made lightly, and we apologize for
any inconvenience, but it was definitely necessary.  If you don't
like the new access character, see the "User Defined Key" section
of the manual for instructions on changing it to something else.

ASAP has a new command that lets you temporarily silence the
keyboard.  The command is CTRL-K.  When you press keypad 0
followed with CTRL-K, ASAP no longer echoes your keystrokes--but
only until you press the Enter key.  This command is most useful
for entering information (like BBS passwords) you don't want
other people to hear.

ASAP now skips punctuation characters like parenthesis and
brackets when they appear in the middle of a word and you've got
Most Punctuation turned off.  This means that words with those
characters in the middle of them get pronounced correctly if you
have punctuation turned off.  Of course, if you have punctuation
turned on, you'll still get to hear those characters just as you
always have.

ASAP now lets you assign a function to any key.  This means you
can make any key perform any task you want.  This feature is
called User Defined Functions and it is fully documented in the
disk-based documentation.

In addition to normal user defined functions, ASAP now supports a
special user function definition that gets used whenever ASAP
loads a new set file.

With the User Function feature, ASAP requires a way to bypass a
key that's defined if you need to use that key for an
application.  This is accomplished with the Pass Key function
accessed with CTRL-Right Bracket.

August 1991

You may now tell ASAP about punctuation characters to treat as
exceptions for either mode of punctuation.  See "Most
Punctuation" in the disk-based manual for details.

The Zoom Window feature was altered to recover the current cursor
in the window you zoom into instead of the previous position you
were at the last time you were in that window.  It was also
changed to ignore software cursors in any other defined window
when you're zoomed in on a particular window.  You can still
monitor all defined windows at once by leaving your view to the
full screen mode.

ASAP now lets you assign labels to special keys.  That means you
can make the function and other keys say whatever you want them
to say for each application you use.  The key labels get saved
right along with other settings with ASAP's Save Settings
command.  You assign key labels  with ASAP's Alt-L command.  See
"Key Labels" in the disk-based manual for complete details.

The Monitor Window capability now detects scrolling.  This makes
monitoring windows ideal for those programs that emulate BIOS but
go directly to the screen like BASIC programs written with QBASIC
or QuickBasic.

Settings files were modified to contain both monochrome and color
information.  If you plan to share set files, please take the
time to set up the screen for both color and monochrome.  See the
disk-based manual for complete details on this procedure.

A command to aid in sharing settings files was added.  It is
Ctrl-T.  It toggles what ASAP considers about your monitor.  In
other words, if you've got a color monitor, and you press Ctrl-T,
ASAP switches to monochrome mode and visa versa.  This is used to
let you set up settings files for both types of monitors.  Please
refer to the documentation for more details on setting up
settings files.

July 1991

A feature to watch the screen for text or text of a specific
attribute or color was added.  When ASAP sees the desired text in
the desired position, it loads up a new set file to handle a new
situation.  Examples for WordPerfect version 5.1 are included.
See the documentation in the file WP.TXT for details about the
function of the set files.

The use of a software cursor was enhanced to check several
windows for a cursor.  The new features are documented in the
disk-based manual.

The Alt-U command was removed.  It is no longer needed with the
new capabilities of the Use of a Software Cursor feature.

An extra level of activity checking was added to the extended
activity checking facility accessed with Alt-X.  The new level is
called "super."  Super activity checking is used for those rare
programs that insist on disconnecting the keyboard from other
programs.  Some emulators do this and so do certain other
programs.  Consult the manual for complete details on its use.

Along with super activity checking, ASAP adds a new means of
entering the control panel.  Holding down the alt key for about
four seconds accesses the control panel.  The old methods of
accessing the control panel still work.  This new access method
is used for those programs that completely take over the
keyboard.

ASAP now supports those synthesizers that use the "Porttalk"
interface or command set.  This includes TSI's BrailleMate and a
number of others.  Note that while it is possible to use the
PortTalk program with synthesizers like those from Artic
Technologies, ASAP does not require it--that is, ASAP directly
supports the VoTalker and Symphonix boards without the use of
PortTalk.

To use install with PortTalk synthesizers, use the following
command:

install portTalk com1 n

Of course, "com1" can be any of the ports you like.

June 1991

Dialer Modifications:

The dialer now lets you dial your phone more flexibly than in
earlier versions.  In addition to using the system cursor to dial
numbers, you can now point to the number to dial with the reading
keys.  The dialer now initializes your serial port, so you don't
have to use the MODE command.  The dialer now also assumes that
you have touch tone capabilities.  If you don't, just set one of
your memories to the letter "P" (for pulse dialing) and turn on
the corresponding dial prefix as described in the manual.

ASAP now lets you redial the last number you dialed with the
command 9D.  This doesn't interfere with the [com port] D
command, because most computers don't support 9 serial ports.

Save Settings: CTRL-S

ASAP lets you preserve any settings you may alter when using a
program.  All you have to do is make the appropriate adjustments,
then press CTRL-S.  (Don't forget that if you aren't in the
control panel, you must precede the CTRL-S with keypad 0.)  The
next time you use that application, ASAP resets all the settings
to the way they were when you saved them.  See the documentation
for more complete information.

Setting Memory from the Command Line: [memory] M [text]

ASAP now lets you set its memories from the command line.  To set
a memory, use the memory number followed by the letter "M"
followed immediately with the text you wish to put into that
memory.  The text is considered terminated by a space.  The
manual contains complete details.

Dialing Prefixes

ASAP now lets you add sequences to numbers you dial with the
[port] D command.  The prefixes are contained in ASAP's 9
memories.  You control which memories are added to the phone
number by using the [memory] N command.  This is used to add long
distance and access codes to your phone numbers.