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Text File | 1991-04-18 | 24.0 KB | 519 lines

SEEKLyNE SCREEN DEMO PROGRAM. Version 1.01 Copyright 1991 by Stephen A. Theberge. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. SPEECH SYSTEMS for the BLIND 76 WHEATON DRIVE ATTLEBORO, MA 02703-6623 (508)226-0447. CIS: 73030,3644. GEnie ADDRESS: S.THEBERGE. OVERVIEW The SEEKLyNE SCREEN DEMO PROGRAM is designed to be a screen review program for the blind/visually impaired and those who wish text-to-speech in a wide variety of PC applications. The SEEKLyNE program requires 79K of RAM, the Covox Speech Thing (R) and its associated software. The screen reader is designed to run with a wide variety of monitors, including EGA 43 line modes, VGA 50 line modes and CGA/EGA/VGA monitors displaying at 40 columns. SEEKLyNE will also run with Hercules and MDA monitors. This program is the demonstration program for the SEEKLiNE SCREEN READER PROGRAM. All features in SEEKLyNE SCREEN DEMO are the same as SEEKLiNE SCREEN READER except: 1. You can't load or save a phonetic dictionary. 2. You can't read screens in programs outside of the SEEKLyNE program. The DEMO is meant as a pre-purchasing tool for those who may wish to purchase the SEEKLiNE SCREEN READER PROGRAM in the future. The screen review features of the demonstration program are the same as the full- featured SEEKLiNE reader, except that the full featured version allows saving/loading dictionary and reviewing of nearly ALL text screens in nearly ALL programs and environments. GETTING STARTED The first thing you must have to run the demo or actual program is a Covox Speech Thing (R), an IBM computer (XT, AT or 386,) DOS 2.01 or later and the correct statements in your CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files. The program MAY APPEAR to run well without these, but you will miss out on all the speech features, which is what SEEKLiNE and SEEKLyNE were designed to utilize. In your CONFIG.SYS file, add the line: DEVICE=STDRIVER.SYS. This will set up the 'ST' (Speech Thing (R) ) device driver so SEEKLyNE can speak. In your AUTOEXEC.BAT file add the lines: SPEECHV3 or SPEECHV2 SEEKLYNE Speechv3 allows more human sounding speech, while speechv2 has a more robotic sounding speech quality. Speechv3 takes about 170K of RAM while Speechv2 takes about 70K of RAM. Speechv3 also allows SEEKLyNE to say (track) keystrokes as you type, while Speechv2 does not, since it appears that Speechv2 is less re-entrant. Now you are ready to start using the demonstration program. THE MENUS. To Activate the the menu, while holding down the CTRL key, press the Alt key, and while holding down these to keys, press the <1> key (not on the number pad.) This will bring up the first level of menus. Let us now walk through them all before we actually use the demo reading features. Pressing the number that corresponds to your choice brings you deeper into other menus or allows you to complete the action it specifies. 1-SET READ WINDOW AREA: ... (choice one in main menu.) Monitors are divided logically into rows and columns. The starting row is numbered 1, the ending row is usually 25, but it may be 43 on an EGA monitor or 50 on a VGA monitor. The top line is defaulted at one and the bottom line is defaulted at 25, 43 or 50 depending on what SEEKLyNE detects as your active monitor mode when it becomes activated. The rows go from top to bottom. Similarly, start columns are numbered from left to right. On entry, SEEKLyNE defaults to the leftmost column (at 1) and the rightmost column at either 80 or 40. If your monitor is displaying 40 columns, SEEKLyNE will set end column to 40, but you usually will get the values you see when you use the CTRL-AlT-<1> combination after startup. If you chose this menu option, you can change the values. When you are in the "ENTER NEW WINDOW PARAMETERS ..." section, you may change these values. You can hit the <ESC> key to leave a value unchanged, or enter the new value beside the area you are being prompted to update. If start row is greater than the number of rows your monitor can display than it is ignored and you are left at that location until you enter a correct value or press <ESC> to go to the next value. If end row is greater than the number of rows your monitor can handle or less than start row, the same condition will occur. If start column is greater than the number of columns your monitor can currently display, than you are left at that location until <ESC> is pressed or you enter a valid value If end column is greater than the number of columns your monitor can handle or less than start column, the same condition occurs. 2-DEFINE WORD PRONOUNCIATIONS FOR SPEECH DICTIONARY. (choice 2,) This, although it may seem the most difficult menu option, is perhaps the easiest to explain. Menu option number 2 allows you to add up to 250 words to the speech dictionary when words are spoken by SEEKLyNE. Adding a word to the dictionary is perhaps the hardest thing to do. You supply the "word" and phonetic description to add. The "words" are defined as any set of letters in the range 'a' through 'z'. Only lower case letters are accepted in the "ADD WORD TO DICTIONARY." (sub menu choice 1) and "DELETE WORD FROM DICTIONARY." (sub menu choice 2.) This avoids having to worry about proper capitalization. SEEKLyNE, when it is reading a screen or speaking, takes care of capital letter instances of the word for you. A word is separated by any punctuation, a space character or a numeric character. For example: "SEE-SPOT RUN. SEE SPOT RUN. SEE1 SPOT PLAY." separate the word "SEE" by a "-", space character or the number <1> respectively. Periods, commas and other non-letters are also valid. 3-SAY KEYS AS YOU TYPE=... (main menu option 3.) This is a toggle. ON tells you that letters are echoed back as you type, OFF tells you keys you strike will not be spoken back as they are pressed. This option is designed for slower typists. If you type fast with 'ON', the computer may be considerably behind the operator. In any event, due to technical concerns, keys will not be echoed back if you have loaded Speechv2 in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. It is only valid for Speechv3. 4-Update/Scan ... (main menu option 4.) Any time there is new information at row ???, the computer will speak the information back to you through the Speech Thing (R) hardware to you. A value of 0 (default) tells the program not to look for changes at this row. Also, only the information from start column to end column in this row will be checked and spoken back (if there is a change.) You can not, of course, specify a line out of the range of your monitors capability. 5-BACK TO WHERE YOU WERE ... (main menu option 5.) This choice "pops-down" the program and returns you to the place you were before you struck CTRL-AlT-<1>. The cursor and screen are returned to you as they were, and you can go on with what you were doing before you requested SEEKLyNE to become active. You can use CTRL-Alt-<1> at any time in the future from any program and it will become active for you. If you are running a graphics program or in the middle of a command which SEEKLyNE can't interrupt, pressing CTRL-Alt-<1> will cause a beep, telling you it is not safe to interrupt your program at this time. Menu option 5 will always return you to where you were in DOS or a program if it "popped-up" for you. SPEED /PITCH /TONE Use the <s>, <p> and <t> keys to cycle speed, pitch and tone of the Speech Thing (R) respectively. Speed and tone cycle from 0 - 9. A speed of zero is the slowest, while a speed of 9 is the fastest. A pitch of 0 is the lowest, while a pitch of 9 is the highest. Tone is either 0 or 1. The tone will not change, you will not hear a difference if you are using Speechv2. With Speechv3, you should decide if you like tone at 0 or 1. This is an individual decision, based on how it sounds to you. <ESC>-LEAVE/EXIT ... (remove SEEKLyNE from memory.) This will stop SEEKLyNE from working. You will no longer be able to use CTRL-Alt-<1> to use the menus or any other features. You should only deactivate from the DOS level. You will hear, "SEEKLINE has been removed from memory," if it was able to deactivate. If it couldn't deactivate, because you were within a program, you will not hear the message, but SEEKLyNE is still not active. In some cases, you must re-install SEEKLyNE again. You will hear, "SEEKLINE has already been installed ... " and seekline will be active again. SEEKLyNE will never remove itself from memory if doing so would compromise your system. Some TSR's Do not take this into account and cause "bad things to happen" when they are removed from an "unsafe" place. SEEKLyNE will determine if it is safe to pop-up and remove itself in all cases. Sometimes you will not hear the message, "SEEKLyNE has been removed from memory ... " until you have left a particular program that you removed it in. For the best ease of use, only use <ESC> option in main menu at the DOS level. While not doing this is O.K., you may sometimes have to activate SEEKLyNE at the DOS prompt to remove it anyway. It is best to install SEEKLyNE as early in a chain of TSR's as possible. Never install it when you have "shelled" from any program. The rule of thumb should be, "Put it in first, take it out only at the DOS prompt." READING THE SCREEN /EXPERT MODE Now, the point of learning all those menus was not useless. You must now be asking, "why all these menus? How do I read the screen?" The answer is the <Print-Screen> key on your computer. Some systems use the <Left-Shift> and <*> keys on the num-lock pad to print the screen. Some keyboards label the key <PrtScr> with the asterisk under it. In any case, you should find out how you would print a screen to your printer using this key so you'll know which key or combination above gets you in the screen reading mode. Once this is done, you are in screen reader mode, the cursor is generally enlarged. You are usually given a short beep telling you that you are in screen reader mode, and the keys you press now will act differently. Now we will assume you are in screen review mode. The first thing you should know is how to get out of it. You press the <ESC> key and you will be returned to the program you were at before. The cursor will be re- aligned and you will hear a short tone followed by a longer tone, indicating that you are back in system mode. Now it's time to look at the keys in screen reader mode you will need to know. <S>/ <P>/ <O> These keys correspond to the 's', 'p' and 't' keys to change the speed, pitch and tone in the main menu. (SEE MAIN MENU SECTION.) The 'o' key acts like the 't' key, but in screen reader mode the 't' key will be used for something else. Just remember, "O sounds like tone." <D>/ <W> (DICTIONARY & WINDOW AREA.) The 'd' key let's you access the dictionary menus. Same as main menu option 2. The 'w' key lets you access the set read window area. The 'w' corresponds to main menu option 1. <E> (TOGGLE KEY ECHO.) This lets you echo keys back as you type. Same as menu option 3 in main menu. Keys will echo when you have exited the screen reader mode. READING THE ENTIRE SCREEN <R> OR <r> This feature allows the entire screen to be read. If you shift the 'r' key, the entire screen (in its active defined window) is read letter- by-letter along with any punctuation marks that it encounters. Pressing the <ESC> key when the screen is being read will return you to screen reading mode. If you use the lower case, that is the non-shifted 'r' key in screen reader mode, the entire screen is read as words and sentences in the current screen window area. Pressing the <ESC> key will cause SEEKLyNE to exit reading the entire screen as early as possible. This will occur after a line has been completed. After this point, if you've hit the <ESC> key, you will be returned to the screen reader mode. A single long beep is heard in both of the above cases, indicating you are still in the screen reader mode. Please let a line finish, pressing <ESC> more than once will most certainly bring you out of screen reader mode. The tones are intended to guide you. They also apply to the other features I'll describe. READING FROM CURSOR <F> OR <f> The non-shifted 'f' key reads the letter (character) at the current SEEKLyNE cursor to the end of the active window or bottom of screen. It reads by line and words and can be stopped at any time by pressing the '<ESC>' key. This will cause a long beep when the current line being spoken is done and return you to screen reader mode. The shifted or capital 'F' does the same as above, but reads letter- by-letter and by punctuation marks. <ESC> can be used in the same way. READING TO CURSOR <T> OR <t> This feature is the "inverse" of the 'f' key functions. It reads from the top of the active screen window to, and including, the character or letter at the SEEKLyNE cursor. The shifted 't' gives spelling, while the non-shifted 't' reads it as words. They can be both interrupted by the <ESC> key. WHERE IS MY OLD PRINT SCREEN? If you wish to use the PrtScr key to print (save) screens to your printer, you can still do so. After entering screen reader mode, press the 'z' key (shifted or non) and the screen will be sent to the printer just as hitting the PrtScr key without SEEKLyNE resident used to do. You can then press <ESC> to return to where you were, or use other features. EXITING AND DETACHING SEEKLyNE You can tell SEEKLyNE you wish to remove it from memory by pressing the 'x' key (either shifted or not.) When you later exit screen reader mode using the <ESC> key, it will be removed from memory. See section in discussion of main menu options as well for when you should and shouldn't detach the program and how to restart it if it wouldn't detach correctly. SEEKLYNE FULL REPORT <?> OR, IF YOU WISH </> Pressing the shifted '/' (question mark) or simply the '/' key gives speaks all the parameters that you can set. It tells you Where the cursors are, the start and end rows and columns, speed, pitch, tone and all values you can set from the menus in screen reader mode. It can not be interrupted by the <ESC> key, so pressing the <ESC> key when the report is being spoken will bring you out of screen reader mode after the report is done. You may press another key, such as 'r', 's', etc. to continue a new action when the report is finished. THE NUMBER PAD & POWER FEATURES! The number pad is even a greater source of reading features. You can have more control over the cursor and what you will read. First, we will discuss the 2 last, perhaps most important, keyboard keys before we discuss the number pad. The 'j' key will always bring you to where the system cursor was at the time you entered the screen review mode, unless the window has been changed out of its range. In general, you will use the 'j' key to go to the system cursor. This is the default state of the 2 cursors on entry. This allows you to read from and to the cursor as though you were still in the actual program. It is only after you have moved the cursor with the number pad keys may you wish to return the cursor to its normal (default) state. The 'm' key moves both cursors at the same position. Some applications may allow you to directly change the position of the system cursor, but many will put it back anyway. The 'm' key aligns the system (or cursor of the program you came from) to the SEEKLyNE cursor's position. The SEEKLyNE cursor is the cursor of the SEEKLyNE program's screen reader mode or menu modes. The system cursor is the cursor you normally think of. This is the cursor (the system) you see in word processors, at the DOS prompt, etc. When you review the screen, you need another cursor to move around the screen. You don't actually have to worry about mixing up the 2 cursors. SEEKLyNE will never confuse the 2. MAKE SURE YOUR NUM-LOCK IS OFF-WE ARE READY. If you use the num-lock keys and your num-lock is on and you are in screen reader mode, you will hear a beep. When you are ready, you can access all the keys on the num-lock pad to review the screen. Hone-7: This brings you to the beginning of the current line you are at. It brings you to start column 1, usually the leftmost position of the screen, unless you re-defined the window. Left-Arrow-4: This brings you left one word. Words are separated by spaces. If you are at the beginning of a line, you will hear the word and a beep, telling you you are at the beginning of the line. The cursor is placed just after the word, at the space. End-1: Same as home, but brings you to the end of the current line at current window column 2. This is usually column 80. Up-8: This brings you up a line and reads the line at the new position. If you are at the top of screen, you are given a beep and the line is read. Down-2: Same as up, but brings you down and reads a line. Beeps if at bottom and reads that line. Up/Down are also affected by current screen window settings, as are all SEEKLyNE features. PgUp-9: Brings you to the top row and leftmost column of active screen window. Right-Arrow-6: This brings you right one word. The word is spoken and the cursor is placed just after the word at the space. If you are at the end of a line, you are given a beep as well. The cursor will be placed at the rightmost column of the line if the last word is not followed by a space. PgDn-3: This brings you to the bottom row and rightmost column of active screen window. Ins-0: Repeats last line spoken by an up or down arrow operation. Will say nothing if no such operations were done. Del-.: Says the last word spoken by a left or right arrow operation. Will be empty if a new line is scanned with up or down arrow, or you haven't used the left or right arrow keys yet. +: This spells the last line, all its punctuation letter by letter. If no line is spoken with Ins-0, than none will be spelled out here. You can abort the letter-by-letter line reading by pressing the <ESC> key. -: This will "spell" the last word obtained by a left/right arrow operation. If pressing the '.' (Del) on num-lock pad does not say a word, then you will not hear a word spelled here either. You can abort with the <ESC> key as well. HOW TO LOCATE TEXT ON SCREEN Using the 'l' key on the keyboard (shifted or not) you will be place at the beginning of the active screen window. Enter the text you want to locate. Capital and lower case letters are important. Press the enter key and the text will be located for you. If the text is found, the cursor sill be placed one character after the cursor. If it is not found, you will be notified, and the cursor will be placed at the location it was before you issued the locate command. The locate searches from cursor and in the active screen window. ORDER FORM SPEECH SYSTEMS FOR THE BLIND 76 WHEATON DRIVE ATTLEBORO, MA 02703-6623 (508)226-0447 CIS: 73030,3644 GEnie: S.THEBERGE NAME____________________________________________________________ ADDRESS_________________________________________________________ CITY____________________________________________________________ STATE___________ ZIP CODE_________ PHONE # ( )______/_________ Please send me _______ copies of the SEEKLiNE SCREEN READER PROGRAM at $39.95 each. I understand the software is sold as is and I may not copy or sell it (except copies to backup and protect system files) without express permission from the copyright holder. I understand the DEMO may be freely copied and given to others, but that I may not charge any fees for the DEMO without express permission from the copyright holder. SEEKLiNE SCREEN READER PROGRAM may not be copied for any reason except in system backups. Total Enclosed Shipping $ 0.00 $_______ Make checks or money orders payable to Stephen A. Theberge. Thank you for your support. The Speech Thing is a registered trademark of Covox Inc. All other software for the Speech Thing by Covox is under copyright and subject to U.S. and international trademark. IBM is a registered trademark of International Business Machine. SEEKLyNE and SEEKLiNE are copyright 1991 by Stephen A. Theberge and are protected by U.S. and international copyright laws. This product uses the TesSeRact Ram-Resident library and supports the TesSeRact Standard for Ram-Resident Program Communication. For information about TesSeRact, contact the TesSeRact Development Team at: TesSeRact Development Team 1657 The Fairways Suit 101 Jenkintown, PA 19046 1-215-884-3373 Compuserve: 70731,20 MCIMAIL: 315-5415 This MCIMAiL account has been provided to the TesSeRact Development Team by Borland International, Inc. The TesSeRact Development Team is in no way associated with Borland International, Inc. TesSeRact is a trademark of the TesSeRact Development Team.