ProfitPress Mega CDROM2 …eeware (MSDOS)(1992)(Eng)/ProfitPress-MegaCDROM2.B6I/MISC/HANDICAP/VEDOCS20.ZIP/SECT14.DOC

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SECTION FOURTEEN
ADVANCED OPTIONS

14.1:  INTRODUCTION

Don't let the title of this section scare you out.  This section does contain
a few features which at first may seem difficult to understand.  Please read
this entire section.  In fact, you may wish to re-read this section more than
once.  The best way to learn about a feature which may not be completely
clear is to actually give it a try.  At least by reading this section, if you
come across complex application program, you might remember a feature or two
which could help you in getting the program to speak.  At that point, you may
want to learn more about the Vocal-Eyes option(s).

14.2:  FLOAT WINDOWS

In section 7, we talked about the 10 standard screen windows 0-9.  Each of
these windows can be either neutral, silent, speak or float.  We did not
cover the concept of float windows at that time because more information
needed to be discussed.  You now know everything you need to know in order to
discuss the float windows.

This type of window can automatically move as its name implies.  You setup a
float window just as you would any other.  You can press F7 until the type is
float and press F4 to set the coordinates or use the F5 and F6 to set the top
left and bottom right.  The left and right column positions however are not
required.  The top and bottom lines are.  When this window is requested to be
read, Vocal-Eyes will search for the current light bar.  Once found, it will
get the column position of the first character of the lightbar and set the
left column position of the float window to its position.  It will then get
the right column position from the last character of the lightbar and set the
right column position of the float window to it.  Now the window will be
read.  Why would you need such a feature?  Maybe an example will clear things
up.

This feature was designed for spreadsheet programs.  However, with a little
imagination, it can be used in other places as well.  In a spreadsheet, you
have several columns across the screen.  Each column can vary in width.  Lets
say at the top of each column in your spreadsheet, you have the following
titles:

Phone Bill   Gas Bill    Electric   Mortgage     Total

As you move from column to column, you could have Vocal-Eyes read the new
cell position and cell contents.  However, wouldn't it be better to read the
column title and then the cell contents?  The problem is how do you find the
current column title and have it read?  You guessed it, use a float window.

You always know what line or lines the column titles are in.  In our example,
lets say line 5.  You would setup a window as float and the top and bottom
lines to 5.  You don't have to set the left and right because they will
change anyway.  The float window should not be the currently selected window.
Instead, active the same window you would normally have.  You should make
sure the lightbar color is set to the actual color used by the spreadsheet
program or you can use the auto lightbar.  Now when you press the hotkey to
read the float window, Vocal-Eyes will look for the current lightbar in the
spreadsheet, get its left and right column positions and set the float window
to the same settings.  If a lightbar can not be found, the left and right
columns of the float window will not be changed and the window will be
voiced.  Giving you the exact results you requested.

To actually get our example to work automatically, you would want to assign
the keystroke which moves you from column to column as a cursoring key and
have them setup to read the float window and the current light bar.  This
way, as you move from column to column, Vocal-Eyes will read the current
column title and the cell contents all automatically.  What could be nicer?

Remember, the reason a float window works in our spreadsheet example is
because the current lightbar is somewhere directly below the title we want
voiced and is the exact same width of the title.  It does not matter what
line the lightbar is on.  Vocal-Eyes is only interested in the starting
column and ending column of the lightbar.  It uses these column positions to
set the left and right columns of the float window.  You must supply the
starting and ending lines for the window.  Normally the starting and ending
line will be the same line but they do not have to be.

14.3:  MORE OPTIONS FOR THE STANDARD WINDOWS

We have already covered many features of the standard windows 0-9.  However,
there are a few other features each of the windows are capable of.  These new
features will be covered below.

14.3.1:  WINDOW COLOR

Each of the ten windows 0-9 can each have a particular color attached to it.
This is separate from the lightbar color we talked about earlier.  If
characters are being printed to the screen through BIOS and they fall within
a speak window, they will only be spoken if the color of the character
matches the color setup for the speak window.  By default, the color is any
foreground color on any background (every character).

Although this can be used for characters being printed through BIOS,
Vocal-Eyes also looks at this setting when it has been requested to read the
specified window.  If for example, you setup window 5 for blue on red and you
issue the hotkey asking Vocal-Eyes to read window 5, Vocal-Eyes will only
speak the characters which are blue on red within the defined window.  You
could sort of think of this as another way of setting up a user attribute.
The only difference is this is unique to each window as were the user
attribute is independent of all windows.

There are actually two ways you can setup the color to use for each window.
The first approach will be discussed here and the other will be discussed a
bit later in this section.

Remember, while in review mode, you can press 'A'  to set the user attribute
to the color under the review cursor and you can press 'B' to set the current
window's lightbar color to the color currently under the review cursor?
After either command, you can if you wish, press F1 to display the color
palate which displays all the available foreground and background colors
along with the generic options such as any bright or not black.

Well, to set the current window color, the procedure is exactly the same only
you press the command 'W' in review mode.  Vocal-Eyes will say "Window set
for whatever on whatever".  If you wish, you can press F1 to select from the
color palate.  In either case, you have just setup a particular color for the
currently selected window.

Remember, the current window color is only used when information is being
printed through BIOS in a speak window or when you request the window to be
read with the window hotkey.  Reading the current line or paragraph will not
use the window color but will read the data as before regardless of the
color.

14.3.2:  CHAIN READING

It is possible for you to connect or chain windows together so they will all
be read with a single keypress.  Each window contains a setting of either
none or another window number.  After Vocal-Eyes speaks the specified window,
it will look at this setting.  If set to none, Vocal-Eyes will stop reading.
If however, it contains another window number, Vocal-Eyes will read that
window and start this process over again until a setting of none is reached
or you try to read a window which was already read previously in the chain.
In other words, you can not have window 7 chained to window 2 and window 2
chained to window 7.  Vocal-Eyes will sense the window specified has already
been spoken and stop reading.

This can be used for many purposes.  One example might be for reading
columns.  Set a window for the first column and chain it to the window which
is setup for the second column and so on all the way across.

Chain reading will work no matter how the original window was requested to be
read.  For example, you could use the read window hotkey, a cursoring key or
even a hyperactive window could be setup to read a window.  If the window to
be read is setup to chain to another, the new window will be read.  After the
second window has been read, the process is repeated.

14.3.3:  SPEAK AND SPELL

It is possible to instruct Vocal-Eyes while reading a window to spell each
word after it has been spoken.  This feature was mainly designed for spell
checkers which give you a list of optional words.  Hearing the optional words
spoken may not be enough.  Simply instruct the window you have setup over the
options to speak and spell.

A good example of this is the spell checker in WordPerfect.  It gives a list
of misspelled words from about lines 13 to 22.  By setting a window to this
area and setting the window to speak and spell, you would get something like
this:

A. test  t e s t
B. testing  t e s t i n g
C. tests  t e s t s

and so on...

Only those words which have more than one letter are actually spelled after
being spoken.  So the letter or number preceding the optional word is only
spoken once and not spelled.  However, the optional word after it is spoken
is spelled out.

Also, during the spelling of the word, Vocal-Eyes automatically lowers the
speech rate by 2 during the spelling phase only.  This is so you can truly
understand what the word is.

14.3.4:  SETTING UP A WINDOW DEFINITION

Now that you know what new things each window can do, lets talk about how you
actually setup these values.

We only talked very briefly about the ALT-F7 command in review mode.  At the
time, we said it would be discussed in a later section.  Well, this is a
later section.  When you press ALT-F7 in review mode, Vocal-Eyes will display
a box in the center of the screen which prompts for 8 items.  Each item will
be discussed in detail below.  You can use the arrow keys to move from option
to option and use the space bar to toggle to the next setting or the
backspace to toggle to the previous setting for the current option.

Status:

The first item asked for is the status of the window.  Simply press the space
bar to select the next option or the backspace key to select the previous
option.  Once you get the desired setting, press the ENTER key to move to the
next selection.  The available settings are: Neutral, Silent, Speak and
Float.  This particular setting could also be done with the F7 key in review
mode as before.

Window foreground attribute:

This is asking for the foreground color to be associated with this particular
window.  The default is anything.  Feel free to toggle this to the desired
option.  If you want, you can also press F1 and you will be visually prompted
for all available options.  Remember, you can also setup the window color by
moving the review cursor on top of the requested color and pressing 'W'.  You
can even press F1 after the W if you wish to manually setup the foreground
and background colors.  Feel free to setup the color in either location.  If
you setup the color using the 'W' command, you can use this option if you
wish to later display what the color is set for.

Window background attribute:

This is asking for the background color to be associated with this particular
window.  The default is anything.  Again, toggle this option to the desired
option or press F1 for a visual display of available options.

As for the foreground discussed above, you can use the 'W' command in review
mode to also set the window color.

Once you have the foreground and background colors setup properly, Vocal-Eyes
will only speak those characters with the same color when the window is
requested to be read.

Window to chain read:

This is the fourth option in the window definition.  This is asking what
window you wish Vocal-Eyes to automatically start reading when the current
window has been read.  The default is None which means don't chain any
further.  Simply toggle this to the desired window number if you wish that
window to be read next.  You can chain as many windows together as you wish
but if you attempt to chain to a window which has already been read
previously in the chain, Vocal-Eyes will not chain and stop reading.

Speak and spell:

This option toggles between yes and no with the default being no.  If set to
yes and you request the window to be read, Vocal-Eyes will spell each word
which is 2 characters or larger after it has been spoken.  For example, 'Mary
M a r y Had H a d A Little L i t t l e Lamb L a m b.'

This is an excellent option for optional words from a spell checker.

Light bar status:

This option is simply another place where you can setup the light bar status
between off, on and auto.  This can also be setup from the general menu and
from the bar toggle hotkey.  It has been placed here simply for consistency.
Remember, each window holds the status of the lightbar as well as the
lightbar color.  Switching to another window can cause a switch in the
lightbar status as well as the color.

Light bar foreground attribute:

This is asking for the foreground color of the lightbar for this particular
window.  Again, this can be setup using the 'B' key in review mode.  Simply
toggle to the desired color and press ENTER.  For a visual representation of
available options, press F1.  This works just like the window foreground
attribute above.

Light bar background attribute:

This is the final option in the window definition.  This is just like the
light bar foreground discussed above only this of course relates to the
background color for the light bar.  After getting the desired setting, press
ENTER to leave the definition setup.

Feel free to arrow up and down each of the settings to get to the desired
option.  The up and down arrows can move you to the next or previous option.
Pressing the ESCAPE key at any time will exit the definitions completely and
the values will be saved.  Cursoring past the last option will also exit the
definitions and save all values.

14.4:  CURSOR TRACKING

You have much control over what Vocal-Eyes considers the cursor.  So far,
Vocal-Eyes has been using the physical cursor position.  However, some
programs do not always use the physical cursor.

For example, you can cause Vocal-Eyes to treat a certain color as if it were
the cursor position or a certain character or both a character and color.
Some applications move the physical cursor off the screen and don't use
lightbars but instead use some special character and/or color to visually
display the cursor position.  Or if the applications program is using
lightbars, they may not be using the traditional lightbar approach.

When we discussed the General submenu, we did not talk much about option 4
(Cursor Tracking).  Selecting this option brings up a submenu with 8 options.
Each of the 8 options will be described below.  Keep in mind these are
advanced options.  There may be certain applications programs where adjusting
these values can make or break the program from being used with voice.  For
most application however, these values will not have to be changed.  Don't
worry if after you have read the descriptions for all eight options you don't
fully understand what each are used for.  Given time and experience, you will
come to fully understand their potential power.

14.4.1:  CURSOR TYPE

Option 1 (Cursor Type)  This option can be setup for physical/hardware,
physical/BIOS, ASCII, Attribute, or ASCII and Attribute.

The default of physical/hardware will probably work most of the time.  If
possible, this is the fastest method for Vocal-Eyes to get the current cursor
position on the screen.  Technically, this value will always be correct.
However, practically, you may want something else.

Perhaps you are using LP-DOS or some other screen enlargement software.  Say
you are in Review mode and you would like to use your SPACE BAR or read
screen address hot key to determine exactly where you are on the screen.  The
position of your enlarged cursor may not match the cursor's position as
reported by your video adapter hardware.  Setting the cursor type to
physical/BIOS will correct this situation, however, and instruct Vocal-Eyes
to report your screen address as though you were using a standard-size
character set.

Also, you may be using a video adapter which does not conform to the
"standards" of reading the physical cursor location directly through the
hardware.  One symptom for this would be each of your keystrokes are speaking
but nothing sent to the screen is speaking.  Also, when you enter Review
mode, Vocal-Eyes always says "Cursor Moved."  If you are sure the screen
characters should be speaking (they are coming through the standard screen
services) and your cursor should not be moved when entering Review mode, try
switching this value to physical/BIOS.

If you choose ASCII, Attribute or ASCII and Attribute, Vocal-Eyes will scan
the entire screen for the specified character and/or color.  If it is not
found, Vocal-Eyes will revert back to the physical cursor position as before.
Notice the entire screen is search regardless of the currently selected
window's coordinates.  Because Vocal-Eyes has to scan the entire screen to
find the cursor position, this can slightly slow the overall performance of
Vocal-Eyes.  If at all possible, use the physical/hardware or physical/BIOS
options.

If you are using a particular application which does not use the physical
cursor but uses a particular character and/or color, setting this value can
make this program work although previously it could not be used efficiently.

If you have chosen ASCII or ASCII and Attribute, you must tell Vocal-Eyes
what character it should treat as the cursor.  Option 6 of this menu will do
just that.  More about this option in a bit.

If you have chosen Attribute or ASCII and Attribute, you must tell Vocal-Eyes
what color it should treat as the cursor.  Options 7 and 8 of this menu will
do just that.  More about these options is a bit.

14.4.2:  USE LIGHT BAR AS CURSOR YES/NO

Option 2 (Use Light bar as cursor).  If you have lightbar mode set to on or
auto and you have this option set to yes Vocal-Eyes will scan for the current
lightbar on the screen and use the first character of the lightbar as the
cursor position.  This option will override option 1 (Cursor Type).  If
however, the lightbar was not found, Vocal-Eyes will revert to using the
setting from option 1 (Cursor Type) for determining the cursor position.  As
expected, Vocal-Eyes will get the light bar color from the currently selected
window and only check within the window's coordinates for the light bar.

Why would you ever want to use the lightbar as the cursor position?  Although
there are many reasons, a perfect example is in the spell checking option of
WordPerfect.  The current misspelled word is placed in a different color than
the surrounding text.  By setting this color as the light bar, you can have
Vocal-Eyes read and spell the misspelled word if you want.  But what if you
wanted to read the line the misspelled word was on or the sentence or
paragraph.  Previously pressing any of these options would read relative to
the physical cursor which in WordPefect's case is always on line 25, the
status line.

By telling Vocal-Eyes to use the lightbar as the cursor position, you can now
press all the familiar hotkeys such as previous, current and next for
character, word, line, sentence and paragraph.  This will now give you the
context around the misspelled word.  A very useful feature especially in this
case.

14.4.3:  BAR TRACK STATUS NORMAL/SPECIFIED CURSOR

Option 3 (Bar track status).  This option Allows you to tell Vocal-Eyes what
to consider a lightbar.  This option has no effect unless lightbar mode is
turned on.  If lightbar is set for off or auto, this setting will have no
effect.

By setting this option to normal, a lightbar is nothing more than it has
always been.  Normal means the lightbar is simply anything that matches the
color you specified.  For example, if you set the lightbar color to white on
red and then ask Vocal-Eyes to speak the current lightbar, it would scan the
current active window for all text which is displayed white on red and speak
it.

However, there may be times when an application does not necessarily use a
color to distinguish the lightbar.  By setting this option to "Specified
Cursor", Vocal-Eyes will then look at option 1 (Cursor Type).  It will use
this information to find the beginning of the lightbar.  Remember, you can
set option one to use the physical cursor or a particular character or a
particular color or both a character and color.  After Vocal-Eyes finds the
beginning, somehow, it must find the end of the bar.  This is where option 4
comes into play.  Option 4 tells Vocal-Eyes how far to read once it has found
the beginning of the modified lightbar.

14.4.4:  BAR TRACK SPECIFIED READ

Option 4 (Bar track specified read).  This option is only used if option 3
(Bar track status) has been set to "Specified Cursor".  If option 3 is
instead set to "Normal", this option has no effect.

As stated above, by setting option 3 (Bar track status) to "Specified
Cursor", Vocal-Eyes will use option 1 (Cursor Type) to find the beginning of
the lightbar.  Now that it has found the beginning, it looks at this option
(Bar track specified read).  This option offers three settings.  To first
enhanced character, To end of line, and To next different attribute.

All three options tell Vocal-Eyes where to look for the end of the lightbar.
Lets take each of these options one at a time.

To first enhanced character:

Using this option, Vocal-Eyes will continue from the beginning of the
lightbar and move left to right until it comes across a character whose ASCII
value is less than 32 or greater than 127.  Once this character is found,
Vocal-Eyes would treat that position as the end of the lightbar.  Vocal-Eyes
now knows the beginning and the end of the lightbar.

To end of line:

This option is very simple.  Vocal-Eyes already knows the column and line for
the lightbar.  This simply tells Vocal-Eyes the end of the bar is on the same
line but is the very last character of that line.

To next different attribute:

As we said before, Vocal-Eyes already knows the beginning of the lightbar.
Using this option, Vocal-Eyes will look at the color of that character and
remember it.  Now it will read all characters left to right from that
position until it reaches a character whose color is different than the color
of the first character of the lightbar.  It does not actually include the
character with the different color.  The lightbar is then defined up to but
not included the first character with a different color.

14.4.5:  BAR TRACK NORMAL READ

Option 5 (Bar track normal read).  Remember option 4 (Bar track specified
read) was only used if option 3 (Bar track status) was set to "Specified
Cursor"?  Well, this option, (Bar track normal read) is only used if the Bar
track status is set to "Normal".  A setting of normal causes Vocal-Eyes to
handle light bars as it always has.  However, with this option, you can
weed-out unwanted lightbars.

By default, if you have the Bar track status set to normal, and you request
Vocal-Eyes to read the current light bar, it will scan the entire window and
speak all text with the specified color.  If there is only one instance of
the light bar color, this is probably what you wanted.  But what if the
lightbar color is displayed more than one time on the screen.  Do you always
want to hear all occurrences of the lightbar color or only a specific one?

This option allows you to tell Vocal-Eyes which one of the lightbars on the
screen to read.  The options available are -- All bars, First bar only, Last
bar only, Shortest bar only and Longest bar only.  Lets look at each one
individually.

All bars:

This option will cause Vocal-Eyes to work as it always has.  It will speak
all characters in the specified window with the specified color.  It does not
matter where the text is or how much there is.

First bar only:

Lets say you are using an applications program which is using a lightbar.
However, lets also say it has a status line at the bottom of the screen using
the exact same color as the lightbar.  Now you could setup a window to mask
out the status line but you could also set this option to read the first bar
only.

This means Vocal-Eyes will scan the current active window from top to bottom
until it finds the lightbar color.  Then it will read all text up to but not
including the first character with a different color and stop.  It will not
look any further down the window for more characters with the same color.
Therefore in our example, the status line at the bottom would not be read.

Last bar only:

This does the exact opposite as First bar only.  Lets reverse our example
above.  Lets say you are using an applications program which is using a
lightbar but also has a status line above the lightbar which uses the exact
same color.  Here again, you could setup a window but setting this option to
last bar only would cause Vocal-Eyes to only read the last occurrence of the
specified light bar color in the active window.  An actual example of this
could be the list files option in WordPerfect.  It uses the first two lines
of the screen for status information but they use the exact same color as the
currently selected filename below.  This option would cause Vocal-Eyes to
skip the status information at the top and only read the last occurrence
which would be the selected filename.

Shortest bar only:

With this setting, Vocal-Eyes will scan the entire window for all occurrences
of the specified lightbar color.  In doing so, it remembers the lengths of
each occurrence.  After reaching the end of the window, it will then look
back over the length of each occurrence and only read the occurrence with the
shortest length.  If there is more than one occurrence with the same length
and it is the shortest, Vocal-Eyes will only read the first occurrence.  This
option could also be used in the WordPerfect list files example above.  It
also could be used in the spell checking option.  WordPerfect displays the
center line of the screen using the exact same color as the misspelled word.
However, the misspelled word will always be less than 80 columns so
Vocal-Eyes would only read the misspelled word.

Longest bar only:

This is treated exactly the opposite of the shortest bar only setting.
Again, Vocal-Eyes will scan the entire window taking note of the length of
each occurrence of the lightbar.  After reaching the bottom, only the
occurrence with the longest length will be read.  Here again, if there is
more than one bar with the same length and it is the longest, Vocal-Eyes will
only read the first occurrence with the longest length.

14.4.6:  ASCII CHARACTER

Option 6 (ASCII Character).  If you have set option 1 (Cursor Type) to ASCII
or ASCII and Attribute, you must tell Vocal-Eyes the ASCII value of the
character it is to treat as the cursor.  This option is where you supply the
ASCII value from 0 to 255.  Pressing ENTER at this option will cause
Vocal-Eyes to prompt for the ASCII value.  If you are not sure what the ASCII
value is, simply move the review cursor on top of the character and press the
Attrib/ASCII hotkey.  Vocal-Eyes will tell you the ASCII value.  Than simply
type the supplied number in this option.  Vocal-Eyes now knows what character
it is to track as the cursor position.

14.4.7:  FOREGROUND

Option 7 (Foreground).  Only if you have set option 1 (Cursor Type) to
Attribute or ASCII and Attribute will Vocal-Eyes use this option.  This
option allows you to set the foreground color Vocal-Eyes should use to
determining the cursor position.  Simply toggle to the desired color and then
move on to option 8 for setting the Background color as well.

14.4.8:  BACKGROUND

Option 8 (Background).  This option like the foreground option above is only
used by Vocal-Eyes if you have set option 1 (Cursor Type) to Attribute or
ASCII and Attribute.  Otherwise, it will be completely ignored.  Like the
foreground, toggle to the desired background color.  Assuming you have
already setup the foreground color, Vocal-Eyes now knows what color it should
use to determine the cursor position on the screen.

14.5:  VIDEO CLIPBOARD BUFFER

As you were told in section 9, the default clipboard buffer, which allows you
to copy information from the screen, was set at 1K.  You were also told this
size could be adjusted to your specific requirements.  If you find you never
use this feature, you can clear this buffer saving you valuable RAM memory.
The buffer size can vary from 0 characters to 2,304.  The default setting now
is 1,024 characters.  The following VE command line parameter can be used to
adjust this buffer size:

/!Vx where x is a number from 0 to 9.  The number supplied is multiplied by
256 characters.  Therefore a setting of 5 would be 5*256=1,280.  The default
is 4 or 1,024 characters.

Notice because this command contains the ! (exclamation point) it can only be
issued the first time Vocal-Eyes is loaded for each session with your
computer.  For example:

VE /!V0

Assuming this was issued the first time after starting up your machine, the
/!V0 command will tell Vocal-Eyes not to allocate a clipboard buffer.  This
will save 1,024 bytes of your computer memory.  If you try and copy
information into the clipboard however, you will get the error 'Block too
large'.

If you have loaded Vocal-Eyes into expanded or extended memory, there is no
benefit of reducing this buffer.  In fact, you might as well increase it to
the maximum.  Once you load in expanded or extended memory, Vocal-Eyes will
always allocate the same amount of DOS memory (about 4K) and the same amount
of expanded or extended memory (about 64K).

14.6:  AUTO LIGHTBAR BUFFER

Because the auto lightbar requires a relatively large amount of memory, we
decided to offer a command line parameter that can disable this feature
altogether freeing up the space.  If you decide to disable this feature you
can free up about 2K of memory.  Vocal-Eyes by default will enable the auto
lightbar.  If you disable it and set the lightbar status to auto, Vocal-Eyes
will treat it as if you have it turned off.  If you set lightbar to on, it
will always work regardless if you have the auto lightbar enabled or
disabled.  The command is as follows:

/!Lx where x is either 0-disable or 1-enable

If you find you never have a case for the auto lightbar feature, issuing the
command:

VE /!L0

This will free up a valuable 2K of memory.

Notice because this command contains the ! (exclamation point) it can only be
issued the first time Vocal-Eyes is loaded for each session with your
computer.

Like the clipboard buffer, if you have loaded Vocal-Eyes into expanded or
extended memory, there is no benefit of removing this buffer.  Once you load
in expanded or extended memory, Vocal-Eyes will always allocate the same
amount of DOS memory (about 4K) and the same amount of expanded or extended
memory (about 64K).

14.7:  OVERLAYS

Some of you may be asking how Vocal-Eyes can have so many features and take
so little memory.  The reason for this is Vocal-Eyes uses overlays.  Overlays
are simply a way of saving memory.  Instead of loading every feature of
Vocal-Eyes in RAM at once, several of the memory hungry features are not
loaded initially but still stored on disk.  Remember the file 'VE.OVL'?  This
file is very special to Vocal-Eyes.  It holds many of the routines such as
the hotkeys menu, cursoring menu, general menu and more.  Because Vocal-Eyes
is so friendly to use and offers so much flexibility we decided to use the
overlay approach in order to save memory.  Once again, the best of both
worlds.  You get a flexible friendly full featured program with little RAM
overhead.

The only potential problem of using overlays from disk is DOS must be
available when the overlays are requested.  It may be possible for you to
issue a request to Vocal-Eyes which requires access to the VE.OVL file.  If
DOS is not available, you will get the message:

DOS is busy.  Unable to load overlay file.

Vocal-Eyes is telling you DOS is unable to get the required information for
Vocal-Eyes.

There are a few things you can keep in mind about Vocal-Eyes and DOS.

Whenever you enter the menus, they will not popup until DOS is available.  If
however you are in review mode and ask for the menus, they will popup
immediately even if DOS is busy.  Therefore, it is usually a good idea to
only popup the menus from outside of review mode to guarantee DOS will be
available when the menus popup.  If you must be in review mode when you popup
the menus, always use the fast review key instead of the review hotkey.  This
is because the fast review hotkey will wait for a split second for DOS to be
freed before it goes into review mode.  If however, you use the review
hotkey, review mode will be entered immediately even if DOS is not available.
Remember, the review hotkey is really designed for macro.  Macros will be
discussed in section 16.

If you have extended or expanded memory, you can remove this little problem
completely by loading the overlay file in either type of memory.  Below is a
description of how this can be accomplished.

As we said earlier, the file VE.OVL is very important to Vocal-Eyes.  It
contains certain features which Vocal-Eyes supports.  Vocal-Eyes must have
assess to this file if you request a feature which is stored in it.  By
default this file is on disk.  However, Vocal-Eyes gives you the option to
load this file in expanded or extended memory.  This is completely
independent of where you load Vocal-Eyes itself.  For example, you can load
Vocal-Eyes in expanded and load the overlays in extended.  Or you can load
Vocal-Eyes in main memory and load the overlays in expanded.  It really does
not matter.

The advantage of loading the overlays in expanded or extended memory has a
few benefits.

1)  When information from the overlay is need, it loads faster from RAM.  If
you are already using a hard disk, you may not really notice much difference
however.

2)  DOS does not have to be available for loading the overlay information.
If you request a feature of Vocal-Eyes which requires it to get information
from the overlay file, DOS must be available for the request.  If you get the
message:

DOS is busy.  Unable to load overlay file.

this is telling you Vocal-Eyes could not interrupt DOS (disk operating
system) from what it was currently doing.  If you load the overlays in upper
memory, you will never have this problem.

The command to load the overlays in upper memory is very much like the
command to load Vocal-Eyes itself in upper memory:

/!OE - This will load the overlays into expanded memory
/!OX - This will load the overlays into extended memory

Just like the /!M command for Vocal-Eyes itself, it must be issued the first
time Vocal-Eyes is loaded for each session.  If the overlays were
successfully loaded in either memory, you will get a message saying so.  If
you do not get the message, you can assume the overlay file was not loaded
into RAM and Vocal-Eyes has defaulted to using the disk drive.  Lets look at
the following Vocal-Eyes command line:

VE /!ME /!OX

This will load Vocal-Eyes itself in expanded memory and load the overlays
into extended memory.  Assuming you had enough expanded and extended memory
for this to occur, Vocal-Eyes would tell you Vocal-Eyes was loaded into
expanded and the overlays were loaded into extended.  The command:

VE /!MX /!OX

would load both Vocal-Eyes and the overlays in extended memory.

If you have extra expanded or extended memory, we strongly suggest you load
the overlays into either memory.  Remember if you have a choice between
expanded and extended memory, it is always better to load Vocal-Eyes itself
in extended memory.  It really does not matter which type of memory you load
the overlay file into.

14.8:  LOADING VOCAL-EYES IN HIGH MEMORY

There are several programs available today such as QEMM, which allow you to
load Vocal-Eyes in high memory.  This is not expanded or extended memory
although it is memory between the 640K and 1Meg space.

If you plan on loading Vocal-Eyes in high memory with these types of programs
you may find it necessary to include the command /H on the Vocal-Eyes command
line parameter for all reloads of Vocal-Eyes.  You should not include it the
very first time Vocal-Eyes is loaded for each session but for all others.
The /H simply tells Vocal-Eyes to look in high memory for itself for each
reload.  If you load Vocal-Eyes in high memory and then reinvoke Vocal-Eyes
with a new command line parameter without specifying the /H command,
Vocal-Eyes will load again giving you two copies running at once.  If this
happens to you, you should reboot your machine.  Only one copy of Vocal-Eyes
should ever be allowed to be loaded at one time.

14.9:  SUMMARY

This section covered some pretty sophisticated features of Vocal-Eyes.
Remember, it is not so important that you fully understand each and every
feature but that you keep in the back of your mind the basic ideas.  When you
are using an applications program which may require one of these features,
you might just remember reading something about it and can look up the
feature for more details.

You just about know everything there is to know about Vocal-Eyes.  Read on to
learn it all.