ProfitPress Mega CDROM2 …eeware (MSDOS)(1992)(Eng)/ProfitPress-MegaCDROM2.B6I/MISC/HANDICAP/VEDOCS20.ZIP/SECT3.DOC

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SECTION THREE
A FIRST VISIT WITH VOCAL-EYES

3.1:  INTRODUCTION

In this section of your Vocal-Eyes user's guide we'll begin by  putting your
new and advanced screen reader through a few of its paces.  We'll describe a
little of what happens when text appears on your computer's screen, and how
Vocal-Eyes turns this text into usable speech.  Finally, we'll take you on a
brief guided tour of a few of Vocal-Eyes' pre-defined hotkeys which will
enable you to read your PC's screen a character, a line, a sentence, a
paragraph or an entire screen at a time.

Do you have Vocal-Eyes up and running now?  If not, follow the instructions
in the previous section before going on.

3.2:  MAKING IT TALK

If you're working along with us, you will recall that when you loaded your
Vocal-Eyes software you were presented first with the Vocal-Eyes greeting
message, and after that the drive designator, A, B or C, of the drive from
which you loaded Vocal-Eyes.

Try this.  Press ENTER.  Press it again.  Did you hear your speech
synthesizer voice the drive designator again?  Press ENTER several times
more.

At first glance, what appears to be happening here is that Vocal-Eyes seems
to be voicing the same information again and again.  This is not precisely
the case, however.  In DOS, whenever you press the ENTER key by itself, it's
like asking DOS "What drive am I currently logged onto?"  Pressing ENTER
several times in succession is like asking the same questions several times.
DOS is patient:  it will answer your question as many times as you care to
ask it.

Try this.  Type your name, and then press ENTER.  Notice how Vocal-Eyes
manages to keep up with you as you type.  It accomplishes this by way of a
feature known as interruptability.  We'll have more to say about this feature
in later sections of this manual.  For now, all you need to know about
interruptability is that whenever you press any key Vocal-Eyes "bypasses" all
previous voice response and speaks your new character immediately.  Imagine
how useful this feature will be to fast typists such as yourself.

If you haven't done so already, go ahead now and type your name and press
ENTER.  What happened?  Did DOS respond by saying "Bad command or file name?"

Whenever you type something from DOS and then press ENTER, DOS considers what
you typed a command and attempts to obey it.  Obviously DOS did not recognize
your name as any command or file name it was familiar with, hence the "Bad
command or file name" message.  You will probably encounter many such
messages as you begin your work with Vocal-Eyes.  Don't worry when you
encounter one.  Consider it DOS's way of saying "Excuse me?  Could you give
me that again?"

Try this.  Type DIR and then press ENTER.  Use lower or upper case
letters--it matters not to DOS.  What happened?  DIR is the DOS "list
directory" command.  When you typed it you asked DOS to tell you the names of
every file on the drive or subdirectory you are currently logged onto.  DOS
sent the information to your PC's screen where it was displayed.  Vocal-Eyes
read the display for you, and sent the information to your speech synthesizer
for voicing.

Two things are happening here.  First, Vocal-Eyes is watching your PC
keyboard.  Every time you type in a letter Vocal-Eyes sends that letter to
your synthesizer for voicing.  Meanwhile, Vocal-Eyes is simultaneously
keeping a watchful eye on your PC's display screen.  Whenever DOS sends, or
"writes" information to the display screen through BIOS, Vocal-Eyes reads the
information and passes it along to your synthesizer for voicing.

In DOS, when you type in characters from the keyboard, Vocal-Eyes sees each
of them twice:  once as you type it and again as it appears on your PC's
display screen.  Vocal-Eyes is pretty smart, though.  It knows not to read
your characters twice.

3.3:  HOW IT WORKS

Once Vocal-Eyes has been loaded into your PC's memory and started via the VE
command, from that time onward everything you type at the keyboard will be
passed through the Vocal-Eyes program.  Similarly, characters that are sent
to the screen by DOS, and programs that use DOS for screen service, will also
be passed through Vocal-Eyes.  Vocal-Eyes "sees" these keystrokes before
anyone else does.  This "first-at-the-gate" positioning of Vocal-Eyes allows
the program to waylay characters as they pass through your PC's memory just
long enough to share them with your attached voice synthesizer before sending
them along their way, unchanged and no worse for the wear.

Vocal-Eyes is a simple utility program.  It is not an applications program,
such as a word processor, a database manager, a spreadsheet, etc.  You can
use Vocal-Eyes with these applications to add a wide variety of useful voice
features.  First, start up Vocal-Eyes, then run your favorite piece of
applications software.  Vocal-Eyes tucks itself away in a snug corner of your
PC's memory.  DOS, or your applications program, doesn't even know Vocal-Eyes
is there.

Provided that your applications software uses the DOS screen service
facilities for its displays, your program's data and prompts will be spoken
exactly as they appear on your PC's screen.  Also, the characters that you
type at the keyboard will be spoken.  Its hard to know, without actually
trying a given applications program, whether or not it uses DOS.  Many
programs do, but many do not.  Some programs offer a Direct or BIOS method of
writing characters to the screen.  Refer to the application program manual if
it offers such a feature.  Try the BIOS setting first.  If it speaks too much
try the Direct method.  You may have to experiment at first to get the best
speech possible.  Those programs that only allow Direct access to the screen
can still be "made" to speak quite nicely by utilizing Vocal-Eyes' wide array
of voice hot keys and its 10 built-in screen windows.

Vocal-Eyes will only work properly if the applications program you are using
is in a text mode.  If a graphics mode is entered, Vocal-Eyes will continue
to execute but the information read may not make any sense.  Therefore, if it
seems Vocal-Eyes is giving meaningless information, it may be because the
applications program is displaying graphics.  Once you exit the graphics
mode, Vocal-Eyes will return as normal.

3.4:  INTRODUCING A FEW BASIC VOCAL-EYES HOT KEYS

Do you have a favorite piece of applications software?  A word processor,
perhaps, or a database manager?  Go ahead and load it now.  How did it behave
with Vocal-Eyes?  Did it talk?  Did it chatter on endlessly?  Did it say a
few words and then go silent on you?  Did it not speak at all?

Would you like to see what's on your PC's screen right now, at this very
moment?  If so, press and hold down your PC's ALT key--if your keyboard has
two of them, feel free to press either--and then press any of the keyboard
number keys from 0 through 9.  Release both keys together.

Vocal-Eyes is now reading your PC's display screen line by line from top to
bottom.  Would you like to hear it again?  Press a key from ALT-0 through
Alt-9 again.

"OK," you're probably saying to yourself at this point.  "I think I've heard
enough of this screen."  If this is indeed the case, press any key.  Press
the CTRL or SHIFT key by itself, if you like.  How about that?  Instant
silence.  You can press any key to silence Vocal-Eyes, including the CTRL or
SHIFT key by itself.

(NOTE:  Pressing the ALT key by itself will also silence Vocal-Eyes' speech.
Avoid pressing this key for now, however, as pressing this key will take you
into Review Mode.  You'll learn about Review Mode later in this section.  For
now, if you do happen to press the ALT key by itself and you hear your PC say
"Review," simply press and release the ALT key a second time by itself.  Your
PC will respond by saying "Exit."  Go ahead, at this point, and proceed with
your work as normal.)

The keys from ALT-0 through ALT-9 are what are known as Vocal-Eyes hot keys.
They're called hot keys because they, like the other hot keys we're about to
discuss, are ready, willing and able to come to your service instantly and at
any time.  These particular hot keys operate Vocal-Eyes' 10 different
windows.  A window is any portion of your PC's screen.  A window can be as
small as a single character, or as large as the entire screen.  In a later
section of this manual we'll show you how you can define each of these
windows to read a different portion of your PC display.  You may, for
example, choose to set one window to read your applications program's status
line, and another to read a menu and a third to read everything on the screen
except the top and bottom lines.  For now, however, we have preset all 10
windows to read the entire PC display screen.

Try this.  Press CTRL-L.  Did Vocal-Eyes voice anything?  CTRL-L is the
Vocal-Eyes "read line" hot key, the "L" standing for line.  Pressing CTRL-L
causes Vocal-Eyes to read whatever is on the current screen line: i.e., the
screen line upon which your cursor currently resides.  If you pressed CTRL-L
and it said "blank", it's probably because there's nothing currently on this
line.  Try typing a few letters and then pressing CTRL-L again.

Here are some other speech hot keys that have been preset for you.

     CTRL-B - Read previous character.
     CTRL-C - Read current character.
     CTRL-D - Read next character

     CTRL-V - Read previous word.
     CTRL-W - Read current word.
     CTRL-Y - Read next word.

     CTRL-R - Read previous sentence
     CTRL-S - Read current sentence.
     CTRL-T - Read next sentence.

     CTRL-O - Read previous paragraph.
     CTRL-P - Read current paragraph.
     CTRL-Q - Read next paragraph.

     CTRL-K - Read previous line.
     CTRL-L - Read current line
     CTRL-M - Read next line.

Notice the easy-to-remember mnemonics for all the "Read Current" hot keys:
C for character, W for word, S for sentence and P for paragraph.  Notice,
also, how we've preset the "Read Previous" and "Read Next" hot keys to move
up and down one letter of the alphabet respectively.  There is one exception
to this organizational structure.  CTRL-X is probably familiar to many of you
who have had experience with speech synthesizers and screen readers as the
standard Momentary Silence key.  You don't need this key with Vocal-Eyes,
since with Interruptability turned on any key becomes a Momentary Silence hot
key.  Nonetheless we have retained this hot key assignment for now and
shifted the "read next word" hot key up one letter to CTRL-Y.

Try each of these Vocal-Eyes hot keys in turn.  They will work perfectly if,
a.) there is indeed a character, word, sentence or paragraph at the current
cursor location and b.) in the case of the CTRL-S and CTRL-P keys, the text
is displayed in a form Vocal-Eyes can recognize as a sentence and/or
paragraph.  We'll talk more about this later.  For now, give each of these
hot keys a try and see what happens.

Also, try this.  Press the previous, current or next character read hot key.
Now, press it a second time.  What happened?  Did you hear your letter
sounded out phonetically?  Press one of the three read word hot keys.  Press
it a second time, now a third.  The second time you press any of the three
read word hot keys your word is spelled out letter by letter.  The third
press calls up a phonetic reading.  Placing your cursor on the word cat, for
example, will cause Vocal-Eyes to voice "CAT" at the first pressing of any of
the three read word hot keys, "c-a-t" at the second and "Charlie-alpha-tango"
at the third.  Give this feature a try.  We're sure you'll find it quite
useful.

Whenever you press any of Vocal-Eyes' voice hot keys, the key you have
pressed travels no farther than Vocal-Eyes itself.  Pressing CTRL-L, for
example, will read the current screen line, but it will not pass the CTRL-L
keystroke along to DOS or to your underlying applications software.  Your
program doesn't even realize a key was pressed.

But what if you really do want CTRL-L, or any of the other Vocal-Eyes hot
keys, to be passed along to your applications software?  What if, say, CTRL-L
controls a very important function in your program?  This is where the CTRL-N
Bypass hot key comes into play.  Press CTRL-N at any time.  The very next key
you type (remember "N" for next) will be passed along to your underlying
program with no interference whatsoever from Vocal-Eyes.  Thus, typing CTRL-N
CTRL-L will send a CTRL-L to your underlying software.  Typing CTRL-N CTRL-C
will send a CTRL-C.  Typing CTRL-N ALT-1 will send an ALT-1 keystroke.  And
so on and so forth.

In a later section of this manual we'll show you how you can change the key
assignments of these and all other Vocal-Eyes hot keys to suit your own
individual needs and preferences.  We think you'll be pleasantly surprised,
actually, by just how versatile and accommodating Vocal-Eyes can be.

3.5:  THE CURSOR KEYS

There are a number of keys on your PC's keyboard that you will always want
passed along to DOS or your underlying applications software.  They include
such keys as the four ARROW keys, LEFT, RIGHT, UP and DOWN, the TAB key, the
BACKSPACE and DELETE keys, PGUP, PGDN, HOME and END.  As a group, these keys
are usually classified as "cursor" keys.  They are called this because, in
most applications software, pressing any of these keys will affect the
placement of your cursor in some way.  Naturally, you'd like to hear what has
happened to your cursor, but you also want the keystroke to be passed along
to the underlying software so that the cursor will be properly moved.  Well,
never fear!  When it comes to cursor keys, with Vocal-Eyes you get the best
of both worlds!

We'll demonstrate this with the four cursor keys:  LEFT ARROW, RIGHT ARROW,
UP ARROW and DOWN ARROW.

Are you currently in your favorite word processor or note taker such as
Noteworthy?  If so, then type a word or two.  Now, press the LEFT ARROW key
a time or two.  What happened?  Did you hear your characters being read back
to you as you cursored backwards over them?  What character is your cursor
currently on?  Press CTRL-C to check.  Is it the same character you just
heard voiced as you cursored back?  Move a few characters to the right via
the RIGHT ARROW key.  Where are you now?  Press CTRL-C to confirm.

As you can see, with Vocal-Eyes your cursor keys are pulling double duty.
First, they send the original keystroke to DOS or your applications program.
Second, they cause your synthesizer to voice the new current character.

Try pressing the DOWN ARROW and/or the UP ARROW key.  What happened?  That's
right.  Your applications cursor was moved down, or up, one line and then
that line was voiced.  This is assuming, of course, that your applications
program uses the DOWN and/or UP ARROW keys to move your cursor in these
directions.  In DOS, for example, neither of these keystrokes has any
meaning.  Consequently, pressing either the DOWN or UP ARROW key in DOS will
not move your cursor at all.  It will, however, re-voice the current screen
line.

Many applications programs, such as word processors, use the CTRL-LEFT and
RIGHT ARROW keys to move you through your text one entire word at a time.
With that in mind, what would you expect Vocal-Eyes to do when you press the
CTRL-LEFT or CTRL-RIGHT ARROW keys?  Type a few words and give these keys a
try.  Use the CTRL-W read word hot key to verify which word your cursor is
currently on.  Is it the same word that was voiced when you pressed CTRL-LEFT
or RIGHT ARROW?

Of course not all applications programs use the cursor keys as described
above.  Again, fear not.  Vocal-Eyes, as you shall soon see, will allow you
to reassign the voice response of these and all other cursor keys so that
what you hear when you press a cursor key matches closely what happens in
your applications software.  Keep in mind the fact that, as powerful as the
voice features we've described so far may appear, in truth, we've barely
scratched the surface.

3.6:  VOCAL-EYES' SPECIAL REVIEW MODE

So far we've shown you how to read your PC's screen display by using one of
several read hot keys, such as the CTRL-L read line key, or the CTRL-P read
paragraph key.  We'll be introducing you to many, many more hot keys in later
sections of this manual.  Right now, however, we'd like to show you a very
useful feature of Vocal-Eyes known as Review Mode.

With Review Mode you can move anywhere from top to bottom on your PC's screen
and read the information displayed there using any of the hot keys you've
learned about so far.  What's more, you can do this without affecting DOS or
the applications program you're currently running.  Here's how it works.

Do this.  Press the ALT key and then release it without holding down any
other key.   Did you hear your PC say "Review?"  There, you have just put DOS
or your applications program into a computerized version of suspended
animation.  It's still there, but it's sleeping.  Now, press the ALT key
again and release it without pressing any other key.  Did your PC say "Exit?"
Well, you've just awakened DOS or your applications program.  It's ready,
willing and able  to proceed with your next command.  None of the keystrokes
you pressed while you were in Review Mode were passed on to your applications
program.  It doesn't even know it was ever asleep.

Use the ALT key to enter Review Mode again.  Press the CTRL-L read line hot
key.  Now, press the UP ARROW key several times in succession.  Did you hear
the ascending tonal sequence that lets you know you're moving upward on your
PC's screen?  Use the CTRL-L read line hot key to read the line you're on
now.  Don't worry, your applications cursor hasn't moved at all.  When you
entered Review Mode a second "review" cursor was created for you.  This is
the cursor that moved when you pressed the UP ARROW key.  Visually, the
review cursor is very large and is inversed to stand out even more.  If you
are sighted or have limited sight, you will appreciate this easy to locate
cursor.

Would you like to know where exactly on your PC's screen your review cursor
is located?  Simply press the SPACE BAR while in Review Mode.  Notice this
key provides your screen location in the form "Cn Ln," with "n" being the
number of the screen column and line.  For example, C5 L10 would mean your
review cursor is on column position 5, line 10.  If you want to know where
your applications cursor is located, press the CTRL-A read address hot key.
This key will always give you the actual location of your applications cursor
whether you are in review mode or not.  Again, Vocal-Eyes will give you the
information in the format "Cn Ln."

Now, press the ENTER key a few times.  Notice the descending tonal sequence
that lets you know that now you're moving down your PC's display screen.
Notice also how each line is read as your review cursor passes over it.  Of
course you could just as easily have used your DOWN ARROW key to move down
your screen.  Did you notice what happened if you press ENTER while
Vocal-Eyes was speaking the previous line?  It interrupted the speech and
immediately started reading the new line.  This is called interruptability.
Vocal-Eyes defaults with this feature enabled.  We will talk more about this
feature in a later section.

Is there text at your current cursor location?  Assuming you are still in
review mode, use your read character or read word hot key to find out.  Try
using your LEFT and RIGHT ARROW keys to move about on the current screen line
character by character.  Use your CTRL-LEFT and CTRL-RIGHT ARROW keys to move
back and forth a word at a time.  Notice that if you come to the end, or the
beginning, of a screen line and attempt to move further Vocal-Eyes will
automatically roll, or "wrap" you around to the next or previous screen line,
depending, of course, on which cursor key you were using to navigate the
screen.

Not only can you use the four arrow keys to move about the screen, but as you
touch typists are sure to appreciate there is an alternative.  Anytime you
are in Vocal-Eyes' Review Mode, you can use the H, U, K and J keys to move
your cursor one position left, right, up or down respectively.  If you don't
want to move your hands off of home row to the arrows, you can use these
alternatives.  There are many more commands you can use to move the cursor
which will be described later.

Try your previous and next sentence and paragraph hot keys.  They work
exactly the same as they did before you entered Review Mode--with one
exception.  Before, whenever you pressed one of these keys, the appropriate
unit of text was voiced, but the placement of your cursor was not affected in
any way.  In Review Mode, on the contrary, whenever you ask Vocal-Eyes to
read a previous character, word, line, sentence or paragraph your review
cursor is automatically moved for you to the beginning of the text unit being
read.  Pressing the read previous line command in Review Mode, for instance,
will instruct Vocal-Eyes not only to read the previous screen line to you but
also to move your review cursor to the first column of the previous screen
line.  Try using any of the read previous or next hot keys and then pressing
the SPACE BAR to read the position of your review cursor to see for yourself.

Try the ALT-0 through ALT-9 read screen window hot keys.  They, too, work the
same as before.  And of course as always, you can silence the speech if you
wish.  Since interruptability is enabled, any key you press will first
interrupt the speech and then issue the key.  Well, how about simply tapping
the Control key or the Shift key.  These keys by themselves do nothing but
they are sure handy to shut up the speech.  You cannot use the ALT key since
this will take you in and out of review mode.  There is nothing wrong with
this, however, it is not as convenient as the CONTROL and SHIFT keys.  If you
don't like using the ALT key for review mode, you will learn how to change
this to your liking.  If interruptability is off, you can use your CTRL-X
momentary silence hot key at any time to quiet voice output as well.  The
momentary silence hot key is completely ignored by Vocal-Eyes if
Interruptability is on.

Would you like to see what's on the third line of your screen display?
Simple enough.  All you need do is type the number 3 and then follow by
pressing your CTRL-L read line hotkey.  Screen line 3 will be read and your
review cursor will be moved to the beginning of the third screen line.  How
do you suppose you would instruct Vocal-Eyes to read the fifth word on that
line?  That's right:  type 5CTRL-W.  Likewise 14CTRL-C will read the
fourteenth character on the current screen line.

Try reading the eighth sentence on your screen, or the second paragraph.

Whenever you use a "read current" hot key in Review Mode, Vocal-Eyes counts
over from the first screen column in the case of the read current character
and word hot keys and down from the top screen line in the case of the read
line, sentence and paragraph hot keys.

Now lets say you'd like to know what the character five spaces to the left of
your current review cursor is.  In this case you would type 5 and then press
the read previous character hot key.  Similarly, to read the word three words
to the right of your cursor you would type 3 and then press the read next
word hot key.

Can you guess how you would read the line 4 lines above your present cursor
location?  Exactly, all you have to do is type 4 and then press your read
previous line hot key.  It works exactly the same with the read previous and
next sentence and paragraph hot keys.  Just type in the number of text units
you want to move and then point Vocal-Eyes in the right direction.  It's
really that simple.

You can also type a number before any of the four arrow keys.  The up arrow
is treated like the previous line, down arrow works like the next line hot
key, left arrow works like previous character and the right arrow works like
next character.

In the case of the previous and next line keys, the cursor position remains
at the same column position it was prior to the command being issued.  Feel
free to play with these cursor movement keys by themselves as well as adding
numbers before the commands.  The largest number allowed is 255.  If you try
and enter a number larger then this, you will get the error message "Number
too large."  Don't worry, simply try it again with the correct number this
time.  Also, if you try and move the cursor off the physical screen by
issuing the command 255CTRL-L, Vocal-Eyes will beep and not move the cursor.
This command asked Vocal-Eyes to move the review cursor to line 255.
Needless to say, this line does not exist.

Are you done examining your PC's screen display?  Remember, to exit Review
Mode and wake up your applications program all you have to do is press and
release the ALT key by itself a second time.  Or, alternatively, you could
press the ESCAPE key.  Lots of applications software, including Vocal-Eyes,
utilize this key to allow you to "Escape" a program's functions.

3.7:  A FEW MORE REVIEW MODE COMMAND KEYS

As we've already mentioned, in later sections of this users' guide we'll be
showing you how to reassign all of the hot keys we've shown so far and many
others so that they are activated by the keystroke of your choice.  We'll
also be showing you how to modify the voice response of many of your cursor
keys, such as your ARROW keys, HOME, END, PgUp, PgDn, etc., so that when
pressed they will voice not just characters or lines, but other, more useful
information such as screen address, field names and the like.  You may even
choose to leave certain voice features unassigned.  Your applications program
may have no use whatsoever for a read next paragraph hot key, for example, so
you might want to leave this hot key unassigned in order to avoid unnecessary
keyboard clutter.

But say you've unassigned a hot key such as read current sentence.  You don't
need it for your application--but what about Review Mode?  You'd probably
still like to have the ability to read the current sentence, in case there's
something on your screen you need to refer back to via Review Mode.

To help you out, Vocal-Eyes comes equipped with a number of command keys.
Some duplicate features we've already described, such as read sentence, and
read next paragraph.  Others have been designed to make your work in Review
Mode all that much quicker and easier to accomplish.  We'll describe a few of
these keys now.

Are you currently in Review Mode?  If not, press the ALT key and go there
now.

Press the HOME key located on the key pad #7.  (Note, some enhanced keyboards
may have two HOME keys.  If your keyboard has two, feel free to press either.
Small Talk owners--you will find your HOME key toward the right lower corner
of your talking PC's keyboard.)

What happened when you pressed the HOME key?  If your review cursor is
currently somewhere inside a unit of text which Vocal-Eyes can interpret as
a sentence, the sentence was read out to you.  Press HOME again.  Notice that
with each press of the HOME key Vocal-Eyes moves back one sentence and reads
it to you the same as if you'd used your read previous sentence hot key.
Just like the previous sentence hot key, if you hear a beep, Vocal-Eyes is
telling there is not sentence under the cursor.  This could be because you
are at the top of the screen or on a blank line.

Press the END key, located a key or two under the HOME key on most PC
keyboards.  What happened?  That's right--pressing the END key is like
pressing your read next sentence hot key.

Similarly, pressing CTRL-HOME or CTRL-END will cause Vocal-Eyes to act
exactly as if you'd pressed your read previous or read next paragraph hot
keys.

If you press 'L' in review, Vocal-Eyes will read the current line under the
review cursor position.  Of course you can still use the read line hotkey but
this can be done very easily with a single keypress.  This command like the
others can have a number preceded by it to read the specified line.  For
example, '12L' will move the review cursor to the first column of line 12 and
read the line.

As you begin to adapt Vocal-Eyes to run with various applications programs,
you may find it easier to work without one or more of your "read" character,
word, line, sentence or paragraph hot keys.  Vocal-Eyes' Review Mode command
keys will always be there for you, though, and between the ARROW keys, the
HOME and END keys you will always be able to access these valuable voice
functions anytime you enter Review Mode.

Here are a few more handy Vocal-Eyes command keys.

Would you like the ability to jump to the first column of your current screen
line with a single keystroke?  Simply press the PgUp key and presto!  You're
there almost before you can take your finger off the key.  Not only that, but
it also voices the new current character.

Conversely, to move instantly to just past the last printed character on your
current screen line, press PgDn.

Now, what do you think of being able to move all the way to the upper left
hand corner of your current window with but a single keystroke?  Remember,
for now we've preset all 10 of Vocal-Eyes' windows to contain the entire
80-column, 25-line screen display.  If the idea strikes your fancy, simply
press CTRL-PgUp.  Vocal-Eyes moves you almost instantly to the upper left
hand corner of your screen and reads your new current character.  Press the
SPACE BAR to verify your review cursor is really at the top left.

How do you suppose you could "express" move your read cursor to the first
character on the last line of your current screen?  That's right.  Simply
press CTRL-PgDn.

(NOTE:  Owners of Small Talk, or other PC's that come equipped with an
enhanced 101-key keyboard, may substitute ALT-LEFT ARROW or ALT-RIGHT ARROW
for PgUp and PgDn respectively.  CTRL-UP ARROW and CTRL-DOWN ARROW may
likewise be used in place of CTRL-PgUp and CTRL-PgDn.  The only way to know
for sure if your keyboard will support these alternatives is to try them.
Even if they don't work, you can still use the other keystrokes to accomplish
the same task.)

There is even another way to move the cursor to the top, left, right and
bottom of the screen.  The previous keys work great however, if you do not
like to move your hands off the home row keys to move the cursor, you will
enjoy the following keys.  To move to the top left of the screen, press the
plus sign (+).  Pressing the left bracket ([) will move you to the left of
the line and right bracket (]) will move you to the right of the line.
Finally a press of the apostrophe (') will move you to the first column of
the last line.  These four keys are in a diamond shape with the plus at the
top, left bracket at the left, right bracket at the right and the apostrophe
at the bottom.  This should make the keys easy to remember.

If you have an enhanced keyboard, you now have three ways of moving the
cursor to the four positions.  Even if you don't have the enhanced keyboard,
you still have two alternatives.  Use whichever keystrokes are most
convenient for you at the time.

Go ahead and practice for a while with these Review Mode command keys.

3.8:  THE F1 HELP SCREEN

If you forget one of the Review Mode commands, help is as close as your F1
key.  Are you currently in Review Mode?  If you are, try pressing your F1
help key now.

Pressing F1 from inside Vocal-Eyes' Review Mode will cause several screens of
help to be spoken and displayed on the screen.  The first screen of help
information is called Window Commands.  To display the next screen of
information, press the Page Down key.  If you wish to quit the help, press
the ESCAPE key.  Each press of the Page Down key will cause the next help
screen to be displayed.  Each screen has a title at the top letting you know
what the current screen will talk about.

The main topics are, Standard window commands, Hyperactive window commands,
Cursoring Commands, Find Commands, Attribute Commands, Marker Commands, Block
Commands, Miscellaneous Commands and finally Exiting Commands.  Every single
Review Mode command is covered in one of these help screens.

You can also go back to the previous screen if you wish.  By pressing Page
Up, you will go to the previous screen.  If you are at the first screen,
Window Commands, you will wrap back to the last screen, Exiting Commands.
The same is true if you press Page Down while on the last screen.  Only this
time, you will wrap to the first screen.  If you wish to hear the current
screen spoken again, press any key other then Page Down, Page Up or ESCAPE.
The space bar is a good choice.  Vocal-Eyes will beep and read the screen
again.

If you have interruptability on, you can scan to the window that concerns
what you are looking for very fast.  Lets say for example, you want to do a
find but forgot how to do it.  When you press F1, the first screen will start
to speak.  Remember that at the top of each screen is a title indicating what
the screen will discuss.  You can interrupt the speech with a press of the
Page Down key until you hear the screen titled Find Commands.  With a little
practice, you can get to the help screen you want quickly.

Remember when you started up Vocal-Eyes we said you should be in the
directory which contained Vocal-Eyes first.  The reason is because Vocal-Eyes
remembers this location.  When you press F1 in review mode, Vocal-Eyes goes
to the drive and directory you were in when you started up Vocal-Eyes.  It
looks for the file VE.HLP.  If for some reason it can not find this file, you
will get an error message.  You may want to make sure the file is located
there and you started up Vocal-Eyes in the correct directory.

If you get an error telling you DOS is busy, Vocal-Eyes is saying it can not
interrupt DOS to get the help information.  Normally this will not be a
problem but if it does happen, simply exit review mode and re-enter.  Now try
the help again.  Always use the fast review key instead of the review hot
key.  The review hotkey will be described later in this manual.

We've only covered a small portion of Vocal-Eyes' many useful Review Mode
commands thus far.  Consequently, many of the items on the F1 help screen
will be unfamiliar to you.  Don't worry about the commands you don't
understand yet.  We'll be getting to all of them in turn.

3.9:  VOCAL-EYES' "TYPEWRITER" BELL

Remember typewriters?  Remember how slow they were, and how difficult it was
to correct a mistake on those rare occasions when you made one?  If you
didn't think typewriters were pretty much obsolete before, now that you've
got Vocal-Eyes you're almost sure to think so.

Typewriters did have one feature that was of use to the sight impaired user,
however--that little bell that tinged to let you know you were nearly to the
end of your line.

Well, Vocal-Eyes certainly isn't about to be outdone by a clattering
conglomeration of gears and levers.  Which is why we've included a
typewriter-style bell to let you know you're nearly to the end of your
current line.  Only ours works much better than the typewriter bell.  For one
thing, you can adjust the number of the column you must reach before it tings
to let you know you're near the end of your line.

If you've been working along with us, you've probably already encountered the
bell.  It tings whenever you reach column 70.  Later we'll show you how you
can change this column number, as well as the length, or duration, of the
bell itself.

Most popular word processing packages, Word Perfect included, perform a
function known as word wrap.  What this is, when you type a word that would
normally go past your right margin, the program carries, or "wraps" the
entire word down onto the next text line.  Unfortunately, there are also some
programs, such as network electronic mail editors and computer bulletin board
message editors, that do not perform this useful feature.  Typing past the
right margin in programs such as these may cause text that goes beyond the
right margin to be lost.  Vocal-Eyes' bell is very handy when typing text
into such programs.  You always know when you're about to go beyond your
margin, and you can act accordingly.

3.10:  SUMMARY

In this section we started by talking a bit how Vocal-Eyes works.  We then
introduced a few hot keys such as read previous, current and next for
character, word, sentence and paragraph.  Next, the concept of cursor keys
was discussed.  Then you were shown how to use the very useful Review Mode.
You were shown how to enter and exit review mode via the fast review entry
key.  Many of the Review Mode commands were discussed including the help key.
If you every forget how to use a Review Mode command, pressing F1 will
discuss every single Review Mode command.  We finished the section by talking
about the typewriter bell option.  Although we have covered many useful
features of Vocal-Eyes, as we said before, you ain't seen nothing yet.