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- SECTION NINE
- A POTPOURRI OF FEATURES
-
- 9.1: INTRODUCTION
-
- If features were feathers you could have quite a pillow fight with
- Vocal-Eyes. Well, would you believe there's still an entire potpourri of
- useful features we haven't covered yet?
-
- Here they are, in no particular order.
-
- 9.2: THE VOICE CONTROL PANEL'S "GENERAL" MENU
-
- So far we haven't talked much about the 5:General menu on your Vocal-Eyes
- Voice Control Panel. Let's do that now. Are you currently in the General
- submenu? If not, why not use your menu hot key to go there so you can follow
- along.
-
- 9.2.1: VOICE ON/OFF
-
- Would you like to turn your keyboard, screen and Review Mode voice all off
- with a single press of the ENTER key? Perhaps its time to relinquish the PC
- to your sighted business partner. No need to re-boot and take a chance of
- losing valuable data. Simply switch off your PC's voice by pressing ENTER at
- the Voice On/Off prompt. Press ENTER a second time to toggle the voice back
- on again.
-
- 9.2.2: HOT KEYS ON/OFF
-
- Occasionally you may wish to disable all of your voice hot keys temporarily.
- Perhaps you're working for the first time with a new applications program and
- you want to see what keys control what program functions without having to
- use your bypass hot key before every keystroke. Or maybe you're sharing your
- computer with a sighted friend. We just showed you how to turn off all voice
- features with the General menu's Voice On/Off selection. If you've tried it,
- however, you may have noticed that even though your voice has been turned
- off, your hot keys are still active. They just don't talk. Naturally, if
- you're turning your PC over to a sighted colleague, you'll want to deactivate
- your hot keys as well as your PC's voice.
-
- Pressing ENTER once at the Hot Keys On/Off prompt will turn off all hot keys
- except two. Can you guess which? That's right. Your menu hot key and your
- review mode hot key. After all, if you disabled the menu hot key along with
- all the others how would you ever be able to turn your hot keys back on?
- Also, you are still able to enter review mode. You will notice while in
- review mode, all of your hot keys are active again. Once you exit back to
- your application, again, the hot keys will be deactivated.
-
- You've probably already guessed how to toggle your hot keys back on. That's
- right--simply return to the Hot Keys On/Off prompt and press ENTER again.
-
- 9.2.3: CURSOR KEYS ON/OFF
-
- This works exactly like the above Hot Keys toggle. Only this option will
- enable or disable all cursoring keys. Setting this to off would be like
- undefining all cursoring keys. Restoring this back to on will allow all
- existing cursoring keys to function as normal.
-
- 9.2.4: Cursor Tracking
-
- This option brings up a submenu of eight choices. Within this menu you can
- get very specific as to what Vocal-Eyes should consider as the cursor
- position. For example, many programs use a particular character printed on
- the screen as the cursor position instead of the standard PC cursor. They
- may even use a particular color. You can also get very specific as to what
- Vocal-Eyes should consider a lightbar. All these features are considered
- more advanced and will therefore not be described here but in section 14.
-
- 9.2.5: LIGHT BAR TRACKING ON/OFF/AUTO
-
- In the last section, we introduced you to the Light Bar on/off/auto hot key.
- We showed you how to set this hot key and we spent a lot of time describing
- how it worked.
-
- Sometimes you will be creating .SET files for programs you know use light
- bars in a way that will require that you keep up with them from the word go.
- You could start up your program, then use your hot key to turn on light bar
- tracking. But why not use Option 5 on the General menu to set this feature
- to startup automatically as soon as your .SET file is loaded? You can still
- use your light bar tracking hot key to toggle these features anytime you
- like. Either way will accomplish the same task. However, you can use the
- menu to set the default mode. Notice if you toggle light bar mode with the
- hot key, the menu choice changes as well. This is also true if you toggle
- using the menu option, the hot key toggle will also be effected.
-
- To reset the light bar mode, simply cursor down to the appropriate General
- menu entry and press ENTER to toggle through the three settings. Don't
- forget to save your .SET file so the changes will be there the next time you
- use this .SET file if you wish.
-
- Also, remember each window not only contains the lightbar color but also the
- light bar mode. Switching to a different window will directly effect the
- current light bar color and status.
-
- 9.2.6: CHARACTER DICTIONARY ON/OFF
-
- Vocal-Eyes offers a character dictionary. This feature will be described in
- section 11. For now, keep this option in mind. You can use it to
- temporarily disable the current character dictionary.
-
- 9.2.7: KEY LABEL DICTIONARY ON/OFF
-
- Like the Character dictionary above, Vocal-Eyes also offers a key label
- dictionary. Again, this feature will be described in section 11. You can
- use this option to temporarily disable the current key label dictionary.
-
- 9.2.8: REVIEW WINDOW
-
- This option was described in section 7. It allows you to setup the default
- window constraints when you enter review mode. You have three choices --
- Current Window, Full Screen, and Previous Setting. Lets examine each
- individually.
-
- Current Window:
-
- This will constrain all your cursor movements to the coordinates of the
- currently selected window.
-
- Full Screen:
-
- This will allow you to cursor through the entire screen regardless of the
- currently selected window.
-
- Previous Setting:
-
- This will constrain your cursor movements to the setting last used when you
- exited review mode. For example, if when you last exited review mode you had
- the full screen active, it will be the default the next time you enter
- review. If however, you had the currently selected window active, it will be
- used when you next enter review mode.
-
- Feel free to set this to your personal choice.
-
- 9.2.9: SET BELL POSITION
-
- Earlier, we promised to show you how to reset Vocal-Eyes' "typewriter" bell
- to a different column position, or to disable this feature altogether. Well,
- this is where the Set Bell Position selection on the General menu comes into
- play.
-
- Cursor down to Option 9 on the General menu and press ENTER. You will be
- prompted for a new column position for your "typewriter"-style bell. Type in
- the number from 1 to 99 of the column position where you'd like Vocal-Eyes to
- beep to alert you that you're near the end of a line. Press ENTER to
- complete the selection.
-
- To disable the bell altogether, simply type a 0 for the new column position.
- That's all there is to setting and disabling Vocal-Eyes' "typewriter" bell.
-
- 9.2.10: HYPERACTIVE STATUS ON/OFF
-
- Since we have not discussed hyperactive windows yet, this feature will not be
- described until section 13.
-
- 9.2.11: ASCII Field Name Separator
-
- Remember you could setup a cursoring key to read the field name, field data
- or both? You can also assign a hotkey to read the field name and a hotkey to
- read the field data. These would normally be used in a data base application
- although you will probably find uses in other applications as well. We
- mentioned by default, Vocal-Eyes makes a few assumptions when it is requested
- to read either the field name or data.
-
- Vocal-Eyes assumes the application's cursor is sitting somewhere on the field
- data. Also, the color of the field data must be different than the color of
- the field name. Finally, the field name must be to the left of the field
- data. If all of these conditions are true, Vocal-Eyes is capable of
- distinguishing the two.
-
- However, there are certain application programs which do not place the field
- name in a different color than the field data. If this is the case, using
- the above technique, Vocal-Eyes has no way of knowing where the field name
- ends and the data begins. This is why we have added the ASCII Field Name
- Separator option to the Vocal-Eyes general menu.
-
- If you are using an applications program which does not use colors to
- separate the field name and data, they probably are using a consistent
- character immediately after the field name. Most commonly this is the :
- (colon). No matter what this character is as long as it is consistent,
- Vocal-Eyes can be told to look for this character and treat it as the
- separator between the field name and field data.
-
- Regardless of what the character is, you must know its ASCII value. If it is
- a colon, the ASCII value is 58. If it is not a colon and you are not sure
- what the ASCII value is, move the review cursor over the character and press
- the Attrib/ASCII hotkey (Option 37 in the hotkeys menu). Vocal-Eyes will
- tell you the ASCII value. Now simply press ENTER on option 11 (ASCII Field
- Name Separator) and Vocal-Eyes will prompt for the ASCII separator. This
- should be a number from 0 to 255. Simply type the ASCII value and press
- ENTER. Now Vocal-Eyes will use this technique for determining the field name
- and data instead of the color approach described above.
-
- By setting this value to 0, the default, Vocal-Eyes will not look for an
- ASCII 0 character but instead use the color approach above. Any value from
- 1 to 255 however, will instruct Vocal-Eyes to use that character for
- determining the field name and data.
-
- 9.2.12 Fast Review
-
- Through-out this manual, you have been using the ALT key to enter review
- mode. Only if you press the ALT and let go without pressing any other keys
- will review mode be entered. For example the keystroke ALT-A would not enter
- review mode because the 'A' was pressed before the ALT key was released.
-
- Before we continue our talk about the new fast review options, it should be
- noted that you should, if at all possible, use the fast review for entering
- the menus. Only if you are using macros should you use the review mode
- hotkey (option 51 in the hotkeys menu). There are many technical reason for
- this. Although both would probably work, we strongly suggest you use the
- fast review.
-
- Notice the default setting is either ALT. This means if your keyboard has
- two ALT keys, either can be used to enter review mode. What if you don't
- like using the ALT key or worse yet, it is also being used for another
- purpose with your applications program?
-
- Vocal-Eyes allows you to setup the fast review key to the following options:
-
- Undefined, left control, right control, either control, left shift, right
- shift, either shift, left ALT, right ALT, either ALT, or the Scroll-Lock key.
-
- A setting of 'right ALT' for example would mean only the right ALT key would
- enter review mode. Pressing the left ALT would not enter review mode. Those
- of you who prefer to leave the shift, control and alt keys alone, can use the
- Scroll-Lock key.
-
- Although you can use either the SHIFT, CONTROL or ALT keys, remember,
- Vocal-Eyes will not use it to enter review mode unless you press the key and
- release it without pressing any other key. For example, a SHIFT-Z or
- CONTROL-Y or ALT-F1 would not enter review mode because a key was pressed
- before the SHIFT, CONTROL or ALT was released.
-
- If you are not using a 101 key keyboard, than you should not set this to
- right control or right ALT since your keyboard does not contain these keys.
- However, all of the other setting will work fine.
-
- As you can see, this gives you much flexibility over what key or keys should
- be used to enter review mode. The default is either ALT key. Go ahead and
- set this value to whatever you feel most comfortable with and does not
- conflict with your underlying applications program.
-
- 9.2.13: SOUND EFFECTS INTERNAL SPEAKER/OFF/SOUNDING BOARD
-
- During your work thus far with Vocal-Eyes you have encountered several
- instances in which your PC's bell was sounded. Such bells can be pretty
- distracting at times, and there are many work environments where such noise
- is considered downright offensive.
-
- Here is a list of all the possible tone and beeps Vocal-Eyes is capable of.
-
- 1) When you enter and exit the Voice Control Panel
- 2) The capital letters option
- 3) The key click option
- 4) If you override the CAPS LOCK key by pressing the SHIFT key
- 5) If you have silenced the voice and the applications program is ready for
- more input
- 6) Cursoring up and down in Review Mode
- 7) The typewriter bell option
- 8) The error or beep tone
- 9) The screen activity tone
-
- Perhaps you'd like to turn these tones off. Well, here's your chance to do
- just that. Select Sound Effects on the General menu and press ENTER to
- disable Vocal-Eyes' many beeps and bells.
-
- Sounding Board users--you have an extra option as to how Vocal-Eyes handles
- your bell. You can instruct Vocal-Eyes to sound all bells through your
- Sounding Board synthesizer. Go to the Sound Effects selection on the General
- menu and press ENTER twice to do this. Now, plug in your headphones and you
- can work just as quietly as your sighted neighbor.
-
- 9.2.14: SET SOUND DURATION
-
- If you have instructed Vocal-Eyes to send your beeps and bells to your PC's
- internal speaker, you might want to set the duration, or how long, these
- sound effects should last. The reason for this is because of the vast
- difference in speeds of today's computers. For example, what might sound
- like a very nice tone on a 16MHZ 386 machine would be a very long drawn out
- tone on a 4.77 MHZ 8088. Or what might sound good on a 4.77 MHZ 8088 machine
- would sound extremely short on a 16MZH 386.
-
- If the tones seem too long, decrease the Sound Duration option. If the tones
- are too short, increase the value. Press ENTER at the Sound Duration prompt
- and enter a number from 1 to 9. Then press ENTER a second time to complete
- the entry.
-
- Setting the duration at 1 produces short, crisp tones, whereas setting the
- duration to 9 produces longer, more sustained tones. Experiment with this
- option until you find the setting that works best for you.
-
- 9.2.15 Cursor Delay
-
- Occasionally, you may be working with a piece of applications software that
- runs extremely slow. For example, you may be using TELIX or PROCOMM or some
- other telecommunications software package to access a remote computer. You
- press the DOWN ARROW key, and before the character has time to be received
- and acted upon by the program running on the remote computer Vocal-Eyes has
- already voiced the current line instead of waiting for the cursor to be moved
- to the next line and reading it.
-
- The cursor delay is the amount of time Vocal-Eyes waits between the pressing
- of a cursor or hot key and the implementation of the voice feature attached
- to it. This feature can be set to any number from 1 to 99, with each added
- number causing a slightly longer delay. If you're having trouble with
- software running too slowly to keep up with Vocal-Eyes' voice features, try
- increasing the cursor delay from its default value of 3.
-
- To increase, or decrease, Vocal-Eyes' cursor delay, press ENTER at the Cursor
- Delay prompt. Vocal-Eyes will ask you for a new setting. Type in a number
- from 1 to 99.
-
- Actually, Vocal-Eyes handles numbers from 1 to 70 differently than it handles
- numbers from 71 to 99. For standard applications programs like word
- processors, data base programs and spreadsheets, a setting from 1 to 70 will
- most likely work fine. However, because of telecommunication programs,
- Vocal-Eyes uses a different technique.
-
- It is suggested you first try a setting from 1 to 70. If setting the value
- to 70 still does not correct the timing problem, try settings above 70 going
- in small increments of about 4 or 5.
-
- For each value above 70, Vocal-Eyes will wait 1/18 of a second before doing
- what was requested for the particular cursoring key. For example, a value of
- 99 would first wait 29/18 seconds or 1.6 seconds before acting on the
- specified commands. It is 29/18 seconds because 99-70=29. Again, this is
- mainly for slow responding telecommunication programs where the cursoring
- keys seem to be speaking where you left rather than where you are. You will
- have to play with this value to get the best response. Just remember, values
- 1-70 use a different technique and is not based on a time value as were
- values 71 - 99 cause Vocal-Eyes to wait 1/18 of a second for each value above
- 70.
-
- 9.2.16: SET TRIGGER DELAY
-
- Another option that may be especially useful when running telecommunication
- applications is the "trigger delay."
-
- To help explain exactly what this feature is for, lets consider your standard
- printer. When you send text to a printer, it normally will not begin to
- print the information until it has received a complete line of text.
- Therefore, if you said print "Mary had a little" and stopped, nothing would
- be printed but the printer does contain the information. The printer would
- sit there forever waiting for the rest of the line. Once you send it a
- RETURN character, the printer recognizes it now has the complete line and
- prints it out. This works very much like your voice synthesizer.
-
- If you are at the DOS prompt and press ENTER, you get the current drive
- specifier and your cursor is positioned immediately after it. Vocal-Eyes
- sent the text to your synthesizer but it also is waiting for the complete
- line before it actually starts to speak. Here is where the trigger delay
- value comes into play. If the trigger delay value has elapsed since the time
- the last character was sent to your synthesizer, Vocal-Eyes will send a
- RETURN to the synthesizer causing it to speak the text which has been
- received but not spoken.
-
- You can see if you set this value too small, Vocal-Eyes could cause certain
- words to be broken up. This is because it is sending RETURN characters to
- the synthesizers not at line breaks but at semi-random places.
-
- A way to get a good feel for this feature is to set it for the highest value
- of 99. Then at the DOS prompt press ENTER and wait. If you have been
- keeping track of the time, the new prompt was not spoken for about 5.5
- seconds. Now set the value back to its default of 2 and again press ENTER at
- the DOS prompt. This time, Vocal-Eyes only waited 2/18 of a second.
-
- The delay value tells Vocal-Eyes how many 1/18ths of a seconds to wait before
- sending a RETURN to the synthesizer which will cause all unspoken text to be
- spoken. Again, normally you will not have to worry about this feature unless
- you are doing telecommunication work especially at low BAUD rates.
-
- To increase, or decrease, Vocal-Eyes' trigger delay, press ENTER at the
- Trigger Delay prompt. Vocal-Eyes will ask you for a new setting. Type in a
- number from 1 to 99. As was the case with the Cursor delay, you will want to
- increase the trigger delay gradually, so you can keep Vocal-Eyes running at
- optimal speed for your applications software.
-
- 4.2.17 Route/Write Delay
-
- Because each application program responds slower or faster than others, it
- may be necessary for you to tell Vocal-Eyes to slow down a bit while routing
- the applications cursor or while sending data from the clipboard to the
- underlying applications program. The clipboard feature will be discussed in
- a later section.
-
- If you issue the command to read to the end of the document and Vocal-Eyes
- stops before reaching the end, or during routing of the cursor you get the
- error "unable to route" or while sending the data from the clipboard to the
- application you are loosing data, try increasing this value until you no
- longer have the problem. You can adjust this value from 1 to 99. The lower
- the number the faster Vocal-Eyes can accomplish its task but because of the
- underlying applications program, you may have to slow Vocal-Eyes up a bit so
- the application can keep up. Feel free to adjust this up as high as needed.
- Try to keep this value as small as possible as to allow optimum performance.
-
- 9.2.18: HYPERACTIVE CHECK DELAY
-
- Since Hyperactive windows will not be discussed until section 13, the
- discussion of this feature will be held until that section.
-
- 9.2.19: REVECTOR CHECK ON/OFF
-
- Some application programs you run may make Vocal-Eyes disappear until you
- exit them. Then Vocal-Eyes will work as always. These are not very friendly
- programs. Therefore, Vocal-Eyes has to get tough! With this option enabled
- or on, Vocal-Eyes will continually check if someone has tried to bypass it.
- Once this is true, Vocal-Eyes will attempt to reposition itself so it can get
- control again.
-
- If you are executing a program where Vocal-Eyes disappears until you exit
- your program, try turning this feature on. You might be surprised. Those of
- you using 3270 emulators may find this means the difference of being able to
- use the 3270 or not.
-
- You should be very careful with this feature. It is a time time shot. It
- can only be used once per session with Vocal-Eyes. Once you turn it on and
- it revectors itself, it can not unvector itself. Therefore, you can not turn
- it off. This feature should only be used as a last resort.
-
- Note: If you are using an applications program which switches to a graphics
- mode, Vocal-Eyes will not shut down but what you hear may not make any sense.
- For example, reading the current line while in a graphics mode is not going
- to give intelligible results. Turning revector checking on for these types
- of programs will not have any effect at all. No matter what you try and do,
- Vocal-Eyes will not operate well in a graphics mode.
-
- Normally, you should leave this setting to its default off position.
-
- 9.3: THE REVIEW MODE FIND COMMAND
-
- Occasionally, you'll want to move to a certain screen location while in
- Review Mode. You don't know the exact column and row numbers of the screen
- position where you'd like your review cursor to be moved to, but you know the
- word, extended ASCII graphics character or screen attribute that's displayed
- there. This is where Vocal-Eyes' "Find" command comes in handy. Here's how
- it works.
-
- 9.3.1: THE "F" FIND COMMAND
-
- First, enter Review Mode. Now press the "F" key. Did you hear Vocal-Eyes
- respond "Enter pattern to find?" Say, for this example , you'd like your
- review cursor moved to the first character in the first occurrence of the
- word "STATUS." Simply type status from this prompt and then press ENTER.
- Vocal-Eyes will look for the first occurrence of the word "status" and move
- your review cursor to the appropriate screen position. Vocal-Eyes will also
- respond by reading the new column and row position where your cursor has been
- moved. If the string was not to be found on the screen, Vocal-Eyes will beep
- and the cursor will be exactly where it was prior to issuing the find
- command. Because you terminated the string with the ENTER key, Vocal-Eyes
- automatically started the search at the top left of the current window or
- full screen if it is selected regardless of the current location of the
- review cursor.
-
- Vocal-Eyes' Find command is case insensitive--which is to say it doesn't care
- whether you type in your search string in upper or lower characters.
- Vocal-Eyes will search for both.
-
- The Vocal-Eyes F Find command will search the currently active window only.
- If you would like the entire screen display to be searched, don't forget to
- press the F2 Full-screen toggle key first if your currently active window is
- not already setup for the full screen. Remember, you can setup what window
- should be active, full screen or the currently selected window, using the
- Review Window option in the general menu.
-
- Also, in the above example, we didn't have to type in the entire word
- "status" in order to have found its first occurrence on the screen. We could
- just as easily have typed in stat, ST, or simply S. Of course typing STAT
- would also have instructed Vocal-Eyes to search for words such as statistics,
- or statistical. Typing ST would have found all of the above, as well as
- words such as street, strong, stern, or even first. Typing an "S" by itself
- would, following the same logic, instruct Vocal-Eyes to search for the next
- "S" it can find. The idea here is to make your search string only as long as
- necessary to find the word you're looking for, but long enough to avoid words
- which contain similar strings but that you're not interested in finding.
-
- In the above example we pressed the "F" key, then entered the string we
- wanted Vocal-Eyes to search for. We concluded the command by pressing ENTER.
- Completing a search string with a press of the ENTER key causes Vocal-Eyes to
- initiate what is known as a forward search from the top left of the window.
- Vocal-Eyes searches from left to right, then moves down to the next screen
- line, where it searches from left to right again. Down a line, left to
- right, down another line, and so on and so forth until Vocal-Eyes either
- locates the desired string or reaches the lower right hand corner of your
- currently active window. We weren't really sure where our cursor was placed
- in relationship to the first occurrence of the word "status," so by pressing
- ENTER we knew we stood a pretty good chance of finding it.
-
- There is another way we could have concluded our search string, besides
- pressing ENTER. We could have pressed the > key instead. Typing F status >
- would have initiated a forward search for the word status exactly the same as
- if we'd typed F status ENTER except the search would have started from the
- current review cursor position instead of the top left of the window.
-
- What do you suppose would have happened if we'd typed 'F status <'? That's
- right! Vocal-Eyes would have initiated a backwards, or "reverse" search. In
- this instance, Vocal-Eyes would begin at the current cursor location and
- search backwards, from right to left, up one line, from right to left, up
- another line, and so on and so forth until it either finds the desired string
- or reaches the upper left hand corner of your currently active window.
-
- What if the first occurrence of the word "status" wasn't the one you wanted?
- What if Status appears on your screen several times? How do you find it
- again? Well, there are several ways you could do this. You could press the
- F Find command key a second time, type status again and then press < or >.
- Or you could press the F find command key and press < or > straightaway,
- since, as you would have noticed if you're following along, the F Find
- command key always remembers the last string you searched for and offers it
- as a default value. You can accept this default by simply pressing ENTER, <
- or >, or, if you'd like to search for a slightly different string, you can
- use your RIGHT ARROW key to cursor over the part of the search string you
- want to keep and then type in the rest. If you begin by typing anything
- other then the RIGHT arrow, the default is cleared. For a complete
- description of editing keys for this an all other input prompts, refer to
- Appendix I: EDITING INPUT PROMPTS.
-
- If all you want to do is find the second occurrence of your search string,
- however, you don't even have to press the F find command key. Simply press
- the < or > key. Vocal-Eyes will automatically search in the desired
- direction for the next occurrence of your string, and, if it finds it, move
- your cursor and announce the new screen position. If no such string exists,
- a beep will be sounded.
-
- Remember, for either the < or > search features to work, you must have
- searched for something first using the F Find command. It doesn't matter
- when you used it. You could, for instance, use either the < or > to search
- for a string you originally searched for the last time you were in Review
- Mode. The default find string will be there waiting for you until you use
- the F Find command to look for a different string.
-
- What if you want to include either a < or > character as a part of your
- search string? Easy enough. Simply precede the character with a press of
- the ` (grave accent) key. You will recall that the ` is your Review Mode and
- Voice Control Panel bypass key. Typing F `<begin here`>>, for instance,
- would instruct Vocal-Eyes to search for the text string <begin here>. The
- second >, the one not preceded by a `, informs Vocal-Eyes that you would like
- the search to progress in a forward direction starting from the current
- review cursor position. Of course if you wanted to search for the grave
- accent itself, simply include two grave accent characters in a row.
-
- 9.3.2: SEARCHING FOR CONTROL AND EXTENDED GRAPHICS CHARACTERS
-
- You will recall from an earlier section that the ASCII character set
- includes, along with all the standard typewriter keys, a set of control
- characters designated ASCII 1 through 26 and a set of extended ASCII graphics
- characters designated ASCII 0, ASCII 27 - 31 and ASCII 127 - 255. You can
- use the "F" find command to search for any of these non-standard keys as
- follows:
-
- First, enter Review Mode and press "F" to initiate a search. Now, when
- Vocal-Eyes prompts you for a string to search for, press and hold down the
- ALT key and then enter the ASCII number of the character you want to search
- for using the number set on your numeric key pad only. The numbers on the
- top of the keyboard will not work.
-
- (NOTE: On most full-size PC keyboards the numeric key pad is located near
- the right edge. Small Talk users--yours is an embedded numeric key pad.
- Press the FN key to access your key pad.)
-
- As an example, let's say you're looking for the extended ASCII graphics
- character that most pop-up windows use to draw the upper left-hand corner of
- their box. To find this character, which is designated as ASCII 218, and to
- automatically move your cursor to it, first, enter Review Mode. Press F.
- Next, holding down the ALT key, enter 218 from your numeric key pad. Release
- the ALT key and then press ENTER, < or >, depending on where you suspect the
- character lies in relationship to your current cursor location. If it turns
- out that you searched the wrong way, use either the < or > keys to make a
- U-turn and search the other way. That's all there is to searching for
- special ASCII characters using Vocal-Eyes!
-
- You can mix standard text with any special ASCII character if you wish. The
- only limitation is 30 characters. It doesn't matter what those 30 characters
- are.
-
- 9.3.3: SEARCHING FOR VIDEO ATTRIBUTES
-
- In the last section of this manual we introduced you to Vocal-Eyes' color
- palate. We showed you how to access it by pressing the F1 key immediately
- after pressing either "A" to set the user definable attribute or the "B" to
- set the light bar tracking. Well, you can also use the color palate to add
- colors or other video attributes to your search string. Here's how.
-
- Enter Review Mode and press "F" to begin the search process. Now, instead of
- entering a string to search for, press the F1 key. Cursor down until you
- locate the foreground attribute you'd like to search for, then press ENTER.
- Follow the same procedure to select the background color or video attribute
- you'd like to search for. As was the case when setting user defined
- attributes and light bars, once you've gained some familiarity with the
- various attributes and their menu numbers you can choose to simply type in
- the appropriate number and then press ENTER.
-
- Have you selected the foreground and background attributes you'd like to
- search for? If so, type in the character string you'd like to search for and
- then press ENTER to initiate the search. Entering a 5 for foreground and 1
- for background and then the string STATUS, for example, would instruct
- Vocal-Eyes to search for the first occurrence of the text string STATUS that
- appears in red letters on a black background assuming you are using a color
- video adapter.
-
- Would you like to search for a particular video attribute and have Vocal-Eyes
- move your cursor to it regardless of what character is displayed there? You
- can do this easily as follows:
-
- First, press "F" to begin the search process. Press F1 and select the set of
- video attributes you'd like Vocal-Eyes to search for. Now, instead of
- entering a string of characters to search for, type a question mark and then
- press ENTER. The question mark is a Vocal-Eyes wild card. It instructs
- Vocal-Eyes to search for any character, so long as it fulfills the video
- attributes portion of the search command. Typing 5 for foreground and 1 for
- background, then following with a question mark and then ENTER, < or > would
- instruct Vocal-Eyes to search for the next occurrence of red on black on your
- screen, no matter what character is displayed there again assuming you are
- using a color video adapter.
-
- What do you think you would have to do if you really wanted to search for a
- question mark? That's right--simply type a ` first to let Vocal-Eyes know to
- accept the next character, in this case a question mark, as is.
-
- For example the string 'test?9' would find the string 'test09', 'test19',
- 'test 9' etc. Vocal-Eyes will consider any character to match the question
- mark. However, the string 'test`?9' would only find the strings 'test?9',
- 'test?91', 'subtest?9a' etc. In this case, Vocal-Eyes must match the
- question mark since it was preceded with a grave accent in the find string.
-
- If you wish, you can assign a different video attribute for each character in
- the find string. Every time you change the video attribute, it will effect
- all characters typed from that point on. But you can change it as many times
- as you wish. Granted it may not be very practical to search for a 30
- character string with each character containing a different video attribute,
- but it can be done with Vocal-Eyes.
-
- By default, Vocal-Eyes starts the video attribute to anything on anything.
- In other words, don't worry about what the attributes are. Simply find the
- specified characters. If you press F to type in the find string, as we said
- before, Vocal-Eyes will give you the last string typed as a default. If you
- hear a beep, Vocal-Eyes is telling you there is a specified attribute
- somewhere in the find string. If you are sighted, you will notice each
- character in the find string with a specified attribute is actually displayed
- in that attribute. This can make for a very pretty display.
-
- Also, if you cursor over the default string using the arrow keys, Vocal-Eyes
- will voice any new attribute it comes across. If Vocal-Eyes does not speak
- an attribute when you press the arrow keys, you can assume the video
- attribute for the new character is the same as the previous character. Once
- again, refer to Appendix I for a complete description of valid editing
- commands.
-
- As you can see, the "F" find command can be quite handy in locating important
- information in your applications program's display. Now that you've found
- them, would you like a way you can save, or mark, these screen locations for
- quick and easy access at a later time? This is where Vocal-Eyes' 10 markers
- come into play.
-
- 9.3.4: SEARCHING FOR THE NEXT DIFFERENT ATTRIBUTE
-
- What if you simply want to search for the very next character which has a
- different attribute then the one currently under the Review cursor? Well,
- Vocal-Eyes comes through once again. Every time you press S in Review Mode,
- Vocal-Eyes will search for the first character with a different attribute
- than the attribute currently under the review cursor. It will search from
- left to right starting at the review cursor position. If found, Vocal-Eyes
- will move your Review Cursor there and speak the character as well as the
- attribute. If there are no characters with a different attribute below the
- current Review cursor position, Vocal-Eyes will simply beep at you. The
- cursor will not be moved.
-
- This can be a very quick way of seeing how everything on your screen looks.
- It can also be a quick way of finding what the light bar should be set for.
- Feel free to use this feature as you see fit. Just remember, pressing S in
- Review mode is all it takes.
-
- 9.4: ADJUSTING THE UP AND DOWN ARROWS IN REVIEW MODE
-
- As you already know, if you press the up and down arrows in review,
- Vocal-Eyes will read you the new line. However, you can instruct Vocal-Eyes
- to read something other than the line when you move up and down. Pressing
- 'V' in review mode will toggle between character, word and line. If you set
- this to word, pressing the up and down arrows will only read the new word
- under the review cursor. Setting this to character will only read the new
- character the review cursor lands on when you press the up or down arrows.
- Feel free to set this to your particular needs. This value is saved with the
- .SET file. This means, although reading the new line is the default, by
- changing this value and saving it to disk, Vocal-Eyes will now default to
- your particular needs - character, word or line.
-
- This setting also directly effects the up and down arrows while using the VE
- cursor. Section 10 will discuss the VE cursor.
-
- 9.5: SETTING AND USING MARKERS
-
- We've already shown you how to use Vocal-Eyes' Review Mode to reread all or
- any part of your screen. Is there a part of your screen that you need to
- refer back to frequently? You've determined the column and row position
- you'd like to access on a regular basis, and you know how to move your cursor
- to this screen position by using your read character and read line hot keys,
- each preceded by the number of the line and column you'd like your cursor
- moved to. This probably seems like a lot of trouble to have to go through
- every time you'd like to move your cursor to this particular column and row
- position in Review Mode--especially if you have to relearn the row and column
- numbers every time you run the software. We agree with you. It would be a
- lot of trouble. Which is why we have equipped Vocal-Eyes with the ability to
- set and remember up to 10 different markers.
-
- Let's say that frequently you'd like to be able to enter Review Mode and move
- your cursor quickly and without a lot of fuss to the 40th column of screen
- line 3. Here's all you'd have to do.
-
- Are you presently in Review Mode? If not, use your Fast Review hot key to
- get there. Move your cursor to the desired position by typing 3 followed
- immediately by your read line hot key. Type 40 and follow with your read
- character hot key. Press the SPACE BAR, to make sure your Review cursor is
- exactly where you want it. It should respond 'C40, L3.'
-
- Are you in the correct cursor position? If so, press the "M" "marker to set"
- key. Vocal-Eyes will respond "Select marker to set." Press the number from
- 0 to 9 of the marker you'd like to set. Vocal-Eyes will respond by saying
- 'Marker x' where x is the number you typed. There--you've just set your
- first marker.
-
- Are there other areas of the screen you'd like to be able to jump to quickly?
- Why not set a marker for each. You can use the numbers from 0 through 9 on
- either the top row of your keyboard or on your numeric key pad to set up to
- 10 markers, each of them marking a different screen position.
-
- Have you set Marker 0? Move your cursor to a different screen position.
- Press the "G" "Go to marker" key. Vocal-Eyes will respond "Select marker to
- move to." Type 0, and almost as fast as you can remove your finger from the
- key Vocal-Eyes has moved your cursor to the marked position and voiced the
- character that's there.
-
- Exit Review Mode and work a little with your software. Enter Review Mode and
- again press "G." Type in the number of the marker you want to move to. It's
- that easy, and that quick!
-
- Would you like to change the screen coordinates of a particular marker?
- Simply move your cursor to the new position you'd like marked, press "M" and
- then press the number of the marker you'd like to reset. You can change any
- marker's screen coordinates as often and as many times as you'd like.
-
- Be sure to resave your .SET file after you've set or changed markers. That
- way they'll still be there the next time you run your applications program
- using the same .SET file.
-
- 9.6: USING MARKERS FOR WINDOW COORDINATES
-
- Now that you may have several markers set at different points on the screen,
- wouldn't it be nice if you could use these points to specify the positions of
- a window? Well, you can do just that. Remember in Review if you press F4
- you are prompted for the four points of the currently active window? You
- typed in the new numbers and/or pressed ENTER over some of the default
- values. Well, instead of typing in a number, why not give it a marker number
- and let Vocal-Eyes figure out the exact number for you?
-
- For example. Move you Review cursor to line 10 and the 15th column position.
- Verify you are there by pressing the SPACE BAR. Now set marker 7 to this
- location by pressing M7. Now select window 8 by pressing F3 followed by 8.
- We want to set the coordinates of the top left at line 10 column 15 and the
- bottom right at line 25 column 80. So press F4 and at the Left column number
- prompt type M7 ENTER. AT the right column number type M7 ENTER again. For
- the Right column number type 80 and 25 for the Bottom line number. There,
- you have just setup the window using your preset marker. Verify the settings
- by pressing F8. Sure enough, it is set exactly the way we wanted it to be.
- You can use a marker for any or all of the window coordinates. Simply type
- M followed by the number of the marker to be used instead of actually typing
- in a specific number.
-
- You can also use this for the Read Temporary Window command. Any place
- Vocal-Eyes asks for the coordinates of a window, you can specify using any of
- the 10 markers.
-
- In section 13, we will discuss the powerful hyperactive windows. Keep in
- mind that while setting up their coordinates, you can also use any of the 10
- markers as described above.
-
- 9.7: CURSOR ROUTING
-
- As we've stated throughout this manual, whenever you enter Review Mode your
- applications program is placed into a state of suspended animation. It only
- "wakes up" when you've exited Review Mode, at which time it picks up right
- where it left off. We also emphasized the fact that, whatever keys you press
- while in Review Mode, none of them was passed along to your applications
- program. Well, here's the exception that makes the rule.
-
- Let's say you've entered Review Mode and located some important information
- 3 screen lines up and 14 columns to the left of your current applications
- cursor. You'd like to move your applications cursor to this important
- information, so you use one of your Review Mode exit keys to return to your
- applications program, and then use your cursor keys to move the appropriate
- number of lines and columns to reach your desired location. That's one way
- you could do it. Another is by using Vocal-Eyes' cursor routing feature.
- Here's how it works:
-
- Enter Review Mode and move your review cursor to the desired screen position.
- Now, instead of using the ESCAPE key, or your fast review key or your Review
- hot key to exit back to your program, type ALT-X. Or, if you're using a
- 101-key keyboard, you could alternatively have pressed ALT-ESCAPE. In either
- case, Vocal-Eyes will respond "routing," exit Review Mode for you and
- automatically press your cursor keys enough times to move your applications
- cursor to the correct line and column position. At least it will try its
- level best to do this.
-
- Many applications programs do not move their cursor by conventional means,
- which is to say via the four ARROW keys. Or, you may have placed your review
- cursor in a screen location not accessible by your applications cursor, such
- as in the middle of a help screen, or on a status line. Or, if your program
- uses light bars, your applications cursor may not even appear on the screen.
- In these cases, when Vocal-Eyes is unable to route your cursor, it will
- respond "unable to route," and return you to your applications program.
-
- The best way to determine whether Vocal-Eyes can route your applications
- cursor is to try it. So go ahead--give Vocal-Eyes' ALT-X or ALT-ESCAPE
- cursor routing feature a try.
-
- If you are using an applications program which should be able to route but
- you keep getting the message 'Unable to route', you may want to increase the
- route delay using option 17 in the general menu. For example Sprint, a word
- processor from Borland, requires a route delay of at least 20 for Vocal-Eyes
- to route the cursor correctly. The higher the number, the slower Vocal-Eyes
- will communicate to the underlying applications program. Try to keep the
- route delay as low as possible for faster response. However, some programs
- may require a slightly longer delay than others.
-
- 9.8: THE SYNTHESIZER CHANNEL
-
- Would you like to access your voice synthesizer directly? Try using the
- Review Mode "C" for "synthesizer channel" key.
-
- Basically, there are two reasons why you might want to send characters
- directly to your synthesizer: First, you might want your synthesizer to
- voice some text without having to enter the text into your current
- applications program. Second, you might want to send your synthesizer a
- command to change one or more of its settings. For example, Sounding Board
- users might want to turn on acronym read, or capitalization alert.
-
- To send a string of characters directly to your synthesizer, enter Review
- Mode and press the "C" for "channel" key. Vocal-Eyes will respond: "Enter
- command...press ENTER when finished." Go ahead and try this now. Try typing
- in your name and then pressing ENTER. What happened? Did your synthesizer
- voice your name? Exit Review Mode and you'll discover your applications
- program is still just as you left it. Your program doesn't even realize your
- synthesizer said your name.
-
- As we learned back in SECTION 4 of this manual, Vocal-Eyes has some pretty
- sophisticated synthesizer control features. You can control all of the
- popular voice and punctuation settings, and you can set them differently for
- screen and keyboard review. However there are many other synthesizer
- commands you may wish or need to enter from time to time during your PC work
- session. Normally, these commands are entered from DOS, but Vocal-Eyes
- offers you the ability to issue any synthesizer command from inside
- Vocal-Eyes' Review Mode. The advantage of this is that you don't have to
- save your data and exit your applications program and return to DOS in order
- to change a synthesizer setting. You can do it from Review Mode via the "C"
- synthesizer channel key.
-
- In order to send a command to your synthesizer, the first thing you have to
- do is get its attention. The Sounding Board, along with most popular voice
- synthesizers, uses the CTRL-E key for this purpose. Whenever a CTRL-E is
- sent to your synthesizer, it knows that it's supposed to accept the following
- characters as a command instead of text to be voiced.
-
- At the beginning of this topic we mentioned that you might want to use the
- "C" synthesizer channel key to turn acronym read on, or to turn
- Capitalization alert on. Here's how you would do each of these.
-
- First, enter Review Mode and press the "C" synthesizer channel key. Press
- CTRL-E to get the Sounding Boards attention. Are you currently using CTRL-E
- as one of your voice hot keys? If so, don't worry, Vocal-Eyes knows better.
- Each key you press will be sent verbatim. Now, to turn the Sounding Board's
- acronym read feature on, you would type A1, which is the Sounding Board's
- acronym read on parameter, and then press ENTER.
-
- Similarly, to turn on Capitalization alert, you would begin by pressing "C."
- Press CTRL-EC1 followed by ENTER. There, you have just turned Capitalization
- alert on.
-
- As you can see, the "C" synthesizer command key offers you ready access to
- all of your voice synthesizer's controls without having to disturb your work
- in progress. Check your synthesizer documentation to learn the various
- settings and switches that are possible with your particular synthesizer.
-
- If you try and change a setting Vocal-Eyes is using such as the rate, pitch,
- volume or tone, your new setting will not last very long. Vocal-Eyes will
- reset it back to what it thinks it should be. Therefore, if you want to
- change any of these values, you must use the Voice Control Panel. This is
- actually easier anyway.
-
- 9.9: BLOCK WRITE
-
- Here's a Vocal-Eyes feature we know you're going to like!--the ability to
- copy text or other information from one program and enter, or "write" it
- directly into another. This really has nothing to do with speech. But it
- sure is a handy feature to have around!
-
- Say, for example, you're in your database management program. You've found
- the name and address you're looking for, and now you want to return to your
- word processor and enter the name and address in a business letter. You
- could speak the information onto a cassette, or type it into Noteworthy and
- then retype it into your business letter once you've moved out of your
- database manager and back into your main word processor. But why not save
- yourself all that hassle and use Vocal-Eyes' handy block write feature?
-
- Here's how it works.
-
- First, go into the hot keys submenu and select option 61: Block Write.
- Assign a hot key that's both convenient and easy to remember. You'll
- probably be using this feature a lot, so you'll want to select a hot key you
- can assign to the same key in almost every application.
-
- Now, back in your applications program, enter Review Mode and move your
- review cursor to either the beginning or the end of the address you'd like to
- have copied. Press P. Did you hear Vocal-Eyes say "Mark?" If so, move your
- cursor to the opposite corner of your address or block of text. Press R.
- Vocal-Eyes will then say "Copy."
-
- Now that you've copied your address or block of text, you can change
- applications as many times as you like. You can even reinvoke Vocal-Eyes
- with a new .SET file. Your text is safely stowed away inside a special
- Vocal-Eyes buffer, which, by default, can contain a block of text as small as
- a single character or as large as 25 lines of screen text. This buffer size
- can be adjusted to your particular needs. It can be enlarged or even
- completely disabled. Section 14 will cover how to adjust this buffer size.
-
- Are you back in your word processor? Place your cursor where you'd like your
- address to be entered. Press your Block Write hot key. Vocal-Eyes will
- enter your marked data the same as if you'd typed it in yourself. Only
- quicker, much much quicker.
-
- If for some reason you would like to cancel a block write before the
- operation has completed, simply press the ESCAPE key. The block write
- operation will be canceled immediately. No further characters will be
- entered into your text editor or word processor.
-
- When you copy data, Vocal-Eyes will make a rectangle out of your two
- specified points. The first being the location you placed a mark using the
- 'P' command and the second point being the location of your Review cursor
- when you issued the 'R' command to replace the contents of the block buffer
- with the data specified in the rectangle. You can think of this as the upper
- left of a window and the lower right of a window. All characters inside this
- temporary window will be copied into what is called the Block Buffer. This
- is where Vocal-Eyes will hold onto it for you.
-
- What if you are using your data base and you want to copy the persons name
- and address to your word processor? Well, what if each of the fields is in
- a different location of the screen. You can't get it all in one block copy.
- You would first have to copy the name then street, then city then state and
- finally zip. If your Data Base placed them all together where you could
- place a rectangle or window over it, you would have been able to do it with
- one block copy. Does this mean you have to go back and forth between your
- word processor and data base program 5 times to copy each field. Not quite.
-
- When you issue the R command, the contents specified in the temporary window
- will replace the data already in the block buffer. It sure would be nice to
- simply add the data to the end of the buffer instead of replacing it don't
- you think? This would allow you to copy each of your fields individually but
- when you are done have all the information at once in the Block Buffer.
- Surely we would not wet your appetite for a feature like this if Vocal-Eyes
- did not offer it right? That's right, you can either replace the existing
- data with the new data using the R command or add the specified data to the
- existing data by using the T command.
-
- The R command can be though of as Replacing the new information over the old.
- The T command can be thought of as tagging on the new information onto the
- old. You can append information in this way as long as the Block Buffer can
- hold it. If you try and add more then the Block Buffer can hold, you will
- get the error message "Block Too Large." You will have to use smaller chunks
- when copying data. The buffer defaults to 1024 characters.
-
- If you can see the screen, you will notice Vocal-Eyes has changed the
- attribute of the character where the block was marked using the P command.
- This simply makes it easy to see what is about to be copied.
-
- To copy data you must follow these steps:
-
- 1) Move your cursor to the top left or bottom right of what can be thought
- of as a temporary window. Once there, press P to Place a mark at this
- position.
-
- 2) Now move your cursor to the opposite corner of this temporary window and
- press either R or T. Regardless of which command you press, all the data in
- the specified window will be copied to the block buffer. The difference is
- if you issued the R command, the data specified will REPLACE all data already
- in the block buffer. Whereas the T command will TAG the specified
- information to the end of the existing data in the block buffer.
-
- 3) Once you have the data you want in the Block Buffer, exit Review Mode and
- move your cursor in your applications program where you want all this great
- information placed. Now press your Block Write hot key. At this point,
- Vocal-Eyes will send the information from the block buffer to your
- application program just as if you were typing it from the keyboard. If you
- wish to cancel this command, press ESCAPE at any time. Vocal-Eyes will
- immediately stop sending the characters.
-
- If while writing the clipboard to your application, you are losing
- characters, you may want to increase the write delay using option 17 in the
- general menu. Some application programs can not receive characters as fast
- as Vocal-Eyes is sending them. Therefore, you may have to increase the delay
- causing Vocal-Eyes to slow down. Try to keep this value as low as possible
- for faster response. Normally the default of 2 should have no problems.
- However, if there is a problem, here is where to resolve it.
-
- We are sure you will find many applications for this feature. Use it as
- often as you wish. Why try and memorize information simply to have it placed
- somewhere else. Not only could you forget, you may introduce typing errors.
- Vocal-Eyes will never forget and of course will not give you any typing
- errors.
-
- 9.10: SUMMARY
-
- We covered so many features in this section, we could not begin to name them
- all here. All of the features offered by the General submenu were discussed
- as were many more Review commands.
-
- Feel free to stop reading this manual and practice what you have learned this
- far. Once you feel comfortable with these features, read on to learn even
- more of what Vocal-Eyes can do for you.
-