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Launching applications and opening documents

In order to launch an application with SpeechVibe, just say "Launch application name" where application name is the name as shown from the start menu.

For example, should you want to launch 'Microsoft Word' with SpeechVibe, the first step would be to inspect how 'Microsoft Word' is launched from the start menu.

For this case, we can observe that 'Microsoft Word' is actually named 'Microsoft Office Word 2003'. To launch it using a voice command would require to say 'launch' or 'open' following by enough of the potential sequences of words that can be used to name it uniquely (without using numbers), such as:

• "Launch Microsoft Office Word"
• "Launch Office Word"
• "Open Microsoft Office Word"
• "Open Office Word"

You can appreciate the fact that saying "Launch Microsoft Word" would not work under the described installed computer because of the naming of the launching application in the start menu.

In order to consult the complete list of launchable applications and documents, refer to the 'Enable open commands' documentation of the command and control preference page.

Otherwise, you can also use the hot-spots feature to launch applications or open documents, as demonstrated in the animation below (click on the image to start the animation):

Navigating menus with your voice

SpeechVibe automatically reads the menus on your computer and enables you to navigate them using your voice. Below is a simple example using the Paint program that is on every Windows operating system. Say "Launch Paint" in order to invoke it on your computer and follow the steps described here.

Each menu item that can be spoken is superposed with a green dot when the microphone is on.	After saying "Click View", a click is generated on the 'View' menu.
Say "Click Zoom" to navigate in the sub-menu. Any menu item and any menu can be spoken to emulate a click with your voice. Simply say "Press escape" in order to navigate to the higher level of the currently expanded menu. Say "Click Custom" to invoke the corresponding dialog.

Navigating dialogs with your voice

Following the steps described in the previous section where navigation through the menus was performed with "Click View", "Click Zoom" and then "Click Custom", this dialog is shown:

Each dialog component under green dots can be controlled by voice. That doesn't mean that you can say "click four hundred percent" though. By default, the computer does not know about the special pronunciation of number sequences or other natural language sequences that do not pronounce as they should (for example '400' is pronounced 'four hundred' while the computer believes it is pronounced 'four zero zero'). In order to generate a click on '400%' in this dialog, just follow the next steps.
Say "Click hot-spot", and the SpeechVibe's superposed interface will change to the following...
During a limited time (typicaly from 5 seconds to 30 seconds depending on your preference settings), the display will change for numbers to be associated with each element that can be voice activated on the screen.
Say "Pick twenty-two", to generate a click on the '400%' button.
To close the dialog, you can then say "Click OK" or "Click Cancel" since both 'OK' and 'Cancel' are known to the English vocabulary.

Using the mouse grid

Because there is a significant diversity of applications on the Windows operating system and because not all of them are built the same way, and most importantly because what you want to do with your voice should only be limited by what it would be possible to do without it, the mouse grid has been built for you. For example, if you'd want to use the palette controls in the paint application (the text, area selection, eraser, polygon, etc), the hot-spots did not detect these components. But still, in order to manipulate the paint application without limitations, the access to said palette controls is essential.

Say "Show Mouse Grid" to get started using the mouse grid...

Say "Click twenty-three twenty-three", for example, if you want to generate a click on the brush into the palette from the previous screen. Sometimes, the mouse grid is not positioned exactly over the emplacement desired. In such cases, say "shift left", "shift up", "shift right" or "shift down" so that it shifts the mouse grid in the desired direction.

In order to draw a rectangle for the example in the paint program as shown here, simply say "Click twenty-five twenty-two" to select the rectangle tool from the palette, then say "Move to twenty-three twenty-four" to position yourself at the location where the rectangle will start being drawn. Finally, you can say "Drag to twenty-six twenty-eight" so that a drag movement is generated.

Here is the complete list of actions that can be performed at any given location of the
mouse grid:

If the mouse grid is not positioned exactly over the desired location, use the shift commands to move it accordingly.

The default appearance of the mouse grid is specified in the mouse control preference page. Although pretty much every aspect of the appearance of the mouse grid can be specified in the preferences, some voice commands are also available in order to change the appearance when the mouse grid is shown.

Using the keyboard equivalents

Using your voice, it is possible to generate key sequences with SpeechVibe. The use of a phonetic alphabet is essential in order to minimize the chances of being mis-understood by the speech recognition engine. For that purpose, SpeechVibe allows you to choose between many popular phonetic alphabets from the spelling preference page.

For example, if you'd want to save your document by pressing Control-S while using your voice, you could say "Press Control Sierra" (assuming that the NATO Phonetic Alphabet is currently selected).

Other demos available:    Internet features (4 minutes 23 seconds)    Start menu (1 minute)