VoiceWaves are powerful languages designed to help you gain the most benefit from using voice control within a given application. VoiceWaves includes hundreds of pre-programmed voice commands and voice macros for many of the most popular software packages. VoiceWaves includes powerful voice commands and voice macros for many of the most popular Macintosh applications including Microsoft Word, Excel, Works, Claris MacWrite II and MacDraw II, Aldus PageMaker, QuarkXPress, Adobe Illustrator, HyperCard, MacroMind Director, Opcode Vision, and Coda Finale to name a few.
These languages are designed to take advantage of the unique strengths of voice control, not just to use voice as a replacement for standard mouse and keyboard actions. Each VoiceWaves language was created, using Language Maker, by an expert user of the specific application. It is important to understand that the VoiceWaves languages are designed as powerful and flexible templates which you can easily customize as you work with voice control within your specific applications. No one language is perfect for everyone and we encourage you to use Language Maker to modify the VoiceWaves languages to suit your specific needs.
The commands in the languages and the accompanying documentation have been designed to allow you to easily modify what a given command does.
For example, the Insert_4_by_8_table command from the Microsoft Word 4.0 language allows you to create any size table you want eventhough the default is 4 x 8. By changing the numbers inserted in steps #4 and #6 shown below, you can redefine the dimensions of the table you want the command to create.
** VoiceWaves Documentation **
Each VoiceWaves language has an accompanying documentation file (in MacWrite format) that outlines all of the commands included in the corresponding language. Each command that requires special notes is formatted according to the following guidelines (as shown below with the Insert_4_by_8_table command):
• The command name appears first.
• Primary descriptive information including detailed actions contained within the command are outlined below the command name.
• Secondary descriptive information is enclosed within () next to the command name.
Insert_4_by_8_table (Multiple commands can be issued at this level).
Inserts a Table with four columns and eight rows at the selected point. This macro consists of the following steps:
1. Select Insert Table… from the Document menu.
2. Click in the Column number field.
3. Hit the delete key to delete current number.
About VoiceWaves
4. Type 4.
5. Hit the Tab key to move to next cell.
6. Type 8.
7. Click OK.
** The philosophy behind VoiceWaves **
When the application experts used Language Maker to design the languages, they were given two simple guidelines to follow: create a language that truly utilizes the power of voice control and do not support features that are not suited to voice control. With this mandate, each expert used Language Maker to create languages which they felt met these criteria. In doing so, they created languages where many menu items were promoted to the Top Level of the language so you can directly access them by voice. You will also note that many, if not all, of the main menu items (e.g. File, Edit, etc) have been eliminated. Certain menu items or dialog boxes were not supported because the expert did not feel that they were best suited to voice control. If the application includes a tool palette, the language will allow selection of those tools if possible, and in various “modes” if applicable.
** To use VoiceWaves languages **
To use the VoiceWaves languages, you must first unstuff the VoiceWaves Languages StuffIt file included in this Languages folder. To do this, just double-click the VoiceWaves Languages Installer and select where to place the unstuffed files (we recommend that you keep all your languages in your Languages folder).
After you unstuff the file, you can use VoiceWaves languages just like any other standard Voice Navigator languages.
**Note**
These VoiceWaves languages use certain sophisticated techniques. For example, certain commands in these languages are linked to other commands. If anything looks odd, or a command seems unpronounceable, please check the documentation for the specific language before changing the command’s name or output. It may be that the command in question wasn’t intended to be trained in the first place, and that if you change the command name, the commands that are linked to it won’t work.
