Audio Interface is a control panel which uses Apple's PlainTalk technology to speak the contents of menus and dialog boxes. By moving the mouse over menu items or dialog box items, you can have the name of that item read to you.
I think it's useful for those people who have sight difficulties: although Audio Interface currently only covers menus and dialog boxes, I hope it can make at least one person's life a little easier when using a Mac.
What do I need?
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Audio Interface requires the PlainTalk text-to-speech extension, which is available from Apple. Audio Interface also requires System 7.0 or later. Compatibility with PowerMacs hasn't been tested yet.
Currently, Audio Interface uses the compressed female voice for all its speech, and that voice is built into the PlainTalk extension. When speaking, the PlainTalk extension uses somewhere around 1 megabyte of memory. This may be an important consideration if you use a program which takes up all the memory in your Mac, since Audio Interface won't speak if it hasn't got enough memory.
How do I install it?
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Very simple. Just drag the Audio Interface control panel onto your System Folder icon, and the system will put it in the Control Panels folder for you. Then restart your Mac.
When you restart, you should see the Audio Interface icon appear along the bottom. If it doesn't appear, then check that it's been put into your Control Panels folder, not somewhere else in your System Folder.
If the icon has an "X" through it, then Audio Interface failed to load. Make sure you have the PlainTalk text-to-speech extension in your Extensions folder. If it's in the right place and you still get an X through the icon, try replacing Audio Interface with a fresh copy. If the problem persists, get in touch with me.
How do I use it?
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When you start up your Mac, you'll notice nothing immediately different with Audio Interface installed. The only time Audio Interface activates is when you're working with menus or dialog boxes.
When you click and hold down on a menu, Audio Interface is activated. Whatever menu or menu item you point to, Audio Interface will attempt to read the name of that item, as well as tell you whether it is checked, unavailable, marked with a diamond, etc. Divider lines are read as "divider line", and the Apple, Help, and Application menus are all spoken correctly.
For example, you can hear such things as "Special menu", "Menu item Empty Wastebasket, which is disabled", and "Menu item Finder, which is marked with a diamond".
When a dialog box appears, Audio Interface (by default) tries to speak the "main message" of the dialog box. For example, when you empty the wastebasket, Audio Interface will read the main message: "The wastebasket contains 3 items, which use..."
Also in a dialog box, you can move the mouse over most text and button names to have it spoken. Currently, Audio Interface doesn't support lists, such as those when you save or open a file in an application.
Configuring
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If you open the Audio Interface control panel, you will see two basic options: "Speak Menus" and "Speak Dialogs". For each of these options, there is a choice between "long format" and "short format".
For menus, "long format" means that the spoken information is more like a sentence than just the name. For example, you hear "Menu item Convert, which is disabled and marked with a diamond". For "short format", you would have heard "Convert, disabled and marked with diamond."
For dialog boxes, "long format" differs from "short format" in that Audio Interface attempts to read the main message of a dialog box when the latter appears on the screen.
De-installing
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If you want to de-install Audio Interface, simply drag the Audio Interface control panel out of the Control Panels folder and restart your Macintosh.
Note that the PlainTalk extension only takes up memory if an application (or other software) wants to speak something, otherwise it takes up next to nothing.
Compatibility
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Because of the way the Mac and some applications work, there are some menu items that Audio Interface cannot speak. These are:
• Items in the Apple menu below the divider line (in your Apple Menu Items folder)
• The names of sub-menus (it can speak the items in sub-menus)
• Menus and menu items in Microsoft Word and THINK Pascal
• Divider lines in the Help and Application menus
In dialog boxes, Audio Interface can't yet speak lists, such as those when you Save or Open a file in an application.
I know there are probably more applications which have compatibility problems with Audio Interface, but I don't know them as yet. There may also be a couple of incompatibilities with extensions or control panels which do something while a menu is pulled down.
Problems
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If you cannot get menus or dialog boxes to speak, check the following:
• For the menus: are you holding down the mouse button? You can't just point at a menu name.
• Is Audio Interface able to speak that item? (see "Compatibility")
• Did the Audio Interface icon have a red X through it when starting up? (see above)
• Do you have anough free memory? Check under "About this Macintosh" in the Finder to make sure you have at least 1000k of free memory.
• Do you have other control panels or extensions which may conflict with Audio Interface?
• Perhaps the application you're using isn't compatible. Known incompatible applications are Microsoft Word and THINK Pascal, but there may be more.
Future Development
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Obviously, there are lots of neat things that could be added to Audio Interface. I'm distributing it now to see how useful it is to people, and whether it's worth doing more work on it.
If you have any suggestions or comments, I'd love to hear them! In particular, it would be nice to know of any incompatible applications or other software you find. Just contact me in any of the ways described below.
Contacting the author
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I'm Alex Metcalf, and I can be contacted in any of the following ways:
• Snail mail:
Alex Metcalf
Best Before Yesterday
Ty Yfory
Llanfair Road
Lampeter
Dyfed
SA48 8JZ
Wales, UK
• Fax (dedicated line, 24 hours):
Inside UK: (0570) 45636
US / Canada: 011 44 570 45636
• Internet, America Online, BIX: alex@metcalf.demon.co.uk
