Can We Get Something Like Dictation Box?

In an earlier day, David Austin had a program for DNS called "Enable
That" which created a popup text box into which you could dictate and
then paste the dictation into programs where DNS did not work (such as
OpenOffice). DNS later incorporated it as "Dictation Box", or maybe
Banned did, I think he claimed credit, and I do not know to whom
to give the credit.

With OpenOffice 3.0 now finally released, I was hoping we could find something like that to use with WSR. I have written David Austin, but I have not had a reply, and I do not know if he is still actively developing such add ins.

I am going to cross post this to MS-Speech in the hopes that some programmer might take a crack at it. It really was useful to those of us who would use OpenOffice, or any other program where we could not use the "select-and-say" editing. It gave you popup dictating capability without having to open a new program (such as WordPad) and then pasting into the first program. Old Timers may remember that Via Voice had a similar capability that allowed you to cross from their WordPad module (I don't remember its name but I am sure Quentin does).

I think it would be a nice addition as a macro library.

Frank Abbott

fabbott wrote: I think it would be a nice addition as a macro library.

Frank,

Take a look at the macro in this forum post, it may do what you're thinking about.

http://www.msspeech-forum.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=27&PID=148#148

Brad

Thanks for the plug Frank.  

Could you describe (again) what you'd like the functionality of this dictate box to be?  Give me a possible scenario.  I may have a way to programatically determine the active applications window title...

Brad

fabbott wrote: What I want is, of course, that it would post the data back into the original file  at the point of calling the macro.  I hope this helps.  I tried to store the window title to a variable, but either I did it wrong (most likely) or it does not work.

Frank,

I'm looking into the possibility of a more "professional" solution, but in the meantime...

I just thought of something... If you bring up your OpenOffice document, then initiate your Dictation Box macro, you don't really need to know the name of the window to switch back and forth.  Alt-Tab will work nicely (assuming OpenOffice and Wordpad are the last two apps to be opened).

For instance:
Open your desired OO document, then say "open dictation box" (or whatever you've set the macro to listen for).  Wordpad will now open.  All you need to do at this point is use sendKeys to send the Alt-Tab to switch back to OO and Alt-Tab again to switch back to Wordpad.

Here's the modified macro (using your wordpad modification):

<speechMacros>

<!-- begin dictation -->
<command>

<listenFor>open dictation box</listenFor>
<run command="wordpad.exe" params=""/>

</command>
 
<!-- post dictation -->
<command>

<listenFor>post dictation</listenFor>

<sendKeys>{{CTRL}}a</sendKeys>
<waitFor seconds=".25"/>
<sendKeys>{{CTRL}}c</sendKeys>
<waitFor seconds=".25"/>

<!-- switch to non-SR app -->
<sendKeys>{{ALT}}{TAB}</sendKeys>
<waitFor seconds=".5"/>
<sendKeys>{{CTRL}}v</sendKeys>
<waitFor seconds=".25"/>

<!-- switch back and clear -->
<sendKeys>{{ALT}}{TAB}</sendKeys>
<waitFor seconds=".5"/>
<sendKeys>{{CTRL}}a{250 WAIT}{DELETE}</sendKeys>

</command>

</speechMacros>


Let me know what you think.

Brad

Here is the revised macro.  This macro allows a user to dictate into a non-speech compliant program.  It opens a WordPad  window from the program, allows the user to dictate into the window, and when completed, transfers the dictation to the calling program.  It then returns to WordPad, clears the text and closes WordPad.  This allows a user to multiple dictations exercises (excellent for editing previously completed files. without keeping multiple copies of WordPad open. 

This is based on BradT's efforts to whom all the credit should go.


Frank Abbott

<speechMacros>

<!-- dictation box -->
<command>

<listenFor>open dictation box</listenFor>
<run command="wordpad.exe" params=""/>

</command>
 
<!-- post dictation -->
<command>

<listenFor>post dictation</listenFor>

<sendKeys>{{CTRL}}a</sendKeys>
<waitFor seconds=".25"/>
<sendKeys>{{CTRL}}c</sendKeys>
<waitFor seconds=".25"/>

<!-- switch to non-SR app -->
<sendKeys>{{ALT}}{TAB}</sendKeys>
<waitFor seconds=".5"/>
<sendKeys>{{CTRL}}v</sendKeys>
<waitFor seconds=".25"/>

<!-- switch back and clear -->
<sendKeys>{{ALT}}{TAB}</sendKeys>
<waitFor seconds=".5"/>
<sendKeys>{{CTRL}}a{250 WAIT}{DELETE}</sendKeys>
<sendKeys>{{ALT}}f</sendKeys>
<sendKeys>x</sendKeys>
<sendKeys>n</sendKeys>

</command>

</speech macro>

Edited by mmarkoe_admin - 06/Feb/2009 at 7:33am

</speech macro>  <<<<<<<<<<<

</speechMacros> <<<<<<<Correct