Dear Anne,
This is a very comprehensive explanation. I understand that Visiovoice
comes with a number of languages. Can Visiovoice also utilise the
languages outside itself, i.e. infovox voices? Is it possible to
programme them to be used by Visiovoice? It sounds as if I could do
with Visiovoice.
Many thanks again, Anne.
Best wishes
Simon
On 26 Jun 2008, at 13:49, Anne Robertson wrote:
Hello Simon,
VisioVoice and Infovox iVox are separate entities.
Infovox iVox consists of a number of voice packages, in various
languages, which work exactly like the built-in Mac voices. You can
buy just Infovox iVox voices without VisioVoice. Once they are
installed, they are available to voiceOver.
VisioVoice consists of a spoken interface and a reader. The spoken
interface is mostly used by people with some sight who prefer not to
use VoiceOver but like to have text read to them. It also provides
better contrast and other useful features for people with some sight
but someone else would have to explain all that as I have no sight
at all. It allows you to choose to have the text under the mouse
spoken, with or without a delay. It also provides for typing echo.
It can be useful for totally blind users for reading text that
VoiceOver can't reach.
The VisioVoice reader acts rather like a cassette player. You have
the following controls: Play, Pause, Rewind, Fast Forward, Stop and
Close Window. It also has a facility for creating an audio file from
a text document. You can also tell it to export this file to iTunes.
VisioVoice is invaluable for people working in more than one
language as you can simply highlight text in a language other than
the one the computer is set to, and have VisioVoice read it. I do
this for reading emails in French. On a website, you can highlight
the whole page and have VisioVoice read it.
You can programme up to 5 voices for each function in VisioVoice
which means that you can have 5 languages preprogrammed. You can
switch voices on the fly using Control-Shift-1 through 5. All
VisioVoice shortcuts can be changed to suit the user.
I hope this answers your questions.
Cheers,
Anne
On Jun 26, 2008, at 12:50 AM, Simon Cavendish wrote:
Dear Listers,
I've been looking at the assistiveware website with a view to
udnerstanding how Visiovoice and infovox ivox work. Forgive my
ignorance but with the best will in the world I do not understand
how these two pieces of software integrate with Voiceover. I must
be quite stupid or else software designers live on a different
planet. Smile. Does visiovoice take over the functionalities of
Voiceover? The assistiveware website talks of Visiovoice having its
shortcut keys and etc. And then there's Infovoxand ivox on top of
it. I give up, listers, I'm confused. I want the multilingual
accessiblity but what happens to all the knowledge I have gained of
how to navigate the Mac computer with Voicoever? Does this stuff
have to be so complicated? Or maybe it is me. Let's say I want to
use the linguistic abilities of Visiovoice or Infoxvox, can I still
use the vo keys and other keys to navigate round the applications
etc.? Or do I have to use Visiovoice specific keys? It's crazy. Why
doesn't Visiovoice producers make it clear? And how does Infovox
integrate with Visiovoice and then all of this with Voiceover? It's
crazy and yet there must be some order in it because some of you
seem to be using all three successfully.
Please give me some clarity where the producers have failed or have
not cared to.
With many thanks in anticipation, Simon
