Hello Simon,
VisioVoice will use any voices you have that are usable by VoiceOver.
The different languages are provided by Infovox iVox. Under Tiger,
VisioVoice provided localisation into French and Dutch, but this is no
longer needed.
Cheers,
Anne
On Jun 26, 2008, at 4:41 PM, Simon Cavendish wrote:
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
