Hi Will,
I don't know how to make VoiceOver automatically spell your
selections, but have you considered just starting up an application
like TextEdit in a different language localization and using the
spell checker, etc.? For example, if you went into terminal and gave
the command:
/Applications/TextEdit.app/Contents/MacOS/TextEdit -AppleLanguages
'(fr)'
this would start up a TextEdit session with a French language
localization setting. If you try to save the file the default name
would be "Sans titre.txt" instead of "Untitled.txt". The selections
on the popup menu would all be the French equivalents of the
commands. If you chose menu bar options with VO-keys+M you would get
"Fichier" instead of "File", etc. The default voice would still be
whatever you're using, so all the French words will sound
mispronounced. However, you could try using VisioVoice and switch
your voices on the fly. What happens under Tiger if I already have
TextEdit open and then launch TextEdit again from terminal with the
AppleLanguages key set to French localization is that a second
TextEdit app appears in the dock. When I Command-Tab to switch
between active applications I can go to either TextEdit session. The
one that was started with the French localization will use a French
dictionary for spell checking, give me the option menus in French,
etc. If you paste text into the new TextEdit session and work with
the file, you get the corresponding messages and dialogues for
working under the operating system with a French localization.
Remember that the Voice (and accent patterns), language localization,
and keyboard input settings are all separate features. Language
localization will set the language used for system commands and the
spell-checking dictionary. The voice (if you have the InfoVox iVox
voices) will supply the accent and pronunciation. The input keyboard
method will dictate how you can type accents.
Language localization for the system is selected at the time of the
installation. The default language localization for an application
can be set in its preference list. For example:
defaults write com.apple.TextEdit AppleLanguages '("fr-FR")'
or
defaults write com.apple.TextEdit AppleLanguages '("en-US")'
just as examples of how you could set this from the terminal -- you
really don't want to change these. You can also force an application
to use a specific language localization by using the GUI. For
example, for TextEdit, if you select the application in Finder and do
a Get Info (Command-I) and look down under "Languages" you can
uncheck the boxes for English, French, Spanish, etc. to make TextEdit
open in German. You may need to expand the disclosure triangle with
VO-space for Languages, or their may be a generic disclosure triangle
labeled Details that first has to be expanded if you don't see the
Languages information.
The easier way to launch an app for a one-time use with a different
language localization is to use the AppleLanguages key and give the
(generally) two-letter code for the language:
de is German
en is English
fr is French
pl is Polish (for Simon)
es is Spanish
it is Italian
nl is Dutch
You might try experimenting. Note that you won't be able to control
your terminal window again until you quit the (French) TextEdit
session you launched. Open a new window in Terminal (with Command-N)
if you need to issue other commands. You should be able to spawn the
command to launch the TextEdit session with French localization by
addition the ampersand character at the end of the command like this:
/Applications/TextEdit.app/Contents/MacOS/TextEdit -AppleLanguages
'(fr)' &
However, I get some odd behavior when I try to Command-tab to the
different TextEdit window when I do this -- as though the system were
confusing whether the new TextEdit session is really in its own
window or is still tethered to the Terminal app I used to launch it.
Sorry to ramble on, but this turned out to be interesting if not
exactly what you asked about.
Cheers,
Esther
On Aug 6, 2008, at 2:57 AM, will lomas wrote:
hi
I am testing my language knowledge in French to keep it up. now,
each popup menu has several options, of multiple choice. can i get
voice over to spell the current line when i arrow up and down and
if so how please?
