Hi Kevin,
You wrote:
Phil,
Despite my best efforts, I can't get VO to speak a single word no
matter what.
I have enough vision to see my spoken message in the window and to
activate the keyboard in the manner you describe. I can even
multitask between Safari and Dragon to refer to your post. VO will
speak when Safari is in focus and go silent when Dragon is in focus.
I have an iPhone 4. Could it be that Dragon Dictate doesn't work with
VO on the iPhone 4 yet?
This isn't Phil, but I posted information about the new version of the
Dragon Dictation app to the viphone list when it first came out. I
think someone suggested you search the archives for that post and
another list member actually provided a link to the thread in
question, which had instructions further down. I'm sending a copy of
this to the macvisionaries list so I can link to this post in their
secondary Mail Archive if this question of instructions for using the
current version (2.0) of Dragon Dictation comes up again.
The issue that you're having is that for some text in a variety of
apps, VoiceOver doesn't speak the text unless you are in editing mode
with an active keyboard. So the answer to your question is that
Dragon Dictation most certainly does work with the iPhone 4, and you
can review the transcribed text provided you double tap the button at
the bottom left of the screen to bring up the virtual keyboard. If the
virtual keyboard is not up on the screen, VoiceOver will not speak or
let you interact with the text that has been relayed back from the
Nuance servers.
To use Dragon Dictation on the iPhone, you should either use the
headset with Mic, or mute VoiceOver before you start your initial
recording to prevent the announcement of "var mobile applicat" as part
of your initial dictated speech. I'll outline instructions for how to
mute VoiceOver and mark the steps that are unnecessary if you are
using a headset Mic in the input jack. Dragon Dictation relays your
speech for transcription in recorded chunks of up to 30 seconds. In
default mode it is set to recognize when you stop talking and
automatically relays your speech to the Nuance servers for recognition
and transcription to text. You can pause after speaking 30 seconds or
less, and wait the few seconds (on Wi-Fi) it takes for your
transcribed text to be relayed back to you for review, and then you
can dictate the next bit to be appended. (If you speak more than 30
seconds before pausing, the part of your speech that exceeds the limit
will simply be cut off.)
1. Launch the Dragon Dictation app. VoiceOver will announce "var
mobile applicat" and set focus to a button in the center of the
screen. (If you either flick right or touch the bottom left corner of
the screen, you'll hear "var mobile applicat, dimmed" -- this is the
button that used to be announced as messaging_keyboard, and it will
remain dimmed until you have spoken your first bit of text. If you
flick right again, or touch the bottom right corner of the screen,
you'll hear VoiceOver announce the Dragon_settings button.)
1a. Settings Options
• You can change the default language for speech recognition (e.g.,
from English (United States) to English (United Kingdom) or, if your
language is set to German (Deutsch), to the option Deutsch (Europe)).
• You can also turn on the switch to recognize names, which requires
you to give permission to send the names in your Contacts to the
server. This was one of the items in the original setup agreement for
the app, where following your acceptance of the terms of usage of the
app (by double tapping the "var mobile applicat" button for "Yes" at
the bottom center of the screen), you were presented a second screen
asking whether you agreed to let names in your contacts be relayed to
the server (the "var mobile applicat" button on the bottom left was
for "yes" and the one on the bottom right of the screen was for "no").
• Detect end of speech is set to on by default and should be left that
way so that text will automatically get relayed to the server when you
stop speaking instead of having to double tap a "var mobile applicat"
button.
• A reset enrollment button can be used to erase the effects of
previous speech with Dragon Dictation. Normally the app learns your
pronunciation and word usage and its accuracy improves over time.
That assumes that it isn't listening to garbled speech (e.g. because
you have VoiceOver speaking "var mobile applicat" all the time), and
you haven't been having it listen to very different voices and accents
(e.g., passing it around to your friends, playing voice recordings
from different sources, etc.) In those cases trying to learn from
conflicting sources will actually degrade performance of the app, and
you should reset enrollment.
• Social Networking is a new option with version 2.0 of Dragon
Dictation. Here you can enter your Facebook and Twitter account
information. (I strongly advise against trying to use the current
version of this app's option to relay text to Facebook. The window
that opens not only has unlabeled buttons and a non-standard layout
with a header that is identified as an obscure graphic file name with
png extension, but the "var mobile applicat" button that you need to
find to close the window again is very small and hard to locate, so
you may not be able to close this window without sighted help. It's
roughly below the battery status icon on the status bar if you choose
to ignore this advice. If you want to send transcribed text to
Facebook, you're better off using the general copy to clipboard option
and pasting into another app.)
• Location of the Settings menu within the app instead of under the
main iPhone Settings > Dictation menu is new with this version of
Dragon Dictation.
1b. Do a three finger double tap to mute VoiceOver (you'll hear
VoiceOver say "speech off"). (This step is not necessary if you are
using a mic.)
2. Double tap the center of the screen to start the recorder, and
start speaking. Speak clearly and directly into the headset mic, or
the mic at the base of the iPhone (where you normally speak for phone
calls). Speak punctuation marks, e.g., "Hello Kevin comma how are you
question mark." Pause before 30 seconds have passed and do a three
finger double tap again to unmute VoiceOver (not needed if you use a
headset mic).
3. Touch the bottom left corner to check whether the keyboard button
(announced as "var mobile applicat") is undimmed, which will signify
that the transcribed text has come back from the server. The three
buttons at the bottom of this screen are (from left to right): the
messaging_keyboard button (bottom left corner of screen; announced as
"var mobile applicat"), the recorder button (bottom center of screen;
also announced as "var mobile applicat"), and the messaging_send
button for relaying text results as text messages, email, copy to
clipboard, Facebook, or Twitter, which is announced as "Dragon_open".
4. To review the transcribed text with VoiceOver, double tap the
keyboard button (announced as "var mobile applicat") in the bottom
left corner. This will bring up the virtual keyboard in the bottom
half of the screen, and the three buttons (for the keyboard,
recording, and relaying messages on to other apps) will now be located
at vertical positions across the center of the screen (e.g. left
center for keyboard, middle center for recording, and right center for
relaying messages), just above the virtual keyboard and below the text
area. VoiceOver will read through the transcribed text, followed by
the announcement "text field, is editing", and the insertion point
will be located at the end of the text. Note that the insertion point
marks where new transcribed text will be added. So if you choose to
do make editing changes at this point, instead of waiting and editing
your text when you have completed your other dictation chunks, make
sure that the insertion point is moved back to the end of the text
before going on.
5. If you have reviewed your transcribed text, and the virtual
keyboard is present, double tap the recorder button (announced as "var
mobile applicat") at the middle center position just above the virtual
keyboard. If you have not chosen to review the transcribed text by
bringing up the virtual keyboard, just double tap the recorder button
at the bottom center of the screen. Then dictate your next section of
text and pause. (You do not have to mute VoiceOver any more, even if
you are not using a headset mic, at this point; it's only required to
avoid having VoiceOver's speech overlap your own at the start of
dictation.)
6. Repeat steps 3, 4, and 5 until you have finished dictating your
text and have reviewed/edited the transcribe message with your
keyboard. Then double tap the "Dragon_Open" button at the right
center of the screen (just above the virtual keyboard).
7. The next screen drops the three buttons at the top of the virtual
keyboard back to the bottom of the screen. (The buttons remain the
keyboard button at the bottom left corner, announced as "var mobile
applicat", the recorder button at the bottom center of the screen,
also announced as "var mobile applicat", and the "Dragon" button in
the bottom right corner of the screen, which is now announced as
"Dragon_Close".) These buttons continue to have their same functions
-- e.g., if you decided that you really wanted to go back and review
or edit the text again, you could double tap the keyboard button,
bringing up the virtual keyboard and having VoiceOver announce the
text again; or if you decided that your really wanted to add something
to your dictated text, double tapping the recorder button at the
bottom center of the screen would let you start speaking and would
relay your next bit of text to the Nuance servers for transcription.
Double tapping the "Dragon_Close" button at the bottom right of the
screen would return your screen to the state it's in when you just
receive transcribed text -- the bottom right button would be spoken as
"Dragon_Open".
What's different about the screen is that: (1) the three buttons for
keyboard, recorder, and "dragon" have dropped to the bottom of the
screen and the virtual keyboard has disappeared, with the "dragon"
button now announced as "close" and (2) six new option buttons have
been added above these three buttons in the bottom half of the screen
that used to be occupied by the virtual keyboard. So that if you now
did a two finger flick up to "read all", VoiceOver would move focus to
the top row of the new six-pack of buttons and read out three keys as
"var mobile applicat", then read through the next row of three keys as
"var mobile applicat", and finally read out the bottom three keys
(from the previous screen) for the keyboard, recorder, and dragon
buttons as two "var mobile applicat" buttons and a "Dragon_close"
button. If you double tap the "Dragon_close" button in the bottom
right corner, it turns into a "Dragon_open" button, and the six-pack
of button options to relay your text to SMS, email, copy to clipboard
(top row of six-pack from left to right), or to Facebook or Twitter,
or to open Settings again (bottom row of six-pack from left to right),
all disappear.
8. The most useful options are likely to be the top row of unlabeled
buttons: Text Message, e-mail, and copy to clipboard. The second row
of the six-pack joins Facebook and Twitter with the Settings button
(at the far right) -- probably because the Settings button lets you
log into your Facebook and Twitter accounts. The way I would remember
this is by working up from the one labeled button (Dragon_close) at
the bottom right. The button just above this at the far right (second
row of the six-pack) can be double-tapped to show the Settings menu.
If you double tap the "Social Networking" option of Settings, you'll
find the entries for "Add Facebook" and "Add Twitter". That gives the
order for the two option buttons as first "Facebook" (second row of
the six-pack, on the same row as "Settings" but at the far left) and
"Twitter" (second row of the six-pack, on the same row as "Settings"
but in the center). Working up from the "Settings" button to the top
row rightmost button is the general purpose "Copy to Clipboard"
button. To the left of that button (top center) is the E-mail button,
which brings up a heading of "New Message" and appends "Sent from my
iPhone (or iPod Touch)" to the text. To the far left (top left) is the
Text Message button.
As stated earlier, I would avoid opening the Facebook button in the
current version of the app. If you are so unfortunate as to do so,
there are no standard easy to use controls for closing this window,
you can try using the app switcher to move out of the app, and hope
that the window is closed when you switch back in, or you can move
your finger down from the battery status icon at the top right to a
small "var mobile applicat" button and double tap. The window itself
has a weird heading title like "vip941 png image".
One final piece of advice: if you simply copy to clipboard (top right
button of the sixpack), the transcribed text remains in the text
buffer. This means that when you next open the Dragon Dictation app,
you'll be on the screen with the three buttons (for keyboard,
recorder, and dragon) at the bottom, and there will be text present
when you double tap the keyboard button at the bottom left corner. If
you want to avoid holding down the delete key, you can clear off the
text by sending it to email (top center button of the six-pack) before
leaving the app, and then double-tapping the "Cancel" button in the
top left corner. Then double tap the "Delete Draft" button. When
next you start up the Dragon Dictation app, you can start from step 1
with a clean slate.
HTH
Cheers,
Esther
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