Thanks Aaron. One question if I may, will virtual view work with graphic capchas?
Great job, and thanks for taking the trouble. Joe Paton On Fri, 6 Nov 2015 16:14:16 +0000 Aaron Smith via Talk <[email protected]> wrote: Greetings, The following user's guide will ship with the next version of Virtual View, but I wanted to provide it for you here as many of you have been asking for more information about what Virtual View is, and how to use it. Thanks, Aaron Virtual View 1 Overview Virtual View is an app designed to provide a textual representation of a program window, dialog box, message box or file using various text retrieval methods. The resulting text can be reviewed in the Virtual View window without disturbing the contents of the screen or file. In some cases, the buttons, links and other controls found in the original window that was virtualized can be acted on directly from the Virtual View window using simple keyboard commands. This app will come in handy in a variety of situations including: * Reading image based PDF files * Reading text presented as an image * Selecting and copying static text found in dialogs and program windows * Interacting with programs that lack proper keyboard accessibility * Needing quick access to the text found in a PowerPoint presentation 2 Getting Started The default hotkey, Control-Alt-V, will open the source selection dialog. You may also choose to access Virtual View from the Apps menu in the Window-Eyes Control Panel. Virtual View may also be activated by pressing Alt-Print Screen. Alt-Print Screen is an operating system hotkey that takes a snapshot of the active window. You have the option of letting Virtual View virtualize this image when the hotkey is pressed. 3 Selecting a Source Pressing the Virtual View hotkey, or choosing Virtual View from the apps menu, will cause the "Select Window or File to Virtualize" dialog to be displayed. You can use this dialog to tell Virtual View what you want to virtualize. You may choose from one of three sources: 1. Active Window (A) - Selecting this radio button will cause the current application window to be used as the source. 2. Focused Window (F) - Selecting this radio button will cause the current control in the active application to be used as the source. 3. File (I) - Selecting this radio button will cause Virtual View to prompt for a file using a standard Windows File Open dialog. 3.1 Supported File Types Virtual View has the ability to virtualize a large number of file types. Exactly which files can be virtualized depends on the number of available file "filters" installed in your operating system. Filters are programmatic interfaces for accessing contents of files. Several filters come pre-installed with your operating system. The most common file types include: * Text * XML * HTML * Zip Installing Microsoft Office provides you with additional filters allowing Virtual View to virtualize many Office document formats, including: * Docx * Xlsx * Pptx 4 Choosing a Method After you've selected a source, whether it be a window or a file, you can then choose how you want Virtual View to obtain the text from the source. The methods available will differ depending on which source type is selected. 1. Clips (C) - The clips method will use the OSM (Off-Screen Model) to retrieve text from a window. 2. UIA (A) - This UIA method will use the UI Automation interface to retrieve text from a window. 3. OCR (O) - This method uses OCR (optical character recognition) to retrieve text from either a window or a file. 4. Version (V) - This method provides version information for a window or file. Which method you choose depends on a number of factors, and there are advantages of each. Clips is the most common method for accessing the text of a window. They provide a good way for accessing precise locations of text for easy manipulation with Virtual View's quick keys (discussed below). The advantage of using UIA is evident when obtaining text from windows that do not show up in the OSM. WPF applications, and other Direct2D programs, are good examples of windows that have rich UIA information while at the same time are completely void of clips. The UIA method obtains text directly from the window rather than from the OSM, often resulting in higher text accuracy. OCR is a preferred choice when working with graphical interfaces, or files containing images. While you don't have the benefit of knowing exactly where the text is presented on the screen, you do have access to otherwise completely inaccessible text. 5 The Virtual View Window After Virtual View has obtained the text from the selected source, using the chosen method, it will display the resulting text in a read only edit box. The Virtual View dialog contains a menu bar with the following options: * File (F) o Open (O) - Control-O - Opens support file types. o Save (S) - Control-S - Saves current text. o Exit (X) - Exits Virtual View * Edit (E) o Select All (S) - Control-A - Select all of the text. o Copy All (C) - Copies all of the text to the clipboard. o Copy Selection (O) - Control-C - Copies the selected text to the clipboard. o Append All (A) - Appends all of the text to the clipboard contents. o Append Selection (P) - Appends the selected text to the clipboard contents. * View (V) o Clips (C) - Switches to the Clips method of accessing text. o UIA (U) - Switches to the UIA method of accessing text. o OCR (O) - Switches to the OCR method of accessing text. * Help (H) o Help and Options (H) - Displays options for controlling Virtual View's text recognition characteristics. Refer to Additional Options discussed below 5.1 Quick Keys Virtual View provides several "quick" keys that you can use to interact with the text, and have that interaction passed on to the window where the text originated. For example, if a button called Close exists in the window where you obtained the text from, you can place your cursor on the word Close, and press the letter L to activate the Close button. Available quick keys are: * L - Single Left Click * R - Single Right Click * D - Double Left Click * M - Middle Click * P - Route Mouse * F - Focus Control While these quick keys are always available, they are most useful with Clips, and become less useful when using the UIA and OCR, as the correlation between text and originating window is less reliable with those methods. 6 Additional Options The Help and Options dialog contains the following options for controlling how Virtual View behaves and how it processes images using the OCR method: * Include Labeled Graphics (I) - Check box - Default unchecked - Checking this option will cause Virtual View to include labeled graphics when obtaining text using the Clips method. * Include Window Types (N) - Check box - Default unchecked - Checking this option will cause Virtual View to include windows types (edit box, button, etc.) when obtaining text using the Clips method. * Always Ask for Window Type (L) - Check box - Default checked - This option controls whether or not you're initially asked for a source and method when pressing the Virtual View hotkey. * Prompt When Alt-Print Screen Is Pressed (P) - Check Box - Default checked - This option controls whether or not you're prompted to have Virtual View virtualize the image that's captured by the operating system when the Alt-Print Screen hotkey is pressed. * Enable Image Processing (E) - Check box - Default unchecked - Enables or disables additional image processing for enhancing the results of text recognition when using the OCR method. * Contrast (C) - Up/Down Control - Default 50 - This control is only enabled when Enable Image Processing is checked, and controls the contrast of the image before text processing occurs. A lower number will produce a darker image, while a higher number will produce a lighter image. * Resize Multiplier (R) - Up/Down Control - Default 1 - This control is only enabled when Enable Image Processing is checked, and controls the final size of the image before text processing occurs. A larger number will increase the dimensions of the image, but also increases the size of the file, and could result in decreased improvement. * Use Grayscale (U) - Check box - Default unchecked - This control is only enabled when Enable Image Processing is checked, and controls whether or not the image is in color or black and white before text processing occurs. * Save Image (S) - Check box - Default unchecked - This control is only enabled when Enable Image Processing is checked, and will save the last OCR'd image to the %temp% directory. This is only useful for debugging purposes. * Reset Defaults (T)- Button - This control will reset the options to the factory defaults. * Help - Button - This control will display the default app help, which includes this help text, app version details, and the Hotkey Manager for controlling the default Virtual View hotkey. 7 A Note About Elevation By default, Virtual View can only access windows that are not elevated, or opened as a non-administrative user. You can control this behavior by checking the Require UAC (R) check box in the initial source selection dialog. When checked, Virtual View will become elevated, and will then be able to access elevated windows. 8 Troubleshooting Virtual View's OCR capabilities require operating system components that may not be installed by default. If you find that you're consistently getting "No text found" after using the OCR method, try re-installing the TIFF IFilter by doing the following: 1. Open an admin command prompt. a. You can do this by opening the start menu, typing cmd, pressing Control-Shift-Enter, and (assuming you have the User Account Control feature enabled) confirming the UAC prompt. 2. In the command prompt window, enter the following: dism /online /Enable-Feature /FeatureName:TIFFIFilter 3. Press enter, and wait for the command to complete. When it's finished, type exit, and press enter. 4. Reboot Virtual View currently supports Windows 7 and up. There does, however, seem to be an issue with Windows 8.1 where the OCR capabilities are not available, even though they have been enabled. Some users have reported success by following the steps outlined in the following Microsoft Technet article: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd744701%28v=ws.10%29.aspx -- Aaron Smith Web Development * App Development * Product Support Specialist Ai Squared * 725 Airport North Office Park, Fort Wayne, IN 46825 260-489-3671 * www.aisquared.com To insure that you receive proper support, please include all past correspondence (where applicable), and any relevant information pertinent to your situation when submitting a problem report to the Ai Squared Technical Support Team. _______________________________________________ Any views or opinions presented in this email are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Ai Squared. For membership options, visit http://lists.window-eyes.com/options.cgi/talk-window-eyes.com/joe%40vi-ability.demon.co.uk. For subscription options, visit http://lists.window-eyes.com/listinfo.cgi/talk-window-eyes.com List archives can be found at http://lists.window-eyes.com/private.cgi/talk-window-eyes.com -- Joe Paton <[email protected]> _______________________________________________ Any views or opinions presented in this email are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Ai Squared. For membership options, visit http://lists.window-eyes.com/options.cgi/talk-window-eyes.com/archive%40mail-archive.com. For subscription options, visit http://lists.window-eyes.com/listinfo.cgi/talk-window-eyes.com List archives can be found at http://lists.window-eyes.com/private.cgi/talk-window-eyes.com
