pwWebSpeak - Web Access with Speech

Contents of this page:

This document is the handout (outline and command summary) provided at the "pwWebSpeak - Web Access with Speech" workshop at Closing the Gap 1997.

Jim Allan
Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired
1100 W. 45^th
Austin, TX 78756
512.206-9315
allan_jm@tsbvi.edu
http://www.tsbvi.edu

Jay Stiteley
Seeing Eye, Inc. - Field Operations
11 Mt. Kemble Ave.
Morristown, NJ. 07960
Work 973-539-4425 x777
stiteley@gti.net
http://www.seeingeye.org

Outline

What is pwWebSpeak

System Requirements

Windows 3.x, or Windows 95
5 megabytes of hard disk space
8 megabytes of memory
SSIL compatible synthesizer
SoundBlaster card (Text Assist or SoftVoice)
SoundBlaster compatible (SoftVoice)

WWW Features Supported

HTML
Tables
Forms
Client-side Image Maps
Mailto
Real Audio (integrated with WebSpeak)
Audio
Frames

Usability Features

Keyboard or Mouse navigation
Page Summary
Browsing by text
Browsing by link only
Easy access to WWW Search Engines
Control of font type, size, foreground/background color
Automatic announcement of page attributes, such as links, headings, list items, forms …
Control Speech Rate & Volume of synthetic speech
Control Volume, Pause/Re-start Real Audio
Text search within current page
Creation and maintenance of Favorites List
Fully accessible History list
Proxy server support for LANs and Firewalls
Support local page browsing and link following
Save pages as text or HTML

Web Page Functions

Open a Web Page - F2
Open from Favorites List - Shift F2
Open from History List - F2 down arrow
Open a Local Page - F2, F2
Save a Web page - Ctrl-s
Save an Element of a Web Page - Ctrl-F9

Basic Navigation

Page Views - F10, F5, F6
Arrow keys, a, f, h, p keys - move through elements
Word List - F11
Space Bar/Return - activate a link
Alt-b – go to previous page or frame
Where am I? - F9
Tab - toggle between Elements, Links, and Forms

Page Views

Page Summary - F10
- details numbers of links, graphics, image maps, and forms on current page
Jumps and Links - F5
- move only through links on the current page
Page Elements - F6
- read through the page, one element at a time

Forms

F - find form when in Page Elements
Down Arrow - for field titles
Down Arrow - to move to field
Space Bar - to open field for text entry
Return - to return to Page Elements
Radio Buttons/Check Boxes - wait for "option" to be spoken, then Space Bar

Where to get more information

Productivity Works
- http://www.prodworks.com
- info@prodworks.com

pwWebSpeak Command Summary

General Keys

F1	Provides Help information on the commands at any point in the execution of pwWebSpeak. Use the cursor Down and Up keys to move through the Help text and the Enter key to exit Help.
F9	This tells you where you are in pwWebSpeak. If you are positioned on a link or an image, pressing F9 again to read the URL, and pressing it again will spell the URL for you character by character.
F12	Toggles letter mode on and off when you are entering text into fields, for example the Open Page field, or the search field. Each character typed is echoed when Letter Mode is ON.
Alt-u	Modify setup parameters. This brings up a dialog through which you can set the initial page to be loaded, the synthesizer reading rate, your mail server and your e-mail ID.
Alt-F4 Alt-x	Exit pwWebSpeak and return to Windows. Alt-x provides the option of cancelling the exit process while Alt-F4 will always exit pwWebSpeak.
Cursor Keys	The up and down arrow keys move you up and down through the lists available to you and through the options available in a Combination Box field or set of Radio button options on a form.
Enter	This is used to follow a link or open a page from the History or Favorites List.
Tab	This toggles between the Page Elements list, the Jumps and Links list, and data entry fields if a Form is present on the page. The new list or field title being clearly announced. When you Tab to a Form field, subsequent Tabs step you through subsequent fields until the end of the Form when you are returned to the Page elements list. See the section on Filling in Forms, below, for details of how to interact with Forms and Form fields.
Esc	This will stop a transfer in progress, namely the retrieval of a web page or the downloading of a file, and may also be used to exit from a dialog, e.g. the Open Page, Favorites, or Setup dialogs.

Opening, Reloading, and Saving Web Pages

F2 Alt-o	Takes you into the Open a Web Page dialog. You will be prompted to enter a web page address. There is no need to enter the HTTP// as this is assumed. The down arrow takes you to the History list giving the pages you have visited in this session. You move through the History list using the cursor up and down arrow keys. Pressing the Enter key allows you to select a history list entry and go back to that page. You may open a local HTML page by pressing F2 a second time to bring up the local page selection dialog or by entering directly the local file name, e.g. file://c:/webspeak/pwstart.htm
Shift F2	Opens your favorites list and allows you to move through the list using the cursor Down and Up keys. A page may be read by simply pressing the Enter key. Any web page may be added to your favorites list by pressing Alt a when the page has been retrieved by pwWebSpeak and is being browsed. When in the favorites list, pressing Del will delete the current entry.
Control-r	Reloads current page. This is useful for pages that change their content frequently, like the CNN pages (www.cnn.com).
Alt-a	Adds the current web page to your favorites list. You will be requested to enter some descriptive text for the page, and if it is not entered, the URL will be used.
Alt-b	Retrieves the Web page you were browsing immediately prior to the current one.
Control-s	Save the current Web page to disk in either Web Page (HTML) format or simple text format
Control-F9	Saves the current page element and adds it to the scrapbook file - scrap.txt
Alt-F10	Reads you the U R L of the currently loaded web page

Reading and Navigating through Web Pages

F10	Page Summary. Provides a summary of the page including the number of links, headings, images, image maps, and forms that are on the current web page. Please note that a Web page usually contains more information than is presented on a single computer screen.
F6	Page Elements. This is the default way for reading through a page. This allows you to read through the page one logical element at a time using the cursor Up and Down keys. Cursor Down takes you forward, and cursor Up takes you back.
F11	Word List. This allows you to review each word in the page element using the cursor control keys, and read each word separately. When you are doing this, pressing F11 again will spell the last word read. Cursor Down moves word by word through the list, and cursor Up moves back word by word through the list. When you are finished with the word list process, press F6 to return to Page Elements and continue reading the page.
F3	Read the current page from your current position in the page to the end of the page. During this process you may stop reading by pressing the q key.
F4	A toggle key which allows you to pause and restart when a page is being read or a page element is being read. With Release 1.3 only the SoftVoice and TextAssist speech synthesizers support this function.
F5	Jumps and Links list. This allows you to move up and down through the entire set of links on the page using the Up and Down cursor keys. You may follow any link by simply pressing the Enter key
a	Moves you to the next link, HTML anchor, on the page
h	Moves you to the next heading on the page
p	Moves you to the next paragraph on the page
Alt-r	Rereads the current page element, will not work inside a form field
q	Stop reading or stop Real Audio.

Searching a Web Page or the Web

Search the Web. This takes you to a special search dialog which provides a front-end to the search engine you have set in the webspeak.ini file. You will be prompted to enter a search term. Pressing Enter will then cause the search to be executed. Reviewing the search results is the same as reviewing any web page.

The default search engine is Alta Vista, but you may change the webspeak.ini file as noted in section 3.4 The [Settings] Section - Default Search, to go to Yahoo, InfoSeek, or Lycos.

NOTE: There is also a local page available which gives access to the simplified search function and allows you to dynamically select which search engine you wish to use.

Search for text on the current web page. You will be prompted to enter a search term, and pressing Enter will carry out the search and you will be positioned in the Page Elements list at the page element that contains the matching term, if one is found.

Control of Display

Shift-F11	Incrementally increases character size of the display over a broad range from small to very large
Control-F11	Incrementally decreases character size of the display.
Shift-F12	Cycles through pre-set foreground colors. Please note that these may be set as INI parameters.
Control-F12	Cycles through pre-set background colors. Please note that these may be set as INI parameters.

Control of Real Audio and Synthetic Speech

Alt-f	Increases the reading speed of the synthesizer. This setting is lost when you exit pwWebSpeak unless changed and stored using the Modify Setup dialog (Alt-u).
Alt-l	Decrease the reading speed of the synthesizer. This setting is lost when you exit pwWebSpeak unless changed and stored using the Modify Setup dialog (Alt-u).
+	(plus on the numeric keypad) - Increase volume on the synthesizer
-	(minus on the numeric keypad) - decrease volume of the synthesizer NOTE: Not all synthesizers support volume control.
Shift *	(Shift and star on the numeric keypad) - Pause and Re-start Real Audio
Shift +	(Shift and plus on the numeric keypad) - Increase volume on Real Audio
Shift -	(Shift and minus on the numeric keypad) - Decrease volume on Real Audio NOTE: Not all sound cards are supported for volume control with Real Audio. If the pwWebSpeak volume controls for Real Audio are not working, then your sound card does not support this feature. NOTE: If the integrated Real Audio modules were not installed with pwWebSpeak, then the Pause and Volume controls are not accessible.

Function Key Summary

F1 Alt-h	Provides Help information on the commands at any point in the execution of pwWebSpeak. Use the cursor Down and Up keys to move through the Help text and the Enter key to exit Help.
F2	Takes you into the Open a Web Page dialog. You will be prompted to enter a web page address. There is no need to enter the HTTP:// as this is assumed. The down arrow takes you to the History list giving the pages you have visited in this session. You move through the History list using the cursor up and down arrow keys. Pressing the Enter key allows you to select a history list entry and go back to that page. You may open a local HTML page by pressing F2 a second time to bring up the local page selection dialog or by entering directly the local file name, e.g. file://c:/webspeak/pwstart.htm
Shift F2	Opens your favorites list and allows you to move through the list using the cursor Down and Up keys. A page may be read by simply pressing the Enter key. Any web page may be added to your favorites list by pressing Alt a when the page has been retrieved by pwWebSpeak and is being browsed. When in the favorites list, pressing Del will delete the current entry.
F3	Read the current page from your current position in the page to the end of the page. During this process you may stop reading by pressing the q key.
F4	A toggle key which allows you to pause and restart when a page is being read or a page element is being read. With Release 1.3 only the SoftVoice and TextAssist speech synthesizers support this function.
Alt-F4 Alt-x	Exit pwWebSpeak and return to Windows. Alt-x provides the option of cancelling the exit process while Alt-F4 will always exit pwWebSpeak.
F5	Jumps and Links list. This allows you to move up and down through the entire set of links on the page using the Up and Down cursor keys. You may follow any link by simply pressing the Enter key
F6	Page Elements. This is the default way for reading through a page. This allows you to read through the page one logical element at a time using the cursor Up and Down keys. Cursor Down takes you forward, and cursor Up takes you back.
F7	Search the Web. This takes you to a special search dialog which provides a front-end to the search engine you have set in the webspeak.ini file. You will be prompted to enter a search term. Pressing Enter will then cause the search to be executed. Reviewing the search results is the same as reviewing any web page. The default search engine is Alta Vista, but you may change the webspeak.ini file as noted in section 3.4 The [Settings] Section - Default Search, to go to Yahoo, InfoSeek, or Lycos. NOTE: There is also a local page (pwsearch.htm) available in the installation directory which gives access to the simplified search function and allows you to dynamically select which search engine you wish to use.
F8	Search for text on the current web page. You will be prompted to enter a search term, and pressing Enter will carry out the search and you will be positioned in the Page Elements list at the page element that contains the matching term, if one is found.
F9	This tells you where you are in pwWebSpeak. If you are positioned on a link or an image, pressing F9 again to read the URL, and pressing it again will spell the URL for you character by character.
F10	Page Summary. Provides a summary of the page including the number of links, headings, images, image maps, and forms that are on the current web page. Please note that a Web page usually contains more information than is presented on a single computer screen.
Alt-F10	Reads you the U R L of the currently loaded web page
F11	Word List. This allows you to review each word in the page element using the cursor control keys, and read each word separately. When you are doing this, pressing F11 again will spell the last word read. Cursor Down moves word by word through the list, and cursor Up moves back word by word through the list. When you are finished with the word list process, press F6 to return to Page Elements and continue reading the page.
Shift-F11	Incrementally increases character size of the display over a broad range from small to very large
Control-F11	Incrementally decreases character size of the display.
F12	Toggles letter mode on and off when you are entering text into fields, for example the Open Page field, or the search field. Each character typed is echoed when Letter Mode is ON.
Shift-F12	Cycles through pre-set foreground colors. Please note that these may be set as INI parameters.
Control-F12	Cycles through pre-set background colors. Please note that these may be set as INI parameters.

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Last Revision: July 30, 2002

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