Typeaheadfind: Click Firefox links with Dragon, without Mouseless Browsing

As I’ve said, Dragon 10 and Firefox have gotten to the point that you can say a word in a link to click it, but this only works maybe 60% of the time. (That just seemed like the appropriately lukewarm number to describe the programs’ half-assed interaction.) I’m not sure why. Luckily for us, there’s a workaround. Well, 2, if you count Mouseless Browsing. But this workaround is for those who may dislike Mouseless Browsing for whatever reason — this one is built into the browser.

Go to the address bar and enter about:config. Go there. First, highlight accessibility.typeaheadfind. Its value will probably be false. Press Enter to set this value to true. Then, highlight accessibility.typeaheadfind.linksonly. Press Enter to set this to true.

This allows you to dictate any part of a link as long as it’s a pronounceable word. So if you say something and Dragon doesn’t click it, no worries — Firefox will highlight in green what you’ve said, and transfer the keyboard focus to it so that all you have to say is either “go there” or “press Enter.” It’s different from Mouseless Browsing in that depending on the words you use, there might be duplicates, and Firefox will focus on the 1st instance so that you have to say “press Control G” until you get the instance you want (or create a Vocola or KnowBrainer “find again” command if you wish). To open a link in a new tab this way, say “press Control Enter,” and to open it in a new window, say “press Shift Enter.” Between this workaround and Dragon 10’s own spotty ability, I barely notice the seams anymore. (Though if Mozilla ever decided to do some research and actually make Firefox SAPI compliant if that’s possible, I certainly wouldn’t complain!)

Tabfocus: Access Firefox text fields etc. with Dragon

While Firefox is not seamless, the Mozilla developers have indeed at least been meeting us halfway, though perhaps unintentionally as many programmers are still woefully ignorant of speech recognition requirements. I just didn’t know it, because they don’t describe their accessibility options well at all. Bah.

While Dragon and Firefox have approached a level of semi-civility when it comes to clicking links (provided the website is compliant), one of Firefox’s main obstacles to navigation remains the inability to use commands like “click checkbox/radio button/text field.” I don’t know if that will change anytime soon, because Firefox’s user interface is written in JavaScript, which is a difficult language for some assistive technologies to play with. This is why so many people have been using the Mouseless Browsing add-on — it provides a way for us to vocally access the link, checkbox, field, or button by telling Dragon to press the corresponding numeral. However, a lot of people dislike using Mouseless Browsing because for them, the numbers clutter up the page. If you’re one of these people, Firefox has a few options built in that should make it a lot easier on you.

Unfortunately, these are not obvious unless you’re comfortable with about:config, which is Firefox’s skeleton key in terms of customizing its default behavior. Go to the address bar and enter about:config, and go there. If you get a message about voiding your warranty, ignore it.

You’ll see a bunch of entries that begin with “accessibility.” The one that pertains to accessing fields and boxes is called accessibility.tabfocus. Contrary to what I first thought, this has nothing to do with the number of tabs you can have open at once. You’ll see that it contains an integer value, probably 7. Highlight it and tell Dragon to press Shift-F10, which will give you the context menu for that option. Choose Modify, because you need to decrease the number.

Anywhere from 1 to 3 is a good number — nothing above that. These numbers restrict where your cursor focus goes when you press the tab key — it limits the tab key to finding lists, text fields, and buttons/checkboxes, in the order in which they appear. If you set it to 1, saying “tab” will put you into text fields only, and you say the tab key until you get to the text field that you want. Usually this is only a couple of times. If you set it to 3, you can access any field, list, box or (compliant) button, repeating until you get to the one you want. Again, the repetition isn’t usually excessive.

I know this method isn’t perfect compared to just zeroing in on whatever you want, but I think it’s a pretty decent workaround. Next up is a way to access links without mouseless browsing enabled.

Firefox 3.5 RC1, Dragon 10 and TSF

Okay, so the main reason I was looking forward to Firefox 3.5 was the promise of Text Services Framework support. TSF’s relevant function is to support dictation into text fields, while keeping the ability to select and correct by voice. You can still dictate into text fields that don’t have TSF enabled, but your words  or punctuation may run together,  or your correction may not take. So, TSF is a step in the right direction, and I cheerfully downloaded the release candidate of Firefox 3.5.

I figured I would try dictating directly into this post field to test TSF. Surprise! The Select-and-Say indicator on the Dragon bar remains dark. While I can dictate and make limited corrections, some words still run together and the insertion point will stop just before punctuation marks if I try to return to the end of the line after the correction. Occasionally, I can’t select or correct words at all. Continuous dictation, however, seems to be okay, so I can still do it in a pinch — just don’t expect full capability. In short, nothing is really broken — it’s just that nothing has been fixed, either. It’s the same old Firefox. Stick with the Dictation Box or Word or something as a buffer.

I can continue to use Firefox as I normally would, because everything else is still vocally accessible. And 3.5 has some cool features, such as private browsing. In addition, their options menu has gotten slightly voice-friendlier, as well as plain user friendly. You no longer have to go through the about: config menu in order to turn off suggestions in the address bar;  simply look under Tools — Options — Privacy.  Press Alt-U,  say “nothing,” and press Enter. (Then tab to OK and press Enter again, because the OK and Cancel buttons still can’t be spoken.)

I do like some of the new settings, and I’m glad that nothing major got broken. Firefox will continue to be my default browser, and when the stable version of 3.5 ships, I’ll download it and continue to use it. But I really hope that the omission of TSF support is a temporary setback, and that they will fully implement it in the stable version of 3.5.I might do a more mainstream review of 3.5 after I mess around a bit, but wanted to give a heads up about the elusive TSF.

Disability and tech: stereotypes?

I’ve been puzzling over something, and I’m not sure whether I’m annoyed or not. I’m having problems getting the right words out of my mouth, so the best way I can say it right now is that I hate it when people try to make my stereotypes for me.

I do fit several, particularly of the cognitive variety. For example, I don’t drive, not even a modified car. It has nothing to do with my physical disability and everything to do with the sensory one: I simply can’t take in the onslaught of information that comes at me and still make my arm and leg react quickly enough. What are stereotypes to an outsider are simply traits to me. I’m comfortable with these, because they’re me. What bothers me are the manufactured ones, the ones that people think they have to save me from fitting, or that I’m in danger of being pushed into by other people.

I do sporadic volunteering. Some of it has to do with technology, because as long as my tools are compatible and I have permission to install them, I can navigate it pretty well — better, in some ways, than my colleagues who don’t go further than clicking on an icon with the mouse. I can get into the computer a bit more, because learning how to do that was a necessity — for keyboard shortcuts, setting up macros, and all that, not to mention learning how to troubleshoot my home computer because I couldn’t afford to part with the only computer I could fully use. These skills also come in handy on public computers, where the accessibility options are often locked down. (Head, meet desk. But I digress.) And besides, programming fascinates me, even though my C++ study is hard going. I LIKE computers.

But another thing I enjoy is storytelling. A friend I volunteer with elsewhere asked me to assist, knowing that, but in the process seemed to imply that it would be for my own good for this reason: “I think when people [employers] get someone with a disability, they just stick them behind a computer.” Meaning, I suppose, that the request was a way of saving me from being hidden behind the evil computer, à la the shamed relative being stuffed in the attic.  Now, I have no idea if the stereotype is true. People assume that everyone in my generation has familiarity with computers, but I came late to it. So I really couldn’t be pushed into it, but came to it on my own. I don’t know if other people have been pushed into it, though. If so, yes, that sucks.

I just can’t understand why Friend said it in relation to me. Friend knows I troubleshoot people’s computers if I can. And really, I wouldn’t mind being “stuck” behind a computer. I mean, hello, I can’t lift things much, and even lifting small things wears me out some days. Ergo, which part of the job is going to be more liberating for me? Take a wild guess.

I think what I resent more is that now when I do my storytelling, it’s not going to feel like something I enjoy. It’s going to feel like some awkward form of charity that I didn’t even want. Storytelling, where I could always put my vocal expression and word-personhood to good use without worry, has always been natural to me, even if I’m not as physically animated as other people. Even though I’ll never be a professional or anything, I always enjoy it. It irks me to think that now it’s half going to feel like I’m doing a favor, by getting out of some “shell” that was never there in the first place. (And it doesn’t help that my evil computer — or Dragon NaturallySpeaking more precisely — has helped me immensely in practicing my diction and technique. Go figure.)

Restart Dragon vocally: Vocola

To use certain memory intensive programs, I not only have to end unnecessary processes, but also temporarily turn off the functions in Dragon I don’t need for that particular program. (I’ll go into this more when I talk about using Visual C++ for my programming homework.) For example, I disable the HTML commands if the memory sucker doesn’t require the internet. When I’m done, I enable them again. The unfortunate side effect is that Dragon requires a restart for the change to take effect. For some stupid reason, there’s no native restart command (in Preferred, anyway). This can be a problem if you’re totally voice dependent. Thus a Vocola command:

Dragon restart = HeardWord(close, naturally, speaking) Wait(7000) AppBringUp (“C:\Program Files\Nuance\NaturallySpeaking10\Program\natspeak.exe”);

Note that even if you have set the microphone to start asleep (yellow), it may remain green as the restart command executes.

Review: Bookchair “just right” bookholder

You know you’re a word person when your books have more furniture than you do. Over the past few months I bought myself 2 “Bookchairs,” which have a semi-Goldilocks feel about them — I have a Medium one for paperbacks and a Large one for the computer books, but haven’t found a reason I would need the mini one.  They’re  book holders with pegs to keep your place, but they look like folding beach chairs that beat up Snoopy in Charlie Brown’s Thanksgiving. (Pardon the mixed similes.) These, however, are multicolored and nonviolent — they won’t even so much as collapse.

Note: charming wooden things that look like they were stolen from the Three Bears’ vacation or Charlie Brown’s garage are made better than a lot of the overpriced plastic crap they sell in medical catalogs. The Bookchair is made to be a single unit, with proper hinges so that you can easily fold and unfold it. When unfolded, the base of the chair has grooves to fit the support bar to create 3 different angles for the back. The pegs are more like arms, actually, screwed as to be horizontal on either side of the “seat.” Since the pegs are horizontal, you don’t have to worry so much about pulling the page around them, as you would with vertical pegs. I think they have a slight springiness in them, so that they can account for the way the pages sometimes bulge out. They fit against the pages tightly enough to hold them, but not so tightly that you can’t move the page when you need to.

Actually inserting the book is very easy — open the book to the desired page, lift it up by the top with one hand, and set it behind the pegs. If it’s a heavy book, of course, it takes me a couple of tries because my good hand is now not so good, but that’s not the chair’s fault. To turn a page, sometimes I don’t even need to adjust the right side peg — just move the page out from behind, and flick my thumb or finger to move the left side peg out of the way. Often, the left side peg will fall back into place by itself to hold the page. I don’t understand the Amazon review in which some guy complains that his wife — who, like me, is hemiplegic — can’t hold the device and turn the page at the same time. You don’t have to hold the device and turn the page at the same time. The most you need is good fine motor use of a finger or thumb on the same hand to flick a peg out of the way as you turn the page.

The only potential issue is the multi-size one, because you need to pay attention. (Why the heck did the people complaining about books not fitting order the Medium size for a hardcover math textbook?) If you mostly just read paperbacks, you should be fine with the medium size. If you read different types of books, however, you may need a larger size as well. I can’t see reading my C++ books on anything but a large Bookchair. The need for more than one might suck. However, if your large books aren’t quite so thick as that, the Standard size may be “just right” for both your paperbacks and your other books. I tried a couple book holders that seemed to be more universal, such as the Fellowes and Roberts, but they were multi-piece and rather flimsy and the pegs didn’t keep my place well enough, besides being vertical.

The Bookchair can be found on the Thinking Gifts website, though you might want to select US dollars from the drop-down so as to get the accurate price for you. You can pay with your PayPal account if you have one, which is also convenient. If you don’t want to wait for the UK shipping, you can often find them used on Amazon or eBay, where there’s a better chance that the seller might be closer (and cheaper).