Save the numeric keypad — don’t trap the MouseKeys!

Once again, a popular technology article is useless to me. This time it asserts that the cursor keys on the number pad have no function. Obviously, it was written by a mouse user. Because you can’t send in letters to their editor anonymously, I am anonymously posting my hypothetical letter here just so I can vent.

Dear Mr. Kurtz,

I always enjoy your “Tech Man” articles. However, I wanted to bring your attention to something you said in “Keyboard makers should delete some useless keys,” regarding the cursor keys on the number pad. For those of us who are physically unable to use a mouse and depend on the keyboard, it’s actually crucial that the keypad and the NumLock key have 2 states. This is because many of us use the Mouse Keys Windows accessibility option.

The most important Mouse Keys setting is that it be active when the NumLock key is off. This way, what controls the blinking cursor for you controls the mouse cursor for us. For us, the arrow keys and the keypad arrows are not identical. If we try to use Mouse Keys when NumLock is on, we lose the ability to enter numbers with the keypad. This is often inconvenient because some of us also use the Firefox add-on Mouseless Browsing, which relies on the numeric keypad for accessing links and fields. Also, users of Dragon NaturallySpeaking or Windows Speech Recognition make use of the number pad (and Mouseless Browsing) in the same way to write voice command macros.

I mention this because computer designers generally listen more to able-bodied people, which sometimes results in decreased accessibility for disabled people in the name of “progress.” If keyboard designers started making such a change widely across their merchandise, it would make things needlessly less accessible.

Sincerely,

Hand to Mouth

A reminder on Mouse Keys and Mouseless Browsing

Perhaps I should have mentioned this earlier based on my stats; I’m so used to it that it never occurred to me. Mouseless Browsing in Firefox DOES NOT conflict with the Windows Mouse Keys accessibility option if you have correctly configured the Mouse Keys settings. You must check the box for using Mouse Keys when NumLock is OFF. Then, to switch from Mouse Keys to Mouseless Browsing, just press NumLock. And vice versa.

Vocal and keyboard autoscrolling in Firefox: Woohoo!

I’m still a little peeved at Nuance for breaking their middle click command, and likewise a little bit puzzled at the Mozilla developers for making such a useful function as auto scroll exclusive to the mouse. A lot of people who can’t use the mouse — be they Dragon users or keyboard-only users or both — don’t feel like writing their own voice commands or AutoHotKey assignments or what have you. Not for what is supposed to be a basic native Firefox function, at least. What about that standard that says all functions should be accessible from the keyboard, huh? While computer users with disabilities do have to take more responsibility for finding things out themselves, it baffles me that programmers can’t even meet us halfway sometimes. The more function you have built into a program, the safer you feel, because — well, what if your add-ons stop being developed or something? You get the idea.

However, after much frustrated googling, I am just elated. Whether you are a Dragon user or keyboard user, you can now auto scroll any page without using a mouse command. Tim Harper, a.k.a. Tim the Enchanter, has written a bookmarklet that does just that — loads a JavaScript for auto scrolling into any page you’re on. All you have to do is go to his page, and save the humongous Autoscroll link into your Bookmarks Toolbar using the mouse commands (for Dragon), but that’s the only time, I promise. (The toolbar method is mainly for Dragon users because Mozilla hasn’t made the toolbar itself keyboard accessible.)

If you are a keyboard user, you need to use Mouse Keys (sorry, tabbing to the link doesn’t seem to work, or least I can’t see it being highlighted) to right-click over the link, and choose “Bookmarks Menu” for the location. That’s more efficient because it makes your keyboard shortcut more fluid: Alt-B-A. Done. (Of course, you might have to press A more than once if you have bookmarks that start with the same letter. For efficiency in selecting, it might be a good idea to de-clutter your menu, either by deleting old bookmarks or putting them into a folder.)

Tim lists the shortcuts for increasing the speed on his page, but please note — since we’re probably all using Mouseless Browsing, the number key shortcuts will conflict. (However, we can by all means still access links and fields via Mouseless Browsing with no problem.) Stick with the Control-Shift-+ or Control-Shift– shortcuts, and you’ll be fine. If the default speed is too slow for you, you can edit the script to adjust it. To do this:

1. Go to Organize Bookmarks under the Bookmarks menu (Ctrl-Shift-B).

2. Choose either Bookmarks Menu or Bookmarks Toolbar, depending on where you put the bookmarklet. Then, highlight Autoscroll from the results side.

3. Look at the Location field. Instead of seeing a web address, you will see the script itself. With either voice or keyboard, go to the Location field and press Control-C.

4. Open Notepad. Press Control-V. You will see the script in full.

5. On the 2nd line, look for ss_speed=1. Once you find it, change 1 to about 3; that’s middling at least. Then, select and copy the document via Control-A Control C, and go back to your Bookmark Organizer.

6. Go into the Location field again if you’re not still there. Press Control-V. This will paste the adjusted script.

7. Now, whenever you say “Autoscroll” or execute the keyboard shortcut, the page will scroll at the speed you want.

Tim’s script can be found here. Enjoy!

Mouseless Browsing and Dragon: how to open links in new tabs

Opening links in a new tab with Dragon is a useful function, and can be done through Mouseless Browsing. You can do this with or without Vocola, but the Vocola command is a lot quicker.

With Vocola: Go into the mouseless browsing configuration and make sure the postfix key for opening links in a new tab is the plus sign (found under the Keys menu) and the modifier key is Ctrl (found under ID types). Then edit your Firefox voice commands by adding the following script, where 1..1000 corresponds to the link number you want to say:

Open 1..1000 new tab = $1{+}{Ctrl+Enter};

Without Vocola: Go into the mouseless browsing configuration and make sure the postfix key is the plus sign, and the modifier is Ctrl, as above. Then, say “press [number] plus-sign.” Then, say “press Control Enter.”

Bypassing text fields in mouseless browsing

My list of Vocola commands for Firefox is getting pretty long, so I figure I should start breaking it up. Since a lot of Firefox use with Dragon involves mouseless browsing, I thought it would be a good idea to post specific Vocola commands that allow you to take advantage of more mouseless browsing capabilities than you’d be able to if you were just using Dragon alone.

You may have noticed that if your cursor is in a text box, and you want to say a link, saying “numeral [whatever]” puts those numbers in the text box instead of clicking the link you want. Not terribly helpful. The 1st thing you want to do is go into Tools — Add-ons — Mouseless Browsing (or, if you have your mouseless browsing options in your Tools menu separately, just Tools — Mouseless Browsing — Open Configuration). Then, choose “ID types.” Check the option “use numpad exclusively for mouseless browsing.” As per the description, this allows you to bypass text fields and go directly to the link. For Dragon, however, you need Vocola or another scripting program in order to make use of this feature.

The reason is that Dragon cannot natively press more than one keypad key in succession. You need to make a command that will force Dragon to press only the keypad keys, and in such a way that you can enter multiple digit link numbers. Like so:

0..9..0..9..0..9..09 = {NumKey$1}{NumKey$2}{NumKey$3}{NumKey$4};
0..9 0..9 0..9 = {NumKey$1}{NumKey$2}{NumKey$3};
0..9 0..9 = {NumKey$1}{NumKey$2};
0..9 = {NumKey$1};

So, for example, if I say “2  7  3″ while my blinking cursor is in the text box, Dragon will press those three keys on the keypad as if you had pressed them manually. The focus will now transfer to the link and press it. Perfect. (NOTE: under the mouseless browsing options, make sure the option “execute automatically without pressing enter” is checked.)

Let me rephrase that: mouseless browsing and Dragon

I was muttering to myself (and my computer) all morning about what I thought was a bug in mouseless browsing in Firefox 3, or Dragon 10, or all of these (considering Dragon’s rickety built-in support for things like this). See, my habitual phrase for accessing anything numbered is “numeral [whatever]“. This worked, until I started trying to select multiple checkboxes in Gmail. The 1st box checked fine. But when I spoke the number for the next box, my previous checkmark was removed. It was driving me nuts.

Finally, I just started running through every possible phrase. Evidently, I wasn’t saying the magic words — if you want to consistently select checkboxes, you have to say “press [number].” If you do it that way, you can check more than one box at a time. I have no idea what the rephrase had to do with it, because as far as I can see they’re just synonyms for the same function. Maybe it is a mild Dragon bug; who knows. Oh well.

Of course Nuance and Mozilla could solve the whole thing by collaborating for better compatibility, but I’ll take this in the meantime. Especially because I downloaded the beta of the latest mouseless browsing version, 0.5.2. It’s really cool — it supports more elements now, like tabs and frames. Dragon can click tabs for you if you say a word in the tab title, but just in case that’s a little dodgy — and it is sometimes, especially if those number flags pop up for duplicate words and Dragon clicks the opposite of your choice — the latest mouseless browsing version provides an alternate way.

Review of Dragon 10

I succumbed to the recent discounts and bought Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 Preferred, mainly for the promise of “increased Flash and Firefox support.” So far, I’m pretty impressed with Dragon 10. As long as I’m using Microsoft products, it’s an improvement over 9.5 particularly in word processing. However, as always, these goodies don’t entirely apply to non-Microsoft products. Again, be aware that this does not mean programs like Jarte or Firefox are incompatible; you just have to tweak them until they are. Damn monopolies, though…

I’ll start with surfing the web, because Dragon has given us the closest thing to a macro as we’ll get in the Preferred version. If you have a website that you commonly shop or search on, such as eBay, Google, Wikipedia or Amazon, you don’t even have to open your browser first. All you have to do is say “search [website] for [whatever],” and Dragon will open your default browser, take it to that site, and return the top-ranked results. This works equally well in Firefox or Internet Explorer. (Keep in mind, though, that I don’t have Firefox 3 and so I don’t know if Dragon kept up with the new version.)

In certain cases, Dragon 10 now has the ability to recognize partially-spoken links in Firefox rather than making you say the full link. However, before you think you can uninstall Mouseless Browsing, there are many instances for which you will STILL NEED IT. Primarily, Dragon for some reason STILL does not have a “text field” command for Firefox. Therefore, unless you want to repeat “Tab” multiple times, speaking the field’s Mouseless ID is the only way to get into it. Also, many pages have links that cannot be read; here you also need the numerals in order to access them. This may be more a problem of non-compliant Web design than a Dragon problem, but this taken with the lack of a text field command renders the partial-link improvement almost moot.

Word processing, as long as you’re using Word, has gotten a bit faster. My dictation is as accurate as it always has been, and I do appreciate the new quick formatting commands. For example, if I dictated something and realize that it should have been in italics, I no longer have to select that phrase first in order to give the Italicize command. I can just say “italicize [whatever].” For introducing unknown words, Spell mode has gotten a little more convenient, in that before and after you spell a new word, Dragon includes the space now instead of running everything together as it did before.

However, I have grown very fond of dictating into Jarte as my main word processor lately, and these quick formatting innovations don’t apply. (Literally; I tried to say “italicize [some word]” and was helpfully informed that “formatting commands are not applicable here.” At least they’re admitting it now!) I’m not complaining too much, though, because Jarte is just about the only cheap-yet-functional word processor that will work reliably with Dragon, perhaps because its code is similar to WordPad. You can still dictate, correct, select, move the insertion point, and spell very quickly in Jarte, and access the first level of menus (File, Edit, etc.) by natural language. To pick a subheading, just speak its first letter and/or Enter. To format something, you simply select it and then say the corresponding keyboard shortcut, e.g. “press control I.” Save, “press control S.” Learning some keyboard shortcuts never killed anybody.

On a basic installation level, I do want to mention it’s a good idea to do the Custom install. The Custom install allows you to choose only the components you think you’ll need. For example, I don’t need the tutorial file, the text-to-speech, or any accent other than US English, so for the unnecessary options I check either “this feature will be installed when required” or “this feature will not be available.” The benefit of this is that it drastically reduces the amount of space the Dragon takes up on your hard drive. I’d say this is important particularly in this edition, because the Dragon has gotten fat. Even after installing only the necessary files, Dragon 10 takes a gigabyte (as opposed to between 515 and 530 MB for Dragon 9.5). If you have a roomy hard drive, this won’t be a problem, but if you have less free hard drive space, I would also suggest getting rid of bloatware, doing defrag and disk cleanup, and/or running CCleaner or a similar program before doing the Custom install. In addition, TURN OFF AUTOMATIC UPDATES. This may prevent the C++ runtime error that some people, including me, got on their first installation attempt. I rebooted my machine after having turned off the updates and it was fine.

After installation, unless you’re going to try to port your voice files from 9.5, I would recommend doing the “short” training option. It takes five minutes, and my accuracy, at least, is excellent. If you’re new to Dragon altogether, PLEASE do a short training, and select the first option titled “Talking to your computer.” Many people — not all, but many — who negatively review Dragon on Amazon clearly indicate that they don’t know how computers process sound, and expect them to act like hearing (or perhaps hard of hearing) human beings, which isn’t the case. If you talk to your computer as such, your accuracy is going to suck. That first tutorial will explain in great detail how to talk to your computer with a normal volume and tone.

I will close for now with a very important recommendation: if you haven’t already, get a USB soundcard and connect your microphone to that, rather than your computer’s front jacks. Integrated soundcards are often full of electrical noise/static, which makes it harder for your computer to “hear” you. A selection of Dragon-compatible soundcards and microphones is sold and compared by Nuance affiliate KnowBrainer. KnowBrainer uses sales to fund their free NaturallySpeaking support forum, an excellent alternative to paying Nuance for a phone call. Maybe we can start a petition for more non-Microsoft supported programs, already…

Making Dragon 9.5 work with Firefox

I am very fond of Mozilla Firefox lately; I have version 2. It’s absolutely a more keyboard friendly browser, what with Mouseless Browsing133 and Bookmark Keys. It also works fine with a SmartNAV pointer and a dwell clicker or on-screen keyboard. But I have really been needing to give myself a rest, and was sick of going back and forth between IE 6 — Dragon’s favorite — and Firefox depending on what my level of mobility was. So I called up Firefox with Dragon and found that Firefox has become my universal browser.

However, Firefox is not totally voice accessible out-of-the-box. You must have Mouseless Browsing installed. If you don’t, you will have to say the entire name of a link in one breath to access it. With Mouseless Browsing, all you have to do is find the number next to the link and say “numeral [whatever].” Also, though Dragon supports basic Firefox commands such as “go to address,” “go there,” “go back/forward,” “refresh,” etc., there is no “text field” command like there is in IE. Thus, getting into search boxes can be a bit of a problem. Again, this is where Mouseless Browsing comes in. Text fields count as form elements. Under the Tools — Add-ons menu, go to the options for Mouseless Browsing and make sure the box “enable IDs for form elements” is checked.(You may also want to check the box that says “execute automatically without pressing enter.”) Once you do that, you can get into a text field simply by saying the number next to the field. Perfect.