Window-Eyes 1.0 Revision History

Document Layout

This document is laid out as follows:

• Each heading level 1 represents one major version of Window-Eyes.
• Each heading level 2 represents one minor version of Window-Eyes
• Each heading level 3 represents a category of new features under each version of Window-Eyes.

1.1

Released: 12/13/1996

• The caret tracks much better in a number of applications. If the caret is not tracking for you, you can press the “Auto Detect Caret” hot key to cause Window-Eyes to determine the caret. The value of the caret is stored in the .we file so you do not have to have a set associated with the application for this feature to work.
• The find dialog now remembers the last string that you searched for.
• A Mouse Next Attribute hot key has been added. This key moves the mouse pointer to the next item matching the attributes selected in the “Attribute Search Selection” dialog on the mouse menu.
• If the mouse pointer is within the area defined by the mouse boundary hot key, pressing the Mouse Next Attribute hot key causes Window-Eyes to move the pointer to the next matching attribute within the specified area. If the pointer is already outside the boundary, Window-Eyes begins its search at the top of the specified area.
• A Mouse Previous Attribute hot key was added. This key moves the mouse pointer backwards to an item matching the attributes selected in the “Attribute Search Selection” dialog on the mouse menu.
• If the mouse pointer is within the area defined by the mouse boundary hot key, pressing the Mouse Previous Attribute hot key causes Window-Eyes to move the pointer backwards to the matching attribute within the specified area. If the pointer is already outside the boundary, Window-Eyes begins its search at the bottom of the specified area.
• The Search radio button in the Find Dialog has been changed to include the following areas of the screen:
  • Full Screen
  • Active Window
  • Focused Window
  • User Window
• Attributes have also been added to the Find Dialog. The new attribute options are:
  • Underlined
  • Bold
  • Highlighted Italic
  • Strikeout
• Window-Eyes’ find feature previously searched only from the top down. You are now able to begin the search at the bottom right and work backward.
• The “Mouse Continue Search” hot key now continues its search from the current mouse position, not from the position of the last item which was found. This means you can move your pointer past material before continuing the search.
• The font restriction has been removed from character dictionaries. Previously if you wanted to define the period character to say “stop” you had to put arial,.=stop into the dictionary. This entry only worked for the arial font. Now you can put the entry .=stop which works for any font. You can still specify a font which will override the generic setting so the two entries below arial,.=arial stop .=stop would say “arial stop” for arial periods and “stop” for any other periods.
• A “Synthesizer Re-initialization” feature has been added to Window-Eyes 1.03. If your synthesizer is connected to a serial port, it is possible for a Windows application (or any other program) to attempt to send information to it instead of to a modem, mouse, or other serial device. Since the synthesizer or serial port may react unpredictably, it is essential to have a quick, easy way to put things to rights. For this reason, the “initialize Synthesizer” command can be accessed without activating the menu.
  • If your synthesizer begins to speak characters which are not normally contained in the text it should be speaking, or if it suddenly stops speaking altogether, or if your synthesizer, serial or otherwise, “gets stuck” and speaks at the wrong pitch or rate, re-initialize it by doing the following:
  • Press Control- to bring up the Voice Control Panel.
  • Press the letter “I.”
  • Window-Eyes will send a string of commands to your synthesizer which includes rate, pitch, tone, and volume commands, serial port initialization, and the original initialization string sent to the synthesizer on startup. Your synthesizer will announce, “Synthesizer re-initialized.” Press Escape to leave the Voice Control Panel if you wish.
  • You can also re-initialize your synthesizer by bringing down the General menu and pressing “I,” or by using the up and down arrow keys to move to the last item in the general menu. Once on the Initialize Synthesizer item, press ENTER. Window-Eyes announces, “Synthesizer Re-initialized,” and closes the menus.
• Set file associations are now made when you save the set file. Previously Window-Eyes made the association when you opened the set file. We feel that this way is less confusing.
• We changed the set file load and save dialog boxes to only include files with a .0* extension.
• You no longer need to type the extension of a dictionary in the Open or Save As dialogs. Window-Eyes will automatically add “CHR” to character dictionary names, “.DIC” to exception dictionaries, and “.KEY” to key label dictionary names.
• The hot keys that read relative to the caret now beep if there is no caret on the screen. This includes the first 19 keys on the hot keys menu, the forward and backward sentence and paragraph hot keys, and the read to end hot key.
• In hyperactive windows, “Contains String” is no longer case sensitive.
• The “reclass” Hot Key
  • This is a powerful new feature which makes several formerly barely- usable applications quite speech friendly and greatly enhances the usability of many others. If a software developer uses standard Windows controls in dialog boxes and other situations, Window-Eyes can identify each of these and report its type. Window-Eyes also knows what else should be read. For example, if you press the tab key and move to an edit box, Window-Eyes says “Edit Box” and reads the field name which is usually displayed to the left or above the edit box and then reads the contents of the edit box. When you tab to a button, Window-Eyes says “Button and reads its label. If the developer creates unique controls, however, Window-Eyes does not know what they are or what to read, so it usually says”Custom Control” and leaves it at that. the Reclass hot key allows you to tell Window-Eyes to treat one of these customized control items as a standard item.
  • In actual applications, it works like this: you are running a new program and you find that an item is read as “Custom Control” or is not read at all. You pop up the Window-Eyes Control Panel, go to the hot keys menu, and assign a hot key to “Reclass,” say F11.
  • You return to your problem application and press F11. Window-Eyes brings up a list of all the standard controls. If you have some idea of what this item does, you can make an educated guess and select an item. For example, if the item says “Scroll up arrow, scroll down arrow,” it might be a list box or a combo box. If it says “OK” or “Cancel,” it probably should be treated as a button. If you have no idea what it resembles, you can simply work your way down the list trying each of the items until you find the one which works the best for you. If nothing works, you can simply choose “Original Class” from the top of the list to return the application to its original state.
  • It is not necessary to save the set file in order to keep your new class definition.
  • Because Window-Eyes makes assumptions about the display of Windows controls, it is possible to cause an item in a dialog to speak less accurately than with its original definition. If you move away from the redefined item, it may sometimes be difficult to find your way back because of the extraneous speech. If this happens, you may need to delete the reclass definition which is stored in the .WE file for the window. All reclassifications are stored in a section labeled Reclass on Create
  • Delete the relevant line to eliminate the reclassification.
  • Note: Since the reclassification is saved in the .WE file instead of the set file, it is not necessary to save the set file to keep your new definitions.
  • Note: Many applications use the same custom control in numerous situations. If you reclass one of these, Window-Eyes may not update the classifications of the others until the application has been closed and restarted. Note: Standard Windows controls cannot be reclassed.
  • The ability to include the window style with the class for a reclassed control has been added. A field to show the window style in the reclass dialog and a check box to include the style with the reclass has also been added. If you have a reclass with the style and without the style, the reclass with the style takes precedence.
• The Redraw Hot Key: Within some programs, notably Netscape and Windows Help, text sometimes becomes scrambled within Window-Eyes internal representation of the screen. The Redraw Hot key can eliminate this problem. Press the hot key when you think Window-Eyes is reading pieces of old screens along with material which is actually displayed on the screen.
• The Graphics Dictionary
  • The graphics dictionary now has four settings.
    • “On” causes all graphics to be spoken. If Window-Eyes reads a graphic which is not in the dictionary, it simply says “Graphic.”
    • The “off” setting causes Window-Eyes to ignore all graphics. This is useful in dialog boxes in which scroll symbols and other common icons are distracting.
    • “Dictionary only” causes Window-Eyes to read only those graphics which are defined in the .GRA file. If you place the caret or mouse pointer directly on an undefined graphic as you might while reviewing the screen, Window-Eyes says “Graphic,” allowing you to label the symbol.
    • The “Graphic Only” setting causes Window-Eyes to treat all graphics as if they were undefined.
• Multi-Selection List Boxes
  • In Windows, some list boxes allow more than one selection to be made at a time. For example, you might want to select several files for deletion. Window-Eyes now differentiates between “List Boxes” and “Multi-Selection List Boxes.” The read summary hot key will read all selected items in the list which are displayed on the screen. Holding Down Another Key while Using the Mouse
  • Shift-Click and Control-click mouse functions are now available in Window-Eyes. Some applications allow multiple selections to be made by pressing the mouse button while the shift key is held down. Now, you can press the shift key and then follow it immediately with the “Single Click Left Mouse Button” hot key to simulate the clicking of the left mouse button while the shift key is held down.
• The mouse voice
  • Movement of the physical mouse and the mouse hot keys now use the mouse voice.
  • Turning off the mouse voice now stops movement of the physical mouse from being spoken. This is useful if you can see the screen and only want to hear text by the use of hot keys. Movement of the mouse through the use of hot keys is still voiced.
• The Read Bar hot key now spells the contents of the light bar the second time it is pressed. It spells phonetically (alpha, bravo, Charlie) the third time it is pressed.
• The speak summary hot key (Alt-Shift-S) now spells the highlighted item in a list or combo box the second time it is pressed (similar to the read bar or read word hot keys).
• There is now a “Read Current Clip” hot key. By default, it is Insert-Numpad-Center for consistency with the previous and next clip hot keys. Since that key was previously used for double- click, and since double-click can be accomplished by pressing the single-click button, that hot key (Double Click left mouse button) has been left undefined.
• If you turn off the reading of certain attributes from the verbosity menu, the mouse and caret ASCII/Attribute hot keys will not announce those items the first time the hot key is pressed. The second press, however, announces all items. This is useful when you normally wish to know only one piece of information within an application, such as the font size, but occasionally want to know the font or color.
• Turning off the screen voice now turns off only the speech from speak windows. Previously, turning off the screen voice turned off most speech.
• When the insert key on the numeric keypad is used as a “shift” key, the insert is no longer passed on to the application. If you use the insert key alone, however, it is passed on to the application as usual.
• We have added an exit dialog to prompt you when you exit Window- Eyes. This helps prevent you from inadvertently shutting down speech.
• The mouse ASCII/Attribute and caret ASCII/Attribute hot keys now give the ASCII value of the character first, then the font, then the RGB values. Also, the rate is slowed for the reading of the RGB values to make them more intelligible. The same order is maintained for attribute changes when this feature is turned on from the screen menu. *The apostrophe is now allowed in exception dictionaries.
• The character dictionary is no longer case sensitive.
• Window-Eyes now supports Microsoft Excel, Lotus 1-2-3, Microsoft Works spreadsheet and many others. The tracking of cells in spreadsheets is controlled through the general menu. The option “include box in light bar” allows you to activate this feature. Note: Quatro Pro is not supported at this time.
• The mouse prior control and mouse next control hot keys Will move the mouse from it’s current position on the screen to the next or prior Windows control and will also set focus to that control. This is useful for controls that are not accessible from the keyboard, such as those controls found in forms in Netscape.
• The Route Mouse to caret hot key has been enhanced. Now, when you press this hot key, Window-Eyes will move the mouse pointer to the currently focused item and speak the name of the control it lands on if it is unable to find a caret on the screen. So, for example, if the mouse lands on a button, it will say “pointer routed to button.”
• A new menu option has been added to the mouse menu. Track mouse with focus will cause the mouse pointer to “follow” focus as you work. This means that the mouse will automatically be routed to the currently focused item on the screen, such as the caret or a light bar. This is a toggle option and defaults to being off.
• Window-Eyes will now beep when you type a shifted letter when the caps lock is on.
• Cursor Delay: Adjusts the length of time Window-Eyes waits to carry out cursoring key commands after a cursoring key has been pressed. This option may be found on the general menu. The range of values it will accept are 1 to 99, with 1 being the least amount of delay and 99 being the largest. Here’s an example of how you might use this feature.
  • Some application programs run so slowly that Window-Eyes hands off a cursoring key keystroke and then speaks before the application program has a chance to carry out the cursor-movement or whatever command. For example, let’s say you have set Ctrl-UP to “paragraph.” Your application program uses this key to move the application cursor to the previous paragraph. Ideally, the process goes like this: you press Ctrl-UP; Window-Eyes hands off the keystroke to the application program; the application program executes the command, moving the application cursor to the first word of the previous paragraph, and Window-Eyes reads the paragraph.
  • If, however, cursor delay is set to a value too low for the application program, the program doesn’t have enough time to move the cursor before Window-Eyes starts reading. Consequently, you hear the paragraph where the cursor was when you pressed the Ctrl- UP key, not where the application would send it. If you experience this kind of problem with all or some of your cursoring keys, experiment with increasing the value of cursor delay in small increments until you find the one that works best.
• Trigger Delay: Adjusts the length of time Window-Eyes buffers text before it is passed on to the synthesizer. If you experience “stuttering” or the first part of a line being repeated, try setting this value to a higher number. This option is found on the general menu. The range of values Window-Eyes will accept is 1 to 99, 1 being the least amount of delay and 99 being the most delay. Each sequential value increases the delay by 50 milliseconds, so if you choose a value of 10, for example, your delay would be 500 milliseconds or one half of a second. This feature is only useful for speak windows and speak all.
• A new option, current index, has been added to the verbosity dialog. This option, when checked, will cause window-Eyes to speak the currently highlighted item in a list box and it’s index number. For example, if you were in the hot keys dialog, and you were on sentence, Window-Eyes might say something like “sentence, Control+S, index 11 of 132.”
• Window-Eyes will now beep if it is unable to find any marked text or a light bar when the read marked block or read light bar hot keys are pressed.
• The control key now silences speak windows until no more text appears. Window-Eyes will then ding to let you know that no more text is being drawn to the screen. Speech will resume on the second press of the control key.
• There is now a speak all hot key. This hot key causes Window-Eyes to speak all newly written text within the active application to be spoken. This hot key is undefined by default.
• A new cursoring key, marked text, has been added to the cursoring keys dialog. When a cursoring key is defined in this way, Window- Eyes will alert you to what text has been selected by saying the character or word followed by the words “selected” or “unselected.” Note: this feature does not yet work in edit boxes or AMI PRO.
• A new cursoring key, mouse top left, has been added to the cursoring key dialog. This cursoring key works exactly as the mouse top left hot key does, but does not say “top left.”
• Auto-determine light bar color has been added to the user definition dialog. This option causes Window-Eyes to try to automatically determine the light bar color when you ask for the light bar to be read regardless of the Bar Track Status setting.
• A new option, allow speak windows in edit boxes, has been added to the general menu. This option tells Window-Eyes whether or not to allow newly drawn text (in an edit box) that you did not type to be spoken if it falls in the area of a speak window.
• Set2text and text2set have been included with this version. See appendix F in the manual for full documentation. *The Mouse Beginning of Line hot key. This hot key moves the mouse to the beginning of the line honoring the mouse boundary setting.
• Mouse End of Line hot key. This hot key moves the mouse to the end of the line honoring the mouse boundary setting.
• Top to Mouse, Mouse to Bottom, Left to Mouse, and Mouse to Right. They work exactly like the corresponding caret hot keys, but they use the mouse position as a starting point. They also honor the mouse boundary setting.
• Combo edit boxes are now recognized. For an example of this feature look at the fonts dialog under the character pull down in write.
• Window-Eyes now recognizes read only edit boxes. The edit boxes in our reclass dialog are good examples of this type of control.
• A new option has been added to the global menu. The Caret Blink Rate option will globally change the Windows caret blink rate. Window-Eyes now overrides the blink rate set in win.ini to solve caret loss problems with MS Word. Window-Eyes will restore the blink rate when Window-Eyes is removed from memory. the blink rate is set to 100 by default, but you can change this from 20 to 1200. Values over 150 on a Pentium 133 have been found to cause the caret to be lost when backspacing in MS Word.
• The Title/Status option has been added to the cursoring key action combo boxes. This option works exactly like the Read Title/Status of Active App hot key.
• Window-Eyes now uses a set of internal default settings if no set files exist or if you try to load a set file that is not the correct version.

1.0x

There were a number of window-eyes 1.0X releases, however there are not changelogs for any of these releases. Instead, I will list them with their release dates below.

• 1.05: 10/1/1996
• 1.04: 6/6/1996
• 1.03: 3/25/1996
• 1.02: 1/31/1996
• 1.01: 11/1/1995
• 1.0: 10/16/1995