[real-eyes] Initial JAWS8 Comments and Questions
- From: "Reginald George" <sgeorge@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <real-eyes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2006 06:32:00 -0600
I finally did my first install of JAWS 8.0 for a client yesterday and was
relatively impressed with the new voices. Installing the first update from the
net appeared to remove my voice selections for say all and this isn't good.
Had a couple comments and questions though. I don't like that the CD
installation o longer prompts to install the training materials and that this
has been moved to the start up wizard. it's fine to have it in the start up
wizard too, but this should still be asked when the CD is in the drive during
the initial install.
Okay, my first question. Does it make any kind of sense whatsoever that the
SAPI voices listed under say all would only come on when say all is manually
engaged with insert num pad 2 and not when say all is engaged automatically by
a web page or when an E-mail is automatically read? This is just like engaging
say all so it should have the same default behavior. Do you have to manually
tell it to use the SAPI5 voice by hitting insert down arrow every time or can
this be set in the speech and sounds manager or somewhere to trigger whenever
say all is activated, say from loading an E-mail or a web page?
My second question is where can one adjust the pitch of the SAPI5 say all
voices? Burying this feature deep in the configuration manager where most new
users fear to tread and away from all the other voice parameters seems crazy to
me. This is a global voice, so in my opinion the check box and drop down to
choose voices for say all mode should have been implemented under the global
voice settings dialog. Actually, it should have appeared in both places just
as the Braille options show up in the main JAWS window under Braille options
and under Braille on the settings menu of the configuration manager. This
would have kept consistency. If you load SAPI5 as your default speech you can
control the pitches directly from the individual voice adjustment box in the
main JAWS window. If you set SAPI 5 as the say all voice in configuration
manager you can set rate and punctuation, not pitch. I know at least with
Microsoft Mike and Mary that they aren't playing at their default pitches,
making this doubly irritating. I used to believe you couldn't adjust pitch
with the digital voices but, I know you can as they give you this ability with
the Neospeech voices in Zoomtext and they use SAPI five as the engine so we
should also have this option. With JAWS one still can't adjust the volume of
the software speech separately. You've been able to do this in Windoweyes for
Eloquence or DecAccess 32 since the beginning so I'm sure this could be enabled
under global voice parameters as well. The check box to enable Internet
Explorer legacy support needs to be returned also. Lastly a talking install
for the real speak voices or at least an audio prompt when the disk is inserted
would have been nice along with integration with the start up wizard and the
program CD.
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