[macvoiceover] Announcing the VoxKeys project
- From: Bryan Smart <bryansmart@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "macvoiceover@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <macvoiceover@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 7 Jan 2011 03:17:27 -0500
If you use a Mac with the built-in VoiceOver screen reader, VoxKeys is intended
to help you work faster, and access more, than would be possible with only
VoiceOver.
VoxKeys helps you work faster by adding new shortcuts to applications that will
make it possible to quickly access program functions that would have previously
required many keystrokes. Other new shortcuts make it possible for you to
quickly hear important on-screen information without the need for you to move
the VoiceOver cursor.
Beyond speeding up tasks that you could normally accomplish with VoiceOver,
VoxKeys opens up functions in applications that were previously inaccessible.
VoxKeys can directly click and manipulate user interface elements on the screen
that are invisible to VoiceOver. VoxKeys can also use Applescript to directly
control applications, bypassing their user interfaces altogether, in many
cases. These new capabilities are available through new shortcuts that VoxKeys
adds to your applications.
Currently, VoxKeys provides quick access to status announcements such as date,
time, and power, adds new iTunes shortcuts for speaking track information and
for quickly accessing controls that normally lack shortcuts, adds many Skype
keyboard shortcuts including globally available answer/hang-up shortcuts, and
provides shortcuts for clicking the mouse in ways that VoiceOver is unable.
Perhaps its most interesting capability at the moment, though, is support for
web apps. Through a combination of directly accessing the object model of a web
page, and directly manipulating the mouse, VoxKeys can provide specialized
access for web sites when accessed from Safari. Currently, the Netflix and
Rhapsody web players are supported. With VoxKeys, you can, in these previously
inaccessible players, play/pause recordings, navigate between tracks.
Mute/unmute audio, control repeat and shuffle modes, switch to full screen
playback, and more.
The next release of VoxKeys (coming in just a week or two) will include
shortcuts for Pro Tools and GarageBand to quickly jump to parts of the user
interface. Other features in the works include the ability to quickly repeat
the last phrase spoken by VoiceOver through ESpeak in a specific language (good
if your native language isn't supported by a Mac TTS), shortcuts for quickly
switching between different sets of VoiceOver settings, automatic notification
when you type a misspelled word, shortcuts to help with VMware, and others.
VoxKeys is free.
For additional information and to download, go here:
http://blog.bryansmart.com/voxkeys-project/
Bryan
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