

ASAW


Automatic Screen Access for Windows


Copyright  1996-1997


MicroTalk
721 Olive Street
Texarkana, TX 75501


                             License

MicroTalk agrees to grant to you, upon receipt of the completed
registration form, a license to use the enclosed software with
the terms and restrictions set forth in this agreement.

The enclosed software and its documentation are copyrighted by
MicroTalk and portions of the software are copyrighted by
Berkeley Systems, Inc.  The software is protected from
unauthorized duplication by federal law.  You may not copy or
reproduce this material except as specifically set forth in this 
license agreement.

1.   You may make copies of this software for your own use
provided you reproduce all copyright notices.

2.   You may not distribute copies to others.  You may, however, 
transfer the original and all copies, along with this license, if
you provide MicroTalk with written notice and the transferee
fills out a registration form and agrees to be bound by the terms
set forth therein.

                           LIMITATIONS

This software is sold as is.  MicroTalk assumes no liability for 
damages of any kind that may arise from the use of this software 
and makes no claims about its fitness for any particular purpose.

The exclusion of implied warranties is not permitted by some
states.  The above exclusion may not apply to you.  This warranty
provides you with specific legal rights.  There may be other
rights that you have which vary from state to state.                        Table of Contents


Getting Started. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  1
     Description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  1
     Requirements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  1
     Additional Information. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  2

Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  2
     Starting ASAW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5

Getting Familiar with the Windows Environment. . . . . . . . .  5
     The Basic Operating Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6
     The Desktop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
     The Start Menu. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
     The Task Bar. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
     The Program Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  9
     Dialog Boxes and Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

ASAW Commands. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
     Reviewing Text. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
     Line Reading Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
     Current Line: Keypad 8. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
     Previous Line: Keypad 7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
     Next Line: Keypad 9 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
     Word Movement Commands. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
     Current Word: Keypad 5. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
     Spell Word: Keypad 5 (again). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
     Previous Word: Keypad 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
     Next Word: Keypad 6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
     Character Movement Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
     Current Character: Keypad 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
     Previous Character: Keypad 1. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
     Next Character: Keypad 3. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
     Additional Information: Keypad 2 (again). . . . . . . . . 16
     Window Movement Commands. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
     Parent Window: Keypad Slash . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
     Child Window: Keypad Star . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
     Previous Window: Keypad Dash. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
     Next Window: Keypad Plus. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
     Announce Window: Keypad Enter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
     Move Mouse: Keypad Dot. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
     Click Mouse: Keypad Dot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Utility Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
     Say All Output: Ctrl+Keypad Dash. . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
     Announce Current Window's Title: Ctrl+Keypad Slash. . . . 20
     Move by Pixels. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
     Read Entire Document: Ctrl+Keypad Enter . . . . . . . . . 20
     Lexicon Manager: Ctrl+Keypad 5. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
          Adding Words to the Lexicon. . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
          Deleting Words from the Lexicon. . . . . . . . . . . 22
          Lexicon Root Word Indicator. . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
          Importing Words from other Lexicon Files . . . . . . 22

Control and Info: Keypad 0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
     The Info Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
     Synthesizer Volume and Rate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
     Cursor Information. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
     Character Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
     Window Information. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
     The Menu Bar. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
     The File Menu: Alt+F. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
     The Scope Menu: Alt+S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
     The Label Menu: Alt+L . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
     Label Images. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
     Label Class . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
     The Punctuation Menu: Alt+P . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
     The Key Menu, Alt+K . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
     Announce Individual Keystrokes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
     Announce Keys as Words. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
     The Options Menu: Alt+O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
     Literary Reading. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
     Edit Class Info . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
     Interactive Caps Identification . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
     Numbers by Digit. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
     Say Whole Line on Hilight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
     Interface Sounds. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
     Window Menu, Alt+W. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
     Activation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
     Announce Window on Activation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
     Beep on Activation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
     Kill Old Speech on Activation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
     Focus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
     Announce Window on Focus. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
     Beep on Focus Change. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
     Kill Old Speech on Focus. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
     Say All Classes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
     The Mouse Menu. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
     Silence is Golden . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

More About Graphics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Appendix A: Installation and Synthesizers. . . . . . . . . . . 33

Appendix B: Trouble Shooting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Appendix C: Windows Keyboard Commands. . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
     System Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
     Documents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
     Dialog Boxes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
     Editing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Appendix D: ASAW Command Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

Appendix E: Further Reading. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
     Windows Resources in Electronic Text Format:. . . . . . . 38
     Windows Resources in Cassette Format: . . . . . . . . . . 38
     Windows Resources Online. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39


                         Getting Started


Description

Automatic Screen Access for Windows (ASAW) makes the MicroSoft
Windows environment both accessible and easy for blind computer
users.

ASAW works by laying dormant in the background, quietly gathering
information about what your screen looks like.  Then, when
something happens to change what appears on the screen, ASAW
announces the changes automatically.  ASAW also lets you
interrogate the screen's contents and navigate to places of
interest by simulating a mouse with keyboard commands.

ASAW lets you control how and what text gets spoken and remembers
those settings for future use.

Requirements

ASAW requires an IBM or compatible computer with at least a 386
processor and 4MB of RAM.  Of course, the faster your processor
and the more RAM you have, the faster and better ASAW works.  You
should already have Windows installed on your machine before
installing ASAW.  ASAW works with Windows version 3.1, Windows
for Work Groups version 3.11, and Windows95.

ASAW is not a huge program.  It should work fine on any machine
that runs Windows.

You do not necessarily need a mouse, but if you have one, ASAW
lets you control the mouse with keyboard commands.  You can also 
simulate a mouse with ASAW if you don't have a mouse.

You need a speech synthesizer.  The only general purpose
synthesizers ASAW currently supports for text-to-speech are the
Creative Labs AWE32 or SB16 with the ASP chip using Text Assist, 
but you can use your sound card for its other audio production
capabilities.

A list of speech synthesizers ASAW supports follows shortly.

Additional Information

There may be additional late-breaking information about this
software that was not included in the manual.  If such
information exists, it is located in a file called README.TXT. 
You may use NotePad or the DOS EDIT command to read this
additional information.


                          Installation

Before you can take advantage of ASAW's capabilities, you must
install it.  The installation process gathers information about
which synthesizer you use, where you want the files installed,
insures your synthesizer works properly, then copies the files
from your distribution disk to the hard disk.

The command ASAW provides to aid with installation is called
Setup.  You can use Setup in one of several ways.  If you don't
have any speech yet, you can give Setup all the information it
needs right from the command line.  If you are upgrading from an 
earlier version of ASAW, or if you have sighted assistance, you
can provide all the information Setup needs through a simple to
use dialog box.

If you use an external synthesizer such as one that connects to
your computer through one of its serial ports, insure that your
synthesizer's power is turned on and that all necessary cables
are connected before starting the Setup program.  Consult your
synthesizer's documentation for information about cable
connections.

How you use setup depends on where you install from and where
you're at when you start the installation process.  If you
install from a floppy disk, you'll precede the setup command with
the drive letter of the drive where the installation disk is
located.  If, for example, you placed your distribution disk in
drive A:, your setup command might look like this:

a:setup

If you obtained an update to ASAW through MicroTalk's BBS or from
the site on the world wide web, you might have the files in a
temporary directory.  In that case, your setup command might look
like this:

c:\temp\setup

In either case, you should either change to the drive or
directory where setup is located or add that information to the
beginning of the setup command as shown in the preceding
examples.

In addition to finding where Setup is located, you might want to 
tell Setup information about which synthesizer you're using.  If 
you're installing an update to ASAW, Setup already knows which
synthesizer is in use and where ASAW is already installed, so you
won't need to provide any additional information.  If, however,
this is a first time installation, you'll want to tell Setup
about your system.

If you don't already have speech going in Windows, you can
provide Setup all the information it needs from the command line. 
To give Setup this information, add a space after the Setup
command, then use one of the synthesizer key words listed in the 
table that follows.  If, for example, you were installing ASAW
from drive A: and you were using a LiteTalk on com1, the command 
would look like this:

a:setup lt1

The "lt1" in this example is the synthesizer key word that
indicates a LiteTalk on com1.  If you're updating ASAW, you don't
need to add the synthesizer information, because Setup uses the
synthesizer you had previously selected on your initial
installation.

By default, Setup puts your ASAW files into a directory called
c:\asaw, but if you want to put them in another location, you may
add that information to the setup command as well.  To tell Setup
a different location for your files, just leave another space
after the synthesizer key word, then type the directory name
where you want the files installed.  If, for instance, you wanted
the files installed on drive G:, your setup command might look
like this:

a:setup lt1 g:\asaw

Finally, you'll need to know where you're at when you start the
Setup command.  If you're installing ASAW from DOS, you must add 
"win" and a space to the beginning of the command like this:

win a:setup lt1

If you're installing from Windows 3.1 or Windows for workgroups, 
press Alt+F to access the file menu, then press "R" to get the
"Run" dialog, then type the Setup command as needed.

If you're using Windows95, press Ctrl+Esc to access the start
menu, then "R" to get the "Run" dialog, then type the Setup
command as needed.



Key Word   Synthesizer

OB    Use existing OpenBook settings
AccentPC   Accent PC or IC Messenger (internal)
Artic215   Artic 215 synthesizer
DecTalk    Dec-Talk PC or DEC-Talk Express
DublTalk   DoubleTalk internal
KeyNote    Any Keynote Gold
SB Sounding Board or Speak Out
Smartalk   SmartTalk using parallel port

Use the first key word in the following list if your synthesizer 
is connected to COM1.  Use the second key word if your
synthesizer is connected to COM2:

COM1      COM2       External Synthesizer using a Serial Port

Accent18  Accent28   Stand alone Accent using 8 data bits
Accent17  Accent27   Stand Alone Accent using 7 data bits
Audapt1   Audapt2    Audapter
BNS1      BNS2       Braille 'n Speak, Type -n Speak, or Braille
Blazer
EchoPC1   EchoPC2    Echo PC
LT1       LT2        LiteTalk or DoubleTalk LT

If you already use ArkenStone's OpenBook software, you can tell
Setup to use the setup already established by OpenBook by using
the OB key word.  This option tells ASAW to look in OpenBook's
settings file to determine the driver's name.

In addition to the synthesizer support provided on the main
distribution disk, ASAW supports any synthesizer conforming to
the newly emerging SSIL standard first designed and developed by 
Arkenstone, Inc.  If your synthesizer's name doesn't appear on
the list of synthesizers supplied on the main distribution disk, 
check the supplemental synthesizer driver disk that also ships
with ASAW, or check your synthesizer's documentation for the
existence of a SSIL driver for that synthesizer.  Once you
determine the synthesizer's SSIL name, use that name as the
synthesizer keyword for Setup.  If Setup sees that you typed a
synthesizer's name that isn't included on the main distribution
disk, it asks you to insert the driver disk, then press Enter to 
continue.

See "Appendix A" for more information about ASAW's use of
synthesizers.



Starting ASAW

Installing ASAW copies all the necessary files and creates
startup information, but it does not change your Windows setup to
automatically start ASAW whenever you run Windows.  Instead, the 
installation program makes a new command named AW that starts
Windows and tells Windows to start ASAW.  That way, if you want
to start Windows without speech, you can type "win," and if you
do want to start Windows with speech, you type "aw."  Later, if
you decide you always want to start Windows with speech, you can 
either put ASAW into your startup group, or you can add a
"load=c:\asaw\asaw" line in your win.ini file.

To test ASAW from the DOS prompt, type the following:

AW

If you already have Windows running, type the following from the
Run dialog in Program Manager or from the Windows95 Start Menu:

c:\asaw\asaw

You get to the Run dialog from Program Manager in Window 3.1 by
pressing Alt+F, then "R".

From Windows95, get to the Run dialog by pressing Ctrl+Esc, then
"R".


If your machine does not talk when Windows starts, check
"Appendix B" for trouble shooting tips.

          Getting Familiar with the Windows Environment

Before you can successfully operate many Windows programs, it
will be very helpful to note some general guidelines about how
most effectively to use Windows with speech synthesis.

Most speech users find it vastly more efficient to use Windows'
built in short cut keys to perform tasks that can also be
performed with a mouse.  You can still use the mouse to perform
tasks, and in some cases, you will be required to do so, but
using the keyboard is much simpler and more direct.

The Basic Operating Environment

No matter which operating system or environment you use, there is
always a "home base," a place from which you start tasks, and a
place you return to when you finish with those tasks.  In MS-DOS,
that home base is the command prompt, the ubiquitous c:\.  It is
the command prompt from which you launch your other programs, and
it is the command prompt you return to when you finish with those
programs.  In Windows 3.1, the home base is Program Manager, a
tool to organize and start applications, tools, or other
functions.  You use Program Manager to point to a tool to use,
and it is Program Manager you return to when you finish with that
tool.  The home base in Windows95 is a little more flexible and
interesting.  The next couple of paragraphs outline the details. 
If you don't use Windows95, feel free to skip ahead to the
"Program Manager" section of this manual.  In either case, keep
in mind that the discussion focuses on using the environment with
the built-in Windows commands, so before you learn a thing about
ASAW, you can follow the discussion and let ASAW tell you what
you need to know.  Later, when you get an understanding of how to
accomplish tasks in this environment, you will learn more about
how to control the speech .  If you already know how to get
around in Windows, skip ahead to the next chapter.

The basic operating environment in Windows95 revolves around the
desktop concept.  In this environment, you have three main areas
of functionality ready to use.  These three items are the
desktop, the Start button, and the Task bar.

The desktop is a handy place where you keep your most often used
tools, much like your real desktop.  The Start button is a
control you use to access the Start menu which is a place where
all your programs are located.  The Task bar is a control that
displays and lets you go directly to any open applications or
documents.

To get to this operating environment, no matter where you are or
what you are doing, press Alt+Esc, then press the Esc key again
(without the Control key).  This leaves you pointing at the Start
button.  Next, press Alt+M.  Pressing Alt+M while you are on
either the Start button or the Task Bar minimizes all open
programs and brings your desktop to the foreground.  

The Desktop

Use the arrow keys to move from item to item on the desktop. 
Notice the items on the desktop are arranged in rows and columns,
so you need to use both the right and left arrow keys and the up
and down arrow keys to move through all the items on the desktop. 
When you first get your computer or when you first install
Windows95, there will only be a few items on your desktop, so all
your objects will probably be all in one column and directly
accessible with the up and down arrow keys.  As you add more
items, however, a new column gets started to hold the new items,
and you will have to use the right and left arrows to move from
column to column.

When you get to an item you want to use, press the Enter key to
open or use that object.  One object you can practice with is My
Computer.  When you open My Computer, you get a list of objects
contained in your computer.  You see all your disk drives
represented plus some extra objects like Control Panel, Printers,
and possibly Dial-up Networking.  To use one of these objects,
move to it with the arrow keys, then press Enter to open it.

When you are finished with an object, like My Computer, press
Alt+F4 to close it and return to where you were when you opened
the object.

In addition to using the arrow keys to move through the
individual items on the desktop, you can use the Tab key to move
from the desktop to the Start button.  Pressing Tab again while
you are on the Start button moves you to the Task Bar.  Pressing
Tab yet again while you are on the Task Bar moves you back to the
desktop.  As with many situations in Windows95, in addition to
using Tab to move from control to control, you can also use
Shift+Tab to move backward through the controls.  While there
isn't much of a need for this feature when there are only three
controls to cycle through, you will find the ability to move back
to the previous control very handy when the number of controls in
a particular place increases.

The Start Menu

When you point to the Start button, press either Enter or Space
to activate the button and display the Start menu.  Note that in
addition to moving to the Start button, you can press Ctrl+Esc
from anywhere you happen to be to get directly to the Start menu.

The Start menu contains several useful items that help with
managing your computer.  Among the items on the Start menu are
Programs, Documents, Run, Shutdown, Settings, and Help. 
Depending on what software you installed, there may be additional
items on the Start menu.  You can, in fact, add items to the
Start menu yourself.

While there is a more thoro discussion of menus later, for now,
all you need to know to use this menu is that pressing the up and
down arrows move from item to item in the menu.  Pressing Enter
selects the menu item you point to.  Pressing Escape backs out to
the previous menu.    You will want to try this right away,
because the Start menu contains many important functions.

One item in the Start menu, Shutdown, is one you will quickly
become familiar with, because shutting off your computer without
using the shutdown option makes Windows unhappy.  This sounds
like more of a pain than it really is but, once you realize that
you can press Ctrl+Esc to get to the Start menu, then press "U"
to select the Shutdown option, then press Enter to accept the
default first item, Shutdown your Computer, in the Shutdown menu,
you can easily shut the system down from the keyboard, even if
you don't have speech going.  Many of the newer models of
computers also shut themselves off when you use the Shutdown
option.

The Programs selection on the Start Menu brings up another menu
of all the software you have installed on your system.  This menu
is equivalent to the kind of information you get from Program
Manager, except the interface is a little more standardized.

When you first open Programs, you see a list of all the groups of
applications you have.  Accessories and Automatic Screen Access
for Windows are probably two that you will see right away.  The
other items that appear on the Programs menu depend on what
software you have installed on your system.  Most of the items on
the Programs menu are folders that hold individual components of
a group of items.  Selecting Accessories, for instance, opens the
Accessories folder and displays a list of the individual items
that comprise the Accessories group.

The Task Bar

The Task bar is a control that shows which programs are currently
running.  If you have ASAW running, its name shows up in the Task
bar.  Once you become a little more familiar with getting around
in Windows, you'll use the Task bar to quickly get back to an
application you temporarily suspended while you performed some
other task.


The Program Manager

Program Manager is a Windows program who's purpose is to launch
other applications.  When you start Windows 3.1 or Windows for
Work Groups, the Program Manager is usually the first thing you
see.  If you are using Windows95, you can still use Program
Manager if you want to follow this discussion or if you are
already familiar with Program Manager under an earlier version of
Windows.  To do so, press Ctrl+Escape (to open the Start Menu),
then "r" (for "run"), then type "progman" and press Enter.  Note
that even if you use Windows95 and don't plan to use Program
Manager much, following this discussion is useful, because
Program Manager is an example of a typical Multiple Document
Interface program, and the concepts you learn about here apply to
any Multiple Document Interface application.

If you start Windows versions earlier than Windows95 with a
command line option to start another program as the AW command
does, Program manager minimizes itself to give you more space to 
work with the application you specified on the command line. 
Since ASAW doesn't have a screen to work with, this behavior
isn't necessarily what you want, but you can just press Enter to 
open Program Manager to its normal size.

  If you decide to add ASAW to your startup group or put the
load= line in your win.ini file, you won't need to open Program
Manager this way.

Program Manager divides your applications into groups and is
fairly typical of a Windows program that uses several windows to 
display multiple documents.  In this case, the documents are
groups of related programs, but documents in other programs might
be word processor files or even directories on your computer's
hard disk..  A Program Manager group might contain several files 
related to a specific application or several files related in
some way. The "Main" group, for instance, comes already installed
with Windows and contains such useful programs as File Manager
and Control Panel.

To move from group to group with Program Manager, press Ctrl+Tab. 
To move backwards through the groups, press Shift+Ctrl+Tab.  You 
may also use Ctrl+F6 to move from group to group and
Ctrl+Shift+F6 to move backwards from group to group.  This is, in
fact, the more common method of moving from window to window
within an application that contains multiple documents.  Notice
as you move from group to group, ASAW announces the highlighted
item in that group, then it announces the rest of the information
in that group.

Program Manager groups are sometimes "iconized."  This means that
instead of seeing all the files in a particular group, you see a 
picture representing the group's contents.  To see what the group
contains, you must first open the group by pressing Enter or by
clicking twice with the mouse button.  Closing the group saves
screen real estate, but is generally not advantageous to the
average speech user.

Once you open a group or move to an already opened group, use the
arrow keys to move your selector from item to item within the
group.  Notice that as you move to a new item in that group, ASAW
announces the name of the item you just highlighted.  To select
the item you point at, press Enter.

When you press Enter, Program Manager either starts the
application you selected or starts an application that is
associated with a data file you selected.  To end the application
and return back to Program Manager, press Alt+F4.

Alt+F4 is one of those commands you want to remember, because it 
is used to close any Windows application.  Alt+F4 even shuts down
Windows itself.  Note that if you press Alt+F4 from Program
Manager in versions of Windows earlier than Windows95, you must
also confirm your request to close Windows by pressing the Enter 
key.  Under Windows95, pressing Alt+F4 in Program Manager does
not shut down Windows; instead, it acts like any other program
and simply returns to the previously used task.

Most applications do not require confirmation when you press the 
close command.  Instead, the application closes immediately, and 
you go back to the application you were in when you launched that
application.  At first glance, you might think pressing the close
command always returns to Program Manager, but while this is true
if you started the application from Program Manager, there are
instances where an application starts another application. Take
the case of help for example.  When you press F1, the application
starts another program called WinHelp that provides context
sensitive help.  You can use the Help application as long as you 
like to browse for related material, and you can even leave the
Help application open while you go back to your application, but 
in most cases, when you are through with Help, you press Alt+F4
and return immediately to the place you were in the original
application when you requested help.

Dialog Boxes and Controls

If you use the close command to leave an application that still
contains work you have not saved, the application will not go
immediately back to the previous application and throw away all
your work.  Instead, it initiates a dialog with you about what
you want to do with this unsaved material.

The dialog gets displayed as a box with information and controls 
that let you communicate with the application.  These controls
come in a variety of forms.

One basic kind of control is called a button.  Button controls
usually have labels that indicate what the control does.  In the 
case of the dialog box that asks you to save a file before
exiting, there might be a button for a yes response, a no
response, and additional buttons for help and to cancel the
operation.

There are a few ways to select the button control you want. 
First, you can usually press the letter of the control.  You can 
also move from control to control with the Tab key. Pressing
Shift+Tab moves back through the controls.  Once you end up on
the control you want to use, press Enter to select it.  As you
use the Tab and Shift+Tab to move from control to control, ASAW
says the control's name, so you know which control you are on. 
Sometimes, a dialog box presents a series of buttons arranged in 
a group where only one button at a time is used. Once you tab to 
a group of buttons like this, you use the arrow keys to move from
button to button in that group, and you use the space bar to
select the button to turn on.  As usual, the tab key moves you
off the group of buttons to the next control in the dialog box.

In addition to button controls, dialog boxes contain controls
that let you specify information in a variety of ways.  A list
box control, for example, presents a list of items that you move 
through with the arrow keys.  An edit control lets you enter a
line or more of information like a file name.  scroll bar
controls adjust a value within a range of values.  ASAW uses
scroll bar controls, for example, to let you adjust the speed and
volume of your speech synthesizer.

Dialog boxes are an effective means of expressing how you want to
control a program, and they get used extensively in Windows.

Two other dialog box keyboard commands worth remembering are
Escape to cancel and Enter to accept the default action.

Obviously, there is yet another way to work with a dialog box--
with the mouse.  The mouse is most appealing to sighted users,
especially novices, because it is easy to make one quick motion
to put the mouse pointer on the control of interest and click the
mouse button.  Using the mouse isn't nearly as viable an option
for the blind computer user, however, because it is useful to be 
able to tell where the mouse needs to go in order to move it
there.
ASAW provides a means of moving the mouse pointer for those times
when using the mouse to control a particular aspect of a program 
is required, but in general, the average blind user works much
more productively using the Windows keyboard shortcut commands.

A few short instructions are all it takes to get a sighted user
started with Windows.  Move the mouse in the direction you want
to go.  To select an object, move to it and click the mouse
button.  Double click to start an application.

As a blind user, you have a few more rules to remember, but once 
you do, the commands work with nearly any Windows application.

Appendix C contains more shortcut keyboard commands that you will
find useful while working in the Windows environment.

                          ASAW Commands

So far, the discussion concentrated on commands that Windows
provides to navigate and control your applications.  Those
commands work whether you are using speech access or not.  In
this section, you will learn about commands that ASAW provides to
give you control and access to what gets displayed on the screen.

Reviewing Text

ASAW uses the numeric keypad for its commands.  The commands are 
arranged logically, so remembering them should be easy.  The keys
on the keypad let you examine the screen.  The keypad 0 opens a
"Control and Info" dialog box that lets you adjust various
aspects of your speech environment.

If you're not familiar with the layout of the numeric keypad, see
the diagram below.

NumLock         Slash   Star    Dash

7               8       9       Plus

4               5       6       Plus

1               2       3       Enter

0               0       Dot     Enter

Line Reading Commands

The first row of numbers, the 7, 8, and 9, are ASAW's line
reading commands.    They always function in the context of the
current window.  If the current window isn't what you're
interested in reviewing, use ASAW's Window Reading commands to
move to another window, or use the application's commands to move
to the window of interest.

Current Line: Keypad 8

The Current Line command, as its name suggests announces the
contents of the current line.  ASAW determines the current line
based on a number of factors depending on what kind of
application you're using.  If the application contains a
highlighted item you choose from a list box, for example, ASAW
makes that item the current line.  If, on the other hand, you're 
using an editing program or an edit box control, the current line
is the line that contains the caret.  If you use ASAW's Previous 
Line or Next Line commands, the new line you move to with those
commands is the current line until you press another key that
makes the application change something about what ASAW considers 
the current line.  Pressing the Down Arrow in an editing program,
for instance, makes ASAW change its notion of the current line to
the new line that now contains the caret, even if you moved to
another line with one of ASAW's Line Movement commands.

Previous Line: Keypad 7

The Previous Line command moves ASAW's reading cursor to the line
above the current line and makes that line the new current line. 
If there are intervening blank lines, ASAW skips those blank
lines and moves directly to the previous line of text or images
on the screen.

If you are already at the top of the window, pressing the
Previous Line command makes ASAW say "Top," then it repeats the
contents of the current line.

Next Line: Keypad 9

The Next Line command moves ASAW's reading position to the next
line of text or images on the screen.  Again, if there are blank 
lines between the current line and the next line, ASAW skips
those blank lines.

If the current line is already the last line in the current
window, pressing the Next Line command makes ASAW say, "Bottom"
and repeat the current line.

As you move from line to line with the Previous Line and Next
Line commands, ASAW tries to keep the horizontal cursor position 
constant. This lets you easily move up, for instance, to see what
appears immediately above what you are reading when items appear 
in columns. Program Manager's icons are a good example of a
situation like this. Usually, there are several items listed on a
line with their respective icons listed on the line immediately
above the text.  To easily find which icon is associated with
what text, move to the previous line, then press the Read Current
Word command.

Word Movement Commands

The keys on the middle row of the numeric keypad, the 4, 5, and 6
move from word to word.  As with the line commands, they move to 
the previous, current, and next unit.  Pressing the current word 
command twice makes ASAW spell the word.

Current Word: Keypad 5

The Current Word command makes ASAW announce the current word. 
If the current word is actually an icon or symbol, ASAW says the 
entire name of the icon or symbol, even if its name contains more
than one word.

Spell Word: Keypad 5 (again)

Pressing the Current Word twice makes ASAW spell the current
word.  If the current word is actually an icon or symbol, the
Spell Word command spells all the words in the label associated
with that icon or symbol.

Previous Word: Keypad 4

The Previous Word command moves ASAW's reading cursor to the
previous word in the current window.  ASAW treats icon and symbol
names, no matter their length, as a single word.

If you press the Previous Word command while ASAW's reading
cursor is already on the first word or image on a line, ASAW
beeps to let you know it is moving to the previous line, then it 
reads the last word on that line.

If you use the Previous Word command when the reading cursor is
already on the first word in the current window, ASAW says,
"Left" and announces the current word again.

Next Word: Keypad 6

The Next Word command moves ASAW's reading cursor to the next
word or image in the current window.  As with the Previous Word
command, if you move to an icon or symbol whose name contains
more than one word, ASAW announces the entire name of the image.

If you use the Next Word command while already on the last word
or image on a line, ASAW beeps to let you know it is moving to a 
new line, then it reads the first word or image on that new line.

If you use the Next Word command when your reading cursor is
already on the last word in the current window, ASAW says,
"Right" then repeats the current word or image name.

Character Movement Commands

The 1, 2, and 3 on the keypad's bottom row of numbers read the
previous, current, and next character or image.  When you use the
character movement commands, ASAW always pronounces punctuation
characters, even if you have them turned off for normal reading. 
If the next or previous object is a symbol or icon, ASAW moves to
that item and announces the item.

Current Character: Keypad 2

The Current Character command makes ASAW announce either the name
of the character at the reading cursor or the name of the symbol 
or icon at the reading cursor.

Previous Character: Keypad 1

The Previous Character command moves ASAW's reading cursor to the
previous character, icon, or symbol in the current window.  If
the new character is an image, ASAW says the name of the entire
image, not just one character of it.  If you don't understand the
name of an image, you can use the Control and Info dialog box in 
conjunction with ASAW's Character Movement commands to examine
the image's name letter by letter.

If the previous character appears on the previous line of the
current window, ASAW beeps to indicate that it is moving the
reading cursor to a new line before announcing that character's
name.

Next Character: Keypad 3

ASAW's Next Character command moves the reading cursor to the
next character in the current window.  As with the other
character reading commands, ASAW announces punctuation
character's names even if you don't currently have punctuation
announcement turned on.  If the next character is an icon or
symbol, ASAW announces the entire name of the image.

If you use the Next Character command when your reading cursor is
already on the last character of the line, ASAW beeps to let you 
know it is moving the reading position to the next line before
announcing the next character's name.

Additional Information: Keypad 2 (again)

Pressing keypad 2 twice elicits additional information about the 
current character or object.

The additional information you get with successive presses of the
Current Character command corresponds to the information in the
Control and Info dialog box Character list box.  If the current
object is a letter, you get the phonetic pronunciation of that
letter with the first press of the Current Character command. 
Along with the phonetic pronunciation, ASAW announces that
character's position in the current window.  This position is
expressed as the number of pixels right from the left edge of the
client area of the window and the number of pixels down from the 
top of the window.  

The client area of a window is that part of the window that gets 
updated when something changes in the window.  You can usually
consider the client area of a window to be all the parts of the
window except the title and menu bar.  If your reading cursor is 
in the non-client part of the window (the title or the menu bar),
ASAW expresses the position as a negative number from the client 
area.  If, for example, your reading cursor were on the title of 
a window, the position might be reported as 5 right -19 down.

If the current character were the letter p, you might hear
something like, "Papa 4 down 20 right" when you press the Current
Character command for the second time.

A third press of the Current Character command announces that
character's position from the top of the screen.  Again, this
position is expressed in numbers of pixels.

Pressing the Current Character again announces the character's
font name and any attributes associated with that character.  If 
the letter were in a New Roman font, and it were also underlined,
you might hear, "New Roman Underlined."  If the letter were also 
bold, you would hear, "New Roman Underlined Bold."

Window Movement Commands

In addition to the previously discussed commands that let you
examine the text within a window, ASAW supports additional
commands that let you move from window to window.  These keys are
arranged around the edge of the numeric keypad.  Once you move to
a new window with one of the window movement commands, you can
use the text oriented commands to examine the text in that new
window.

The window movement commands provide both a means of quickly
navigating to another window and a way to expand your view of
what text and images appear in an application's space on the
screen.  You may, for example, use the Next Window to walk
through all the child windows in a dialog box.  Or, if you want
to examine the overall appearance of a dialog box, you can use
the Parent Window command to get a more broad view of the dialog 
box.

In addition to moving through controls in a dialog box, the Next 
and Previous Window commands, especially when combined with the
Child and Parent Window commands, give you a quick way to
navigate through all the open windows on your screen.

Parent Window: Keypad Slash

ASAW's Parent Window command is probably one of the more
frequently used reading commands.  It both moves your reading
cursor to the parent of the current window and reads the entire
contents of that new window.

There are several reasons for moving to a window's parent.  If,
for example, you are in an edit box control that is part of a
dialog box, using the Parent Window command gives you a wider
perspective of that the dialog box contains.

In addition to getting a broader perspective on a window's
contents, the Parent Window command lets you walk through all the
open applications on your desk top.

Child Window: Keypad Star

The Child Window command moves ASAW's reading cursor to the first
child window of the current window and makes that new window the 
current window.  Once you've moved to a child window, you can use
the Previous Window and Next Window commands to walk through the 
rest of the child windows in that window.

Previous Window: Keypad Dash

The Previous Window command moves ASAW's reading cursor to the
previous window.  The previous window depends on what kind of
application you are currently using.  If your current window is
currently a control in a dialog box, the Previous Window moves to
the previous control in that dialog box.  If your current window 
is an application's main window, the Previous Window command
moves you to the previous top level window of another
application.  If that application contains child windows, you can
press the Child Window command to move to that window's first
child window then use the Previous Window and Next Window
commands to move through that window's child windows.

If you use the Previous Window command while looking at the first
child window, ASAW says, "Last" then moves your reading cursor to
the last sibling window.

Next Window: Keypad Plus

The Next Window command moves ASAW's reading cursor to the next
sibling window.  If your current window is already the last
window, the Next Window command moves your reading cursor to the 
first sibling then announces "First" before reading the contents 
of that new window.



Announce Window: Keypad Enter

The keypad's Enter key announces the entire contents of the
current window.  This is not always the same as the active
window.  If the Enter key doesn't give you enough information,
press the keypad's Slash key, then try the Enter key again.

Move Mouse: Keypad Dot

The Dot on the keypad is your mouse movement key.  Pressing the
Dot moves the system's mouse pointer to your reading position. 
If the mouse pointer is already at the reading position, the Dot 
clicks the mouse button.

When you press the Dot, ASAW says, "Moved" as the mouse pointer
moves to the reading position.

Click Mouse: Keypad Dot

If you press the Dot when the mouse pointer is already at the
reading position, ASAW says, "Click" as it clicks the mouse
button.

Many times, you will want to double-click the mouse button.  This
is how the user tells Windows to open an application or folder.
Double-clicking means to quickly click the mouse button twice. 
You can double-click the pseudo mouse button by quickly pressing 
the Dot key twice.  Remember to move the mouse to the reading
position before clicking it though.

Another common operation associated with the mouse in Windows is 
"Dragging."  Dragging refers to the process of pressing down on
the mouse button, then, while the button is still depressed,
moving the mouse pointer to another place on the screen before
releasing the button.  This is a common means of moving an item
from one place to another.  You may have heard the term "drag and
drop."  Releasing the mouse button at a new location is the
"drop" part of this procedure, so as you move the mouse while
holding down the button, you drag; when you release the button,
you drop the item you are dragging to a new location.

ASAW lets you drag the mouse, too.  Holding down the Dot key,
however, while moving to another place on the screen would
quickly become tedious.  Instead of holding down the Dot key
while you move to another place on the screen, hold down the Dot 
key until you hear a beep from your computer's speaker.  This
signals you that ASAW is holding down the button for you while
you move to another position so you can then release the Dot key 
and use the normal navigation commands to browse the screen and
move to another position.  Once you get to the place where you
want to release the mouse button, press the Dot key again.  ASAW 
says, "moved" to indicate the operation's success.  Once ASAW
moves the mouse pointer to the new position, it automatically
releases the button for you.

                        Utility Commands

The commands in this section don't necessarily relate directly to
reading what is on the screen.  Instead, these commands perform
some function that changes the way ASAW behaves.

Say All Output: Ctrl+Keypad Dash

The Say All Output command makes ASAW say everything that gets
put onto the screen as it gets put onto the screen.  Normally
Windows repeats items so much that this command is not useful,
but there are cases where you'll find it handy.

One of the most useful functions for the Say All Output command
is with the use of a terminal program.  You can think of the Say 
All Output command as equivalent to routing all the output of a
DOS program through BIOS if that means anything to you.

Announce Current Window's Title: Ctrl+Keypad Slash


The Announce Window Title command makes ASAW announce the current
window's title if it has one.  If the current window has no
title, ASAW announces the title of the currently active window.

Move by Pixels

In addition to moving your reading cursor by textual or image
units, ASAW lets you move the reading cursor by pixels.  Use the
keypad and the Control key to move as follows:

7 moves up 10 pixels.
9 moves down 10 pixels.
1 moves left 7 pixels.
3 moves right 7 pixels.

When you use the pixel movement commands, ASAW announces the
current position of the reading cursor.

Read Entire Document: Ctrl+Keypad Enter

Pressing the Continuous Reading key, Ctrl+Keypad Enter, makes
ASAW read an applications's document.  You will use this function
to read, for example, a file in a word processor, or some text
while browsing the world wide web.

When you press the Continuous Reading key, ASAW begins by reading
the current screen of text.  Once the current screen's text is
spoken, ASAW gives the program a key to make it display the next
page of text.  Once the program you're working with displays the
next screen full of text, ASAW waits for the screen to stabilize,
analyzes the new text, throws out any duplicate lines that were
left over from the previous screen, and repeats the process by
reading the current screen.

Once you begin reading a document with Continuous Reading, you
can still use the normal keys the application expects to move
through the document.  It is not uncommon, for instance, to press
Page Down several times to skip past parts of the document that
don't interest you.  You can also press Page Up to move back to a
previous part of the document.

To stop Continuous Reading, press the Control key by itself.

Lexicon Manager: Ctrl+Keypad 5

There are a lot of words your synthesizer can't pronounce
properly. Such words include proper nouns, acronyms, and other
unusual words often from origins other than English.

ASAW contains a lexicon management tool for making words get
pronounced correctly by your synthesizer.  The tool works by
letting you type a misspelled version of the mispronounced word
to make that alternate spelling get used when it goes to your
speech synthesizer.  This misspelling won't show up on your
screen or in any of your documents--it is merely a means to let
ASAW correct the pronunciation of words that your synthesizer
wouldn't otherwise pronounce correctly.

The Lexicon Management tool shows you a list of words you have
defined along with their alternate pronunciations.  It also
contains Add, Delete, Close, and Cancel buttons.  You can move
through the list of words and change any pronunciations, delete
the current word, or add new words to the list by using the
appropriate controls.

There are two ways to access the Lexicon Manager.  The method you
use depends on what you want to do.  If you just want to browse
through the list and possibly change pronunciations or add a
series of new words, open Lexicon Manager with the Words option
in ASAW's Label menu.  If, on the other hand, you come accross a
word that needs an alternate, corrected pronunciation, you'll
probably want to point to that word on the screen, then press
ASAW's Lexicon Manager key, Ctrl+Keypad 5.  When you access the
Lexicon Manager this way, it automatically puts the word you were
pointing at into the Original Word edit box and puts you in
position to type the new pronunciation for that word.

Once you type the pronunciation, you can exit the dialog with the
Enter key.  You can also use the Add button to add additional
words, or you can move through the list and edit pronunciations
or delete words from the lexicon.

Adding Words to the Lexicon

When you press the Add button, Lexicon Manager makes a new, empty
Original Word entry for you and waits for you to type the word to
add to the lexicon.  When you get the word typed, move to the
Pronounced As edit box.  Notice, when you move to the Pronounced
As edit box, Lexicon Manager puts a copy of the original word in
the edit box, ready for you to change in whatever way is
necessary to make it sound right.  If you would prefer to type a
new definition from scratch, delete the word Lexicon Manager
entered for you.  You can listen to the way the word gets
pronounced as you are typing it by pressing ASAW's current line
key.

When you are happy with the new pronunciation, push the button
that indicates which action you want next.  If you are through
adding words to the lexicon, use the Close button to preserve
your list to disk.

Deleting Words from the Lexicon

To delete a word from the lexicon, move to the list portion of
the dialog box that shows the original words and scroll down to
the word to delete.  Next, click the Delete button (or use the
Alt+D shortcut key) to delete the word.

If you accidentally delete a word, press Lexicon Manager's Cancel
button.  Otherwise, use the Close button to save the changes you
made to your lexicon.

Lexicon Root Word Indicator

As you add words into the lexicon for proper pronunciation, you
will eventually notice that many of the words you want to re-
define have the same root word.  The words psychology,
psychologist, and psychological, for instance, all start with
"psych".  Lexicon Manager lets you handle root words by
recognizing the "*" character as a root word indicator. To
correct these three words and any other words derived from the
psych prefix, add an entry like the following to the lexicon:

Original Word: psych*    Pronounced As: sike

When using the Lexicon Manager key to define words right from the
screen, you may occasionally find it useful to edit the original
word to add a root word indicator or to change the original word
in some other way.  You can easily move back to the Original Word
edit box by pressing Shift+Tab while in the Pronounced As edit
box.

Importing Words from other Lexicon Files

The Lexicon Manager's Import button lets you import lexicons from
other ASAW users.  To import the words from a new lexicon, click
the Import button, then type the complete name of the lexicon
file to import.

When you import another user's lexicon, Lexicon Manager adds any
words you don't already have defined into your lexicon.  Scroll
through the new entries and insure you imported what you think
you imported, then either use the Close button to preserve the
changes or use Cancel to abandon the changes you just made.

                   Control and Info: Keypad 0

Keypad 0 accesses ASAW's Control and Info dialog box.

The Control and Info dialog box provides additional information
about what is on the screen and lets you change how that
information gets presented to you.

When you first press keypad 0, ASAW presents a series of controls
and a menu that lets you control your speaking environment.

As with any dialog box, use the Tab key to move from control to
control. Use the Alt key to access the menu.

The Info Window

The first control in the control and info dialog box is an edit
box that contains information about the kind of window you were
focused on when you entered the Control and Info dialog box.  You
can use the options menu to customize this text when you make
settings for a particular program.

Synthesizer Volume and Rate

The two scroll bars give you access to your synthesizer's rate
and volume. When you get to the scroll bar you want to control,
use the Right Arrow and Left Arrow keys to adjust the value.

Cursor Information


The Cursor Information list box provides information about where 
your mouse pointer and caret position are.

Character Information

The middle list box in the Control and Info dialog box contains
complete information about the current character.  If the current
character is an icon or symbol, you may use the reading keys to
examine the name of the image in any detail you like.

Window Information

The third list box provides information about the current window. 
Its name, class name, and size are among the information
supplied.

The Menu Bar

In addition to the controls in the Control and Info dialog box,
there are several menus that let you change the way ASAW behaves.

The File Menu: Alt+F

In this version of ASAW, the File menu contains only one option--
Remove ASAW from Memory.  You'll select this command to
completely remove ASAW from memory.  This shuts ASAW off and
returns your system to normal operation.

The Scope Menu: Alt+S

The Scope Menu lets you tell ASAW how specific you want to get
about other adjustments you make.  By default, the scope of your 
settings effect the application you are in when you press the
keypad 0 to access the Control and Info dialog.  Furthermore, the
scope is restricted to the class of the object you were on when
you pressed the Control and Info access key.  There are times,
however, when you want a setting to apply to every program you
run.  Say, for example, that you don't want to hear keystrokes
when you type.  If you turned off keystroke announcements with
the scope set to "This Program-This Class," the keystrokes get
turned off only for the program you're currently using.  If you
want the setting you adjust to apply in all situations, you'd
want to change the scope to "Default" before adjusting the
keystroke announcement feature.

Once you exit the Control and Info dialog, ASAW sets the Scope
back to "This Program, This Class," which is where you'll want it
most of the time.

In addition to This Program-This Class, you can set the scope to 
Default as previously discussed for adjusting settings that you
want to apply in every situation.  If you want the settings you
change to apply to all programs with the specified class, you'd
set scope to All Programs-This Class.  This option is useful if
you want to make a control act a specific way, and you want that 
setting to apply to that control no matter what program you're
using.  Say, for example, you want punctuation to be turned on in
all list boxes.  To do that, you'd move to a list box, then press
keypad 0 to access the Control and Info dialog.  Next, set scope 
to This Class-All Programs.  Finally, go to the Punctuation Menu 
and turn on punctuation.  

In addition to Default and This Class-All Programs, you can make 
the scope a little more specific by choosing This Class and Title
for All Programs.  When you have the scope set on this value, the
settings you change only effect controls or windows with the same
class and the same title, but the settings effect every program
with that class and title.  This setting would be useful if, for 
example, you wanted to turn on punctuation for all buttons with
the title OK, but leave the rest of the buttons set to whatever
the default punctuation was.

Like the Default scope, where the setting effects all windows and
controls in all programs, you can set the scope to effect all
windows and controls in a specific program.  That's what the This
Program, All Classes setting does.

The This Program, This Class scope setting has already been
discussed and is probably where you'll want to leave the scope
setting for most situations.

The most specific setting for the scope option is This Program,
This Class and Title.  This setting is useful when you want a
setting only to apply to a specific window without effecting
other windows or controls in that class.

The Label Menu: Alt+L

The Label menu lets you label keys, icons, symbols, and cursors. 
If you were pointing to a picture when you entered the control
panel, the Picture selection will be available.  If you were not 
pointing to a picture when you entered the control panel, this
selection will be disabled, and you will not be able to select
it.
Label Images

The Picture selection on the Label menu gives you another dialog 
that shows you the current label for the picture and lets you
change it.  The dialog also shows a list of dictionary files
where these labels get stored.  The list box selection is already
pointing at the dictionary that contains the label for the
picture you are labeling, but you may move the selection bar to
put your label into another dictionary.

If you are new to Windows and ASAW, don't worry about where you
put the labels for now.  ASAW sees the new label no matter which 
dictionary file you put it in.  Later, you will find it
convenient to add your labels to specific files so you can share 
dictionary files with other ASAW users.

Once you access the Label Picture dialog box, simply type the
label for the picture and press Enter.  ASAW automatically saves 
the label in the current dictionary file and returns you to the
Control and Info dialog box.  If you change your mind about a
label, press Escape to cancel the dialog and return to the
Control and Info dialog box without changing the picture's label.

The Label Keys option is not currently supported.

Label Class

The Label Class option on the Label menu lets you assign a label 
to be announced when you move to a window or control with that
class.  Many controls are already labeled by default, so if you
don't like the label used, you may change its name here.  When
you move to a control or window that has its class labeled, that 
label gets spoken.  This is what makes ASAW say "button" when you
move to a button.  You will find this option useful if you run
into a program that has an unusual or non-standard name for a
control that is similar to a more standard control.  There are
some programs, for example, that have button controls with the
class of "btn" instead of "button".  Using the Label Class menu
option, you can assign the label "button" to these controls so
they'll act and sound like a normal button control.

The Punctuation Menu: Alt+P

The Punctuation menu lets you adjust the kind of punctuation you 
hear in a specific environment.  The first selection on the
Punctuation menu is "Say Punctuation."  Pressing Enter while
pointing to Say Punctuation changes the state of the menu item
and changes how ASAW deals with punctuation symbols.  If there is
a check mark by the Say Punctuation selection, ASAW says
punctuation as you read.  If there is no check mark, ASAW does
not pronounce punctuation marks.

The Edit Yes Exceptions selection on the Punctuation menu lets
you define a series of punctuation characters you don't want to
hear even when punctuation is being spoken.

Similarly, the Edit No Exceptions selection on the Punctuation
menu lets you define a series of punctuation characters that will
get spoken even if you have punctuation turned off.

Selecting either of the exception items on the Punctuation menu
presents you a simple dialog box that lets you edit the currently
defined set of punctuation characters for that item.

The Key Menu, Alt+K

The Key Menu is where you adjust how you want ASAW to announce
your keystrokes.

Announce Individual Keystrokes

By default, ASAW announces each key as you type it.  If you want 
to change this behavior, uncheck the Announce Individual
Keystrokes item on the Key Menu.  Don't forget that if you want
to turn off keystroke announcement for all programs, change the
Scope setting to Default in the Scope menu before altering the
Announce Individual Keystrokes menu item.

Announce Keys as Words

In addition to announcing keys individually, ASAW can speak the
keys you just typed as a word.  To turn this feature on, check
the Announce Keys as Words menu item by selecting it from the
Keys Menu.

The Options Menu: Alt+O

The Options menu contains various settings that you might find
convenient to change in varying situations.

Literary Reading

Literary Reading refers to the way ASAW presents information to
your speech synthesizer.  When Literary Reading is enabled, as it
is by default, ASAW tries to send the information to the
synthesizer by sentences so the flow of your reading material is 
more natural.  There are places, however, where that isn't
necessarily what you want; think, for example, of a list box.  In
a list box, the information is most likely designed to be
presented in a list of separate items, so for a list box, you'll 
want to turn off Literary Reading.  Note that by default, ASAW
already turns off Literary Reading in all list boxes, but if you 
find another control or window where the information would be
better presented in a line-by-line bases, you can use this option
to make that adjustment.

Edit Class Info

The Class Information on the Options menu is where you define the
text that gets displayed in the main part of the Control and Info
dialog box.  This is useful to remind yourself or characteristics
of a particular kind of control or to provide instructions for
other users of any settings you make.

Interactive Caps Identification

The Interactive Caps Identification sets ASAW to let you know
when words are capitalized while you're reading--that is without 
having to interrogate the letters on a character by character
bases.

Numbers by Digit

When you check Numbers by Digit, ASAW announces numbers digit by 
digit instead of saying the number as a whole number.

Say Whole Line on Hilight

Normally, when you move a hilighted item, ASAW announces only the
hilighted part of the line.  If you want ASAW to announce the
entire line when a hilighted item appears, check the Say Whole
Line on Hilight menu item in the Options menu.

Interface Sounds

When you check the Interface Sounds menu item on the Options
Menu, ASAW makes sounds for various messages.  You can add more
sounds to ASAW by placing wav files in the ASAW directory with
names that correspond to the word ASAW would normally use.  If,
for example, if you found a good .wav file for making a sound
when ASAW moved your mouse cursor, you could put a .wav file
called moved.wav in the ASAW directory.

Window Menu, Alt+W

The Window menu lets you control various aspects about how ASAW
behaves when new windows activate or when the system focus
changes.

Activation

The Activation item in the Windows menu lets you adjust what ASAW
does when windows activate.

Announce Window on Activation

The Announce Window on Activation item in the Activation menu
tells ASAW to announce windows when they activate.  If this item 
is not checked, ASAW says "Active" when a window activates, but
it won't announce the contents of the window.  By default, this
option is check so ASAW announces windows when they activate. 
You may want to turn this option off in specific programs so you 
won't hear, for example, then title and menu of an application
when it activates.  Note that you often need to hit keypad Slash 
before accessing the Control and Info dialog because the active
window is often the parent of the window that normally has the
system focus.

Beep on Activation

When Beep on Activation is checked, ASAW makes a beeping sound
when windows activate.  These beeps are often useful to help you 
see how fast your system responds to various commands, but you
can easily turn them off if they annoy you.

Kill Old Speech on Activation

The Kill Old Speech on Activation menu item tells ASAW to turn
off any pending speech when this window activates.  By default,
this option is turned off on all windows except dialog box
windows.

Focus

Focus is a concept that describes what control or window accepts 
keystrokes.  When you press Tab in a dialog box to move from
control to control, you're changing the focus to the control you 
tab to.

The Focus menu item in the Windows menu lets you adjust various
aspects of how ASAW acts when the focus changes.

Announce Window on Focus

Normally, when the focus changes, you'll want ASAW to announce
the contents of that window or control.  This menu item is what
you'll use if you don't want that default behavior.

Beep on Focus Change

Normally, ASAW beeps when the focus changes.  If you don't want
beeping, turn off this option.  Remember that in order to turn
off beeping for all windows and controls, you should change the
scope to Default before turning off the Beep on Focus item.

Kill Old Speech on Focus

Kill Old Speech on Focus tells ASAW to stop any pending speech
before speaking the contents of a newly focused control or
window.

Say All Classes

Normally, ASAW announces the name of the control or window's
class when the focus changes to that window or control only if
you specifically labeled the class or if the class is labeled by
default.  By turning on Say All Classes, you make ASAW announce
the name of the class of the window or control even if it isn't
specifically labled.  The Say All Classes setting is always
global, so you won't need to apply any scope setting before
adjusting this option.

The Mouse Menu

ASAW's Mouse menu lets you control various aspects of how ASAW
treats the mouse and the mouse pointer.  If you set Make Mouse
Follow Reader, ASAW moves the mouse pointer to the place you're
reading with the reading cursor.  This can be useful for letting 
a sighted person follow along with what you're doing, but it is
recommended that if you want a truly passive method of reviewing
what's on the screen, you leave this turned off.  (Moving the
mouse can make the screen change.)

Normally, when you move the real mouse, ASAW tries to speak the
text at the mouse cursor.  Turning off the Announce Mouse Moves
option makes ASAW remain silent while the mouse moves.

Both options in the Mouse menu apply globally, so you won't need
to change the scope before adjusting them.

When you finish with the Control and Info dialog, press Escape to
close the dialog and return to the application in use before you 
pressed the keypad 0.

Silence is Golden

One of any screen access program's most important capabilities is
silencing the speech.  You want a simple, non-destructive key
that instantly stops all talking.  The Control key performs this 
function with ASAW.

Note that many DOS-based screen access programs, including
MicroTalk's ASAP, use the Alt key to silence speech.  Do not be
tempted to use Alt to silence speech in the Windows environment. 
Nothing terrible happens if you use Alt to silence speech, but
Alt is a Windows command to access a program's menu and using Alt
as a silence command can cause confusion when your program's menu
appears.  If you do accidentally press Alt to silence speech and 
you get a program's menu, just press Alt again to dismiss the
menu.

In addition to using Control to stop speech completely, ASAW
provides a command that just silences a little speech.  When you 
are reading a lot of text, pressing the Shift key stops the
currently spoken phrase and skips to the next phrase queued up
for talking.

                       More About Graphics

When ASAW sees an image that you haven't labeled yet, it assigns 
a temporary name to the image for identification purposes.  This 
temporary name gets generated each time ASAW sees an unnamed
image, so do not count on an image having the same temporary name
from session to session--chances are it won't.

While it is often useful to have sighted helpers to describe
images for labeling purposes, it is quite possible to test what
an image does, especially if it is attached to a button or other 
control.  Even if you're not sure what an image is, you can give 
it a temporary label of your own.  Once you save that label, it
will, of course, remain constant from session to session.  If you
discover you labeled an image erroneously, just assign it a new
label with a more appropriate name.

To assign an image a permanent name, point to it with your
reading keys, then open the Control and Info dialog box (with the
keypad 0) and go to the Label menu and select Picture.  The
existing label appears in the edit box, so if you have minor
changes to make to the label, you can use the normal editing keys
to correct it.  If, on the other hand, you want an entirely
different name for the image, simply type over the existing
definition.

AS ASAW sees you running various applications, it creates an
empty dictionary file for use with that application.  If the
image to label is specific to that application, it is a good idea
to tab to the Dictionaries list box in the Label Image dialog box
and move to that application's name.  Recall that list boxes let 
you type the first letter of an item in the list box to move
quickly to the next item that starts with that letter, so if
you're labeling images for an application named CDplayer, just
press the "c" key until CDPlayer.dic comes into view, then press 
Enter to save the label into that dictionary.  If you're changing
the label for an image that is already stored in the CDPlayer.dic
dictionary file, the Dictionary list box already points to that
name.  If the image you propose to label isn't yet stored in a
dictionary, ASAW temporarily assigns it to a dictionary file
called Default.dic.

Each image you label gets seen and used no matter the
application.  If, however, you label an image that appears in
another dictionary, that previous image entry in the dictionary
gets removed to conserve on memory and disk space.  It is,
therefore, a good idea to put image labels that are universal to 
all applications--the minimize and maximize boxes for example--
into their own special dictionaries.  ASAW comes with many common
images already labeled.  These universal images are in files
called win4bit.dic, win8bit.dic, etc.  The number in the file
name refers to the number of colors the image uses, so if you
have a lower resolution monitor, you can save some disk space by 
removing, say, the win8.dic file from disk.  (Press ASAW's
Current Character command while pointing to an image to see how
many colors that image uses.) Once you define some nice labels
for an application, you may want to rename that dictionary's file
to similarly reflect the number of colors used for those images. 
It is perfectly acceptable, however, for a single dictionary file
to hold labels for images for a varying number of colors.  Again,
the number convention on the file name is merely a means of
helping conserve memory and disk space by not using images that
will never appear on your monitor.  It is also worth noting that
the name of the dictionary file does not necessarily have to
correspond to the name of the application you are using that
displays that image.  The common images that come with ASAW are, 
in fact, not named for any particular application, but are,
instead, designed to be used with every application.  ASAW scans 
your ASAW directory upon startup for all files that end with .dic
and automatically loads all the dictionaries it finds.

While ASAW comes with image labels for some common applications, 
it is impossible to include labels for every application you
might encounter. You are therefore encouraged to share your
dictionary files with other ASAW users.  You might consider
uploading your dictionary files to the MicroTalk Bulletin Board. 
While you're there, check for more dictionary files that other
users have shared.
            Appendix A: Installation and Synthesizers

ASAW installs itself to be as unobtrusive as possible.  There are
no entries or changes made to any of your Windows startup files. 
Besides copying the ASAW files to a directory on your hard drive,
the only other change Setup makes to your system is to copy the
files SSIL.INI and AW.BAT to your Windows directory.  If you used
the OB key word to indicate the use of an existing OpenBook
setup, even the copying of SSIL.INI is omitted.

The SSIL.INI file is used by the SSIL technology (which is
discussed shortly).  If there is already a file called SSIL.INI
in your Windows directory, Setup makes a backup of it and calls
it SSIL.BAK before copying the SSIL.INI that comes with ASAW to
the Windows directory.

The AW.BAT file gets created at the time you install ASAW.  It is
a simple batch file that starts Windows and tells Windows to
start ASAW. It is placed in the Windows directory, because with
that directory in your path, you can start ASAW from any
directory.  The AW.BAT file provides Windows with the complete
path to the ASAW.EXE program as supplied when you originally
installed ASAW.

If you decide to change synthesizers, simply start ASAW with a
command line parameter specifying the synthesizer to use.  There 
is no need to completely install the program again.  ASAW looks
for a command line parameter and uses that as a synthesizer
description if that command line parameter is supplied.  ASAW
also remembers the synthesizer description name and records it in
the ASAW.INI file, so when you start ASAW again, it uses the last
synthesizer you selected without you having to specify a
synthesizer each time you run the program.

Synthesizers

 ASAW employs the SSIL technology originally developed by
ArkenStone, Inc. for its speech synthesizer support and
compatibility.

The SSIL requires three key pieces of information to work
properly. Those are the name of the driver, the name that driver 
expects to use for its controls in the SSIL.INI file, and the
communications parameters if that synthesizer uses the serial
ports.

ASAW combines this information into a synthesizer description
file and uses that file to provide the SSIL with the information 
it needs.  You tell ASAW which synthesizer description file to
use by specifying that file's name on the command line when you
start ASAW.

A synthesizer description file contains two distinct sections. 
The first section, [ssil] contains lines like these:

[ssil]
driver=serial
device=LiteTalk
PortDefault=COM1:9600,n,8,1

These lines tell ASAW to load the driver named serial.dll and to 
modify the SSIL.INI file with the device and PortDefault sections
specified in the .syn file.  If the Device and PortDefault lines 
don't exist in the .syn file, ASAW does not change the SSIL.INI
file.

In addition to the Device and PortDefault lines of the SSIL
section of the .syn file, ASAW can use the line named IniFile=.  
If there is an IniFile= line in the SSIL section of the .syn
file, ASAW takes the information to use for your synthesizer from
the .INI file that follows the = in the IniFile line.  If, for
example, you used the key word OB to install ASAW, ASAW looks in 
the file OB.SYN to get its speech synthesizer information.  The
OB.SYN file contains the line IniFile=C:\OPENBOOK\OPENBOOK.INI,
and ASAW will open that file and take the driver information from
that file to use as its speech synthesizer information.

The second section of the .syn file, [defaults], contains two
lines.  These contain the last volume and rate you used for that 
synthesizer, so those settings can get restored the next time you
start ASAW with that synthesizer.

ASAW comes with several synthesizer description files that
function with commonly available synthesizers.  You can create
your own additional synthesizer description files.

Synthesizer description files are plain ASCII text files with a
.syn extension, so you can create your own or edit the existing
files with your favorite text editor.                  Appendix B: Trouble Shooting

If ASAW does not talk when you start it, check the following:

Make sure your synthesizer is connected to the computer properly 
and that any synthesizer specific drivers that are required are
already running.  These usually get installed when you install
your synthesizer, but check your synthesizer's manual and your
config.sys and autoexec.bat files to insure the drivers are
actually installed.

If you use an external synthesizer, make sure the power is turned
on and that cables are properly connected.

Make sure you run Setup.  This program copies files to various
places where they need to be.  In particular, the file SSIL.INI
should be in your Windows directory.

If Windows starts, but ASAW appears not to work, try again, this 
time providing the complete path name to ASAW like this:

win c:\asaw\asaw.exe

If your screen shows an error message, please write down that
message and call MicroTalk technical support.  It is always very 
useful if you can be in front of your computer when you call.

The MicroTalk technical support number is 1-404-299-6832.
              Appendix C: Windows Keyboard Commands

System Commands

Ctrl+Escape     Task List for 3.1 and Start menu for Windows95
Alt+Tab         switches applications
Alt+Esc         Cycles through open applications.
Alt+Shift+Esc   cycles backward through open applications.
Alt+F4  Quits
Alt+F6  switches windows
Alt+Space       Document Control Menu
Alt+Dash        System Menu

Documents

Ctrl+F4         closes the document
Ctrl+F6         switches to next document
Shift+Ctrl+F6   switches to previous document

Dialog Boxes

Tab             moves to next control
SHIFT+Tab       moves to previous control
Escape          cancels the dialog box
Enter           accepts the default control action
Space           toggles checkboxes and button controls
Arrows          move among buttons in group controls,
                move from item to item in list box controls,      
          move from line to line or letter to letter in edit
controls

Editing

Arrows          move in the direction of the arrow.
Ctrl+Left Arrow moves left one word.
Ctrl+Right Arrow moves right one word.
Home            moves to beginning of line.
End             moves to end of line.
Ctrl+Home       moves to top of document.
Ctrl+End        moves to end of document.
Shift+Key       selects text.
Ctrl+C          copies selected text to clipboard.
Ctrl+X          cuts selected text.
Ctrl+V          pastes from clipboard into document at cursor.               Appendix D: ASAW Command Reference

Read and Navigation commands on the numeric keypad

7 reads and moves to previous line.
8 reads current line.
9 reads and moves to next line.

4 reads and moves to previous word
5 reads current word
  (spells current word on next press)
6 reads and moves to next word

1 reads and moves to previous character or image
2 reads current character or image
(reads additional information about current item on subsequent
presses) 3 reads and moves to next character or image

Dash reads and moves to previous window or control.
Plus reads and moves to next window or control.
Slash reads and moves to Parent window or control.
Star reads and moves to first child window or control

0 enters the Control and Info dialog box

Dot moves the mouse pointer to the reading position.  (when
already at reading position, Dot clicks the mouse button.)   Hold
down until beep to press but do not release the button)

Ctrl+Dash Turns on and off announcement of all output.                   Appendix E: Further Reading

Windows Resources in Electronic Text Format:

RFB&D
20 ROSZEL ROAD
PRINCETON NJ 08540
609-452-0606

Title:         Concise guide to Microsoft Windows 3.1
Publisher:     Microsoft Press
Shelf Number:  EA376

Title:         Getting started with Windows 3.1
Publisher:     Microsoft Press
Shelf Number:  EA428

Title:         Microsoft Windows version 3.1 Manuals
Publisher:     Microsoft Corporation
Shelf Number:  EP039

Title:         Introducing Windows 95
Publisher:     Microsoft Corporation
Shelf Number:  EB363

Title:         Concise guide to Microsoft Works for Windows
Shelf Number:  EA375

Title:         Getting started with Microsoft Excel 4 for Windows 
Shelf Number:  EA439

Title:         Grammatik 5 for Windows 3.0, 3.1
Shelf Number:  EP047

Title:         Learn Microsoft Excel now
Shelf Number:  EA039

Title:         Learn Word for Windows now
Shelf Number:  EA254

Title:         Microsoft Press computer dictionary
Shelf Number:  EA268

Title:         Microsoft Word for Windows 2.0
Shelf Number:  EP050

Windows Resources in Cassette Format:

Title:         Opening Windows
               American Printing House for the Blind
               1839 Frankfort Ave.
               Louisville, KY 40206
               502-895-2405

Windows Resources Online

Service:       CompuServe Information Service
               Go Windows

Service:       General Electric Network for Information
Exchange            Page M95    WINNEWS      Windows 95 News
Highlight                Page M96    WINDOWS95    Microsoft
Windows 95               Page M1335  WINDOWS      Windows
RoundTable

Service:       Internet
               www.msn.com
               www.microsoft.com
