Some brief yasr usage notes. [note that the spaces in some words below are there on purpose (e.g. e speak; input output; p t y) such that e speak can sound such words correctly to a visually-impaired user - mcewanw] Yasr can use e speak for Text to Speech output via speech-dispatcher. To use with speech-dispatcher and espeak (if both are also installed), open a console (or at the commandline) enter: sudo speech-dispatcher yasr Anything appearing on the console should now be read by espeak. (Press alt-x to temporarily silence yasr). Note: To kill the speech system (one method anyway...): first kill yasr by closing the console from which yasr was activated and then in another console enter: sudo killall speech-dispatcher (Other methods often leave behind zombie processes). YASR (Yet Another Screen Reader) works by opening a shell in a p t y and intercepting all user input output, maintaining a window of what should be on the screen by looking at the codes and text sent to the screen. Currently yasr has two sets of keymaps, one for review mode (i e, reviewing the screen) and one for the standard mode. Keys defined for the standard mode are checked whether the user is in review mode or standard mode, but the review mode keymap is checked first in the former case. Following is a list of keys and their functions that are defined by default. Keys preceeded by [n] can optionally be preceeded by a number. Standard mode : [***IMPORTANT NOTE by mcewanw: The first four default yasr key bindings were as follows. I've altered these as explained in the note below this section. ctrl-a : Say application cursor position. ctrl-l : Say line. ctrl-n : Bypass ctrl-x : Flush speech buffer] I (mcewanw) have altered the above four yasr key-bindings to allow yasr to work better with many console apps which themselves use ctrl-a for "select all" and ctrl-x for "cut" etc., which would conflict with the above default yasr key-bindings. The new bindings are: alt ` (i.e. alt backtick) : Say application cursor position. ctrl-alt-l (i.e. ctrl-alt-small L): Say line. [note that alt l (i.e. alt-small L) also causes the yasr action "say line"]. ctrl-alt-n : Bypass ctrl-alt-x : Flush speech buffer These are the other yasr key bindings (not altered from the default): alt-b : Say previous character alt-c : Say character alt-d : Say word alt-e : Read cursor to bottom of screen alt-i : Reinitialize the synthesizer alt-k : Say previous line alt-l : Read line alt-m : Read next line alt-r : Toggle review mode alt-t : Read top to cursor alt-w : Read entire screen alt-x : Silence speech. Like ctrl-x, but will continue to be silent until a key is pressed (pressing alt-x a second time will start speech again, for example) ctrl-alt-k : Keyboard wizard. Allows the user to move, copy, or delete keybindings from within yasr. ctrl-alt-o : Options menu. Allows the user to set options from within yasr. ctrl-alt-s : save configuration to disk. alt-enter : disable yasr. Yasr is silent and ignores all keys when disabled. Press again to re-enable. Note : This key is defined in the [options] section as "DisableKey" Review mode : spacebar : Say review cursor position ^ : Move to the first character on the line, and say word $ : Move to the last character on the line, and say word [n]b : Say previous character, or move left n characters [n]c : Say character, or move to character n on the line and say it [n]d : Say next character, or move right n characters e : Read from cursor to bottom of screen f : Search for text on the screen. < : Search from cursor to top of screen, using the previously-entered search string. > : Search from cursor to bottom of screen, using the previously-entered search string. [n]k : Move up a line and read the line (currently same as up arrow) [n]l : Say current line, or jump to line n and read it [n]m : Move down a line and read the line (currently same as down arrow) n : Bypass (send directly to the application) t : Read from top to cursor. w : Read entire screen. z : Move to beginning of previous word and read the word. x : Move to beginning of next word and read the word. [n]up arrow : Move to previous line and read the line. [n]down arrow : Move to next line and read the line. [n]left arrow : Move back one character and read the character. [n]right arrow : Move ahead one character and read the character. ( : Go to previous paragraph ) : Go to next paragraph ` : Read the ASCII value of the current character Suggestions, patches, etc. welcome. -Michael P. Gorse Above part modified by: mcewanw Revision 1.0.1: 2009June01 --------------------------------------------------------------- Controlling yasr. You can control what/how sentences are read (chars, words etc): 1. With yasr enabled, to enter the yasr options menu you should enter the key combination: ctrl alt o If you then press letter k it will aurally tell you the current key echo state. Pressing the space bar cycles you through the possibilities: off, keys, word Once you have the one you want, you should press the escape key. Yasr then announces it is leaving the options menu. Finally, you need to save your configuration change by pressing ctrl alt s To test the effect of what you just did, I recommend that you try typing something at the console so that you can hear what difference the new option makes. For example, if you have set key echo to "word", then everytime you have finished typing a word, the word will be echoed. If you have set key option to "keys" every key press will be echoed. 2. After pressing ctrl alt o for the option menu: If you then press letter u it will tell you the current effect of pressing the up and down cursor arrow keys. Pressing the space bar cycles you through the possibilities: speak line, speak character, or speak word Once you reach the one you want it to be, press escape key to leave the options menu and save your new configuration with ctrl alt s as you did before. 3. Similarly after ctrl alt o, pressing key c allows you to alter the assignment for "cursor tracking". Again you use the space bar to cycle through the possibilities, and then press escape key and ctrl alt s to save whatever you have selected. Once again you can test the effect in v i; best to type a few lines of text first and then try moving around. 4. One special case after a ctrl alt o, is key s. This has multiple options assigned to it. Each time you press s, a different option starting with the letter s is announced. The options cycled through are: synthesiser option, synthesiser port, shell, and, split caps. Again, the space bar is used to assign new preset values to whichever one you are interested in. Then you press escape and ctrl alt s to save as before. Finally, there is another way of doing it... Once you press ctrl alt o to change an option, you can use the up and down cursor keys to cycle through all the possible options. You can change any option thus reached by using the space bar, as before, or by using the cursor left and right arrow keys to assign a new value. 5. Changing the speech itself: After ctrl alt o to select yasr options, And pressing s until you hear "synthesiser option" Tap the right cursor key once to hear the word "rate" space bar (or a further tap on the right cursor key) lets you then alter that rate (i.e. the speed of e speak speaking). If you change you mind about entering a new value, press escape key to abort, and then continue selecting options if you wish by pressing s (or the up/down cursor key). Alternatively, one you first hear the word "rate", continually tapping down cursor key will take you through all of the synthesiser options: rate, pitch, volume, language, output module (for cases where you have an alternative speech synthesiser to e speak), punctuation (whatever punctuation you want spoken) Then press escape key to leave the options and ctrl alt s to save as before. Controlling yasr. Revision 1.0.1 Copyright: free to be copied verbatim Author: mcewanw Date: 01 June 2009 http://foksyfeyer.wiak.org/ and http://wiak.org/