disability access via speech recognition

[Eric S. Johansson]

On 2/1/2011 7:57 AM, Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:
>
> We have no objection in principle, but note that you do need to keep
> that proprietary stuff on the other side of the "exec barrier" because
> of the GPL.
Not a problem. We have a bridge called "natlink" which bridges between 
NaturallySpeaking and our application world.  I wish I could clearly describe 
the relationship between various components but, sometimes it seems like a 
mystery to the best of us. :-)

One way to think of it is that there are two parallel streams of input. The 
keyboard stream and the NaturallySpeaking keyboard stream.  natlink (aka 
natpython) adds a third stream. When grammars resolve to an action routine, that 
routine can inject text into the keyboard stream or can call functionality that 
directly tickles a method in another application.

Messy isn't it?

It's also incredibly useful when you want to separate command input versus 
textual input.  For a fun example, start gnus and type my name.  it's not pretty 
is it? Well, that's what happens when you say command name and it misrecognizes 
it, generating some similar sounding string of text instead of a command. But if 
you can recognize when you are in a recognition state, you can turn off single 
character commands in an application thereby saving you some horrible disaster.

I'm probably not making enough sense and I apologize but this is the world I 
live in.

My goal is to try and drive applications directly which allows for more powerful 
class of speech interface. I guess with Emacs, I would end up injecting lisp 
code or something twisted like that :-)

> I have sympathy, but no time at present, and when I do get time I'll
> have to apply it to release management for old code, not development
> of new code.  But I'd like to contribute in the medium term.
I get that a lot. :-)  Hopefully somebody else can help. And I hope that folks 
don't mind if I do a "thinking out loud" series of dumps in the mailing list. If 
it's a problem, I'll find a blog somewhere and put my brain dumps in that format.
>   >  I'm afraid I'm going to be pushed to a closed solution from top to
>   >  bottom like I have with terminal emulators.
>
> That would suck.  Please, try working with XEmacs.

I will. I just got the Windows version running. There's a couple things that 
should be fixed in the gui. There should be a pixel or two more space between 
the frame of the window and the body of the displayed text. For example, I'm 
looking at a screen which has beta, info, tutorial up against the left hand 
margin in the needs to be just a little space between the letter and the window 
frame to make it easier on the eyes. Also, any chance of finding a graphics 
artist to redo the icons? Unfortunately, people are rather superficial of our 
applications and if the images aren't pleasing and modern, they tend to reject 
applications. Why is this important ti xemacs?  it's my belief that when people 
are looking for a version of Emacs to use, they look for what looks good. Silly 
I know but I've seen that behavior. If folks are okay with it, I will try to 
explore my network and see if I can find anyone who is available to do a new set 
of icons etc.

I think the font could be better as well. It's a relatively nice fixed spacing 
Sans Serif but something about it doesn't work for me. Again if I can get a 
pointer to how to change that, I'll make a proposal of what I think works out 
better..

Looking over the menus, it's pretty good I might want to know how to rearrange 
them for my own interest/discovery of commonly used features but, as a general 
rule, I like them. Better than the other white editor.

Now I need to figure out what the heck is going on with getting Python-mode 
working on beta. Something complaining about cannot open load file "local-mode".

At once I get the basics working and the fundamental speech recognition 
command-and-control working (yes, I will donate the macros to the project) it'll 
be time to make myself a PITA to the Python-mode group and start begging for 
someone take pity on me and help with cleaning up vr-mode.  (damm, I'm going to 
have to learn Lisp)

And I think that's enough randomly generated but reasonably associated set of 
thoughts for the evening. I appreciate the attention and help.

--- eric