cocoaModem Accessibility
Kok Chen, W7AY
[w7ay (at) arrl
(dot) net]
Last updated: April 19, 2012
Index (User's Manual - Speech)
General Information
Aural Monitor
Accessibility (Incremental Speak and Voice Assist)
Macros
RTTY Interfaces
PSK Interface
MFSK Interface
Hellschreiber Interface
CW Interface
ASCII Interface
SITOR-B Receiver
HF-FAX Receiver
Versions
Part II
Accessibility
cocoaModem augments vision accessibility in Mac OS X by including the Incremental Speak and Voice Assist functions. Mac OS X's VoiceOver is augmented with a word-by-word and letter-by-letter incremental text-to-speech function that automatically speaks or spells a new word when it is received or transmitted.
The cocoaModem Speech function is set up from the Speech tab of the Preference Panel.
Three voices are selectable for use by cocoaModem's
Incremental Speak function. They are used
to speak the words that are received or transmitted by
cocoaModem. The three voices are common to the PSK31
interface, the RTTY interfaces, the MFSK (MFSK16 and
Domino EX) interface, the ASCII interface and the
SITOR-B interface. The Basic RTTY Modem and the MFSK
modems do not have a Sub Receiver textview and the
SITOR-B interface does not have a Transmitter textview.
In addition, you can choose a fourth voice for the Voice Assist function.
Incremental Speak
When text is printed to the receive textviews, each word is
spoken when a word break is found (space or newline). An
extra character is needed after a period punctuation to
properly handle words such as "qrz.com" which are handled
as a single spoken sequence.
Many ham abbreviations are converted to "natural language."
For example, "de" is spoken as "from," "hw?" is spoken as
"how copy?", "pse" is spoken as "please," "btu" is spoken
as "back to you," etc. The conversion can be disabled by
selecting the Verbatim checkboxes shown in the
figure above.
Words that contain both letters and digits are
automatically spelled out as individual characters. This
causes all active amateur call signs to be spoken as
individual letters and digits.
You can customize how a word is enunciated with an
Enunciate.txt file. Each line of the text file starts with
the word that is modified before it is sent to the Mac OS X
speech synthesizer. The rest of the line (separated from
the word with a single space) contains the string that is
sent to the synthesizer. The following shows an example of
such a file:
Note that you can include punctuations, such as a comma to
place very short pauses, in between elements that are sent
to the speech synthesizer.
Enunciate.txt (note the capitalization) should be stored in
the cocoaModem folder in the Application Support folder
that is in your home directory's Library Folder.
cocoaModem's Incremental Speak function can be temporarily
disabled with a keyboard shortcut (Command-U) that is
associated with the Mute menu item in the Speech
menu of cocoaModem's main menu bar.
Transmitted voice is spoken when the word is transmitted
over the air, not when it is entered into the transmitter
textview.
Incremental Speak can be toggled by using the Command-L
keyboard shortcut to spell out words and numbers as
individual letters and digits.
Voice Assist
The Voice Assist function is toggled from the menu item in
the same Speech menu shown above. Voice Assist provides
some additional voice functionality in the cocoaModem PSK31
TableView and in the QSO call sign and name fields.
Voice Assist will announce "Voice Assist On" and "Voice
Assist Off" when it is toggled (Command-Shift-V keyboard
shortcut). Please note that Voice Assist works
independently from the Incremental Speak function; it is
not muted by the Speech Mute (Command-U) command. The voice
used by Voice Assist is chosen in the cocoaModem Speech
Preferences.
The state of Voice Assist is saved to the plist. If it is
on when cocoaModem is launched, you will hear the "Voice
Assist On" message after cocoaModem finishes launching.
Direct Tuning with Voice Assist
Voice Assist helps with using the keyboard to tune to a
frequency in the waterfall. This removed the need to click
on a waterfall to select a frequency to transmit on. Direct
tuning works with the waterfalls that are in the PSK, RTTY,
MFSK, CW, SITOR and HF-FAX interfaces.
When Direct Frequency Access (Command-Shift-F keyboard
shortcut) is selected, cocoaModem brings up a small window
that includes a text field. If Voice Assist is turned on,
cocoaModem will announce "Enter Frequency, ending with a
carriage return."
At that point, each digit that is typed will be echoed back
by Voice Access.
A period can be used as a decimal point to get finer
resolution than one Hertz. When a carriage return is hit,
the accumulated number between 400 Hz and 2400 Hz is used
to select a frequency on the waterfall, and Voice Assist
will speak the selected frequency by announcing "Tune to
XXX Hertz," where XXX is the frequency.
If a frequency outside the 400-2400 Hz range is entered,
Voice Assist will say "Frequency out of range, unchanged at
YYY Hertz," where YYY is the previously selected frequency.
If 0 is entered in Direct Frequency Access, the modem will
be turned off until a new frequency is selected.
Direct Frequency Readout with Voice Assist
Speak Current Frequency
(Command-Option-F) causes Voice Assist to read the
frequency that is selected in the waterfall. If the modem
is previously turned off (the PSK modem is turned off when
cocoaModem launches), Voice Assist will say "Modem Turned
Off."
Modem Selection with Voice Assist
Modems can be selected with keyboard
shortcuts. Select Next Modem (Command-Option-Shift-N) in
the Interface Menu moves to the next modem in the
cocoaModem tabview. Select Previous Modem
(Command-Option-Shift-P) moves to the previous modem in the
tabview. When you move pass one end of the tabs, the modem
at the opposite end will be chosen in a circular fashion.
If Voice Assist is turned on, the name of the selected
modem is spoken.
Using Keyboard Shortcuts with the PSK Table
View
When the "Select Next Station in TableView" (Command-Period
keyboard shortcut) or "Select Previous Station in
TableView" (Command-Shift-Period keyboard shortcut) is
selected in the Interface Menu, cocoaModem tunes the PSK31
interface to a new signal, cocoaModem will speak the audio
offset frequency if Voice Assist is turned on. The spoken
frequency corresponds to the audible pitch from the PSK31
carrier. Please note that this is not necessarily the
offset frequency shown in the Table View -- it is only
identical if you are using upper sideband and zero VFO
offset in the PSK configuration.
When the TableView is empty, Voice Assist will speak "No
signal."
QSO Callsign and Name with Voice Assist
The QSO Callsign and QSO Name fields can be
directly selected by using the Command-Option-C and
Command-Option-N keyboard shortcuts, respectively. The
fields are also cleared when selected; this allows you to
immediately typing their contents after using the keyboard
shortcuts to select the fields.
If Voice Assist is turned on,
each character that is entered by keyboard into these
fields are spoken back. No carriage return is needed since
the next time the callsign and name macros are use, they
will pick up the entire contents of these two fields.
Alerts with Voice Assist
When Voice Assist is turned on, Alerts will
not show up in a modal window. Instead, the title of the
alert is spoken. The details of the alert can subsequently
be spoken by selecting the Speak Alert Info menu item
(Command-Option-I).