Speech Recognition

[Mike Doty]

Had a user report that Dragon Systems speech
recognition works with my DOS programs
but not from my 32-bit Console apps or from
a textbox sample sent to them. Anyone know
if anything special needs to be performed?
They say it works with all Windows programs
except mine.

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[Lance Edmonds]

I have no experience with these other applications, but it is not clear what you mean by "but not from my 32-bit Console apps or from a textbox sample sent to them" ?

Are these other applications Windows or DOS app's?

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Lance
PowerBASIC Support
mailto:[email protected][email protected]</A>

[Mike Doty]

"works with my DOS programs"

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[Lance Edmonds]

I got that much already. Any more clues?

How it is called/launched? There has to be some significant difference between how your DOS app calls it and why it does not work with your PB/CC apps.


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Lance
PowerBASIC Support
mailto:[email protected][email protected]</A>

[Mike Doty]

Applications do not call the voice software.
The voice software runs in the background.
I'm trying to contact Dragon Systems.

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[Lance Edmonds]

If your app does not call it, what does it do? Does the voice software send data (?) to your app?

Sorry for my ignorance, but I've never needed to talk to my computer before, although I have been known to unleash a few firm words when MS WORD crashes!

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Lance
PowerBASIC Support
mailto:[email protected][email protected]</A>

[Bern Ertl]

Lance,

The DS software runs in the background and monitors the microphone.

It interprets speech into Windows commands or macros for windows commands
and simulates mouse clicks, keyboard input etc.

So you could talk to your machine and say "Open Excel. Open XYZ file."
or something like that. I haven't actually used it, but that's the gist
of it from the box at the computer store.

My guess is that DS software is having trouble sending mouse/keyboard
simulated messages to the PB windows apps for whatever reason.




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Bernard Ertl

[Lance Edmonds]

People actually use that kind of software in real life? Wow...

I watched a demo of Dragon Dictate a year or so ago... it went something like this:

"Dear Sam new line How are you going correction doing question mark new line"

I could type it faster than the guy dictating, and he had obviously spent hours training it to his voice.

YMMV I guess...




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Lance
PowerBASIC Support
mailto:[email protected][email protected]</A>

[Mike Doty]

In 1998 Bill Gates called it the future of computing.

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[Bern Ertl]

It is my understanding that IBM included this capability into their
OS/2 "Warp" operating system years ago. They (IBM) also have a similar
product available for Windows (forgot the name).

As I understand it, the recognition technology has improved greatly
over the last year or so. Supposedly, you can now speak at a normal
pace and the software will keep up with you.

I never did buy either package (Dragon System's or IBM's), but I did
look into it a while back. As I recall, the software required the user
to do some work to define macro's for use with their favorite programs
if one was not prepackaged with the (DS/IBM) software. At the time,
they were including macros for M$ Word and other 'major' text editors.

Perhaps Mike's users need to define macro's for the applications in
question?




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Bernard Ertl

[Mike Doty]

Dragon has a free SDK for developers for Active X components.
Samples included are for VB, Delphi and C++.
I'm just going through the stuff, now.
Haven't found any DLL support.


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[Borje Hagsten]

Could that be the same Bill Gates who told the world, "no one will
ever need more than 640KB..?

Speech recognition is widely used by people with sight disabilities
and in some automated systems, etc. I too believe it to be the future.
As I understand it, one must point the Speech recognition software
at the software it shall work with via some setup process.

Basic shell commands are automatically handled, but to be able to run
a program, it must know some facts about the program in question. It
could be that your program needs an accelerator table, that is,
proper shortcuts for the commands, like Ctrl+V for paste, F1 for help,
etc. Without these shortcuts, I can't see how another program ever can
be able to run another program..

(Okay, it could always hook onto a menu and take a guess, but that
doesn't feel feel very reliable..)


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[Mike Doty]

I'll know much more next week and what you have
said seems correct. They have seemed to use OLE
automation with the with the major Windows products.
Some of their claims about working with Windows
programs leaves a bit out.


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[Bern Ertl]

Borje, that's what I was referring to by "macros".

As I understood it, you could define a spoken 'key' word to execute
a macro which might, for example simulate ALT-F, ARROW DN, ARROW DN,
ENTER to navigate a program menu.

Mike,

Did you mention that you had written a small sample app which was
nothing but a textbox? I'm not sure, but I think that the DS software
is supposed to be able to write text into a textbox from any app.

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Bernard Ertl

[This message has been edited by Bern Ertl (edited March 02, 2001).]

[Mike Doty]

Text only appears very slowly in my DOS apps.
Couldn't get to work in PB/DLL or PB/CC.
Ordered new software and equipment to see why.


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[Mike Doty]

Created a Visual Basic form with a textbox
and it accepts voice input.

Anyone know why PBNOTE won't accept voice?
Wanted to create a little program that sends
commands to all sorts of programs, but have
to use VB to do it [yuck].
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[This message has been edited by Mike Doty (edited March 19, 2001).]

[Errol Cheverie]

Mike

With version 3 of Dragon NaturallySpeaking I was unable to get any program to accept any dictation or commands
unless they were supported by the Dragon software.


After upgrading to version 5 almost any Windows 32-bit program seems to be able to accept VoiceCommands or
dictation including most programs compiled with PowerBASIC's PBDLL compiler version 5 or 6. All of the programs
that I have checked using either style of programming, SDK or DDT seem to be quite compatible with version 5
of the Dragon software.

In fact I am dictating this message into PBNote using Dragon's software and having no problems whatsoever with
dictating text or using the menu commands.

I have only check a couple of PB/CC 2 compiled programs and am having no problems with keyboard import using VoiceCommands.

Regards, Errol

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[This message has been edited by Errol Cheverie (edited March 19, 2001).]

[Mike Doty]

Thank you Errol. I'm going to make
sure that my beta sites are using version 5.
This is great news.

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