December 31, 2005

Browsing the Web by voice with Mozilla Firefox

11Category: Navigating applications

I read about using extensions to facilitate speech recognition with Firefox on one of the Dragon forums, but it took a little bit of research and trial and error to set it all up. Now that I am very successfully browsing with Firefox by voice, I thought I'd share the tips I've learned:

Navigating menus
You can just say the name of a menu and then (verbally) press the underlined shortcut keys to select an element in the menu. For example, to select Toolbars on the View menu say "View" and then "press tango"

Navigating bookmarks
Say "bookmarks" to access the menu and then, instead of pressing shortcut keys, you just (verbally) press the first letter of the desired bookmark title.

Navigating links, text boxes & buttons
Use the Mouseless Browsing or Hit-A-Hint extensions. I chose Mouseless Browsing because it is quicker and its display numbers do not obscure page elements. For more detail on using Mouseless browsing, please see Speedy Firefox browsing.


Entering URLs, creating bookmarks, etc
Use the many keyboard shortcuts available.

There is an interesting forum discussion on the pros and cons of Mouse-less browsing versus hit-a-hint.

Others still, find the accessibility options in Opera worthwhile, especially for visually impaired users.

// posted by Melissa @ 10:08 pm
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You don't have to understand how Natlink/Vocola works to use any of the Vocola commands on this site or on speech wiki

Just follow this procedure to incorporate a Vocola command into your Dragon setup:

1. Install Natlink/Vocola.

2. Restart your computer.

3. If the command is for a particular application, open that application and say "edit VoiceCommands" OR If the command is global, say "edit global VoiceCommands".

A blank command file will display.

4. Copy the Vocola command that you want to use to the clipboard (from this site or from speech wiki).

5. Go back to the command file you just displayed, and paste the command on a new line anywhere in the file.

6. Say "refresh macros" to save the commands.

7. Close the command file window.

You're now able to use the new command.

NOTE: Natlink/Vocola is free, versatile and compatible with all editions of DNS (you can even use it to create commands with Standard editions), but it has its quirks. If you're looking for a complete command set with user support, you may want to consider a buying product like Knowbrainer or hiring an SR professional to customise commands for you.

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