look, mum, no hands!

Category: Navigating applications

I've experimented with a few different e-mail programs and sites over the past few months -- here's what I've found...

Hotmail
Very yucky to use with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.  There are no keyboard shortcuts and, though you can click on the links, you have to deal with each e-mail one by one which is very tedious.  I've now switched to gmail for Web-based e-mail.

Gmail
You cannot click on the links that you see on the web pages, unless you use gmail in HTML mode (which offers roughly the same functionality as Hotmail).  In fact, if you forget and try to click on links by voice, you will often go to another page.

However, gmail autosaves e-mail drafts, so this is no major drama.  The added functionality of the keyboard shortcuts is fantastic, and well worth adjusting to using the shortcuts rather than the links.

I've uploaded my Vocola macros for using the gmail shortcuts to http://www.speechwiki.org/NL/GmailMacros.html.

One of the nicest things about using gmail is that I don't have to worry about saving e-mails in different folders.  You just archive all the e-mail you want to keep, and search for it if you need to retrieve it.

Mozilla Thunderbird
Thunderbird isn't as Select-and-Say as Outlook, but I really like Rick Mohr’s Vocola macros for the program (posted at http://www.speechwiki.org/NL/ThunderbirdMacros.html).
Needless to say, Thunderbird offers far better security than Outlook and some nice features, but I can see that it could be down to personal preference.

Outlook
If you want to check and store your e-mail on the same PC and want to be able to dictate directly into the e-mail client, Outlook is probably your best choice.

I haven't spent much time playing with my Outlook macros (I use Outlook at work), but there is a good selection of Vocola macros for Outlook 2003 at http://www.speechcomputing.com/node/765.