Scan125 here.
Some of you already use my software and the last release added some speech/audio narration. Whilst this helped one blind user out it was a quick hack to help him out finding his way round his BC125AT scanner. There are (see below) issues with what I have done for him that I wan't sort out.
I now have another recently blind user who has never mastered using his PC/laptop as a blind person can find keys (e.g. space bar, esc, 1234567890, etc. so I've decided to do a program I'm calling ScanAudio that will narrate/speak the scanner's display (both normal and all menus). The user will be using the scanner keyboard only to control and program the scanner.
The program has basically just the display so his wife/other person can help if required.
I'm hitting some problems, niggles that others may have thoughts on. e.g. when the scanner is scanning there is no speech audio. When it hits a signal and goes to Hold the program currently speaks what has changed so this would be e.g. channel, tag name and frequency. The problem is that this speech will mask the scanner's signal audio.
I can easily overcome this as the program supports "on demand" speech so when signal is hit the scanner goes to hold and then after the signal audio is over or during the user can request a speech readout of a line of the display or all the display. But for this the scanner has to still be in hold mode and not have moved on to something else.
I think you can see though that there are going to be niggles, twists and turns and even possibly conflicts so get the balance of usage right is a little more challenging.
If you think you would like a have a go at beta testing and provide feedback then email "scanaudio AT nick HYPHEN bailey DOT co DOT uk" (remove "s and hyphen = -)
As with my other software ScanAudio will be free / Charity Ware so I'll be not receiving anything other than satisfaction from helping others and for those that donate to DEBRA/Charity I'll know that they (charity) are benefitting from my work.
Some of you already use my software and the last release added some speech/audio narration. Whilst this helped one blind user out it was a quick hack to help him out finding his way round his BC125AT scanner. There are (see below) issues with what I have done for him that I wan't sort out.
I now have another recently blind user who has never mastered using his PC/laptop as a blind person can find keys (e.g. space bar, esc, 1234567890, etc. so I've decided to do a program I'm calling ScanAudio that will narrate/speak the scanner's display (both normal and all menus). The user will be using the scanner keyboard only to control and program the scanner.
The program has basically just the display so his wife/other person can help if required.
I'm hitting some problems, niggles that others may have thoughts on. e.g. when the scanner is scanning there is no speech audio. When it hits a signal and goes to Hold the program currently speaks what has changed so this would be e.g. channel, tag name and frequency. The problem is that this speech will mask the scanner's signal audio.
I can easily overcome this as the program supports "on demand" speech so when signal is hit the scanner goes to hold and then after the signal audio is over or during the user can request a speech readout of a line of the display or all the display. But for this the scanner has to still be in hold mode and not have moved on to something else.
I think you can see though that there are going to be niggles, twists and turns and even possibly conflicts so get the balance of usage right is a little more challenging.
If you think you would like a have a go at beta testing and provide feedback then email "scanaudio AT nick HYPHEN bailey DOT co DOT uk" (remove "s and hyphen = -)
As with my other software ScanAudio will be free / Charity Ware so I'll be not receiving anything other than satisfaction from helping others and for those that donate to DEBRA/Charity I'll know that they (charity) are benefitting from my work.
