Speakable Items: Using With IBM ViaVoice

Some users may wish to do both command and control using Speakable Items as well as dictation using ViaVoice. The one technical limitation is the Sound Manager, which permits only a single client to own the sound input source at any time. Therefore, it is required that the microphone be released and obtained by all speech systems in an orderly manner. Since there is no microphone arbitration policy provided by the Sound Manager, difficulties can arise when you attempt to run both Speakable Items and ViaVoice. To use both facilities simultaneously requires that you do all the microphone arbitration.

Use one of the following alternatives to start both facilities together.

Perform these steps first:

1. Open the Speech control panel and select Listening from the Options pop-up menu.
2. Select the "Key(s) toggle listening on and off" radio button. (This enables the keyword mode, instead of push to talk).
3. Select Speakable Items from the Options pop-up menu, in preparation for starting Speakable Items.

                   
Alternative 1 - Starting Speakable Items first

1. Start Speakable Items from the Speech control panel. When Speakable Items is active, toggle listening off (by pressing the esc key).
2. Start SpeakPad and dictate.
3. To use Speakable Items, turn the microphone off in SpeakPad. Toggle listening on (by pressing the esc key) for Speakable Items.

                   
Alternative 2 - Starting SpeakPad first

1. Start SpeakPad and dictate.
2. To use Speakable Items, turn the microphone off in SpeakPad.
3. Start Speakable Items from the Speech control panel.

                   
Once both facilities are active, the essence of the manual arbitration is that when switching to SpeakPad, you must toggle listening off (by pressing the esc key) for Speakable Items, before turning SpeakPad's microphone on. Conversely, when you want to use Speakable Items, turn SpeakPad's microphone off before toggling listening on (by pressing the esc key) for Speakable Items.

The following situations will occur using the current release of Speakable items (for Mac OS 9) and ViaVoice:
             

• If Speakable Items is running and in keyword mode (not push to talk) then toggling listening off will release the microphone so that SpeakPad can obtain it. This is generally controlled by the esc key unless you have remapped it. If push to talk mode is used, Speakable Items will have to be turned off to release the microphone.
• If Speakable Items, or the Speech Listener or any PlainTalk client is running, SpeakPad will open and then quit, since it will not be able to obtain the microphone.
• If SpeakPad is running and enabled for dictation and you open Speakable Items, then Speakable Items will quit because it cannot obtain the microphone.
• If both applications are running, switching into SpeakPad while Speakable Items has the microphone will result in a notification that dictation is disabled because SpeakPad cannot get the microphone.