Emacspeak

This manual documents Emacspeak, a speech interface to Emacs. The manual is divided into the following chapters.

• Copying:
• Announce:
• Introduction:
• Installation:
• Basic Usage:
• Audio Desktop:
• Using Online Help:
• Emacs Packages:
• Running Terminal Based Applications:
• Emacspeak Commands:
• Emacspeak Customizations:
• Acknowledgements:

  Indices:

• Concept Index:
• Key Index:

Copyright

This manual documents Emacspeak, a speech extension to Emacs.

Copyright (C)1994 - 2002 T. V. Raman All Rights Reserved.

Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this manual without charge provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved on all copies.

Announcing Emacspeak Manual 2nd Edition As An Open Source Project

This is to announce the launch of a new open source project to create a user manual for Emacspeak -an Emacs speech extension that provides a complete audio desktop.

• Contributing:
• Authoring Guidelines:
• Credits:

How To Contribute To This Manual

This manual is organized as a series of chapters, with each chapter in a separate file. If you feel capable of contributing to a specific section, send out a message to the Emacspeak mailing list emacspeak@cs.vassar.edu. You can then start adding content to a local copy of the chapter to which you are contributing. When you feel you have something to submit, mail out the file to the emacspeak mailing list- I'll integrate new content as it comes in.

Authoring Guidelines

For this manual to hang together and make sense to the new user at whom it is targeted, contributors need to stick to a consistent style. If you plan to contribute content, you should take some time to read the existing sections -note that many of these are skeletal and the first contributions will be to flesh these sections out.

If you are familiar with texinfo, go ahead and mark up your content using texinfo. If you are not, simply author the documentation you create as plain formatted ASCII. If you do submit files as texinfo source, make sure to validate them at your end first by running the files through makeinfo -badly created or malformed texinfo source takes more time to fix than marking up straight text.

Credits

This initial version draws heavily from the original Emacspeak user manual, and includes contributions from Jim Van Zandt and Jason White. Authors who contribute complete sections will be acknowledged here as well as in the specific section they author.

Introduction

Emacspeak provides a complete audio desktop by speech-enabling all of Emacs.

In the past, screen reading programs have allowed visually impaired users to get feedback using synthesized speech. Such programs have been commercially available for well over a decade. Most of them run on PC's under DOS, and these are now moving over to the Windows environment. However, screen-readers for the UNIX environment have been conspicuous in their absence. Note that this is now changing with the availability of console-level Linux screenreaders such as speakup. Such Linux screenreaders provide the same level of UNIX accessibility provided in the late 80's by PC terminal emulators running a DOS screenreader. This means that most visually impaired computer users face the additional handicap of being DOS-impaired -- a far more serious problem:-)

Emacspeak is an emacs subsystem that provides complete speech access. It is not a screen-reader --rather, it is a complete user environment with built-in speech feedback. Emacspeak has a significant advantage; since it runs inside Emacs, a structure-sensitive, fully customizable environment, Emacspeak has more context-specific information about what it is speaking than its screenreader counterparts. This is why Emacspeak is not a "screenreader", it is a subsystem that produces speech output.

A Traditional screen-reader speaks the content of the screen, leaving it to the user to interpret the visual layout. Emacspeak, on the other hand, treats speech as a first-class output modality; it speaks the information in a manner that is easy to comprehend when listening.

The basic concepts used by Emacspeak are simple; all interactive Emacs commands have been adapted to provide speech feedback. Hence, you use Emacs as normal; Emacspeak works behind the scene to give audio feedback in addition to updating the screen.

Emacspeak consists of a core speech system that provides speech and audio services to the rest of the Emacspeak desktop; application-specific extensions provide context-specific spoken feedback using these services. Emacspeak currently comes with speech extensions for several popular Emacs subsystems and editing modes. I would like to thank their respective authors for their wonderful work which makes Emacs more than a text editor¹..

Installation Instructions

This chapter gives brief and detailed installation instructions for configuring, installing and starting Emacspeak.

• Obtaining Emacspeak: Obtaining Emacspeak.
• Quick Installation: Default installation and startup.
• Configuring and Installing Emacspeak: Configuring and Installing Emacspeak and its associated files

Obtaining Emacspeak

Emacspeak is available on the Internet at:

WWW

http://emacspeak.sf.net

WWW

http://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/raman/emacspeak/

FTP

ftp://ftp.cs.cornell.edu/pub/raman/emacspeak

Mail List

emacspeak@cs.vassar.edu

List Request

emacspeak-request@cs.vassar.edu

The Emacspeak mailing list is maintained by Greg E. Priest-Dorman. If you are using Emacspeak, you can join the list by sending mail to the request address.

Quick Installation

Here are the quick installation instructions. See the next section for detailed installation instructions.

Prepackaged RPM files are available on the Emacspeak site. Packages for other Linux distributions such as Debian typically become available on the WWW a few days after a new version is released. The instructions below are for building and installing Emacspeak from the source distribution.

• Type make config to configure the sources for your site.
• Type make to compile the files.
• Install the system by typing make install
• Run it by doing one of:
  • emacspeak
  • Add the line

                   (load-file "<emacspeak-dir>/lisp/emacspeak-setup.el")
                   

    to the top of your .emacs file.
  In the above, <emacspeak-dir> refers to the directory where you unpacked the sources.

Configuring and Installing Emacspeak

Note: You need GNU Emacs 20.2 or later for using newer versions of Emacspeak.

The speech server for the Dectalk is written in TclX. (For example, see the source file dtk-exp).

• Decide where you want the Emacspeak elisp files. Most Unix packages are unpacked and compiled in one directory, and then the executable, documentation, and data files are installed in the appropriate system directories.

  Once you have decided on the appropriate directory, make it if necessary and unpack the distribution .tar file there.

• Look through the introductory section of the Makefile to see if you need to edit it for your site.
• Check the directory prefix for installation. The default is /usr/local, so .info files go to /usr/local/info and the executable file goes to /usr/local/bin. To change this, edit the line defining PREFIX.

Configure the source files by typing make config. At this point you can check that the speech server is correctly configured by typing

     tcl dtk-exp
     

If you're feeling paranoid, you can perform a couple of additional tests at this point. Execute the following commands in the running tcl session you just started above. (Most users will not need to do this; it is a sanity check and is useful in tracking problems, especially if you find emacspeak beginning to talk and then immediately fall silent.)

•           q "this is a test."
            d
            

  You should hear the Dectalk speak the text.

• s The above command stops speech. You should see a TCL prompt when you execute it. If things appear to hang when you execute s i.e. you don't see a TCL prompt
  1. The serial cable connecting your speech device is flaky
  2. Your serial port is flaky
  3. The stty settings on the port are incorrect for your system

  In the case of incorrect stty settings please report the problem. The following UNIX command can be used to report the stty settings:

            stty -a < serial_port
            

Quit this TCL session by typing C-D.

Next, compile the elisp files by typing

     make emacspeak
     

     make PREFIX=<prefix> install
     

The speech server program and/or output port can also be specified at run time by setting the shell environment variables DTK_PROGRAM and DTK_PORT. Examples: If using csh or tcsh

     setenv DTK_PROGRAM "dtk-exp"
     

     DTK_PROGRAM=dtk-exp
     export DTK_PROGRAM
     

     DTK_PORT=/dev/ttyS0
     

You can always set these variables from a running Emacs session by executing the Emacs setenv command.

Basic Usage.

This chapter gives an overview of how to use Emacspeak. Note: This documentation should be used in conjunction with the online Emacs info pages that extensively document Emacs itself. These sections briefly describe the speech-enabling extensions. However, they should not be considered a substitute for reading the Emacs manual. How successfully you use Emacspeak will depend on how well you learn your Emacs.

All Emacs navigation and editing commands have been speech enabled. Thus, moving to the next or previous word, line or paragraph results in the text around point being spoken. Exactly how much text is spoken is determined by the amount by which you moved.

In addition, Emacspeak provides basic reading functions that can be invoked to listen to chunks of text without moving.

• Overview: Basic Overview.
• Working: Working in Emacspeak.
• Reading: Reading chunks of information.
• Speech System: Controlling Speech Output.
• Voice-lock: Audio Formatting.
• Status Information: Speaking Status Information.

Overview of Emacspeak

Emacspeak provides a small number of core services around which the remainder of the audio interface is constructed. These essential features of the software are briefly outlined in the following paragraphs; the commands by which they can be controlled will be described later in the manual.

Apart from providing a fluent spoken interface to all of Emacs' basic editing functions, Emacspeak also includes software modules which add speech feedback to a range of applications that can be run from within Emacs. In this sense, Emacspeak amounts to much more than a talking text editor; indeed, it can more aptly be characterized as a true "audio desktop", in which speech is treated as a first-class output modality.

Emacspeak implements a special minor mode, known as "voice lock mode" (see Voice-lock) which uses distinct speech characteristics to provide aural highlighting of specific textual constructs, such as comments in program code, quoted strings and reserved words. This facility is further extended when Emacspeak is used with the W3 World Wide Web browser, to enable the semantic and structural distinctions captured by the HTML markup to be communicated efficiently.

It is often desirable to exercise control over the pronunciation of a word (E.G. a technical term or a reserved word in a programming language) within specific contexts. Emacspeak maintains pronunciation dictionaries for this purpose, which may be customized by the user. Moreover, individual dictionaries can be activated selectively, depending for example on the current major mode or the name of the file which is being visited.

In addition to spoken feedback, Emacspeak can generate "auditory icons"--short sound cues which alert the user to significant events, for example the opening or deletion of a file, the completion of an action, the arrival of an electronic mail message or the creation of a completion buffer. Sound cues act as a supplement to the spoken interface, and are especially valuable to the experienced user in facilitating rapid interaction. Note that in order to support auditory icons, the computer must be equipped with sound hardware for which the operating system has been correctly configured.

Working In Emacs Buffers.

While typing in an Emacs buffer, hitting space speaks the recently typed word. I use completion all the time; so Emacspeak will speak the completion just inserted as well as the next possible completion. In Emacs, use load-library ret completion ret for loading the completion package.

The standard Emacs prompting functions have also been speech-enabled. Emacs prompts with available lists of completions in response to partial input wherever appropriate --all forms of completion provide speech feedback.

In addition, Emacspeak provides a number of commands for reading portions of the current buffer, getting status information, and modifying Emacspeak's state.

All of the commands are documented in the subsequent sections. They can be classified into types:

• Emacspeak commands for listening to chunks of information. The names of these commands all start with the common prefix emacspeak-speak-. All Emacspeak commands are bound to the keymap emacspeak-keymap and are accessed with the key Control e². Thus, the Emacspeak command emacspeak-speak-line is bound to l in keymap emacspeak-keymap and can be accessed with the keystroke Control-e l. If for some reason you wish to use some key other than control-e as the common keyboard prefix for all Emacspeak commands, set the variable emacspeak-prefix.
• The second category of commands provided by Emacspeak manipulate the state of the speech device. The names of these commands start with the common prefix dtk- and are bound in keymap emacspeak-dtk-submap. You can access these commands via the prefix Control-e d³. Thus, the command dtk-set-rate is bound to r in keymap emacspeak-dtk-submap and can be executed by pressing Control e d r.

Emacs has extensive online help; so does emacspeak. Please use it.

This info manual is only to get you started. You can get a summary of Emacspeak's features by pressing Control-h Control-e

Reading Without Moving The Cursor.

Emacspeak speaks information as you move around within a buffer. How much text is spoken depends on how you move, thus, when you move by words, you hear the current word; when you move by paragraphs, you hear the current paragraph spoken. In addition, the following commands allow you to listen to information without moving point (point is emacs terminology for the editing cursor).

Reading without moving point:

control e c

emacspeak-speak-char Speak character under point. Pronounces character phonetically unless called with a PREFIX arg.

control e w

emacspeak-speak-word Speak current word. With prefix ARG, speaks the rest of the word from point. Negative prefix arg speaks from start of word to point. If executed on the same buffer position a second time, the word is spelled instead of being spoken.

control e l

emacspeak-speak-line Speaks current line. With prefix ARG, speaks the rest of the line from point. Negative prefix optional arg speaks from start of line to point. Voicifies if option `voice-lock-mode' is on. Indicates indentation with a tone if audio indentation is in use. Indicates position of point with an aural highlight if option `emacspeak-show-point' is turned on -see command `emacspeak-show-point' bound to M-x emacspeak-show-point. Lines that start hidden blocks of text, e.g. outline header lines, or header lines of blocks created by command `emacspeak-hide-or-expose-block' are indicated with auditory icon ellipses.

control e up

emacspeak-read-previous-line Read previous line, specified by an offset, without moving. Default is to read the previous line.

control e down

emacspeak-read-next-line Read next line, specified by an offset, without moving. Default is to read the next line.

control e {

emacspeak-speak-paragraph Speak paragraph. With prefix arg, speaks rest of current paragraph. Negative prefix arg will read from start of current paragraph to point. If voice-lock-mode is on, then it will use any defined personality.

control e r

emacspeak-speak-region Speak current region delimited by point and mark. When called from a program, argument START and END specify region to speak.

control e cap R

emacspeak-speak-rectangle Speak a rectangle of text. Rectangle is delimited by point and mark. When call from a program, arguments specify the START and END of the rectangle.

control e b

emacspeak-speak-buffer Speak current buffer contents. With prefix ARG, speaks the rest of the buffer from point. Negative prefix arg speaks from start of buffer to point. If voice lock mode is on, the paragraphs in the buffer are voice annotated first, see command `emacspeak-speak-voice-annotate-paragraphs'.

control e n

emacspeak-speak-rest-of-buffer Speak remainder of the buffer starting at point

control e /

emacspeak-speak-this-buffer-other-window-display Speak this buffer as displayed in a different frame. Emacs allows you to display the same buffer in multiple windows or frames. These different windows can display different portions of the buffer. This is equivalent to leaving a book open at places at once. This command allows you to listen to the places where you have left the book open. The number used to invoke this command specifies which of the displays you wish to speak. Typically you will have two or at most three such displays open. The current display is 0, the next is 1, and so on. Optional argument ARG specifies the display to speak.

control e left

emacspeak-speak-this-buffer-previous-display Speak this buffer as displayed in a `previous' window. See documentation for command `emacspeak-speak-this-buffer-other-window-display' for the meaning of `previous'.

control e right

emacspeak-speak-this-buffer-next-display Speak this buffer as displayed in a `previous' window. See documentation for command `emacspeak-speak-this-buffer-other-window-display' for the meaning of `previous'.

control e [

emacspeak-speak-page Speak a page. With prefix ARG, speaks rest of current page. Negative prefix arg will read from start of current page to point. If option `voice-lock-mode' is on, then it will use any defined personality.

control e 9 control e 8 control e 7 control e 6 control e 5 control e 4 control e 3 control e 2 control e 1 control e 0

emacspeak-speak-predefined-window Speak one of the first 10 windows on the screen. In general, you'll never have Emacs split the screen into more than two or three. Argument ARG determines the 'other' window to speak. Speaks entire window irrespective of point. Semantics of `other' is the same as for the builtin Emacs command `other-window'.

control e control n

emacspeak-speak-next-window Speak the next window.

control e control p

emacspeak-speak-previous-window Speak the previous window.

control e control o

emacspeak-speak-other-window Speak contents of `other' window. Speaks entire window irrespective of point. Semantics of `other' is the same as for the builtin Emacs command `other-window'. Optional argument ARG specifies `other' window to speak.

ESCAPE up

emacspeak-owindow-previous-line Move to the next line in the other window and speak it. Numeric prefix arg COUNT specifies number of lines to move.

ESCAPE down

emacspeak-owindow-next-line Move to the next line in the other window and speak it. Numeric prefix arg COUNT can specify number of lines to move.

ESCAPE next

emacspeak-owindow-scroll-up Scroll up the window that command `other-window' would move to. Speak the window contents after scrolling.

ESCAPE prior

emacspeak-owindow-scroll-down Scroll down the window that command `other-window' would move to. Speak the window contents after scrolling.

control e '

emacspeak-speak-sexp Speak current sexp. With prefix ARG, speaks the rest of the sexp from point. Negative prefix arg speaks from start of sexp to point. If option `voice-lock-mode' is on, then uses the personality.

control e meta control @

emacspeak-speak-spaces-at-point Speak the white space at point.

Speech System Commands

This section documents Emacspeak's various user commands for controlling the text to speech (TTS) system.

• Controlling Echo: Character, Word and Line Echo.
• Speech Output Control: Indicating case, capitalization and indentation.
• Miscellaneous: Miscellaneous TTS Commands.

Character, Word And Line Echo.

By default, Emacspeak speaks characters as they are typed -this is called character echo; Words are spoken as they are completed -this is called word echo. Emacspeak can also optionally speak each line as it is typed -this is called line echo.

Character, word and line echo can be toggled -either in the current buffer- or for all buffers (globally). To toggle the specific echo functionality for all buffers, precede the specific command with C-u. Note that in the documentation below, this use of C-u is indicated using the common Emacs terminology of prefix arg or interactive prefix arg.

control e d k

emacspeak-toggle-character-echo Toggle state of Emacspeak character echo. Interactive PREFIX arg means toggle the global default value, and then set the current local value to the result.

control e d w

emacspeak-toggle-word-echo Toggle state of Emacspeak word echo. Interactive PREFIX arg means toggle the global default value, and then set the current local value to the result.

control e d l

emacspeak-toggle-line-echo Toggle state of Emacspeak line echo. Interactive PREFIX arg means toggle the global default value, and then set the current local value to the result.

Setting Various Characteristics Of Speech Output.

Emacspeak user commands can set different characteristics of the speech output such as speech rate and punctuations mode.

Emacspeak provides a number of settings that affect how attributes of the text such as capitalization are conveyed. These include settings that produce a short tone for each upper case letter, as well as a smart mode for speaking mixed case words which is especially useful when programming. These settings can be made locally in a given buffer or be applied to all buffers by preceding these commands with C-u.

control e d r

dtk-set-rate Set speaking RATE for the tts. Interactive PREFIX arg means set the global default value, and then set the current local value to the result.

control e d f

dtk-set-character-scale Set scale FACTOR for speech rate. Speech rate is scaled by this factor when speaking characters. Interactive PREFIX arg means set the global default value, and then set the current local value to the result.

This function is advised.

Before-advice `emacspeak-auto': Automatically defined advice to speak interactive prompts.

control e d 9 control e d 8 control e d 7 control e d 6 control e d 5 control e d 4 control e d 3 control e d 2 control e d 1 control e d 0

dtk-set-predefined-speech-rate Set speech rate to one of nine predefined levels. Interactive PREFIX arg says to set the rate globally.

control e d p

dtk-set-punctuations Set punctuation mode to MODE. Possible values are `some', `all', or `none'. Interactive PREFIX arg means set the global default value, and then set the current local value to the result.

control e d m

dtk-set-pronunciation-mode Set pronunciation MODE. This command is valid only for newer Dectalks, e.g. the Dectalk Express. Possible values are `math, name, europe, spell', all of which can be turned on or off. Argument STATE specifies new state.

control e d s

dtk-toggle-split-caps Toggle split caps mode. Split caps mode is useful when reading Hungarian notation in program source code. Interactive PREFIX arg means toggle the global default value, and then set the current local value to the result.

control e d c

dtk-toggle-capitalization Toggle capitalization. when set, capitalization is indicated by a short beep. Interactive PREFIX arg means toggle the global default value, and then set the current local value to the result.

control e d cap C

dtk-toggle-allcaps-beep Toggle allcaps-beep. when set, allcaps words are indicated by a short beep. Interactive PREFIX arg means toggle the global default value, and then set the current local value to the result. Note that allcaps-beep is a very useful thing when programming. However it is irritating to have it on when reading documents.

In addition, Emacspeak can convey the indentation of lines as they are spoken- this is relevant when programming and is the default when working with program source.

control e d i

emacspeak-toggle-audio-indentation Toggle state of Emacspeak audio indentation. Interactive PREFIX arg means toggle the global default value, and then set the current local value to the result. Specifying the method of indentation as `tones' results in the Dectalk producing a tone whose length is a function of the line's indentation. Specifying `speak' results in the number of initial spaces being spoken.

Indentation feedback style is set by option emacspeak-audio-indentation-method

The default value is "speak"

See variable `emacspeak-audio-indentation-methods' for possible values. Automatically becomes local in any buffer where it is set.

Miscellaneous Speech Commands

Speech can be stopped using command dtk-stop -though in normal use, the action of moving the cursor will stop ongoing speech. Speech can also be paused and resumed. The speech server can be stopped and restarted for cases where the user wants to switch to a different server -or in the rare case to nuke a runaway speech server.

Control e s

dtk-stop Stop speech now.

control e p

dtk-pause Pause ongoing speech. The speech can be resumed with command `dtk-resume' normally bound to C-e SPC. Pausing speech is useful when one needs to perform a few actions before continuing to read a large document. Emacspeak gives you speech feedback as usual once speech has been paused. `dtk-resume' continues the interrupted speech irrespective of the buffer in which it is executed. Optional PREFIX arg flushes any previously paused speech.

control e SPACE

dtk-resume Resume paused speech. This command resumes speech that has been suspended by executing command `dtk-pause' bound to C-e p. If speech has not been paused, and variable `dtk-resume-should-toggle' is t then this command will pause ongoing speech.

control e d q

dtk-toggle-quiet Toggle state of the speech device between being quiet and talkative. Useful if you want to continue using an Emacs session that has emacspeak loaded but wish to make the speech shut up. Optional argument PREFIX specifies whether speech is turned off in the current buffer or in all buffers.

control e control s

dtk-emergency-restart Use this to nuke the currently running dtk server and restart it. Useful if you want to switch to another synthesizer while emacspeak is running. Also useful for emergency stopping of speech.

Finally, here are the remaining commands available via the TTS related keymap C-e d.

control e d a

dtk-add-cleanup-pattern Add this pattern to the list of repeating patterns that are cleaned up. Optional interactive prefix arg deletes this pattern if previously added. Cleaning up repeated patterns results in emacspeak speaking the pattern followed by a repeat count instead of speaking all the characters making up the pattern. Thus, by adding the repeating pattern `.' (this is already added by default) emacspeak will say "aw fifteen dot" when speaking the string "..............." instead of "period period period period ".

control e d d

dtk-select-server Select a speech server interactively. This will be the server that is used when you next call either M-x dtk-initialize or C-e C-s. Argument PROGRAM specifies the speech server program.

control e d SPACE

dtk-toggle-splitting-on-white-space Toggle splitting of speech on white space. This affects the internal state of emacspeak that decides if we split text purely by clause boundaries, or also include whitespace. By default, emacspeak sends a clause at a time to the speech device. This produces fluent speech for normal use. However in modes such as `shell-mode' and some programming language modes, clause markers appear infrequently, and this can result in large amounts of text being sent to the speech device at once, making the system unresponsive when asked to stop talking. Splitting on white space makes emacspeak's stop command responsive. However, when splitting on white space, the speech sounds choppy since the synthesizer is getting a word at a time.

control e d RETURN

dtk-set-chunk-separator-syntax Interactively set how text is split in chunks. See the Emacs documentation on syntax tables for details on how characters are classified into various syntactic classes. Argument S specifies the syntax class.

control e d t

emacspeak-dial-dtk Prompt for and dial a phone NUMBER with the Dectalk.

control e d cap V

emacspeak-dtk-speak-version Use this to find out which version of the TTS firmware you are running.

control e d z

emacspeak-zap-dtk Send this command to the TTS engine directly.

Voice Lock Mode

The status of voice lock mode can be toggled on and off by issuing the command C-e d v (M-x voice-lock-mode). With a prefix arg, this function applies globally; otherwise, it is local to the current buffer. To have voice lock mode activated automatically when Emacspeak starts, include the following code in your .emacs file:

     (add-hook 'emacs-lisp-mode-hook
     'turn-on-voice-lock)
     

Alternatively, Emacspeak can be set to enable voice lock automatically in all of the major modes that support it. To do so, insert the following statement into your Emacs initialization file:

     (global-voice-lock-mode t)
     

Note that the list of major modes in which global-voice-lock-mode will provide automatic activation is specified in the variable voice-lock-global-modes.

The characteristics of the different voice personalities deployed by voice lock mode vary according to the capabilities of the speech synthesizer. The definitions applicable to the Dectalk family of synthesizers are contained in dtk-voices.el, which is supplied as part of the Emacspeak distribution.

Using voice lock mode, Emacspeak also supports many of the aural style properties defined in level 2 of the World Wide Web Consortium's Cascading Style Sheet specification (see http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/. Thus, when Emacspeak is running in conjunction with a cooperating user agent, such as William Perry's Emacspeak/W3 web browser, the rendering of HTML documents can be regulated by style sheets. Examples of style rules which employ the CSS audio properties can be found in the default style sheet which is supplied in the Emacs/W3 distribution.

Commands For Speaking Status Information.

The following commands provide miscellaneous information.

control e a

emacspeak-speak-message-again Speak the last message from Emacs once again.

control e m

emacspeak-speak-mode-line Speak the mode-line.

control e cap M

emacspeak-speak-minor-mode-line Speak the minor mode-information.

control e control w

emacspeak-speak-window-information Speaks information about current windows.

control e t

emacspeak-speak-time Speak the time.

control e cap V

emacspeak-speak-version Announce version information for running emacspeak.

control e f

emacspeak-speak-buffer-filename Speak name of file being visited in current buffer. Speak default directory if invoked in a dired buffer, or when the buffer is not visiting any file.

control e h

emacspeak-speak-help Speak help buffer if one present. With prefix arg, speaks the rest of the buffer from point. Negative prefix arg speaks from start of buffer to point.

control e k

emacspeak-speak-current-kill Speak the current kill entry. This is the text that will be yanked in by the next C-y. Prefix numeric arg, COUNT, specifies that the text that will be yanked as a result of a C-y followed by count-1 M-y be spoken. The kill number that is spoken says what numeric prefix arg to give to command yank.

control e v

emacspeak-view-register Display the contents of a register, and then speak it.

control e control @

emacspeak-speak-current-mark Speak the line containing the mark. With no argument, speaks the line containing the mark-this is where `exchange-point-and-mark' C-x C-x would jump. Numeric prefix arg 'COUNT' speaks line containing mark 'n' where 'n' is one less than the number of times one has to jump using `set-mark-command' to get to this marked position. The location of the mark is indicated by an aural highlight achieved by a change in voice personality.

control e control l

emacspeak-speak-line-number Speak the line number of the current line.

control e =

emacspeak-speak-current-column Speak the current column.

control e %

emacspeak-speak-current-percentage Announce the percentage into the current buffer.

The Emacspeak Audio Desktop.

This chapter describes the Emacspeak audio desktop and gives tips and tricks for making use of many of Emacs' powerful features.

The desktop is the work area where you organize the tools of your trade and the information objects relevant to your current activities. In the conventional world of visual GUI-based computing, these tools and information objects manifest themselves as a collection of icons organized in a two-dimensional work-area -this organization is designed to place frequently used objects within easy reach.

Notice that organizing one's work area in terms of visual icons arranged in a two-dimensional area where such an organization is optimized for the available "conversational gestures" of pointing and clicking is an artifact of visual interaction.

In the spirit of a truly speech-enabled application, Emacspeak does not simply provide you spoken access to a particular presentation of your work environment that was initially designed with the "sign language" of visual interaction in mind. Instead, Emacspeak enables you to work with documents and other information objects in a manner that is optimized to aural, eyes-free interaction. A necessary consequence of this setup is that users accustomed to the purely visual manifestation of today's electronic desktop do not immediately perceive the Emacspeak environment as an electronic desktop. This section of the manual hopes to introduce you to a work-style that encourages a different perspective on how one interacts with the computer in performing day-to-day computing tasks.

The end result in my case has been a marked increase in personal productivity.

• Desktop Objects: Desktop Objects
• Object Oriented Desktop: Object Oriented Desktop
• Context-Sensitive Interaction: Context-Sensitive Interaction

Objects Making Up The Emacspeak Desktop

A "buffer" is the basic building block of the Emacs and hence the Emacspeak desktop. Any information presented by Emacs is placed in a "buffer". For example, when perusing this manual within Emacs, the "file" containing the documentation is presented in a "buffer". All information objects such as WWW pages, email messages, output from user interaction with command-line shells etc., are presented by Emacs in individual "buffers".

Buffers provide a base level of user interaction; Emacs derives its power by allowing applications to specialize buffers to enable specific types of user-interaction that is optimized for a specific class of information.

An Object-Oriented Desktop

The basic "buffer object" can be specialized by Emacs applications to provide optimal interaction. This kind of specialization makes the Emacs environment an object-oriented environment; thus, the basic conversational gesture of "move to the next statement" can be assigned behavior that is appropriate to the content that the user is currently navigating. As an example of such specialization, Emacs provides "specialized modes" for working with English text, programming languages, markup source e.g. HTML or LaTeX documents and so on.

Emacspeak Specializes Aural Interaction

The content-specific user interaction described above is a very powerful feature of Emacs, and this is where Emacspeak derives its power. Traditionally, the ability to create buffers specialized for working with specific content-types has been used by the Emacs community to develop versatile programming environments, messaging applications such as mail and news readers, and authoring environments. The clean design present in all of these Emacs extensions in terms of separating application functionality from the user-interface, combined with the availability of the entire source code making up these packages under the open-source model has laid the ground-work for developing Emacspeak as a versatile aural counterpart to the product of years of software engineering that has been invested by the Emacs community. In short, Emacspeak would not exist in its present shape or form without this prior effort.

Audio Formatted Output

Emacspeak takes advantage of the content-specific knowledge available within specialized buffers to produce "audio formatted" output designed to optimize user interaction. A basic consequence of the above is "voice locking" in specialized modes; a more interesting consequence is the implementation of Aural Cascading Style Sheets (ACSS) in conjunction with the Emacs W3 browser.

Structured Navigation:

Emacspeak also exploits content-specific knowledge to provide structured navigation of different types of electronic content. In many cases, such structured navigation is an extension of what Emacs provides by default; in other cases, Emacspeak implements the necessary extensions to provide the level of structural navigation needed to work efficiently in an eyes-free environment.

Notable among such structured navigation is Emacs' powerful outline feature. Notice for example, that the Emacspeak FAQ (reached via command emacspeak-view-emacspeak-faq bound to C-e F) takes advantage of Emacs' outline mode to allow you to easily move through the various sections. An example of content-sensitive navigation is provided by the imenu package which dynamically creates a "table of contents" based on the content that is being displayed in a given buffer.

Navigating The Desktop

In addition to navigating individual information objects, the Emacspeak environment provides speech-enabled navigation of the various buffers that are currently open on the Emacspeak desktop via Emacs' built-in list-buffers feature. Emacs' dired -directory editor- for browsing the file system, along with the new speedbar package that combines features from dired and imenu round off the suite of navigational tools.

Everything Is Searchable:

Emacs derives one final advantage from using buffers as the basic building block for the entire desktop. Every Emacs buffer is searchable via a uniform and powerful search interface. Emacs' incremental search works efficiently and consistently to enable you locate "objects" of interest either within a given document or to locate a given object from among the various objects that are currently open on the Emacspeak desktop. This is very powerful -where a GUI user is typically limited to quickly locating an object from a relatively small collection -the size of the collection being a direct function of available display real-estate- the Emacspeak user can typically work with a far larger collection of objects. This is well-suited to the eyes-free environment, where display real-estate has no meaning; so bringing up a list of currently open buffers and performing an incremental search to locate a specific buffer is just as efficient independent of whether you have a few dozen or a few hundred buffers open.

To illustrate the above, my typical working Emacs session lasts between two and three weeks- over that time I typically accumulate several hundred open buffers holding a large variety of content ranging from program source code to email messages and WWW pages.

Ubiquitous search in the eyes-free environment is critical- as a comparison, when using a conventional, purely visual WWW browser, users have no means of easily "searching" for say the "submit" button on a WWW page. This inability is a minor annoyance in visual interaction, and the typical mouse-enabled user never uses the find dialog to find a submit button- it is simply more efficient to point at the submit button given the eye's ability to quickly scan the two-dimensional display. This luxury is absent in an eyes-free environment; as a consequence, blind users confronted by the combination of a visual interface and screen-reader are typically limited to either tabbing through all the controls on a WWW page, or using the sub-optimal find dialog.

Using Online Help With Emacspeak.

Emacs provides an extensive online help system for helping you learn about various aspects of using Emacs. Emacspeak provides online help for its various extensions using this same help system. This chapter explains how to use the online help facilities in order to empower you in discovering powerful and versatile working techniques that will make you more and more productive in your day to day computing.

The online help options are accessed via the C-h prefix key, which must be followed by an additional letter or control character to designate the kind of help desired. For example, C-h t help-with-tutorial visits the Emacs tutorial in a new buffer; C-h i info enters the Info documentation system, from which you can read Texinfo manuals that have been installed on your system, including the Emacs and Emacspeak documentation; and C-h k describe-key provides a description of the Emacs function which is bound to the next key that you type. For learning about the various options that are available via the C-h mechanism described above, view the online help for command help-for-help bound to C-h C-h --using what has been described so far, you would achieve this by pressing C-h k followed by C-h C-h.

Emacspeak users should note that online help is typically displayed in a separate Emacs window. Where it makes sense to do so, Emacspeak will automatically speak the displayed help. Once you've asked for help, you can have the displayed documentation as many times as you wish using Emacspeak command emacspeak-speak-help bound to C-e h. If you want to move through the displayed help a line at a time, switch to the buffer where the help is displayed -the buffer is called *Help*.

Often, in adding an auditory interface to an Emacs extension, such as a web browser or mail reader, Emacspeak defines additional commands and key bindings which enhance the functionality of the spoken feedback provided by the application. This manual does not purport to document all such commands. It is important, therefore, when learning to use the various Emacs extensions which comprise the `audio desktop' (see Audio Desktop) that you take advantage of online help to obtain details of any context-specific features provided by Emacspeak. The following two commands are of particular importance in this regard:

• C-h m describe-mode explains which major and minor modes are currently in effect, and lists the commands and key bindings associated with them.
• C-h b describe-bindings lists all of the key bindings which are currently defined.

The importance of these help functions can be illustrated by the Emacs/W3 web browser. When point is positioned inside a table, certain key bindings are established with which you can access Emacspeak commands that make it possible to read the rows and columns of the table and explore its structure efficiently. To get a description of these key bindings, you can use W3 to visit the sample HTML file supplied as part of the Emacspeak distribution, and, after having moved point onto the first row of the table, issue the command C-h m describe-mode to create a help buffer containing an explanation of the features offered by W3 mode.

Emacspeak supplements the online help facilities available within Emacs by defining several commands of its own, as follows:

• C-h c-e describe-emacspeak presents a list of standard Emacspeak commands.
• C-e F emacspeak-view-emacspeak-faq opens a new buffer containing the Emacspeak FAQ, a list of frequently asked questions about Emacspeak together with their answers.
• C-e C-h emacspeak-learn-mode enters a mode in which the function of every key that you type is spoken; this mode can be terminated with the C-g keyboard-quit command.
• M-x emacspeak-generate-documentation prompts for the name of a file in which it saves an automatically generated summary of all Emacspeak commands.

Emacs Packages.

Emacs - The extensible, self-documenting editor, derives its functionality from its powerful extension mechanism. This extension mechanism is used to implement many user-level applications such as mail readers, WWW browsers, software development environments and so on. This chapter gives directions on how to locate the right Emacs package for addressing specific tasks. The chapter is organized into logical sections that each pertain to a specific class of tasks; in individual subsections within a section give a brief overview of particular Emacs packages that have been speech-enabled.

• Document Authoring: Document Authoring
• Structured Editing: Structured Editing
• Browsing Structure : Browsing Structure
• Messaging : Messaging
• Editting Program Source: Editting Program Source
• Development Environment: Development Environment
• Desktop Management: Desktop Management
• Personal Information Management: Personal Information Management
• Desktop Applications: Desktop Applications

Document Authoring

The Emacspeak environment provides a rich collection of structured document authoring tools. These are well-suited for working in an eyes-free environment -you clearly do not want to use a What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) authoring tool if you cannot see what you're getting. Structure-based authoring tools allow you to focus on the act of content creation, leaving the minutiae of visual layout to the computer.

• Creating Well-formatted Documents: Authoring Content.
• Search replace and spell check: Fixing errors.

Creating Well-formatted Documents

Before authoring a document, decide its primary audience if the document contains relatively simple content e.g., no mathematical equations etc. and is primarily targeted at the WWW, you are probably better off using HTML. You can create well-structured HTML documents with the help of package html-helper-mode available from ftp://ftp.reed.edu/pub/src/html-helper-mode.tar.gz. Package html-helper-mode is speech-enabled by Emacspeak to provide auditory icons, structured navigation and outlines, as well as voice locking for audio formatted feedback as you work.

If the document being authored is more complex, you are usually better off creating it in LaTeX. Note that LaTeX documents can be converted to HTML either via package tth or package latex2html -both available on the WWW.

The TeX family of typesetting languages is suitable for producing well-formatted documents in an eyes-free environment. Unlike WYSIWYG environments, the author of a TeX or LaTeX document works with the content of the document, leaving it to the formatting system (TeX) to format the document for good visual presentation.

The auctex package is an Emacs extension that facilitates authoring and maintaining structured documents in TeX and LaTeX. Package bibtex facilitates maintenance and use of bibtex bibliography databases. The Texinfo package allows creation of software documentation that is suitable for both printing as well as online viewing as hypertext. Emacspeak speech-enables packages auctex, bibtex and texinfo to provide convenient spoken feedback as you create and compile documents. For details on using these packages, see their accompanying online info documentation.

The most recent version of package auctex is always available by ftp at ftp://ftp.iesd.auc.dk/pub/emacs-lisp/auctex.tar.gz. Packages bibtex and texinfo are part of the standard Emacs distribution.

As the document preparation system of choice, Emacspeak supports a fluent speech-enabled interface to editing and formatting LaTeX documents. This interface is provided by speech-enabling auctex mode.

Mode auctex provides efficient keyboard shortcuts for inserting and maintaining LaTeX markup as a document is being authored. All of these editing commands provide succinct auditory feedback when used with Emacspeak. The syntax coloring provided by this mode is extended to provide voice locking -- consequently, Emacspeak uses different voices to speak the embedded markup to set it apart from the content.

Mode auctex can be used to create empty document templates and to insert document content at the appropriate places in the template. The mode also enables structured navigation of the document as it is being edited. Emacspeak speech-enables these template creation and structured navigation commands to produce auditory icons and succinct spoken feedback. For example, while editing, the user can quickly browse through the sections of the document and have each section title spoken. Document elements such as paragraphs and bulleted lists can be manipulated as logical units. These features are especially relevant in an eyes-free environment where the user needs to select logical parts of the document without having to point at portions of a visual display.

Finally, Emacs supports creating and maintaining SGML and XML documents. Emacs comes with a fairly simple sgml-mode -in addition, package psgml provides sophisticated parsing and validation facilities for working with SGML and XML documents. Package psgml can be downloaded from http://w4.lns.cornell.edu/public/COMP/info/psgml/psgml_toc.html.

Searching, Replacing, And Spell Checking

Incremental search, a process by which the system prompts the user for a search string and moves the selection to the next available match while allowing the user to add more characters to the search string, is the search technique of choice among most Emacs users. As the system successively finds each match and provides the user the option of continuing the search. Incremental search is a more complex instance of traditional search interaction because in addition to either stopping or continuing the search, the user can modify the current search in a number of ways including specifying a longer (or shorter) search string.

All of the user commands available during incremental search are documented in the online Emacs info manual. These are speech-enabled by Emacspeak to provide spoken prompts as the dialogue begins; auditory icons indicate a search hit or search miss as the search progresses. Along with auditory icons search-hit and search-miss the user also hears the current line spoken, and in the case of a search hit, the matching text is aurally highlighted by using the standard audio formatting technique of changing voice characteristic. This feedback proves extremely effective when the search pattern appears several times on a single line; the user is unambiguously cued to the current match.

Search and replace actions are an extension to the basic conversational gestures of a search dialogue. In addition to specifying a search string, the user also specifies a replacement string. On the Emacspeak desktop, this functionality is provided by command query-replace. The speech-enabled version of this interaction prompts the user for the search and replacement texts. The auditory feedback during the interactive search and replacement process parallels that described in the case of incremental search. Audio formatting to indicate the occurrence that is about to be replaced proves an effective means of avoiding erroneous modifications to the text being edited. As an example, consider using command query-replace to locate and replace the second occurrence of foo with bar in the text

Do not change this fool, but change this food.

When the search matches the first occurrence of foo in word fool, the aural highlighting helps the user in answering "no" in response to question "should this occurrence be replaced". In addition to allowing the user to supply a simple "yes or no" answer for each match, command query-replace also allows the user to specify a number of other valid answers as described in the online Emacs documentation.

Spell Checking

A more complex instance of conversational gesture "search and replace" is exhibited by standard spell checking dialogues. Spell checking differs from the search and replace dialogue described above in that the search and replacement text is guessed by the system based on an available dictionary. Words that are not found in the dictionary are flagged as potential spelling errors, and the system offers an interactive search and replace dialogue for each of these possible errors. During this dialogue, the system successively selects each occurrence of the possibly erroneous word and offers a set of possible replacements. Unlike in the case of simple search and replace, more than one possible replacement string is offered, since a potential spelling error can be corrected by more than one word appearing in the dictionary.

In the visual interface, such spell checking dialogues are realized by displaying the available choices in a pop-up window and allowing the user to pick a correction Once a correction is selected, the user is offered the choice of interactively replacing the erroneous word with the correction.

The spell checking interface on the Emacspeak desktop is speech-enabled to provide fluent auditory feedback. The visual interface parallels that described above and is provided by package ispell which is part of the standard Emacs distribution. Emacspeak provides a spoken prompt that is composed of the line containing the possibly erroneous word (which is aurally highlighted to set it apart from the rest of the text on that line) and the available corrections. Each correction is prefixed with a number that the user can use to select it. Once a correction is selected, the interaction continues with the query and replace interaction described earlier. The speech interface to the spell checker is as fluent as the visual interface. Notice that Emacspeak users do not need to concern themselves with the details of the visual display such as "the corrections are displayed in a window at the top of the screen".

In addition to the standard spell checker described above, newer versions of Emacs include an "on-the-fly" spell checker that flags erroneous words as they are typed. Emacspeak speech-enables package flyspell so that such erroneous words are aurally highlighted.

Structured Editing And Templates

Editing documents based on the inherent structure present in the electronic encoding can be very efficient when using spoken interaction. We described mode auctex -- a specialized interface to authoring LaTeX documents as a special instance of such structured editing in see Document Authoring.

The Emacspeak desktop allows the user to efficiently author and maintain an electronic document based either on the structure present in the markup (as in the case of mode auctex) or on special outlining constructs that allow the user to impose a desired logical structure on the document. This section describes the effect of speech-enabling such editing tools and points out the advantages in using these in a speech oriented interface.

Template-based authoring -- a technique that allows the user to create a document by inserting contents into appropriate positions in a predefined template-- goes hand in hand with such structured editing. Finally, structured editing can vastly simplify the creation and maintenance of structured data, for example, the data present in a UNIX password file. Such data files are in fact nothing more than a collection of database records, where each record (or line) consists of a set of fields delimited by a special character. Maintaining such files without exploiting the underlying structure often tends to be error prone. We describe editing modes that can exploit such record structure to provide a fluent editing interface. Finally, we outline a speech-enabled interface to a spreadsheet application as a complex instance of such structured data editing.

• Outline Editing : Editing and navigating outlines.
• Template-based Authoring: Creating and Filling Templates.
• Maintaining Structured Data: Structured Data.

Outline Editing

All of the various outline editing interfaces on the Emacs desktop allow the user to hide or show the contents at the different levels of a possibly nested tree structure. Components of this tree structure can be manipulated as a unit, e.g., entire subtrees can be deleted or copied. Outline editing thus provides an efficient means of obtaining quick overviews of a document.

The visual interface displays such hidden content as a series of ellipses following the visible outline heading. Emacspeak produces auditory icon ellipses when speaking such outline headings.

The basic outline mode allows the user to specify the syntax and level of outline header lines as a regular expression. This simple technique can be used to advantage in the structured navigation of large electronic texts such as those available on the Internet from online book projects such as project Gutenberg and the Internet Wiretap. For example, when this feature is activated while reading the electronic text of a Shakespearean play, the different acts can be recognized as separate nodes in the logical structure of the document. The user can then hide the document body with a single keystroke, navigate the outline headings to find a particular act, and have that portion rendered either visually or aurally. Hiding an outline level produces auditory icon close-object; exposing a hidden level produces auditory icon open-object. For details on using mode outline, see the relevant section of the online Emacs info manual.

The basic outline facility described above is applicable to all content being edited or browsed on the Emacspeak desktop. In addition, Emacspeak has other specialized outline editing modes such as folding mode that provide extended outlining facilities. In mode folding, the user can create (possibly nested) folds -- logical containers of content that are delimited by a special fold mark. The fold mark is typically a text string that is chosen based on the type of content that is being manipulated. Thus, when folding a C~program source file, fold marks are created from C~comments. The user can open or close any or all folds in a document, and these actions are accompanied by auditory icons open-object and close-object. By entering a fold, all editing actions are restricted to the contents of that fold; this proves a simple yet convenient way of constraining editing actions such as search and replace to specific portions of large documents. Folds can be manipulated as a unit and can be deleted, copied or moved.

Mode folding proves especially effective in maintaining large software modules. The technique can be used to advantage by creating folds for different sections in a module and by further placing each function appearing in a particular % section in a fold of its own. Complex functions can themselves be folded into sections where each section reflects a different stage in the algorithm implemented by that function. Thus, the technique of folding can be used as an effective aid in literate programming. I typically write software modules by first creating an outline structure using folds that reflect the various components of that module. Next, I populate each fold with the function signatures and documentation for the functions in each section. When I am satisfied with the overall architecture of the module, I fill in the function skeletons with actual program code. This technique is used extensively in maintaining the Emacspeak code base.

Template-based Authoring

Emacspeak supports two powerful template-based authoring subsystems that enable the user to quickly create and fill in templates. Dmacro (short for "dynamic macros") allows the user to define and invoke template-based macros that are specialized for creating different types of content. For example, when programming in C, the user can invoke dynamic macros that insert skeletons of standard C constructs with a few keystrokes. This form of editing has numerous advantages in creating consistently structured code when developing large software modules. Emacspeak speech-enables mode dmacro to provide succinct spoken feedback as templates are created and filled. The user invokes dmacro via command insert dmacro, which is typically bound to a single key. This results in a dialogue where the user is prompted to pick one of the dynamic macros available in the current context. If the users choice can be uniquely completed, that completion is spoken; otherwise, the list of possible completions based on the available partial input is spoken, accompanied by auditory icon help.

An alternative template-editing facility is provided by mode tempo This mode is designed to be used in creating template-based editing tools for specific markup languages; a good example is mode html-helper, a mode for creating and updating HTML documents for publishing on the WWW (see see Document Authoring).

Maintaining Structured Data

Consider the following entry from file /etc/passwd on my laptop.

aster:KoUxwQ2:501:100:Aster Labrador:/home/aster:/bin/bash

File /etc/passwd is a simple instance of a text file that stores structured data records as a series of fields delimited by a special character. Each item in the file acquires meaning from the position in which it occurs for example, the fifth field contains the user name, Aster Labrador. More generally, structured data where each field in a record has meaning is found throughout the desktop in applications ranging from entries in a rolodex to rows in a spreadsheet.

Typically, users do not directly edit the stored representation of the data. Instead, application front-ends provide a more human-centric (and hopefully less error prone) user interface for modifying and maintaining the data. Thus, spreadsheet applications present the data as a two dimensional table that is automatically updated to reflect changes in the underlying data. The two dimensional table is perhaps the most commonly found visual front-end to structured data tables with row and column headers prove a succinct way of implicitly displaying the meaning along with the value of the fields making up each data record.

Browsing Structured Information

This section describes packages that allow you to browse structured information -these are distinct from the tools described in Structured Editing, in that they are typically used for working with content that is read-only e.g., online documentation.

Electronic Messaging Applications

Working with messaging applications involves both authoring and browsing content. Emacspeak provides a rich set of speech-enabled messaging tools. Further, all of the tools described in the previous sections integrate smoothly with the messaging applications described here; this means that you do not need to re-learn a new set of work habits when dealing with content in your messaging application.

Editting Program Source Code

Files containing program source code form a very specific class of structured documents. Unlike documents meant for human consumption that are often only loosely structured, program source (as a concession to the computer's intolerance of lack of structure) are per force well-structured and adhere to a fairly stringent syntax.

The Emacs environment provides editting modes that are specific to creating and maintaining software written in most popular programming languages. Many of these editting modes are speech-enabled by Emacspeak. Speech-enabling these modes includes providing a rich set of navigational commands that allow you to move through the source efficiently. In addition, Emacspeak's core voice-lock facilities are used to produce audio formatted output -this helps you spot errors quickly.

Software Development Environment

In addition to providing specialized editting modes for creating and maintaining program source, Emacs provides a rich set of software development tools that can be combined to create powerful Integrated Development Environments (IDE). These IDEs are speech-enabled by Emacspeak to provide a versatile and powerful environment for eyes-free software development.

Desktop Management

Emacs provides an integrated environment for performing all of ones day-to-day computing tasks ranging from electronic messaging to software development. The environment derives its power from the fact that this integration allows for content to be handled across different tasks in a seamless manner. In order to work effectively with large Emacs sessions with many documents and applications open at the same time, the Emacspeak desktop provides a powerful collection of desktop management tools designed to help the user easily locate objects that pertain to a given task.

Personal Information Management

This section describes speech-enabled tools designed to aid in personal information management such as maintaining a daily calendar.

Desktop Applications

Spread Sheets

Spreadsheet applications present a two dimensional view of structured data where the field values are (possibly) mutually dependent. On the Emacspeak desktop, a speech-enabled spreadsheet application can be used to manipulate such data-driven documents% ranging from simple cheque books and expense reports to complex investment portfolios. Where the traditional visual interface to spreadsheets is typically independent of the semantics of the data stored in the spreadsheet, the speech-enabled interface is derived from the meaning of the various fields making up the data. When presenting such information on a visual display, implicit visual layout can be used to cue the user to the meaning of different data fields. On the other hand, in the case of an actively scrolling auditory display, the spoken output needs to explicitly convey both the value and interpretation of the different data items. In addition, the interface needs to enable an active dialogue between user and application where the user is able to query the system about the possible meaning of a particular item of data. Finally, the aural interface needs to enable multiple views of the display. In the visual interface, such multiple views are automatically enabled by the two dimensional layout combined with the eye's ability to move rapidly around the layout structure. Thus, while viewing any particular row of a portfolio, one can immediately see the current total value as well as the net gain or loss. The Emacs spread-sheet package dismal can be retrieved from ftp://cs.nyu.edu/pub/local/fox/dismal.

Forms Mode

Forms mode an Emacs mode designed to edit structured data records like the line shown from file /etc/passwd presents a user-friendly visual interface that displays the field name along with the field value. The user can edit the field value and save the file, at which point the data is written out using the underlying : delimited representation. Mode forms provides a flexible interface to associating meaning to the fields of such structured data files. For details on it use, see the forms-mode section of the online Emacs info documentation.

OCR -Reading Print Documents

Module emacspeak-ocr implements an OCR front-end for the Emacspeak desktop.

Page image is acquired using tools from package SANE (Scanner Access Now Easy). The acquired image is run through the OCR engine if one is available, and the results placed in a buffer that is suitable for browsing the results. This buffer is placed in mode emacspeak-ocr-mode a specialized mode for reading and scanning documents.

Emacspeak OCR Mode

Emacspeak OCR mode is a special major mode for document scanning and OCR.

Pre-requisites:

• A working scanner back-end like SANE on Linux.
• An OCR engine.

Make sure your scanner back-end works, and that you have the utilities to scan a document and acquire an image as a tiff file. Then set variable emacspeak-ocr-scan-image-program to point at this utility. By default, this is set to `scanimage' which is the image scanning utility provided by SANE.

By default, this front-end attempts to compress the acquired tiff image; make sure you have a utility like tiffcp. Variable emacspeak-ocr-compress-image is set to `tiffcp' by default; if you use something else, you should customize this variable.

Next, make sure you have an OCR engine installed and working. By default this front-end assumes that OCR is available as /usr/bin/ocr.

Once you have ensured that acquiring an image and applying OCR to it work independently of Emacs, you can use this Emacspeak front-end to enable easy OCR access from within Emacspeak.

The Emacspeak OCR front-end is launched by command emacspeak-ocr bound to C-e C-o.

This command switches to a special buffer that has OCR commands bounds to single keystrokes- see the key-binding list at the end of this description. Use Emacs online help facility to look up help on these commands.

Mode emacspeak-ocr-mode provides the necessary functionality to scan, OCR, read and save documents. By default, scanned images and the resulting text are saved under directory ~/ocr; see variable emacspeak-ocr-working-directory. Invoking command emacspeak-ocr-open-working-directory bound to d will open this directory.

By default, the document being scanned is named `untitled'. You can name the document by using command emacspeak-ocr-name-document bound to n. The document name is used in constructing the name of the image and text files.

Here is a list of all emacspeak OCR commands along with their key-bindings and a brief description:

digit

emacspeak-ocr-page Jumps to specified page in the OCR output.

c

emacspeak-ocr-set-compress-image-options

Interactively update image compression options. Prompts with current setting in the minibuffer. Setting persists for current Emacs session.

i

emacspeak-ocr-set-scan-image-options Interactively update scan image options. Prompts with current setting in the minibuffer. Setting persists for current Emacs session.

spc

emacspeak-ocr-read-current-page Speaks current page.

s

emacspeak-ocr-save-current-page Saves current page as a text file.

p

emacspeak-ocr-page Prompts for a page number and moves to the specified page.

]

emacspeak-ocr-forward-page Move forward to the next page.

[

emacspeak-ocr-backward-page Move back to the previous page.

d

emacspeak-ocr-open-working-directory Open directory containing the results of OCR.

n

emacspeak-ocr-name-document Name current document.

o

emacspeak-ocr-recognize-image Launch OCR engine on a scanned image.

i

emacspeak-ocr-scan-image Acquire an image using scanimage.

RET

emacspeak-ocr-scan-and-recognize Scan and recognize a page.

w

emacspeak-ocr-write-document Write all pages of current document to a text file.

q

bury-buffer Bury the OCR buffer.

c

emacspeak-ocr-customize Customize Emacspeak OCR settings.

?

describe-mode Describe OCR mode.

Running Terminal Based Applications.

You can use the terminal emulator mode to run arbitrary terminal-based programs from within Emacs. You open a terminal emulator buffer using M-x term, with an extra carriage return to accept the default shell (such as bash). (Incidentally, don't confuse this command with M-x terminal-emulator, which starts an older terminal emulator mode not supported by Emacspeak.)

Three kinds of commands are used within the terminal emulator. Normal term commands use a prefix of C-c. The emacspeak commands for eterm mode use a prefix of C-t. Anything else is a normal shell command.

There are two sub-modes of term mode: char sub-mode and line sub-mode. In char sub-mode, emacspeak will only speak the final chunk of output -typically the last line displayed. Each character typed (except `term-escape-char`) is sent immediately. Use char sub-mode for screen oriented programs like vi or pine.

In line sub-mode, program output is spoken if user option eterm-autospeak is turned on. When you type a return at the end of the buffer, that line is sent as input, while return not at end copies the rest of the line to the end and sends it. When using terminal line mode with option eterm-autospeak turned on, speech feedback is similar to that obtained in regular shell-mode buffers.

The default is char sub-mode. You can switch to line sub-mode with C-c C-j (recall that control J is a linefeed), and back to char sub-mode with C-c C-k (think of character spelled with a K).

Note: Use char-mode with the terminal emulator for running screen-oriented programs like Lynx or Pine. For regular shell interaction just use M-x shell instead of using the terminal emulator.

Char Sub-mode of Term Mode

In char sub-mode of term, each character you type is sent directly to the inferior process without intervention from emacs, except for the escape character (usually C-c).

Here are some of the useful commands for the char sub-mode. Note that the usual commands for killing a buffer or switching buffers do not work in this mode, so new key bindings are supplied. The first five commands are different ways of leaving this mode.

C-c C-j

M-x term-line-mode

Switch to line sub-mode of term mode.

C-c o

M-x other-window

Select the next window on this frame. All windows on current frame are arranged in a cyclic order. This command selects the next window in that order. If there are no other windows, this command does nothing.

C-c C-f

M-x find-file

Switch to a buffer visiting a file, creating one if none already exists.

C-c 0

M-x delete-window

Remove current window from the display.

C-c k

M-x kill-buffer

Kill the current buffer.

C-c C-x C-c

M-x save-buffers-kill-emacs

Offer to save each buffer, then kill this Emacs process.

C-c C-d

M-x list-directory

Display a list of files in or matching DIRNAME, a la `ls'. DIRNAME is globbed by the shell if necessary. Prefix arg (C-u) means supply -l switch to `ls'. The list appears in a second window.

C-c 1

M-x delete-other-windows

Delete all other windows in the frame, making the current window fill its frame.

C-c C-c

M-x term-send-raw

Send the last character typed through the terminal-emulator without any interpretation.

C-c (

M-x start-kbd-macro

Record subsequent keyboard input, defining a keyboard macro. The commands are recorded even as they are executed. Use C-c ) to finish recording and make the macro available. Use M-x name-last-kbd-macro to give it a permanent name. Prefix arg (C-u) means append to last macro defined; This begins by re-executing that macro as if you had typed it again.

C-c )

M-x end-kbd-macro

Finish defining a keyboard macro. The definition was started by C-c (. The macro is now available for use via C-c e, or it can be given a name with M-x name-last-kbd-macro and then invoked under that name.

C-c e

M-x call-last-kbd-macro

Call the last keyboard macro that you defined with C-c (. A prefix argument serves as a repeat count. Zero means repeat until error.

You can get a list of all the key sequences with a C-c prefix by typing C-c C-h while in this sub-mode. Some of those commands are only available in the char sub-mode, while others are generally available.

Line Sub-mode of Term Mode

In line sub-mode of term mode, emacs editing commands work normally, until you type RET which sends the current line to the inferior process.

Here are some of the useful commands for the line sub-mode of the term mode. In addition, the usual commands for handling a buffer work in this mode (C-x o to switch windows, C-x k to kill a buffer, C-x f to find a file, and so forth).

C-c C-k

M-x term-char-mode

Switch to char sub-mode of term mode.

C-c C-z

M-x term-stop-subjob

Stop the current subjob. Resume the subjob in the foreground with the ordinary command fg, or run it in the background with bg. WARNING: if there is no current subjob, you can end up suspending the top-level process running in the buffer. If you accidentally do this, use M-x term-continue-subjob to resume the process. (This is not a problem with with most shells, including bash, since they ignore this signal.)

C-c C-\

M-x term-quit-subjob

Send quit signal to the current subjob.

C-c C-c

M-x term-interrupt-subjob

Interrupt the current subjob.

C-c C-w

M-x backward-kill-word

Kill characters backward until encountering the end of a word.

C-c C-u

M-x term-kill-input

Kill all text from last stuff output by interpreter to point.

C-c C-a

M-x term-bol

Goes to the beginning of line, then skips past the prompt, if any. If a prefix argument is given (C-u), then no prompt skip - go straight to column 0.

C-c C-d

M-x term-send-eof

Send an end of file character (EOF) to the current buffer's process.

You can get a list of all the key sequences with a C-c prefix by typing C-c C-h while in this sub-mode. Some of those commands are only available in the line sub-mode, while others are generally available.

Eterm Mode Commands

The eterm mode maintains a pointer, which is not necessarily the same as the terminal's cursor. It is intended to be used in eterm's char submode. In char submode, C-t , (that's control-t followed by comma) will tell you where the eterm pointer is. C-t C-i will tell you where the terminal's cursor is. The top left corner of the window is "row 0 column 0".

The eterm pointer can be moved with C-t < (to the top of the screen), C-t > (to the bottom of the screen), C-t n (to the next line), C-t p (to the previous line), and C-t . (to the cursor). Each of these also speaks the line the pointer moves to. You can also search forward with C-t s.

These commands speak without moving the pointer: C-t l (current line), C-t w (current word), C-t c (current character), and C-t [space] (from eterm pointer to cursor).

You may enter review mode with C-t q. In review mode, you can search the buffer and speak its contents, without disturbing the terminal. Commands for moving the pointer are similar to normal editing commands, but without a control key: n and p for next and previous line, f and b for forward and back by characters, < and > for the beginning or end of the buffer. c, w, and l speak the current character, word, and line. s searches forward (not incrementally). A comma speaks the pointer location. A period moves the pointer to the terminal cursor. Return to normal term mode by typing q.

Emacspeak Commands

This chapter is generated automatically from the source-level documentation. Any errors or corrections should be made to the source-level documentation.

• cd-tool:
• dtk-speak:
• emacspeak:
• emacspeak-amphetadesk:
• emacspeak-analog:
• emacspeak-arc:
• emacspeak-aumix:
• emacspeak-bs:
• emacspeak-buff-menu:
• emacspeak-c:
• emacspeak-calendar:
• emacspeak-compile:
• emacspeak-custom:
• emacspeak-daisy:
• emacspeak-dired:
• emacspeak-dismal:
• emacspeak-ecb:
• emacspeak-ediff:
• emacspeak-enriched:
• emacspeak-entertain:
• emacspeak-erc:
• emacspeak-eterm:
• emacspeak-eudc:
• emacspeak-filtertext:
• emacspeak-fix-interactive:
• emacspeak-forms:
• emacspeak-freeamp:
• emacspeak-gnus:
• emacspeak-gomoku:
• emacspeak-gridtext:
• emacspeak-hide:
• emacspeak-ibuffer:
• emacspeak-imcom:
• emacspeak-imenu:
• emacspeak-info:
• emacspeak-keymap:
• emacspeak-kotl:
• emacspeak-loaddefs:
• emacspeak-m-player:
• emacspeak-man:
• emacspeak-mpg123:
• emacspeak-ocr:
• emacspeak-outline:
• emacspeak-pronounce:
• emacspeak-psgml:
• emacspeak-python:
• emacspeak-realaudio:
• emacspeak-redefine:
• emacspeak-remote:
• emacspeak-rmail:
• emacspeak-rss:
• emacspeak-solitaire:
• emacspeak-sounds:
• emacspeak-speak:
• emacspeak-speedbar:
• emacspeak-table-ui:
• emacspeak-tabulate:
• emacspeak-tapestry:
• emacspeak-tar:
• emacspeak-tetris:
• emacspeak-tnt:
• emacspeak-url-template:
• emacspeak-view:
• emacspeak-view-process:
• emacspeak-vm:
• emacspeak-w3:
• emacspeak-websearch:
• emacspeak-widget:
• emacspeak-wizards:
• emacspeak-xml-shell:

cd-tool

Commentary: Provide an emacs front-end to cdtool. cdtool can be obtained as an rpm check using rpmfind or from its home site at sunsite.unc.edu /pub/Linux/apps/sound/cdrom/cli This module also provides the ability to play or save clips from a CD if you have cdda2wav installed. cdda2wav is a cd to wav convertor.

Automatically generated documentation for commands defined in module cd-tool.

cd-tool ()

Interactive Command

control e DEL Front-end to CDTool. Bind this function to a convenient key- Emacspeak users automatically have this bound to <DEL> in the emacspeak keymap. Key Action -- ----- + Next Track - Previous Track SPC Pause or Resume e Eject = Shuffle i CD Info p Play s Stop t track c clip cap C Save clip to disk

dtk-speak

Commentary: Defines the TTS interface.

Automatically generated documentation for commands defined in module dtk-speak.

dtk-add-cleanup-pattern (&optional DELETE)

Interactive Command

control e d a Add this pattern to the list of repeating patterns that are cleaned up. Optional interactive prefix arg deletes this pattern if previously added. Cleaning up repeated patterns results in emacspeak speaking the pattern followed by a repeat count instead of speaking all the characters making up the pattern. Thus, by adding the repeating pattern `.' (this is already added by default) emacspeak will say "aw fifteen dot" when speaking the string "..............." instead of "period period period period "

dtk-notes-shutdown ()

Interactive Command

Shutdown midi system.

dtk-pause (&optional PREFIX)

Interactive Command

control e p Pause ongoing speech. The speech can be resumed with command `dtk-resume' normally bound to C-e SPC. Pausing speech is useful when one needs to perform a few actions before continuing to read a large document. Emacspeak gives you speech feedback as usual once speech has been paused. `dtk-resume' continues the interrupted speech irrespective of the buffer in which it is executed. Optional PREFIX arg flushes any previously paused speech.

dtk-reset-state ()

Interactive Command

control e d cap R Restore sanity to the Dectalk. Typically used after the Dectalk has been power cycled.

dtk-resume ()

Interactive Command

control e SPACE Resume paused speech. This command resumes speech that has been suspended by executing command `dtk-pause' bound to C-e p. If speech has not been paused, and variable `dtk-resume-should-toggle' is t then this command will pause ongoing speech.

dtk-select-server (PROGRAM)

Interactive Command

control e d d Select a speech server interactively. Argument PROGRAM specifies the speech server program. When called interactively, The selected server is started immediately.

dtk-set-character-scale (FACTOR &optional PREFIX)

Interactive Command

control e d f Set scale FACTOR for speech rate. Speech rate is scaled by this factor when speaking characters. Interactive PREFIX arg means set the global default value, and then set the current local value to the result.

dtk-set-chunk-separator-syntax (S)

Interactive Command

control e d RETURN Interactively set how text is split in chunks. See the Emacs documentation on syntax tables for details on how characters are classified into various syntactic classes. Argument S specifies the syntax class.

dtk-set-predefined-speech-rate (&optional PREFIX)

Interactive Command

control e d 9 control e d 8 control e d 7 control e d 6 control e d 5 control e d 4 control e d 3 control e d 2 control e d 1 control e d 0 Set speech rate to one of nine predefined levels. Interactive PREFIX arg says to set the rate globally. Formula used is: rate = dtk-speech-rate-base + dtk-speech-rate-step * level.

dtk-set-pronunciation-mode (MODE STATE)

Interactive Command

control e d m Set pronunciation MODE. This command is valid only for newer Dectalks, e.g. the Dectalk Express. Possible values are `math, name, europe, spell', all of which can be turned on or off. Argument STATE specifies new state.

dtk-set-punctuations (MODE &optional PREFIX)

Interactive Command

control e d p Set punctuation mode to MODE. Possible values are `some', `all', or `none'. Interactive PREFIX arg means set the global default value, and then set the current local value to the result.

dtk-set-punctuations-to-all (&optional PREFIX)

Interactive Command

Set punctuation mode to all. Interactive PREFIX arg sets punctuation mode globally.

dtk-set-punctuations-to-some (&optional PREFIX)

Interactive Command

Set punctuation mode to some. Interactive PREFIX arg sets punctuation mode globally.

dtk-set-rate (RATE &optional PREFIX)

Interactive Command

control e d r Set speaking RATE for the tts. Interactive PREFIX arg means set the global default value, and then set the current local value to the result.

dtk-stop ()

Interactive Command

<pause> control e s Stop speech now.

dtk-toggle-allcaps-beep (&optional PREFIX)

Interactive Command

control e d cap C Toggle allcaps-beep. when set, allcaps words are indicated by a short beep. Interactive PREFIX arg means toggle the global default value, and then set the current local value to the result. Note that allcaps-beep is a very useful thing when programming. However it is irritating to have it on when reading documents.

dtk-toggle-capitalization (&optional PREFIX)

Interactive Command

control e d c Toggle capitalization. when set, capitalization is indicated by a short beep. Interactive PREFIX arg means toggle the global default value, and then set the current local value to the result.

dtk-toggle-debug (&optional PREFIX)

Interactive Command

control e d b Toggle state of the debug FLAG. When debugging is on, you can switch to the buffer *speaker* to examine the output from the process that talks to the speech device by using command C-e d C-M-b. Note: *speaker* is a hidden buffer, ie it has a leading space in its name.

dtk-toggle-punctuation-mode (&optional PREFIX)

Interactive Command

Toggle punctuation mode between "some" and "all". Interactive PREFIX arg makes the new setting global.

dtk-toggle-quiet (&optional PREFIX)

Interactive Command

control e d q Toggles state of dtk-quiet. Turning on this switch silences speech. Optional interactive prefix arg causes this setting to become global.

dtk-toggle-speak-nonprinting-chars (&optional PREFIX)

Interactive Command

control e d n Toggle speak-nonprinting-chars. Switches behavior of how characters with the high bit set are handled. Interactive PREFIX arg means toggle the global default value, and then set the current local value to the result.

dtk-toggle-split-caps (&optional PREFIX)

Interactive Command

control e d s Toggle split caps mode. Split caps mode is useful when reading Hungarian notation in program source code. Interactive PREFIX arg means toggle the global default value, and then set the current local value to the result.

dtk-toggle-splitting-on-white-space ()

Interactive Command

control e d SPACE Toggle splitting of speech on white space. This affects the internal state of emacspeak that decides if we split text purely by clause boundaries, or also include whitespace. By default, emacspeak sends a clause at a time to the speech device. This produces fluent speech for normal use. However in modes such as `shell-mode' and some programming language modes, clause markers appear infrequently, and this can result in large amounts of text being sent to the speech device at once, making the system unresponsive when asked to stop talking. Splitting on white space makes emacspeak's stop command responsive. However, when splitting on white space, the speech sounds choppy since the synthesizer is getting a word at a time.

dtk-toggle-stop-immediately-while-typing (&optional PREFIX)

Interactive Command

control e d cap I Toggle state of variable `dtk-stop-immediately-while-typing'. As the name implies, if T then speech flushes immediately as you type. Optional argument PREFIX specifies if the setting applies to all buffers.

emacspeak

Commentary: The complete audio desktop.

Automatically generated documentation for commands defined in module emacspeak.

emacspeak-describe-emacspeak ()

Interactive Command

control h control e <f1> control e <help> control e Give a brief overview of emacspeak.

emacspeak-submit-bug ()

Interactive Command

control e CONTROL meta b Function to submit a bug to the programs maintainer.

emacspeak-amphetadesk

Automatically generated documentation for commands defined in module emacspeak-amphetadesk.

emacspeak-amphetadesk ()

Interactive Command

Open amphetadesk.

emacspeak-analog

Commentary: Speech-enables package analog -convenient log analyzer

Automatically generated documentation for commands defined in module emacspeak-analog.

emacspeak-analog-backward-field-or-char ()

Interactive Command

Move back to next field if field specification is available. Otherwise move to previous char. Speak field or char moved to.

emacspeak-analog-forward-field-or-char ()

Interactive Command

Move forward to next field if field specification is available. Otherwise move to next char. Speak field or char moved to.

emacspeak-analog-next-line ()

Interactive Command

Move down and speak current field.

emacspeak-analog-previous-line ()

Interactive Command

Move up and speak current field.

emacspeak-analog-speak-this-field ()

Interactive Command

Speak current field.

emacspeak-arc

Automatically generated documentation for commands defined in module emacspeak-arc.

emacspeak-arc-speak-file-modification-time ()

Interactive Command

Speak modification time of the file on current line

emacspeak-arc-speak-file-name ()

Interactive Command

Speak the name of the file on current line

emacspeak-arc-speak-file-permissions ()

Interactive Command

Speak permissions of file current entry

emacspeak-arc-speak-file-size ()

Interactive Command

Speak the size of the file on current line

emacspeak-aumix

Commentary: Provides an AUI to setting up the auditory display via AUMIX This module is presently Linux specific

Automatically generated documentation for commands defined in module emacspeak-aumix.

emacspeak-aumix ()

Interactive Command

control e ( Setup output parameters of the auditory display. Launch this tool while you have auditory output on multiple channels playing so you can adjust the settings to your preference. Hit q to quit when you are done.

emacspeak-aumix-edit ()

Interactive Command

Edit aumix settings interactively. Run command M-x emacspeak-aumix-reset after saving the settings to have them take effect.

emacspeak-aumix-reset ()

Interactive Command

Reset to default audio settings.

emacspeak-aumix-volume-decrease (&optional GAIN)

Interactive Command

Decrease overall volume.

emacspeak-aumix-volume-increase (&optional GAIN)

Interactive Command

Increase overall volume.

emacspeak-aumix-wave-decrease (&optional GAIN)

Interactive Command

control e control f <left> Decrease volume of wave output.

emacspeak-aumix-wave-increase (&optional GAIN)

Interactive Command

control e control f <right> Increase volume of wave output.

emacspeak-bs

Commentary: speech-enable bs.el this is an alternative to list-buffers

Automatically generated documentation for commands defined in module emacspeak-bs.

emacspeak-bs-speak-buffer-line ()

Interactive Command

Speak information about this buffer

emacspeak-buff-menu

Automatically generated documentation for commands defined in module emacspeak-buff-menu.

emacspeak-list-buffers-next-line (COUNT)

Interactive Command

Speech enabled buffer menu navigation

emacspeak-list-buffers-previous-line (COUNT)

Interactive Command

Speech enabled buffer menu navigation

emacspeak-list-buffers-speak-buffer-line ()

Interactive Command

Speak information about this buffer

emacspeak-list-buffers-speak-buffer-name ()

Interactive Command

Speak the name of the buffer on this line

emacspeak-c

Automatically generated documentation for commands defined in module emacspeak-c.

emacspeak-c-speak-semantics ()

Interactive Command

Speak the C semantics of this line.

emacspeak-calendar

Automatically generated documentation for commands defined in module emacspeak-calendar.

emacspeak-appt-repeat-announcement ()

Interactive Command

control e cap A Speaks the most recently displayed appointment message if any.

emacspeak-speak-calendar-date ()

Interactive Command

Speak the date under point when called in Calendar Mode.

emacspeak-compile

Commentary: This module makes compiling code from inside Emacs speech friendly. It is an example of how a little amount of code can make Emacspeak even better.

Automatically generated documentation for commands defined in module emacspeak-compile.

emacspeak-compilation-speak-error ()

Interactive Command

Speech feedback about the compilation error.

emacspeak-custom

Automatically generated documentation for commands defined in module emacspeak-custom.

emacspeak-custom-goto-group ()

Interactive Command

Jump to custom group when in a customization buffer.

emacspeak-custom-goto-toolbar ()

Interactive Command

Jump to custom toolbar when in a customization buffer.

emacspeak-daisy

Commentary: Daisy Digital Talking Book Reader

Automatically generated documentation for commands defined in module emacspeak-daisy.

emacspeak-daisy-mode ()

Interactive Command

A DAISY front-end for the Emacspeak desktop. Pre-requisites: 0) mpg123 for playing mp3 files 1) libxml and libxslt packages 2) xml-parse.el for parsing XML in Emacs Lisp. The Emacspeak DAISY front-end is launched by command emacspeak-daisy-open-book bound to C-e C-b. This command switches to a special buffer that has DAISY commands bounds to single keystrokes- see the ke-binding list at the end of this description. Use Emacs online help facility to look up help on these commands. emacspeak-daisy-mode provides the necessary functionality to navigate and listen to Daisy talking books. Here is a list of all emacspeak DAISY commands along with their key-bindings: key binding -- ------ P emacspeak-daisy-play-page-range p previous-line n next-line RET emacspeak-daisy-play-content-under-point SPC emacspeak-daisy-play-audio-under-point q bury-buffer s emacspeak-daisy-stop-audio ? describe-mode In addition to any hooks its parent mode `text-mode' might have run, this mode runs the hook `emacspeak-daisy-mode-hook', as the final step during initialization.

emacspeak-daisy-open-book (FILENAME)

Interactive Command

control e control b Open Digital Talking Book specified by navigation file filename. This is the main entry point to the Emacspeak Daisy reader. Opening a Daisy navigation file (.ncx file) results in a navigation buffer that can be used to browse and read the book.

emacspeak-daisy-play-audio-under-point ()

Interactive Command

Play audio clip under point.

emacspeak-daisy-play-content-under-point ()

Interactive Command

Play SMIL content under point.

emacspeak-daisy-play-page-range (START END)

Interactive Command

Play pages in specified page range.

emacspeak-daisy-stop-audio ()

Interactive Command

Stop audio.

emacspeak-dired

Commentary: This module speech enables dired. It reduces the amount of speech you hear: Typically you hear the file names as you move through the dired buffer Voicification is used to indicate directories, marked files etc.

Automatically generated documentation for commands defined in module emacspeak-dired.

emacspeak-dired-label-fields ()

Interactive Command

Labels the fields of the listing in the dired buffer. Currently is a no-op unless unless `dired-listing-switches' contains -al

emacspeak-dired-show-file-type ()

Interactive Command

Print the type of FILE, according to the `file' command. If FILE is a symbolic link and the optional argument DEREF-SYMLINKS is true then the type of the file linked to by FILE is printed instead.

emacspeak-dired-speak-file-access-time ()

Interactive Command

Speak access time of the current file.

emacspeak-dired-speak-file-modification-time ()

Interactive Command

Speak modification time of the current file.

emacspeak-dired-speak-file-permissions ()

Interactive Command

Speak the permissions of the current file.

emacspeak-dired-speak-file-size ()

Interactive Command

Speak the size of the current file. On a directory line, run du -s on the directory to speak its size.

emacspeak-dired-speak-header-line ()

Interactive Command

Speak the header line of the dired buffer.

emacspeak-dired-speak-symlink-target ()

Interactive Command

Speaks the target of the symlink on the current line.

emacspeak-dismal

Automatically generated documentation for commands defined in module emacspeak-dismal.

emacspeak-dismal-backward-col-and-summarize (COLS)

Interactive Command

Move backward by arg columns (the previous column by default)and summarize it.

emacspeak-dismal-backward-row-and-summarize (ROWS)

Interactive Command

Move backward by arg rows (the previous row by default)and summarize it.

emacspeak-dismal-col-summarize ()

Interactive Command

Summarizes a col using the specification in list emacspeak-dismal-col-summarizer-list

emacspeak-dismal-display-cell-expression ()

Interactive Command

Display the expression in the message area

emacspeak-dismal-display-cell-value ()

Interactive Command

Display the cell value in the message area

emacspeak-dismal-display-cell-with-col-header ()

Interactive Command

Display current cell along with its column header. The `column header' is the entry in row 0.

emacspeak-dismal-display-cell-with-row-header ()

Interactive Command

Displays current cell along with its row header. The `row header' is the entry in column 0.

emacspeak-dismal-forward-col-and-summarize (COLS)

Interactive Command

Move forward by arg columns (the next column by default)and summarize it.

emacspeak-dismal-forward-row-and-summarize (ROWS)

Interactive Command

Move forward by arg rows (the next row by default)and summarize it.

emacspeak-dismal-row-summarize ()

Interactive Command

Summarizes a row using the specification in list emacspeak-dismal-row-summarizer-list

emacspeak-dismal-set-col-summarizer-list ()

Interactive Command

Specify or reset col summarizer list.

emacspeak-dismal-set-row-summarizer-list ()

Interactive Command

Specify or reset row summarizer list.

emacspeak-dismal-set-sheet-summarizer-list ()

Interactive Command

Specify or reset sheet summarizer list.

emacspeak-dismal-sheet-summarize ()

Interactive Command

Summarizes a sheet using the specification in list emacspeak-dismal-sheet-summarizer-list

emacspeak-ecb

Automatically generated documentation for commands defined in module emacspeak-ecb.

emacspeak-ecb-speak-window-directories ()

Interactive Command

Speak contents of directories window.

emacspeak-ecb-speak-window-history ()

Interactive Command

Speak contents of history window.

emacspeak-ecb-speak-window-methods ()

Interactive Command

Speak contents of methods window.

emacspeak-ecb-speak-window-sources ()

Interactive Command

Speak contents of sources window.

emacspeak-ecb-tree-shift-return ()

Interactive Command

Do shift return in ECB tree browser.

emacspeak-ediff

Automatically generated documentation for commands defined in module emacspeak-ediff.

emacspeak-ediff-speak-current-difference ()

Interactive Command

Speak the current difference

emacspeak-enriched

Automatically generated documentation for commands defined in module emacspeak-enriched.

emacspeak-enriched-voiceify-faces (START END)

Interactive Command

Map base fonts to voices. Useful in voicifying rich text.

emacspeak-entertain

Commentary: Auditory interface to misc games

Automatically generated documentation for commands defined in module emacspeak-entertain.

emacspeak-hangman-speak-guess ()

Interactive Command

Speak current guessed string.

emacspeak-hangman-speak-statistics ()

Interactive Command

Speak statistics.

emacspeak-erc

Commentary: erc.el is a modern Emacs client for IRC including color and font locking support. erc.el - an Emacs IRC client (by Alexander L. Belikoff) http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~berez/irc/erc.el

Automatically generated documentation for commands defined in module emacspeak-erc.

emacspeak-erc-add-name-to-monitor (NAME)

Interactive Command

Add people to monitor in this room.

emacspeak-erc-delete-name-from-monitor (NAME)

Interactive Command

Remove name to monitor in this room.

emacspeak-erc-toggle-my-monitor (&optional PREFIX)

Interactive Command

Toggle state of ERC monitor of my messages. Interactive PREFIX arg means toggle the global default value, and then set the current local value to the result.

emacspeak-erc-toggle-room-monitor (&optional PREFIX)

Interactive Command

Toggle state of ERC room monitor. Interactive PREFIX arg means toggle the global default value, and then set the current local value to the result.

emacspeak-erc-toggle-speak-all-participants (&optional PREFIX)

Interactive Command

Toggle state of ERC speak all participants.. Interactive PREFIX arg means toggle the global default value, and then set the current local value to the result.

emacspeak-eterm

Commentary: This module makes eterm talk. Eterm is the new terminal emulator for Emacs. Use of emacspeak with eterm really needs an info page. At present, the only documentation is the source level documentation. This module uses Control-t as an additional prefix key to allow the user To move around the terminal and have different parts spoken.

Automatically generated documentation for commands defined in module emacspeak-eterm.

emacspeak-eterm-copy-region-to-register (REGISTER)

Interactive Command

Copy text from terminal to an Emacs REGISTER. This copies region delimited by the emacspeak eterm marker set by command M-x emacspeak-eterm-set-marker and the emacspeak eterm pointer to a register. This function is advised. Before-advice `emacspeak-auto': Automatically defined advice to speak interactive prompts.

emacspeak-eterm-define-window (ID)

Interactive Command

Prompt for a window ID. The window is then define to be the rectangle delimited by point and eterm mark. This is to be used when emacspeak is set to review mode inside an eterm.

emacspeak-eterm-describe-window (ID)

Interactive Command

Describe an eterm window. Description indicates eterm window coordinates and whether it is stretchable

emacspeak-eterm-goto-line (LINE)

Interactive Command

Move emacspeak eterm pointer to a specified LINE.

emacspeak-eterm-kill-ring-save-region ()

Interactive Command

Copy text from terminal to kill ring. This copies region delimited by the emacspeak eterm marker set by command M-x emacspeak-eterm-set-marker and the emacspeak eterm pointer.

emacspeak-eterm-maybe-send-raw ()

Interactive Command

Send a raw character through if in the terminal buffer. Execute end of line if in a non eterm buffer if executed via C-e C-e

emacspeak-eterm-paste-register (REGISTER)

Interactive Command

Paste contents of REGISTER at current location. If the specified register contains text, then that text is sent to the terminal as if it were typed by the user.

emacspeak-eterm-pointer-backward-word (COUNT)

Interactive Command

Move the pointer backward by words. Interactive numeric prefix arg specifies number of words to move. Argument COUNT specifies number of words by which to move.

emacspeak-eterm-pointer-down (COUNT)

Interactive Command

Move the pointer down a line. Argument COUNT specifies number of lines by which to move.

emacspeak-eterm-pointer-forward-word (COUNT)

Interactive Command

Move the pointer forward by words. Interactive numeric prefix arg specifies number of words to move. Argument COUNT specifies number of words by which to move.

emacspeak-eterm-pointer-left (COUNT)

Interactive Command

Move the pointer left. Argument COUNT specifies number of columns by which to move.

emacspeak-eterm-pointer-right (COUNT)

Interactive Command

Move the pointer right. Argument COUNT specifies number of columns by which to move.

emacspeak-eterm-pointer-to-bottom ()

Interactive Command

Move the pointer to the bottom of the screen.

emacspeak-eterm-pointer-to-cursor ()

Interactive Command

Move the pointer to the cursor.

emacspeak-eterm-pointer-to-left-edge ()

Interactive Command

Move the pointer to the right edge.

emacspeak-eterm-pointer-to-next-color-change (&optional COUNT)

Interactive Command

Move the eterm pointer to the next color change. This allows you to move between highlighted regions of the screen. Optional argument COUNT specifies how many changes to skip.

emacspeak-eterm-pointer-to-previous-color-change (&optional COUNT)

Interactive Command

Move the eterm pointer to the next color change. This allows you to move between highlighted regions of the screen. Optional argument COUNT specifies how many changes to skip.

emacspeak-eterm-pointer-to-right-edge ()

Interactive Command

Move the pointer to the right edge.

emacspeak-eterm-pointer-to-top ()

Interactive Command

Move the pointer to the top of the screen.

emacspeak-eterm-pointer-up (COUNT)

Interactive Command

Move the pointer up a line. Argument COUNT .specifies number of lines by which to move.

emacspeak-eterm-remote-term (HOST)

Interactive Command

control e CONTROL meta r Start a terminal-emulator in a new buffer.

emacspeak-eterm-search-backward ()

Interactive Command

Search backward on the terminal.

emacspeak-eterm-search-forward ()

Interactive Command

Search forward on the terminal.

emacspeak-eterm-set-filter-window (FLAG)

Interactive Command

Prompt for the id of a predefined window, and set the `filter' window to it. Non-nil interactive prefix arg `unsets' the filter window; this is equivalent to having the entire terminal as the filter window (this is what eterm starts up with). Setting the filter window results in emacspeak only monitoring screen activity within the filter window.

emacspeak-eterm-set-focus-window (FLAG)

Interactive Command

Prompt for the id of a predefined window, and set the `focus' window to it. Non-nil interactive prefix arg `unsets' the focus window; this is equivalent to having the entire terminal as the focus window (this is what eterm starts up with). Setting the focus window results in emacspeak monitoring screen and speaking that window upon seeing screen activity.

emacspeak-eterm-set-marker ()

Interactive Command

Set Emacspeak eterm marker. This sets the emacspeak eterm marker to the position pointed to by the emacspeak eterm pointer.

emacspeak-eterm-speak-cursor ()

Interactive Command

Speak cursor position.

emacspeak-eterm-speak-pointer ()

Interactive Command

Speak current pointer position.

emacspeak-eterm-speak-pointer-char (&optional PREFIX)

Interactive Command

Speak char under eterm pointer. Pronounces character phonetically unless called with a PREFIX arg.

emacspeak-eterm-speak-pointer-line ()

Interactive Command

Speak the line the pointer is on.

emacspeak-eterm-speak-pointer-word ()

Interactive Command

Speak the word the pointer is on.

emacspeak-eterm-speak-predefined-window ()

Interactive Command

Speak a predefined eterm window between 1 and 10.

emacspeak-eterm-speak-screen (&optional FLAG)

Interactive Command

Speak the screen. Default is to speak from the emacspeak pointer to point. Optional prefix arg FLAG causes region above the Emacspeak pointer to be spoken.

emacspeak-eterm-speak-window (ID)

Interactive Command

Speak an eterm window. Argument ID specifies the window.

emacspeak-eterm-toggle-filter-window ()

Interactive Command

Toggle active state of filter window.

emacspeak-eterm-toggle-focus-window ()

Interactive Command

Toggle active state of focus window.

emacspeak-eterm-toggle-pointer-mode (&optional PREFIX)

Interactive Command

Toggle emacspeak eterm pointer mode. With optional interactive prefix arg, turn it on. When emacspeak eterm is in pointer mode, the eterm read pointer stays where it is rather than automatically moving to the terminal cursor when there is terminal activity.

emacspeak-eterm-toggle-review ()

Interactive Command

Toggle state of eterm review. In review mode, you can move around the terminal and listen to the contnets without sending input to the terminal itself.

emacspeak-eterm-yank-window (ID)

Interactive Command

Yank contents of an eterm window at point.

emacspeak-toggle-eterm-autospeak (&optional PREFIX)

Interactive Command

Toggle state of eterm autospeak. When eterm autospeak is turned on and the terminal is in line mode, all output to the terminal is automatically spoken. Interactive prefix arg means toggle the global default value, and then set the current local value to the result.

emacspeak-eudc

Commentary: EUDC -Emacs Universal Directory Client provides a unified interface to directory servers e.g. ldap servers this module speech enables eudc

Automatically generated documentation for commands defined in module emacspeak-eudc.

emacspeak-eudc-send-mail ()

Interactive Command

Send email to the address given by the current record.

emacspeak-filtertext

Automatically generated documentation for commands defined in module emacspeak-filtertext.

emacspeak-filtertext (START END)

Interactive Command

control e ^ Copy over text in region to special filtertext buffer in preparation for interactively filtering text.

emacspeak-filtertext-mode ()

Interactive Command

Major mode for FilterText interaction. key binding -- ------ r emacspeak-filtertext-revert ^ flush-lines = keep-lines In addition to any hooks its parent mode `text-mode' might have run, this mode runs the hook `emacspeak-filtertext-mode-hook', as the final step during initialization.

emacspeak-filtertext-revert ()

Interactive Command

Revert to original text.

emacspeak-fix-interactive

Automatically generated documentation for commands defined in module emacspeak-fix-interactive.

emacspeak-fix-all-recent-commands ()

Interactive Command

Fix recently loaded interactive commands. This command looks through `load-history' and fixes commands if necessary. Memoizes call in emacspeak-load-history-pointer to memoize this call.

emacspeak-fix-commands-loaded-from (MODULE)

Interactive Command

Fix all commands loaded from a specified module.

emacspeak-forms

Automatically generated documentation for commands defined in module emacspeak-forms.

emacspeak-forms-find-file (FILENAME)

Interactive Command

Visit a forms file

emacspeak-forms-flush-unwanted-records ()

Interactive Command

Prompt for pattern and flush matching lines

emacspeak-forms-rerun-filter ()

Interactive Command

Rerun filter -allows us to nuke more matching records

emacspeak-forms-speak-field ()

Interactive Command

Speak current form field name and value. Assumes that point is at the front of a field value.

emacspeak-forms-summarize-current-position ()

Interactive Command

Summarize current position in list of records

emacspeak-forms-summarize-current-record ()

Interactive Command

Summarize current record

emacspeak-freeamp

Commentary: Defines a simple derived mode for interacting with freeamp. If you use freeamp as your mp3 player from w3 for example, put the buffer containing freeamp in freeamp-mode. freeamp navigation commands then work via single keystrokes.

Automatically generated documentation for commands defined in module emacspeak-freeamp.

emacspeak-freeamp (RESOURCE)

Interactive Command

control e control f o Play specified resource using freeamp. Resource is an MP3 file or m3u playlist. The player is placed in a buffer in emacspeak-freeamp-mode.

emacspeak-freeamp-freeamp-call-command ()

Interactive Command

control e control f q control e control f = control e control f s control e control f b control e control f f control e control f - control e control f + control e control f p Call appropriate freeamp command.

emacspeak-freeamp-freeamp-command (CHAR)

Interactive Command

Execute FreeAmp command. This function is advised. Before-advice `emacspeak-auto': Automatically defined advice to speak interactive prompts.

emacspeak-freeamp-mode ()

Interactive Command

Major mode for freeamp interaction. key binding -- ------ <right> emacspeak-aumix-wave-increase <left> emacspeak-aumix-wave-decrease q emacspeak-freeamp-freeamp-call-command = emacspeak-freeamp-freeamp-call-command s emacspeak-freeamp-freeamp-call-command b emacspeak-freeamp-freeamp-call-command f emacspeak-freeamp-freeamp-call-command - emacspeak-freeamp-freeamp-call-command + emacspeak-freeamp-freeamp-call-command p emacspeak-freeamp-freeamp-call-command o emacspeak-freeamp This mode runs the hook `emacspeak-freeamp-mode-hook', as the final step during initialization.

emacspeak-gnus

Automatically generated documentation for commands defined in module emacspeak-gnus.

emacspeak-gnus-summary-catchup-quietly-and-exit ()

Interactive Command

Catch up on all articles in current group.

emacspeak-gomoku

Automatically generated documentation for commands defined in module emacspeak-gomoku.

emacspeak-gomoku-display-statistics ()

Interactive Command

Display statistics from previous games

emacspeak-gomoku-goto-x-y (X Y)

Interactive Command

Prompt for and go to that square.

emacspeak-gomoku-show-current-column ()

Interactive Command

Aurally display current column

emacspeak-gomoku-show-current-negative-diagonal ()

Interactive Command

Aurally display current negative sloped diagonal

emacspeak-gomoku-show-current-positive-diagonal ()

Interactive Command

Aurally display current positively sloped diagonal

emacspeak-gomoku-show-current-row ()

Interactive Command

Aurally display current row

emacspeak-gomoku-speak-emacs-previous-move ()

Interactive Command

Speak emacs' previous move

emacspeak-gomoku-speak-humans-previous-move ()

Interactive Command

Speak human' previous move

emacspeak-gomoku-speak-number-of-moves ()

Interactive Command

Speak number of moves so far

emacspeak-gomoku-speak-square ()

Interactive Command

Speak coordinates and state of square at point

emacspeak-gridtext

Commentary: Emacspeak's table browsing mode allows one to efficiently access content that is tabular in nature. That module also provides functions for infering table structure where possible. Often, such structure is hard to infer automatically -but might be known to the user e.g. treat columns 1 through 30 as one column of a table and so on. This module allows the user to specify a conceptual grid that is "overlaid" on the region of text to turn it into a table for tabular browsing. For now, elements of the grid are "one line" high -but that may change in the future if necessary. This module is useful for browsing structured text files and the output from programs that tabulate their output.

Automatically generated documentation for commands defined in module emacspeak-gridtext.

emacspeak-gridtext-apply (START END GRID)

Interactive Command

control e # a Apply grid to region.

emacspeak-gridtext-load (FILE)

Interactive Command

control e # l Load saved grid settings.

emacspeak-gridtext-save (FILE)

Interactive Command

control e # s Save out grid settings.

emacspeak-hide

Commentary:

Flexible hide and show for emacspeak. This module allows one to easily hide or expose blocks of lines starting with a common prefix. It is motivated by the need to flexibly hide quoted text in email but is designed to be more general. the prefix parsing is inspired by filladapt.el

Automatically generated documentation for commands defined in module emacspeak-hide.

emacspeak-hide-or-expose-all-blocks ()

Interactive Command

Hide or expose all blocks in buffer.

emacspeak-hide-or-expose-block (&optional PREFIX)

Interactive Command

control e j Hide or expose a block of text. This command either hides or exposes a block of text starting on the current line. A block of text is defined as a portion of the buffer in which all lines start with a common PREFIX. Optional interactive prefix arg causes all blocks in current buffer to be hidden or exposed.

emacspeak-hide-speak-block-sans-prefix ()

Interactive Command

control e control j Speaks current block after stripping its prefix. If the current block is not hidden, it first hides it. This is useful because as you locate blocks, you can invoke this command to listen to the block, and when you have heard enough navigate easily to move past the block.

emacspeak-ibuffer

Commentary: speech-enable ibuffer.el this is an alternative to buffer-menu

Automatically generated documentation for commands defined in module emacspeak-ibuffer.

emacspeak-ibuffer-speak-buffer-line ()

Interactive Command

Speak information about this buffer

emacspeak-imcom

Automatically generated documentation for commands defined in module emacspeak-imcom.

emacspeak-imcom ()

Interactive Command

Start IMCom.

emacspeak-imcom-mode ()

Interactive Command

Major mode for Jabber interaction using IMCom. key binding -- ------ C-c Prefix Command C-c v emacspeak-imcom-view-chat-session In addition to any hooks its parent mode `comint-mode' might have run, this mode runs the hook `emacspeak-imcom-mode-hook', as the final step during initialization.

emacspeak-imcom-view-chat-session (SESSION)

Interactive Command

Display specified chat session.

emacspeak-imenu

Automatically generated documentation for commands defined in module emacspeak-imenu.

emacspeak-imenu-goto-next-index-position ()

Interactive Command

Goto the next index position in current buffer

emacspeak-imenu-goto-previous-index-position ()

Interactive Command

Goto the previous index position in current buffer

emacspeak-imenu-speak-this-section ()

Interactive Command

Speak upto start of next index entry

emacspeak-info

Automatically generated documentation for commands defined in module emacspeak-info.

emacspeak-info-speak-header ()

Interactive Command

Speak info header line.

emacspeak-info-wizard (NODE-SPEC)

Interactive Command

control h TAB <f1> TAB <help> TAB Read a node spec from the minibuffer and launch Info-goto-node. See documentation for command `Info-goto-node' for details on node-spec.

emacspeak-keymap

Automatically generated documentation for commands defined in module emacspeak-keymap.

emacspeak-keymap-choose-new-emacspeak-prefix (PREFIX-KEY)

Interactive Command

Interactively select a new prefix key to use for all emacspeak commands. The default is to use `C-e' This command lets you switch the prefix to something else. This is a useful thing to do if you run emacspeak on a remote machine from inside a terminal that is running inside a local emacspeak session. You can have the remote emacspeak use a different control key to give your fingers some relief. This function is advised. Before-advice `emacspeak-auto': Automatically defined advice to speak interactive prompts.

emacspeak-kotl

Automatically generated documentation for commands defined in module emacspeak-kotl.

emacspeak-kotl-setup-keys ()

Interactive Command

Setup additional keybindings

emacspeak-kotl-speak-cell (ARG)

Interactive Command

Speak cell contents from point to end of cell. With prefix arg, speaks entire cell contents

emacspeak-loaddefs

Automatically generated documentation for commands defined in module emacspeak-loaddefs.

emacspeak-toggle-comint-output-monitor (&optional PREFIX)

Interactive Command

control e o Toggle state of Emacspeak comint monitor. When turned on, comint output is automatically spoken. Turn this on if you want your shell to speak its results. Interactive PREFIX arg means toggle the global default value, and then set the current local value to the result.

emacspeak-m-player

Commentary: Defines a simple derived mode for interacting with mplayer. mplayer is a versatile media player capable of playing many streaming formats and is especially useful for playing windows media (WMA) and streaming windows media (ASF) files. mplayer is available on the WWW: RPM package http://mirrors.sctpc.com/dominik/linux/pkgs/mplayer/i586/mplayer-0.90pre5-2.i586.rpm You may need the win32 codecs which can be downloaded from http://ftp.lug.udel.edu/MPlayer/releases/w32codec-0.60.tar.bz2 Mplayer FAQ at http://www.mplayerhq.hu/DOCS/faq.html Mplayer docs at http://www.mplayerhq.hu/DOCS/

Automatically generated documentation for commands defined in module emacspeak-m-player.

emacspeak-m-player (RESOURCE)

Interactive Command

control e : Play specified resource using m-player. Resource is an MP3 file or m3u playlist. The player is placed in a buffer in emacspeak-m-player-mode.

emacspeak-m-player-alt-src-step (STEP)

Interactive Command

Move within an ASF playlist.

emacspeak-m-player-mode ()

Interactive Command

Major mode for m-player interaction. key binding -- ------ q emacspeak-m-player-quit SPC emacspeak-m-player-pause a emacspeak-m-player-alt-src-step P emacspeak-m-player-play-tree-up p emacspeak-m-player-play-tree-step S emacspeak-m-player-seek-absolute s emacspeak-m-player-seek-relative <right> emacspeak-aumix-wave-increase <left> emacspeak-aumix-wave-decrease This mode runs the hook `emacspeak-m-player-mode-hook', as the final step during initialization.

emacspeak-m-player-pause ()

Interactive Command

Pause or unpause media player.

emacspeak-m-player-play-tree-step (STEP)

Interactive Command

Move within the play tree.

emacspeak-m-player-play-tree-up (STEP)

Interactive Command

Move within the play tree.

emacspeak-m-player-quit ()

Interactive Command

Quit media player.

emacspeak-m-player-seek-absolute (POSITION)

Interactive Command

Seek to absolute specified position.

emacspeak-m-player-seek-relative (OFFSET)

Interactive Command

Seek by offset into stream from current position.

emacspeak-man

Automatically generated documentation for commands defined in module emacspeak-man.

emacspeak-man-browse-man-page ()

Interactive Command

Browse the man page -read it a paragraph at a time

emacspeak-man-speak-this-section ()

Interactive Command

Speak current section

emacspeak-mpg123

Commentary: This module speech-enables MPG123 MPG123 is an MP3 player.

Automatically generated documentation for commands defined in module emacspeak-mpg123.

emacspeak-mp3-playlist-play (PLAYLIST &optional DONT-SHUFFLE)

Interactive Command

Play a playlist. Optional interactive prefix arg says not to shuffle the list. Use command M-x emacspeak-mp3-playlist-skip to skip to the next track.

emacspeak-mp3-playlist-skip ()

Interactive Command

Skip currently playing track.

emacspeak-mp3-playlist-stop ()

Interactive Command

Kill currently playing playlist.

emacspeak-mpg123-backward-minute (ARG)

Interactive Command

Move back by specified number of minutes.

emacspeak-mpg123-forward-minute (ARG)

Interactive Command

Forward by ARG minutes.

emacspeak-mpg123-speak-current-time ()

Interactive Command

Speak time in current track.

emacspeak-mpg123-speak-filename ()

Interactive Command

Speak filename of the current song.

emacspeak-mpg123-speak-length ()

Interactive Command

Speak duration of the current song.

emacspeak-mpg123-speak-title ()

Interactive Command

Speak title of the current song.

emacspeak-ocr

Commentary: This module defines Emacspeak front-end to OCR. This module assumes that sane is installed and working for image acquisition, and that there is an OCR engine that can take acquired images and produce text. Prerequisites: Sane installed and working. scanimage to generate tiff files from scanner. tiffcp to compress the tiff file. working ocr executable by default this module assumes that the OCR executable is named "ocr"

Automatically generated documentation for commands defined in module emacspeak-ocr.

emacspeak-ocr ()

Interactive Command

control e control o An OCR front-end for the Emacspeak desktop. Page image is acquired using tools from the SANE package. The acquired image is run through the OCR engine if one is available, and the results placed in a buffer that is suitable for browsing the results. For detailed help, invoke command emacspeak-ocr bound to C-e C-o to launch emacspeak-ocr-mode, and press `?' to display mode-specific help for emacspeak-ocr-mode.

emacspeak-ocr-backward-page (&optional COUNT-IGNORED)

Interactive Command

Like backward page, but tracks page number of current document.

emacspeak-ocr-customize ()

Interactive Command

Customize OCR settings.

emacspeak-ocr-forward-page (&optional COUNT-IGNORED)

Interactive Command

Like forward page, but tracks page number of current document.

emacspeak-ocr-mode ()

Interactive Command

An OCR front-end for the Emacspeak desktop. Pre-requisites: 1) A working scanner back-end like SANE on Linux. 2) An OCR engine. 1: Make sure your scanner back-end works, and that you have the utilities to scan a document and acquire an image as a tiff file. Then set variable emacspeak-ocr-scan-image-program to point at this utility. By default, this is set to `scanimage' which is the image scanning utility provided by SANE. By default, this front-end attempts to compress the acquired tiff image; make sure you have a utility like tiffcp. Variable emacspeak-ocr-compress-image is set to `tiffcp' by default; if you use something else, you should customize this variable. 2: Next, make sure you have an OCR engine installed and working. By default this front-end assumes that OCR is available as /usr/bin/ocr. Once you have ensured that acquiring an image and applying OCR to it work independently of Emacs, you can use this Emacspeak front-end to enable easy OCR access from within Emacspeak. The Emacspeak OCR front-end is launched by command emacspeak-ocr bound to C-e C-o. This command switches to a special buffer that has OCR commands bounds to single keystrokes- see the ke-binding list at the end of this description. Use Emacs online help facility to look up help on these commands. emacspeak-ocr-mode provides the necessary functionality to scan, OCR, read and save documents. By default, scanned images and the resulting text are saved under directory ~/ocr; see variable emacspeak-ocr-working-directory. Invoking command emacspeak-ocr-open-working-directory bound to M-x emacspeak-ocr-open-working-directory will open this directory. By default, the document being scanned is named `untitled'. You can name the document by using command emacspeak-ocr-name-document bound to M-x emacspeak-ocr-name-document. The document name is used in constructing the name of the image and text files. Key Bindings: See key binding -- ------ 9 emacspeak-ocr-page 8 emacspeak-ocr-page 7 emacspeak-ocr-page 6 emacspeak-ocr-page 5 emacspeak-ocr-page 4 emacspeak-ocr-page 3 emacspeak-ocr-page 2 emacspeak-ocr-page 1 emacspeak-ocr-page C emacspeak-ocr-set-compress-image-options I emacspeak-ocr-set-scan-image-options SPC emacspeak-ocr-read-current-page s emacspeak-ocr-save-current-page p emacspeak-ocr-page ] emacspeak-ocr-forward-page [ emacspeak-ocr-backward-page d emacspeak-ocr-open-working-directory n emacspeak-ocr-name-document o emacspeak-ocr-recognize-image j emacspeak-ocr-scan-photo i emacspeak-ocr-scan-image RET emacspeak-ocr-scan-and-recognize w emacspeak-ocr-write-document q bury-buffer c emacspeak-ocr-customize ? describe-mode . In addition to any hooks its parent mode `text-mode' might have run, this mode runs the hook `emacspeak-ocr-mode-hook', as the final step during initialization.

emacspeak-ocr-name-document (NAME)

Interactive Command

Name document being scanned in the current OCR buffer. Pick a short but meaningful name.

emacspeak-ocr-open-working-directory ()

Interactive Command

Launch dired on OCR working directory.

emacspeak-ocr-page ()

Interactive Command

Move to specified page.

emacspeak-ocr-read-current-page ()

Interactive Command

Speaks current page.

emacspeak-ocr-recognize-image ()

Interactive Command

Run OCR engine on current image. Prompts for image file if file corresponding to the expected `current page' is not found.

emacspeak-ocr-save-current-page ()

Interactive Command

Writes out recognized text from current page to an appropriately named file.

emacspeak-ocr-scan-and-recognize ()

Interactive Command

Scan in a page and run OCR engine on it. Use this command once you've verified that the separate steps of acquiring an image and running the OCR engine work correctly by themselves.

emacspeak-ocr-scan-image ()

Interactive Command

Acquire page image.

emacspeak-ocr-scan-photo (&optional METADATA)

Interactive Command

Scan in a photograph. The scanned image is converted to JPEG.

emacspeak-ocr-set-compress-image-options (SETTING)

Interactive Command

Interactively update image compression options. Prompts with current setting in the minibuffer. Setting persists for current Emacs session.

emacspeak-ocr-set-scan-image-options (SETTING)

Interactive Command

Interactively update scan image options. Prompts with current setting in the minibuffer. Setting persists for current Emacs session.

emacspeak-ocr-write-document ()

Interactive Command

Writes out recognized text from all pages in current document.

emacspeak-outline

Commentary: Provide additional advice to outline-mode

Automatically generated documentation for commands defined in module emacspeak-outline.

emacspeak-outline-speak-backward-heading ()

Interactive Command

Analogous to outline-backward-same-level except that the outline section is optionally spoken

emacspeak-outline-speak-forward-heading ()

Interactive Command

Analogous to outline-forward-same-level, except that the outline section is optionally spoken

emacspeak-outline-speak-next-heading ()

Interactive Command

Analogous to outline-next-visible-heading, except that the outline section is optionally spoken

emacspeak-outline-speak-previous-heading ()

Interactive Command

Analogous to outline-previous-visible-heading, except that the outline section is optionally spoken

emacspeak-outline-speak-this-heading ()

Interactive Command

Speak current outline section starting from point

emacspeak-pronounce

Commentary: This module implements user customizable pronunciation dictionaries for emacspeak. Custom pronunciations can be defined per file, per directory and/or per major mode. Emacspeak maintains a persistent user dictionary upon request and loads these in new emacspeak sessions. This module implements the user interface to the custom dictionary as well as providing the internal API used by the rest of emacspeak in using the dictionary. Algorithm:

The persistent dictionary is a hash table where the hash keys are filenames, directory names, or major-mode names. The hash values are association lists defining the dictionary. Users of this module can retrieve a dictionary made up of all applicable association lists for a given file.

Automatically generated documentation for commands defined in module emacspeak-pronounce.

emacspeak-pronounce-clear-dictionaries ()

Interactive Command

Clear all current pronunciation dictionaries.

emacspeak-pronounce-define-local-pronunciation (WORD PRONUNCIATION)

Interactive Command

Define buffer local pronunciation. Argument WORD specifies the word which should be pronounced as specified by PRONUNCIATION.

emacspeak-pronounce-define-pronunciation ()

Interactive Command

Interactively define entries in the pronunciation dictionaries. Default term to define is delimited by region. First loads any persistent dictionaries if not already loaded.

emacspeak-pronounce-dispatch ()

Interactive Command

control e meta d Provides the user interface front-end to Emacspeak's pronunciation dictionaries.

emacspeak-pronounce-edit-pronunciations (KEY)

Interactive Command

Prompt for and launch a pronunciation editor on the specified pronunciation dictionary key.

emacspeak-pronounce-load-dictionaries (&optional FILENAME)

Interactive Command

Load pronunciation dictionaries. Optional argument FILENAME specifies the dictionary file.

emacspeak-pronounce-refresh-pronunciations ()

Interactive Command

Refresh pronunciation table for current buffer. Activates pronunciation dictionaries if not already active.

emacspeak-pronounce-save-dictionaries ()

Interactive Command

Writes out the persistent emacspeak pronunciation dictionaries.

emacspeak-pronounce-toggle-use-of-dictionaries (&optional STATE)

Interactive Command

Toggle use of pronunciation dictionaries in current buffer. Pronunciations can be defined on a per file, per directory and/or per mode basis. Pronunciations are activated on a per buffer basis. Turning on the use of pronunciation dictionaries results in emacspeak composing a pronunciation table based on the currently defined pronunciation dictionaries. After this, the pronunciations will be applied whenever text in the buffer is spoken. Optional argument state can be used from Lisp programs to explicitly turn pronunciations on or off.

emacspeak-pronounce-yank-word ()

Interactive Command

Yank word at point into minibuffer.

emacspeak-psgml

Commentary: Speech-enable psgml -a powerful SGML support package. psgml can be found at

Automatically generated documentation for commands defined in module emacspeak-psgml.

emacspeak-psgml-speak-current-element ()

Interactive Command

Speak contents of current element.

emacspeak-psgml-summarize-element ()

Interactive Command

Context-sensitive element summarizer.

emacspeak-psgml-toggle-interactive-font-lock ()

Interactive Command

Toggles variable sgml-set-face. When turned on, the buffer is font locked interactively. Leave this off in general while editting.

emacspeak-xml-browse-mode ()

Interactive Command

Mode for browsing XML documents. Uses keymap "emacspeak-xml-browse-mode", which is not currently defined. In addition to any hooks its parent mode `xml-mode' might have run, this mode runs the hook `emacspeak-xml-browse-mode-hook', as the final step during initialization.

emacspeak-python

Automatically generated documentation for commands defined in module emacspeak-python.

emacspeak-py-next-block ()

Interactive Command

Move forward to the beginning of the next block.

emacspeak-py-previous-block ()

Interactive Command

Move backward to the beginning of the current block. If already at the beginning then move to previous block.

emacspeak-realaudio

Commentary: Assuming you have a correctly configured RealAudio player, this package provides single click access to starting and stopping a RealAudio stream from anywhere on the Emacspeak desktop. Before using this package, make sure that your realaudio player works outside Emacs. Then set variable Emacspeak-realaudio-player to point to the program you use to play RealAudio streams.

Automatically generated documentation for commands defined in module emacspeak-realaudio.

emacspeak-realaudio (&optional IGNORED)

Interactive Command

control e ; Start or control streaming audio including MP3 and realaudio. If using `TRPlayer' as the player, accepts trplayer control commands if a stream is already playing. Otherwise, the playing stream is simply stopped. If no stream is playing, this command prompts for a realaudio resource. Realaudio resources can be specified either as a Realaudio URL, the location of a local Realaudio file, or as the name of a local Realaudio metafile. Realaudio resources you have played in this session are available in the minibuffer history. The default is to play the resource you played most recently. Emacspeak uses the contents of the directory specified by variable emacspeak-realaudio-shortcuts-directory to offer a set of completions. Hit space to use this completion list. If using TRPlayer, you can either give one-shot commands using command emacspeak-realaudio available from anywhere on the audio desktop as `C-e ;'. Alternatively, switch to buffer *realaudio* using `C-e ;;' if you wish to issue many navigation commands. Note that buffer *realaudio* uses a special major mode that provides the various navigation commands via single keystrokes.

emacspeak-realaudio-browse (RAMFILE &optional START-TIME)

Interactive Command

Browse RAM file before playing the selected component.

emacspeak-realaudio-mode ()

Interactive Command

Major mode for streaming audio. key binding -- ------ <right> emacspeak-aumix-wave-increase <left> emacspeak-aumix-wave-decrease } emacspeak-realaudio-trplayer-call-command { emacspeak-realaudio-trplayer-call-command ] emacspeak-realaudio-trplayer-call-command [ emacspeak-realaudio-trplayer-call-command 9 emacspeak-realaudio-trplayer-call-command 0 emacspeak-realaudio-trplayer-call-command , emacspeak-realaudio-trplayer-call-command . emacspeak-realaudio-trplayer-call-command > emacspeak-realaudio-trplayer-call-command < emacspeak-realaudio-trplayer-call-command i emacspeak-realaudio-trplayer-call-command l emacspeak-realaudio-trplayer-call-command e emacspeak-realaudio-trplayer-call-command s emacspeak-realaudio-trplayer-call-command t emacspeak-realaudio-trplayer-call-command p emacspeak-realaudio-trplayer-call-command This mode runs the hook `emacspeak-realaudio-mode-hook', as the final step during initialization.

emacspeak-realaudio-play (RESOURCE &optional PROMPT-TIME)

Interactive Command

Play a realaudio stream. Uses files from your Realaudio shortcuts directory for completion. See documentation for user configurable variable emacspeak-realaudio-shortcuts-directory.

emacspeak-realaudio-select-realaudio-buffer ()

Interactive Command

Switch to realaudio buffer.

emacspeak-realaudio-stop ()

Interactive Command

Stop playing realaudio

emacspeak-realaudio-trplayer-call-command ()

Interactive Command

Call appropriate TRPlayer command.

emacspeak-realaudio-trplayer-command (CHAR)

Interactive Command

Execute TRPlayer command. This function is advised. Before-advice `emacspeak-auto': Automatically defined advice to speak interactive prompts.

emacspeak-redefine

Automatically generated documentation for commands defined in module emacspeak-redefine.

emacspeak-backward-char (&optional ARG)

Interactive Command

control b <left> Backward-char redefined to speak char moved to.

emacspeak-forward-char (&optional ARG)

Interactive Command

control f <right> Forward-char redefined to speak char moved to.

emacspeak-self-insert-command (&optional ARG)

Interactive Command

Character set JISX0213-2 Character set Tibetan 2 column Character set Indian 2 Column Character set CNS11643-7 (Chinese traditional): ISO-IR-187 Character set CNS11643-6 (Chinese traditional): ISO-IR-186 Character set CNS11643-5 (Chinese traditional): ISO-IR-185 Character set CNS11643-4 (Chinese traditional): ISO-IR-184 Character set CNS11643-3 (Chinese traditional): ISO-IR-183 Character set Ethiopic characters Character set Unicode subset ( cap U +0100.. cap U +24FF) Character set Unicode subset ( cap U +E000+FFFF) Character set Unicode subset ( cap U +2500.. cap U +33FF) Character set Tibetan 1 column Character set Indian glyph Character set Indian IS 13194 Character set Arabic 2-column Character set emacs/w3-dingbats Character set Lao Character set ASCII with right-to-left direction Character set Arabic 1-column Character set Arabic digit Character set VISCII upper-case Character set VISCII lower-case Character set IPA Character set SiSheng (PinYin/ZhuYin) Character set Big5 (Level-2) C940-FEFE Character set Big5 (Level-1) A141-C67F Character set JISX0213-1 Character set CNS11643-2 (Chinese traditional): ISO-IR-172 Character set CNS11643-1 (Chinese traditional): ISO-IR-171 Character set JISX0212 (Japanese): ISO-IR-159 Character set KSC5601 (Korean): ISO-IR-149 Character set JISX0208.1983/1990 (Japanese): ISO-IR-87 Character set GB2312: ISO-IR-58 Character set JISX0208.1978 (Japanese): ISO-IR-42 Character set RHP of Latin-8 (ISO 8859-14): ISO-IR-199 Character set RHP of Latin-9 (ISO 8859-15): ISO-IR-203 Character set RHP of Latin-5 (ISO 8859-9): ISO-IR-148 Character set RHP of Cyrillic (ISO 8859-5): ISO-IR-144 Character set Japanese Roman (JISX0201.1976) Character set Japanese Katakana (JISX0201.1976) Character set RHP of Hebrew (ISO 8859-8): ISO-IR-138 Character set RHP of Arabic (ISO 8859-6): ISO-IR-127 Character set RHP of Greek (ISO 8859-7): ISO-IR-126 Character set RHP of Thai (TIS620): ISO-IR-166 Character set RHP of Latin-4 (ISO 8859-4): ISO-IR-110 Character set RHP of Latin-3 (ISO 8859-3): ISO-IR-109 Character set RHP of Latin-2 (ISO 8859-2): ISO-IR-101 Character set RHP of Latin-1 (ISO 8859-1): ISO-IR-100 ~ } | { z y x w v u t s r q p o n m l k j i h g f e d c b a ` _ ^ ] \ [ cap Z cap Y cap X cap W cap V cap U cap T cap S cap R cap Q cap P cap O cap N cap M cap L cap K cap J cap I cap H cap G cap F cap E cap D cap C cap B cap A @ ? > = < ; : 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 / . - , + * ) ( ' & % $ # ! SPACE Insert a character. Speaks the character if emacspeak-character-echo is true. See command emacspeak-toggle-word-echo bound to C-e d w. Toggle variable dtk-stop-immediately-while-typing if you want to have speech flush as you type.

emacspeak-remote

Automatically generated documentation for commands defined in module emacspeak-remote.

emacspeak-remote-connect-to-server (HOST PORT)

Interactive Command

control e meta r Connect to and start using remote speech server running on host host and listening on port port. Host is the hostname of the remote server, typically the desktop machine. Port is the tcp port that that host is listening on for speech requests.

emacspeak-remote-quick-connect-to-server ()

Interactive Command

Connect to remote server. Does not prompt for host or port, but quietly uses the guesses that appear as defaults when prompting. Use this once you are sure the guesses are usually correct.

emacspeak-remote-ssh-to-server (LOGIN)

Interactive Command

Open ssh session to where we came from.

emacspeak-rmail

Automatically generated documentation for commands defined in module emacspeak-rmail.

emacspeak-rmail-speak-current-message-labels ()

Interactive Command

Speak labels of current message

emacspeak-rmail-summarize-current-message ()

Interactive Command

Summarize current message

emacspeak-rss

Automatically generated documentation for commands defined in module emacspeak-rss.

emacspeak-rss-browse (FEED)

Interactive Command

control e control u Browse specified RSS feed.

emacspeak-rss-display (RSS-URL &optional SPEAK)

Interactive Command

Retrieve and display RSS news feed.

emacspeak-solitaire

Automatically generated documentation for commands defined in module emacspeak-solitaire.

emacspeak-solitaire-show-column ()

Interactive Command

Display current row auditorallly

emacspeak-solitaire-show-row ()

Interactive Command

Display current row auditorallly

emacspeak-solitaire-speak-coordinates ()

Interactive Command

Speak coordinates of current position

emacspeak-sounds

Commentary: This module provides the interface for generating auditory icons in emacspeak. Design goal: 1) Auditory icons should be used to provide additional feedback, not as a gimmick. 2) The interface should be usable at all times without the icons: e.g. when on a machine without a sound card. 3) General principle for when to use an icon: Convey information about events taking place in parallel. For instance, if making a selection automatically moves the current focus to the next choice, We speak the next choice, while indicating the fact that something was selected with a sound cue. This interface will assume the availability of a shell command "play" that can take one or more sound files and play them. This module will also provide a mapping between names in the elisp world and actual sound files. Modules that wish to use auditory icons should use these names, instead of actual file names. As of Emacspeak 13.0, this module defines a themes architecture for auditory icons. Sound files corresponding to a given theme are found in appropriate subdirectories of emacspeak-sounds-directory

Automatically generated documentation for commands defined in module emacspeak-sounds.

emacspeak-play-all-icons ()

Interactive Command

Plays all defined icons and speaks their names.

emacspeak-set-auditory-icon-player (PLAYER)

Interactive Command

control e meta a Select player used for producing auditory icons. Recommended choices: emacspeak-serve-auditory-icon for the wave device. emacspeak-play-midi-icon for midi device.

emacspeak-sounds-reset-local-player ()

Interactive Command

Ask Emacspeak to use a local audio player. This lets me have Emacspeak switch to using audioplay on solaris after I've used it for a while from a remote session where it would use the more primitive speech-server based audio player.

emacspeak-sounds-select-theme (THEME)

Interactive Command

control e ) Select theme for auditory icons.

emacspeak-toggle-auditory-icons (&optional PREFIX)

Interactive Command

control e control a Toggle use of auditory icons. Optional interactive PREFIX arg toggles global value.

emacspeak-speak

Commentary: This module defines the core speech services used by emacspeak. It depends on the speech server interface modules It protects other parts of emacspeak from becoming dependent on the speech server modules

Automatically generated documentation for commands defined in module emacspeak-speak.

emacspeak-audio-annotate-paragraphs ()

Interactive Command

Set property auditory-icon at front of all paragraphs.

emacspeak-blink-matching-open ()

Interactive Command

Display matching delimiter in the minibuffer.

emacspeak-completions-move-to-completion-group ()

Interactive Command

Move to group of choices beginning with character last typed. If no such group exists, then we dont move.

emacspeak-dial-dtk (NUMBER)

Interactive Command

control e d t Prompt for and dial a phone NUMBER with the Dectalk.

emacspeak-execute-repeatedly (COMMAND)

Interactive Command

Execute COMMAND repeatedly. This function is advised. Before-advice `emacspeak-auto': Automatically defined advice to speak interactive prompts.

emacspeak-mark-backward-mark ()

Interactive Command

<control up> Cycle backward through the mark ring.

emacspeak-mark-forward-mark ()

Interactive Command

<control down> Cycle forward through the mark ring.

emacspeak-owindow-next-line (COUNT)

Interactive Command

ESCAPE <down> Move to the next line in the other window and speak it. Numeric prefix arg COUNT can specify number of lines to move.

emacspeak-owindow-previous-line (COUNT)

Interactive Command

ESCAPE <up> Move to the next line in the other window and speak it. Numeric prefix arg COUNT specifies number of lines to move.

emacspeak-owindow-scroll-down ()

Interactive Command

ESCAPE <prior> Scroll down the window that command `other-window' would move to. Speak the window contents after scrolling.

emacspeak-owindow-scroll-up ()

Interactive Command

ESCAPE <next> Scroll up the window that command `other-window' would move to. Speak the window contents after scrolling.

emacspeak-owindow-speak-line ()

Interactive Command

ESCAPE <select> Speak the current line in the other window.

emacspeak-read-next-line (&optional ARG)

Interactive Command

control e <down> Read next line, specified by an offset, without moving. Default is to read the next line.

emacspeak-read-next-word (&optional ARG)

Interactive Command

Read next word, specified as a numeric arg, without moving. Default is to read the next word.

emacspeak-read-previous-line (&optional ARG)

Interactive Command

control e <up> Read previous line, specified by an offset, without moving. Default is to read the previous line.

emacspeak-read-previous-word (&optional ARG)

Interactive Command

Read previous word, specified as a prefix arg, without moving. Default is to read the previous word.

emacspeak-speak-and-skip-extent-upto-char (CHAR)

Interactive Command

Search forward from point until we hit char. Speak text between point and the char we hit. This function is advised. Before-advice `emacspeak-auto': Automatically defined advice to speak interactive prompts.

emacspeak-speak-and-skip-extent-upto-this-char ()

Interactive Command

Speak extent delimited by point and last character typed.

emacspeak-speak-browse-buffer (&optional DEFINE-PARAGRAPH)

Interactive Command

control e , Browse the current buffer by reading it a paragraph at a time. Optional interactive prefix arg define-paragraph prompts for regexp that defines paragraph start and paragraph-separate.

emacspeak-speak-buffer (&optional ARG)

Interactive Command

control e b Speak current buffer contents. With prefix ARG, speaks the rest of the buffer from point. Negative prefix arg speaks from start of buffer to point. If voice lock mode is on, the paragraphs in the buffer are voice annotated first, see command `emacspeak-speak-voice-annotate-paragraphs'.

emacspeak-speak-buffer-filename (&optional FILENAME)

Interactive Command

control e f Speak name of file being visited in current buffer. Speak default directory if invoked in a dired buffer, or when the buffer is not visiting any file. Interactive prefix arg `filename' speaks only the final path component. The result is put in the kill ring for convenience.

emacspeak-speak-buffer-interactively ()

Interactive Command

control e cap B Speak the start of, rest of, or the entire buffer. 's' to speak the start. 'r' to speak the rest. any other key to speak entire buffer.

emacspeak-speak-char (&optional PREFIX)

Interactive Command

control e c Speak character under point. Pronounces character phonetically unless called with a PREFIX arg.

emacspeak-speak-completions ()

Interactive Command

Speak completions buffer if one present.

emacspeak-speak-continuously ()

Interactive Command

control e RETURN Speak a buffer continuously. First prompts using the minibuffer for the kind of action to perform after speaking each chunk. E.G. speak a line at a time etc. Speaking commences at current buffer position. Pressing C-g breaks out, leaving point on last chunk that was spoken. Any other key continues to speak the buffer.

emacspeak-speak-current-column ()

Interactive Command

control e = Speak the current column.

emacspeak-speak-current-field ()

Interactive Command

control e . Speak current field. A field is defined by Emacs 21.

emacspeak-speak-current-kill (COUNT)

Interactive Command

control e k Speak the current kill entry. This is the text that will be yanked in by the next C-y. Prefix numeric arg, COUNT, specifies that the text that will be yanked as a result of a C-y followed by count-1 M-y be spoken. The kill number that is spoken says what numeric prefix arg to give to command yank.

emacspeak-speak-current-mark (COUNT)

Interactive Command

control e control @ Speak the line containing the mark. With no argument, speaks the line containing the mark-this is where `exchange-point-and-mark' C-x C-x would jump. Numeric prefix arg 'COUNT' speaks line containing mark 'n' where 'n' is one less than the number of times one has to jump using `set-mark-command' to get to this marked position. The location of the mark is indicated by an aural highlight achieved by a change in voice personality.

emacspeak-speak-current-percentage ()

Interactive Command

control e % Announce the percentage into the current buffer.

emacspeak-speak-current-window ()

Interactive Command

Speak contents of current window. Speaks entire window irrespective of point.

emacspeak-speak-display-char (&optional PREFIX)

Interactive Command

Display char under point using current speech display table. Behavior is the same as command `emacspeak-speak-char' bound to C-e c for characters in the range 0-127. Optional argument PREFIX specifies that the character should be spoken phonetically.

emacspeak-speak-front-of-buffer ()

Interactive Command

Speak the buffer from start to point

emacspeak-speak-help (&optional ARG)

Interactive Command

control e h Speak help buffer if one present. With prefix arg, speaks the rest of the buffer from point. Negative prefix arg speaks from start of buffer to point.

emacspeak-speak-help-interactively ()

Interactive Command

Speak the start of, rest of, or the entire help. 's' to speak the start. 'r' to speak the rest. any other key to speak entire help.

emacspeak-speak-line (&optional ARG)

Interactive Command

control e l Speaks current line. With prefix ARG, speaks the rest of the line from point. Negative prefix optional arg speaks from start of line to point. Voicifies if option `voice-lock-mode' is on. Indicates indentation with a tone if audio indentation is in use. Indicates position of point with an aural highlight if option `emacspeak-show-point' is turned on -see command `emacspeak-show-point' bound to M-x emacspeak-show-point. Lines that start hidden blocks of text, e.g. outline header lines, or header lines of blocks created by command `emacspeak-hide-or-expose-block' are indicated with auditory icon ellipses.

emacspeak-speak-line-interactively ()

Interactive Command

control e cap L Speak the start of, rest of, or the entire line. 's' to speak the start. 'r' to speak the rest. any other key to speak entire line.

emacspeak-speak-line-number ()

Interactive Command

control e control l Print the current buffer line number and narrowed line number of point.

emacspeak-speak-line-number-obsolete ()

Interactive Command

Speak the line number of the current line.

emacspeak-speak-line-set-column-filter (FILTER)

Interactive Command

control e | Set up filter for selectively speaking or ignoring portions of lines. The filter is specified as a list of pairs. For example, to filter columns 1 - 10 and 20 - 25, specify filter as ((0 9) (20 25)). Filter settings are persisted across sessions. A persisted filter is used as the default when prompting for a filter. This allows one to accumulate a set of filters for specific files like /var/adm/messages and /var/adm/maillog over time. Option emacspeak-speak-line-invert-filter determines the sense of the filter.

emacspeak-speak-message-again (&optional FROM-MESSAGE-CACHE)

Interactive Command

control e a Speak the last message from Emacs once again. Optional interactive prefix arg `from-message-cache' speaks message cached from the most recent call to function `message'. The message is also placed in the kill ring for convenient yanking if `emacspeak-speak-message-again-should-copy-to-kill-ring' is set.

emacspeak-speak-message-at-time (TIME MESSAGE)

Interactive Command

control e @ Set up ring-at-time to speak message at specified time. Provides simple stop watch functionality in addition to other things. See documentation for command run-at-time for details on time-spec.

emacspeak-speak-minibuffer (&optional ARG)

Interactive Command

Speak the minibuffer contents With prefix arg, speaks the rest of the buffer from point. Negative prefix arg speaks from start of buffer to point.

emacspeak-speak-minor-mode-line ()

Interactive Command

control e cap M Speak the minor mode-information.

emacspeak-speak-mode-line ()

Interactive Command

control e m Speak the mode-line.

emacspeak-speak-next-field ()

Interactive Command

control e > Skip across and speak the next contiguous sequence of non-blank characters. Useful in moving across fields. Will be improved if it proves useful.

emacspeak-speak-next-window ()

Interactive Command

control e control n Speak the next window.

emacspeak-speak-other-buffer (BUFFER)

Interactive Command

control e meta b Speak specified buffer. Useful to listen to a buffer while in a different context.

emacspeak-speak-other-window (&optional ARG)

Interactive Command

Speak contents of `other' window. Speaks entire window irrespective of point. Semantics of `other' is the same as for the builtin Emacs command `other-window'. Optional argument ARG specifies `other' window to speak.

emacspeak-speak-page (&optional ARG)

Interactive Command

control e [ Speak a page. With prefix ARG, speaks rest of current page. Negative prefix arg will read from start of current page to point. If option `voice-lock-mode' is on, then it will use any defined personality.

emacspeak-speak-page-interactively ()

Interactive Command

control e ] Speak the start of, rest of, or the entire page. 's' to speak the start. 'r' to speak the rest. any other key to speak entire page.

emacspeak-speak-paragraph (&optional ARG)

Interactive Command

control e { Speak paragraph. With prefix arg, speaks rest of current paragraph. Negative prefix arg will read from start of current paragraph to point. If voice-lock-mode is on, then it will use any defined personality.

emacspeak-speak-paragraph-interactively ()

Interactive Command

control e cap P Speak the start of, rest of, or the entire paragraph. 's' to speak the start. 'r' to speak the rest. any other key to speak entire paragraph.

emacspeak-speak-predefined-window (&optional ARG)

Interactive Command

control e 9 control e 8 control e 7 control e 6 control e 5 control e 4 control e 3 control e 2 control e 1 control e 0 Speak one of the first 10 windows on the screen. Speaks entire window irrespective of point. In general, you'll never have Emacs split the screen into more than two or three. Argument ARG determines the 'other' window to speak. Semantics of `other' is the same as for the builtin Emacs command `other-window'.

emacspeak-speak-previous-field ()

Interactive Command

control e < Skip backwards across and speak contiguous sequence of non-blank characters. Useful in moving across fields. Will be improved if it proves useful.

emacspeak-speak-previous-window ()

Interactive Command

control e control p Speak the previous window.

emacspeak-speak-rectangle (START END)

Interactive Command

control e cap R Speak a rectangle of text. Rectangle is delimited by point and mark. When call from a program, arguments specify the START and END of the rectangle.

emacspeak-speak-region (START END)

Interactive Command

control e r Speak region. Argument START and END specify region to speak.

emacspeak-speak-rest-of-buffer ()

Interactive Command

control e n Speak remainder of the buffer starting at point

emacspeak-speak-sentence (&optional ARG)

Interactive Command

Speak current sentence. With prefix ARG, speaks the rest of the sentence from point. Negative prefix arg speaks from start of sentence to point.

emacspeak-speak-set-display-table (&optional PREFIX)

Interactive Command

Sets up buffer specific speech display table that controls how special characters are spoken. Interactive prefix argument causes setting to be global.

emacspeak-speak-sexp (&optional ARG)

Interactive Command

control e ' Speak current sexp. With prefix ARG, speaks the rest of the sexp from point. Negative prefix arg speaks from start of sexp to point. If option `voice-lock-mode' is on, then uses the personality.

emacspeak-speak-sexp-interactively ()

Interactive Command

control e " Speak the start of, rest of, or the entire sexp. 's' to speak the start. 'r' to speak the rest. any other key to speak entire sexp.

emacspeak-speak-skim-buffer ()

Interactive Command

Skim the current buffer a paragraph at a time.

emacspeak-speak-skim-next-paragraph ()

Interactive Command

Skim next paragraph.

emacspeak-speak-skim-paragraph ()

Interactive Command

Skim paragraph. Skimming a paragraph results in the speech speeding up after the first clause. Speech is scaled by the value of dtk-speak-skim-scale

emacspeak-speak-spaces-at-point ()

Interactive Command

control e CONTROL meta @ Speak the white space at point.

emacspeak-speak-spell-current-word ()

Interactive Command

Spell word at point.

emacspeak-speak-time (&optional WORLD)

Interactive Command

control e t Speak the time. Optional interactive prefix arg `C-u'invokes world clock. Timezone is specified using minibuffer completion. Second interactive prefix sets clock to new timezone.

emacspeak-speak-version ()

Interactive Command

control e cap V Announce version information for running emacspeak.

emacspeak-speak-voice-annotate-paragraphs ()

Interactive Command

Locate paragraphs and voice annotate the first word. Here, paragraph is taken to mean a chunk of text preceded by a blank line. Useful to do this before you listen to an entire buffer.

emacspeak-speak-window-information ()

Interactive Command

control e control w Speaks information about current window.

emacspeak-speak-word (&optional ARG)

Interactive Command

control e w Speak current word. With prefix ARG, speaks the rest of the word from point. Negative prefix arg speaks from start of word to point. If executed on the same buffer position a second time, the word is spelt instead of being spoken.

emacspeak-speak-word-interactively ()

Interactive Command

Speak the start of, rest of, or the entire word. 's' to speak the start. 'r' to speak the rest. any other key to speak entire word.

emacspeak-speak-world-clock (ZONE &optional SET)

Interactive Command

Display current date and time for specified zone. Optional second arg `set' sets the TZ environment variable as well.

emacspeak-switch-to-completions-window ()

Interactive Command

Jump to the *Completions* buffer if it is active. We make the current minibuffer contents (which is obviously the prefix for each entry in the completions buffer) inaudible to reduce chatter.

emacspeak-toggle-action-mode (&optional PREFIX)

Interactive Command

Toggle state of Emacspeak action mode. Interactive PREFIX arg means toggle the global default value, and then set the current local value to the result.

emacspeak-toggle-audio-indentation (&optional PREFIX)

Interactive Command

control e d i Toggle state of Emacspeak audio indentation. Interactive PREFIX arg means toggle the global default value, and then set the current local value to the result. Specifying the method of indentation as `tones' results in the Dectalk producing a tone whose length is a function of the line's indentation. Specifying `speak' results in the number of initial spaces being spoken.

emacspeak-toggle-character-echo (&optional PREFIX)

Interactive Command

control e d k Toggle state of Emacspeak character echo. Interactive PREFIX arg means toggle the global default value, and then set the current local value to the result.

emacspeak-toggle-comint-autospeak (&optional PREFIX)

Interactive Command

control e control q Toggle state of Emacspeak comint autospeak. When turned on, comint output is automatically spoken. Turn this on if you want your shell to speak its results. Interactive PREFIX arg means toggle the global default value, and then set the current local value to the result.

emacspeak-toggle-line-echo (&optional PREFIX)

Interactive Command

control e d l Toggle state of Emacspeak line echo. Interactive PREFIX arg means toggle the global default value, and then set the current local value to the result.

emacspeak-toggle-mail-alert (&optional PREFIX)

Interactive Command

control e meta m Toggle state of Emacspeak mail alert. Interactive PREFIX arg means toggle the global default value, and then set the current local value to the result. Turning on this option results in Emacspeak producing an auditory icon indicating the arrival of new mail when displaying the mode line.

emacspeak-toggle-show-point (&optional PREFIX)

Interactive Command

control e control d Toggle state of Emacspeak-show-point. Interactive PREFIX arg means toggle the global default value, and then set the current local value to the result.

emacspeak-toggle-speak-line-invert-filter (&optional PREFIX)

Interactive Command

control e \ Toggle state of how column filter is interpreted. Interactive PREFIX arg means toggle the global default value, and then set the current local value to the result.

emacspeak-toggle-speak-messages (&optional PREFIX)

Interactive Command

control e q Toggle the state of whether emacspeak echoes messages.

emacspeak-toggle-which-function (&optional PREFIX)

Interactive Command

control e meta w Toggle state of Emacspeak which function mode. Interactive PREFIX arg means toggle the global default value, and then set the current local value to the result.

emacspeak-toggle-word-echo (&optional PREFIX)

Interactive Command

control e d w Toggle state of Emacspeak word echo. Interactive PREFIX arg means toggle the global default value, and then set the current local value to the result.

emacspeak-use-customized-blink-paren ()

Interactive Command

A customized blink-paren to speak matching opening paren. We need to call this in case Emacs is anal and loads its own builtin blink-paren function which does not talk.

emacspeak-view-register ()

Interactive Command

control e v Display the contents of a register, and then speak it.

emacspeak-voicify-rectangle (START END &optional PERSONALITY)

Interactive Command

Voicify the current rectangle. When calling from a program,arguments are START END personality Prompts for PERSONALITY with completion when called interactively.

emacspeak-voicify-region (START END &optional PERSONALITY)

Interactive Command

Voicify the current region. When calling from a program,arguments are START END personality. Prompts for PERSONALITY with completion when called interactively.

emacspeak-zap-tts ()

Interactive Command

control e d z Send this command to the TTS directly.

emacspeak-speedbar

Commentary: This module advises speedbar.el for use with Emacs. The latest speedbar can be obtained from ftp://ftp.ultranet.com/pub/zappo/ This module ensures that speedbar works smoothly outside a windowing system in addition to speech enabling all interactive commands. Emacspeak also adds an Emacspeak environment specific entry point to speedbar -emacspeak-speedbar-goto-speedbar- and binds this

Automatically generated documentation for commands defined in module emacspeak-speedbar.

emacspeak-speedbar-click ()

Interactive Command

Does the equivalent of the mouse click from the keyboard

emacspeak-speedbar-goto-speedbar ()

Interactive Command

Switch to the speedbar

emacspeak-table-ui

Automatically generated documentation for commands defined in module emacspeak-table-ui.

emacspeak-table-copy-current-element-to-register (REGISTER)

Interactive Command

Speak current table element This function is advised. Before-advice `emacspeak-auto': Automatically defined advice to speak interactive prompts.

emacspeak-table-copy-to-clipboard ()

Interactive Command

Copy table in current buffer to the table clipboard. Current buffer must be in emacspeak-table mode.

emacspeak-table-display-table-in-region (START END)

Interactive Command

control e TAB Recognize tabular data in current region and display it in table browsing mode in a a separate buffer. emacspeak table mode is designed to let you browse tabular data using all the power of the two-dimensional spatial layout while giving you sufficient contextual information. The tables subdirectory of the emacspeak distribution contains some sample tables -these are the CalTrain schedules. Execute command `describe-mode' bound to C-h m in a buffer that is in emacspeak table mode to read the documentation on the table browser.

emacspeak-table-find-csv-file (FILENAME)

Interactive Command

Process a csv (comma separated values) file. The processed data and presented using emacspeak table navigation.

emacspeak-table-find-file (FILENAME)

Interactive Command

control e control t Open a file containing table data and display it in table mode. emacspeak table mode is designed to let you browse tabular data using all the power of the two-dimensional spatial layout while giving you sufficient contextual information. The etc/tables subdirectory of the emacspeak distribution contains some sample tables -these are the CalTrain schedules. Execute command `describe-mode' bound to C-h m in a buffer that is in emacspeak table mode to read the documentation on the table browser.

emacspeak-table-get-entry-with-headers (ROW COLUMN &optional ROW-HEAD-P COL-HEAD-P)

Interactive Command

Return both row and column header and table element

emacspeak-table-goto (ROW COLUMN)

Interactive Command

Prompt for a table cell coordinates and jump to it.

emacspeak-table-goto-bottom ()

Interactive Command

Goes to the bottom of the current column.

emacspeak-table-goto-left ()

Interactive Command

Goes to the left of the current row.

emacspeak-table-goto-right ()

Interactive Command

Goes to the right of the current row.

emacspeak-table-goto-top ()

Interactive Command

Goes to the top of the current column.

emacspeak-table-next-column (&optional COUNT)

Interactive Command

Move to the next column if possible

emacspeak-table-next-row (&optional COUNT)

Interactive Command

Move to the next row if possible

emacspeak-table-paste-from-clipboard ()

Interactive Command

Paste the emacspeak table clipboard into the current buffer. Use the major mode of this buffer to decide what kind of table markup to use.

emacspeak-table-previous-column (&optional COUNT)

Interactive Command

Move to the previous column if possible

emacspeak-table-previous-row (&optional COUNT)

Interactive Command

Move to the previous row if possible

emacspeak-table-search ()

Interactive Command

Search the table for matching elements. Interactively prompts for row or column to search and pattern to look for. If there is a match, makes the matching cell current.

emacspeak-table-search-headers ()

Interactive Command

Search the table row or column headers. Interactively prompts for row or column to search and pattern to look for. If there is a match, makes the matching row or column current.

emacspeak-table-select-automatic-speaking-method ()

Interactive Command

Interactively select the kind of automatic speech to produce when browsing table elements

emacspeak-table-sort-on-current-column ()

Interactive Command

Sort table on current column.

emacspeak-table-speak-both-headers-and-element ()

Interactive Command

Speak both row and column header and table element

emacspeak-table-speak-column-filtered (&optional PREFIX)

Interactive Command

Speaks a table column after applying a specified column filter. Optional prefix arg prompts for a new filter.

emacspeak-table-speak-column-header-and-element ()

Interactive Command

Speak column header and table element

emacspeak-table-speak-coordinates ()

Interactive Command

Speak current table coordinates.

emacspeak-table-speak-current-element ()

Interactive Command

Speak current table element

emacspeak-table-speak-dimensions ()

Interactive Command

Speak current table dimensions.

emacspeak-table-speak-row-filtered (&optional PREFIX)

Interactive Command

Speaks a table row after applying a specified row filter. Optional prefix arg prompts for a new filter.

emacspeak-table-speak-row-header-and-element ()

Interactive Command

Speak row header and table element

emacspeak-table-ui-filter-load (FILE)

Interactive Command

Load saved filter settings.

emacspeak-table-ui-filter-save (FILE)

Interactive Command

Save out filter settings.

emacspeak-table-view-csv-buffer (&optional BUFFER-NAME)

Interactive Command

Process a csv (comma separated values) data. The processed data and presented using emacspeak table navigation.

emacspeak-tabulate

Automatically generated documentation for commands defined in module emacspeak-tabulate.

emacspeak-tabulate-region (START END &optional MARK-FIELDS)

Interactive Command

control e i Voicifies the white-space of a table if one found. Optional interactive prefix arg mark-fields specifies if the header row information is used to mark fields in the white-space.

emacspeak-tapestry

Automatically generated documentation for commands defined in module emacspeak-tapestry.

emacspeak-tapestry-describe-tapestry (&optional DETAILS)

Interactive Command

control e meta t Describe the current layout of visible buffers in current frame. Use interactive prefix arg to get coordinate positions of the displayed buffers.

emacspeak-tapestry-select-window-by-name (BUFFER-NAME)

Interactive Command

control e cap W Select window by the name of the buffer it displays. This is useful when using modes like ECB or the new GDB UI where you want to preserve the window layout but quickly switch to a window by name.

emacspeak-tar

Automatically generated documentation for commands defined in module emacspeak-tar.

emacspeak-tar-speak-file-date ()

Interactive Command

Speak date of file current entry