For existing, and potential new users! In a few hours, I hope to upload the newest version of the Extended Dictionary app. Version 0.65. A releasing message will be delivered on the list, once the app has been uploaded. I still hope this message reaches you all in time. :)
Below, I have pasted two importan chapters, taken from the User's Guide. The first chapter, applies to those of you, who install for the first time. The second one, will apply to those who are going to upgrade an existing installation. May I ask, that you please read these chapters, as they will likely prepare you for the installation (or updating) process. Regards, David (The Author of the Extended Dictionary for Window-Eyes) ---. Paste From The User's Guide .--- FIRST-TIME INSTALLATION AND INITIATING THE PACKAGE Please note: If you are upgrading from an earlier version, or on top of a previous installation of the extended Dictionary package, please refer the chapter: UPGRADING THE EXTENDED DICTIONARY APP, as it will provide better information on the process. The Extended Dictionary app, will disregard the native Exception dictionary of Window-Eyes. You likely won't need this Built-in feature of the screen-reader anyway, since the Extended Dictionary does offer you increased capabilities. All the entries that standard ship in the Native Exception Dictionary of Window-Eyes, have already been implemented with the Extended Dictionaries. Installing the Extended Dictionary app, is pretty easy. Simply run the downloaded .WEPM file. Window-Eyes will immediately initiate the app, and make it an integrated part of your screen reader experience. First time you run the app, it will need to unpack the whole set of dictionaries that ship with the package, along with the documentation files and a few other files. All of this unpacking might take a few moments. You will hear a few messages spoken throughout the process. This is all normal. Simply give the installation process the needed time. Throughout its performance, the Extended Dictionary app, will actually be using these shipped Dictionaries, as the basis for any new dictionary created. We will look more into this at a later state. The installation process, will ask you if you want to merge the entries found in your Native Exception Dictionary of Window-Eyes, with the new Extended Dictionary. For most users, it is the safest to decline such merging. Only in cases, where you know the risk of such merging, and are fully sure you want it and the consequences hereof, you should answer Yes to this question. Learn more in the chapter: Merging The Native Window-Eyes Exception Dictionary. All your existing native Dictionary files from your User Profile folder, will be preserved untouched by the Extended Dictionary app. Whenever you turn off - or uninstall the Extended Dictionary, your Window-Eyes therefore will automatically return back to its original functionality. After installing, the app will automatically initiate itself. If the GW AudioKit is installed and active on your system, you will hear an audible notification, indicating the activation of the Extended Dictionary. You will immediately have a Basic Voice-Specific dictionary, created for your currently active speech synthesizer. In other words, if you are running the Standard Eloquence Reed voice, the app will immediately have created the Voice-Speicific Dictionary for Eloquence, US English, Reed. It will further have added on a good amount of new entries, from the shipping dictionary for this voice or language. And you will right away, get in touch with the power of the Extended Dictionary. Let's now say, you decided to switch to another voice. What about, for instance, if you switched to the voice Mike, provided by Microsoft - and which is actually a SAPI voice. Soon as you have activated the new voice, the Extended Dictionary app, will immediately create a Voice-Specific dictionary for Microsoft Mike. And, again, it will copy the contents from the shipping dictionaries that comes with the Extended Dictionary package, into the newly created Voice-Specific Dictionary. This way, you will have a good set out, for any dictionaries, and you are ready to make the specific tayloring for your specific voice. There is no real limit to how many voices you could have installed on your computer simultaneously. And, there should be few limitations as to the dictionaries for each voice. If you are working with three different voices, your Extended Dictionary will create three Voice-Specific Dictionaries. Do you work with 15 different voices, then you will have 15 Voice-Specific Dictionaries on your computer. Since each voice will have its own directory on the computer, there is little chance of any conflict between any of the dictionaries. REMARKS: Switching from one voice to the other, the system will have to unload the dictionary for the former voice, and then load the dictionary for the new voice. This might take a second - particularly on slow systems like netbooks - and meanwhile your voice could be performing some speech. This speech, that would take place in between the unloading of the old former dictionary and the loading of the new one, might be performed without any modification. In given cases, you might also experience drop-out, or a delay in the speech, through this switching period. This is quite normal. The Extended Dictionary DOES NOT directly interfere with Character, Graphics, and Key Label Dictionaries of Window-Eyes. These Dictionaries should be left turned ON, and unaltered. The Extended Dictionary will mainly replace - and extend - the native EXCEPTION Dictionary of Window-Eyes. You are encouraged to make a backup of your current Window-Eyes' User Profile, before attempting to install and run the Extended Dictionary package. If you are currently using a voice that has not yet been used with the extended Dictionary, you will be warned that an User Interface Language (UI Language) for the current voice, has not yet been set. You thereafter will be provided a list of currently available languages. It is important that you find the language best supported by your active synthetic voice. We will be dealing thoroughly with this in a later section of this documentation. Activating a voice first time on your system, the Extended Dictionary will create a Voice-Specific Dictionary for that voice. You will be asked, if you want to merge the entries from your Native Window-Eyes Exception Dictionary with the new dictionary. Unless you have special reasons for such merging, you are adviced to decline by answering NO to this question. To benefit from the Sound Clip feature of the Extended Dictionary, you need to have the GWAudioKit app installed, and activated. The Extended Dictionary will perform fine without, but you will not be able to hear any sound clips. Having the GW AudioKit installed, will further ensure you get notification sounds, whenever certain actions are performed by the Extended Dictionary app. UPGRADING THE EXTENDED DICTIONARY PACKAGE Have you already installed an older version of the Extended Dictionary package? You will want to pay extra close attention to this chapter. The information here given, will greatly save you some frustration. Downloading and running the Extended Dictionary.wepm file, it first will verify if you have previously installed the package. If it finds an existing version of the package, the installer will automatically enter into an 'upgrade mode'. The Upgrade Mode When you run the upgrade to the app, you might first be asked to overwrite certain files that are included in the app. These include the VBS.WEPM files, the XML files, and the Ini files. If asked this question, please make sure, that you answer Yes, as without updating and overwriting these files, the app will not be updated correctly, and will likely fail. What To Do With Your Old Dictionary Files? First of all, let's establish the fact, that the newer version of the app, does ship with several new features. Read more about this in the What's New section of the User's Guide. As part of the upgrade, you are also receiving upgrades to the Dictionary files that ship with the app. Many of the updates to the Dictionaries, are entries that have been received from user's. And the Author of the app, wants to thank you for all such entries. But certain entries that shipped with older versions of the app, also have proven to be troublesome in their original form. Such entries have been changed, and should now cause less trouble. You might already have built excessive Dictionaries, when you were running the former version of the app. If so, you are likely glad to know, that these Dictionaries of yours, will not be lost. Still, you will have to make a choice, whether you want to keep these Dictionaries active, or if you want to start out with the new shipping Dictionaries - all from scratch. When the app-updating process has installed its files, it will check for previous Dictionary files. If it finds such files, it will pop up a question box on your screen. Here you can choose, what to do about your current Dictionaries. If you choose to keep your current Dictionaries active, the updater will simply install the new shipping Dictionary files, but leave any of your current active Dictionary files untouched. In this case, you will not benefit from the upgraded entries in your current Dictionaries. Still, whenever you introduce a new voice, thereby building a new Voice-Specific Dictionary, the new updated Dictionaries will be used as a basis for your Voice-Specific Dictionary for the new voice. Same goes, whenever you build a new Software-Specific Dictionary. So, any new Dictionaries, will hold the updated entries shipping with this upgrade, but the updates will not be implemented into your existing Dictionaries. Unfortunately, there is really no way for the app, to merge the shipping updates, into current Dictionary files. Should you want such merging, it will have to be performed manually by the user, at a later state. On the other hand, if you decide to not keep your current Dictionary files, this will give you an 'all clean' start. What will happen to your current Dictionary files in this case? No, they will not be deleted. On the contrary, they will be moved to a backup location. The app will inform you of the backup location, and it can always be found under the User Profile Folder of Window-Eyes. The app will in such a case, move the Dictionaries subfolder, to a subfolder called Dictionaries.1. Should this subfolder already exist, for whatever reason, the app will move the Dictionaries subfolder to Dictionaries.2. It will keep trying, until it hits an available number, from 1 to 99. Then, when moved, you will be informed of the location, like "Dictionaries.1!. Pay attention to this message, and make a note thereof. Next, the new Dictionary files, will all be installed in the Dictionaries subfolder, where you usually have been finding your Dictionaries. This is not anything new. Should you want to implement entries from your old Dictionaries, into the newly created Dictionaries, you can find your old files in the backup folder that you were informed of through the installation process. You would need to open the new Dictionaries by Alt-Shift-2 or Alt-Shift-3, and also open your old Dictionaries manually. Then Localize the entries of your old Dictionary file, which you want to copy, and use standard Windows copy andd paste commands to paste them into the newly created Dictionary files. Merging Native Window-Eyes Exception Dictionary Through the upgrading process, you might also be asked if you want to merge the entries from your Native Window-Eyes Exception Dictionary, into the newly created Extended Dictionary files. Read more about this new feature of the Extended Dictionary app, in the chapter: Merging The Native Window-Eyes Exception Dictionary. For most users it is recommended to answer NO, at this question, as merging has proven complicated in certain cases. All the entries that standard ships with Window-Eyes have already been incorporated with the Extended Dictionary anyway. Finalizing The Upgrade After having made your choice as to keeping the current dictionaries untouched or not, and if necessary if you want to merge the Native Window-Eyes Exception Dictionary, the rest of the upgrading process should perform automatically. You will need to give the system time to perform its activity. Usually, the whole upgrade may take something like two minutes, but this could differ from one system to the other. You will receive a few spoken messages, throughout the upgrade. These messages, are much the same, as the ones you received when you installed the app first time. The whole process will end, by congratulating you with the new installation, and then taking you directly to the User's Guide screen. You are recommended to browse the User's Guide, since a number of chapters have been updated, and you might find needede information there. Specially, you might want to check out the "What's New"-section, found near the end. Remember, you can always reopen the User's Guide, at any later state, by hitting the hotkey of Alt-Shift-9. Close the User's Guide screen, whenever you are done with your reading, and enjoy your newly upgraded version of the Extended Dictionary App for Window-Eyes. REMARKS: Whenever you are done with all your manual merging, or in any other way don't need the backup dictionaries created through the upgrading process, the backup folder can safely be deleted. You will have to do this manually, and pay attention, that you DO NOT DELETE the folder named Dictionaries. ---. End Of Paste .--- If you reply to this message it will be delivered to the original sender only. If your reply would benefit others on the list and your message is related to GW Micro, then please consider sending your message to [email protected] so the entire list will receive it. GW-Info messages are archived at http://www.gwmicro.com/gwinfo. You can manage your list subscription at http://www.gwmicro.com/listserv.
