Speech Productivity’s

Auto Box©’s

Reference Manual version 8.2.1.0

Table of Contents

Auto Box© is a Speech Productivity module which is a feature–rich replacement for Dragon’s Dictation Box. It does not allow formatting of the text.

Auto Box© has one menu located at the bottom. It has eleven items: Transfer; Transport; Undo; Retarget; Visibility; Mode; Tab; Tab Back; Options; Cancel and Help.

Clicking Transfer causes all text to be immediately transferred to the target application and closes Auto Box© (the transferred text will also be stored on the clipboard).

Clicking Transport causes all text to be immediately transferred to the target application but does not close Auto Box© (the transported text will also be stored on the clipboard).

Clicking Undo briefly activates the target application and sends the typical “undo” keyboard shortcut (CTRL+z) to that application. The most recently transported text (if there is any) will replace all text in Auto Box©.

Clicking Retarget (when not disabled) causes Auto Box© to change its targeted application to the application which immediately precedes it in the Windows Z–order.

Clicking Visibility exposes the Visibility subitems:

Visibility ► Transparent (CTRL+SHIFT+1)

Visibility ► 30% (CTRL+SHIFT+3)

Visibility ► 50% (CTRL+SHIFT+5)

Visibility ► 70% (CTRL+SHIFT+7)

Visibility ► Opaque (CTRL+SHIFT+9)

Clicking Mode exposes the Mode subitems:

► Always On Top (CTRL+SHIFT+a)

► Snap

► Targeted (CTRL+SHIFT+x)

► (Mode/State) Automatic Dominant (CTRL+SHIFT+f)

► (Mode/State) Automatic Passive (CTRL+SHIFT+g)

► (Mode/State) Default Dominant (CTRL+SHIFT+h)

► (Mode/State) Default Passive (CTRL+SHIFT+i)

► (Mode/State) Messaging Dominant (CTRL+SHIFT+j)

► (Mode/State) Message Passive (CTRL+SHIFT+k)

► (Mode/State) Punctuation Dominant (CTRL+SHIFT+l)

► (Mode/State) Punctuation Passive (CTRL+SHIFT+m)

► (Mode/State) Manual Dominant (CTRL+SHIFT+n)

► (Mode/State) Manual Passive (CTRL+SHIFT+p)

► (Mode/State) Literal Dominant (CTRL+SHIFT+q)

► (Mode/State) Literal Passive (CTRL+SHIFT+r)

► (Mode/State) Form Filler Dominant (CTRL+SHIFT+t)

► (Mode/State) Form Filler Passive (CTRL+SHIFT+u)

► (Mode/State) Smart Dominant (CTRL+SHIFT+v)

► (Mode/State) Smart Passive (CTRL+SHIFT+w)

► (Mode/State) Blind Dominant (CTRL+SHIFT+y)

► (Mode/State) Blind Passive (CTRL+SHIFT+z)

Clicking Tab briefly activates the target application and sends the tab key — depending on the active text field of the target application this will either put a tab in the text or shift the focus to the next text field.

Clicking Tab Back briefly activates the target application and sends a shifted tab key to the target application.

Clicking Options opens the Options dialog.

Clicking Cancel immediately closes Auto Box© without transporting any text. If there is any text in Auto Box© it will be copied to the clipboard.

Clicking Help opens this documentation in your preferred browser.

Auto Box© has three menu items specifically devoted to the blind user: List; Read and Choose. The Visibility menu is removed when in either of the blind Mode/States.

List reads out all of the utterances in the dictation box giving each a number for future reference.

The Read menu has three subitems: All; Utterance; and Range.

The All subitem reads aloud the entire contents of the text box.

The Utterance subitem speaks the total number of utterances in the text box then asks the user for which number to read aloud. A text box opens allowing the user to enter a numeral. The user may then say “press enter” to have the utterance read aloud or “press escape” to cancel the reading.

The Range subitem speaks the total number of utterances in the text box then asks the user for a range of utterances to read aloud. Two numerals, separated by “through”, must be supplied by the user. The user may then say “press enter” to have the utterance read aloud or “press escape” to cancel the reading.

The Choose menu has two subitems: Utterance; and Range.

The Utterance subitem speaks the total number of utterances in the text box then asks the user for which number to read aloud and select. A text box opens allowing the user to enter a numeral. The user may then say “press enter” to have the utterance read aloud and selected or “press escape” to cancel the selection process.

The Range subitem speaks the total number of utterances in the text box then asks the user for a range of utterances to read aloud select. Two numerals, separated by “through”, must be supplied by the user. The user may then say “press enter” to have the utterance read aloud and selected or “press escape” to cancel the selection process.

The first time Auto Box© starts it will be in the default mode — Default Passive (more about modes andstates can be found here).

In the default mode (Default Passive) Auto Box© automatically transports (moves the text without closing Auto Box©) every time you utter a closing punctuation mark or one of three popular text–based face emojis (details here). When another application is given focus it does not try to grab focus for itself; however, “Always On Top” is turned on by default so it should always stay on top of most other windows.

Regardless of what mode or state you are in, you may always click either the “Transfer” or “Transport” buttons (or say whatever is appropriate on your system — “click transfer”, “click transport”, or, if you have set Dragon to not require “click” before commands, “transfer” or “transport”.

Clicking the “Undo” menu item is designed to undo the last transport of text. Some target applications do not respond to the common keyboard shortcut of control plus the Z key. If this is the case with your target application, using this menu item could have strange and dangerous results! Additionally, if you have transported text, dictated some new text, and edited some of the newly dictated text — then you click the “Undo” menu item — the results might not be what you expect.

Targeted is an On/Off toggling menu item. When checked, Targeted is turned on and Retarget is enabled; when not checked, targeting is turned off and Retarget is disabled. Immediately when checked Auto Box© targets the first available and suitable window then Auto Box©’s title bar changes to reflect the targeting status:

Auto Box© [version number  Mode State] Targeted —  [title of the target window]

After a target application has been chosen any Transport or Transfer will go to the target application even if that application is minimized to the tray or is hidden behind other windows. Thereafter, if Targeted is turned off Auto Box©’s title bar changes to reflect the targeting status: “Auto Box© [version number] Untargeted”. When not checked, Targeted is turned off and your Transport or Transfer will go to to the application immediately before Auto Box© in the Z–order.

Retarget is only enabled when Targeted is turned on. When enabled, if Retarget is clicked, the window which is visually immediately behind Auto Box© will become the target application* and any Transport or Transfer will always go to this targeted window. Retargeting can be difficult if you are in a Dominant state; if the reactivate delay is set too slow, you might not have time to manipulate the various windows so that your desired target is immediately behind Auto Box©.

In the Automatic modes the text will be automatically transported each time there is a pause in the dictation. Auto Box© tries very hard to ensure that proper spacing and capitalization is maintained between utterances.

In the Default modes the text will be automatically transported each time there is a punctuation mark terminating a sentence or one of three text–based emojis are uttered. Here are the specific termination items:

It is always permissible to click the Transfer menu item to immediately send the text to the target application and close Auto Box© or to click the Transport menu item to immediately send the text to the target application but not close Auto Box©.

The Messaging modes are almost identical to the respective  Default modes. The only real difference is that, in the Messaging modes, Auto Box© will send an additional Enter (Carriage Return) keystroke right after any Transport or Transfer of the text. This should cause the messaging application to “send your message”. This mode can also be useful to send search queries to Google’s address bar.

The Punctuation modes are almost identical to the  Automatic modes. The only real difference is that, in the Punctuation modes, Auto Box© will add an “appropriate” punctuation mark to each utterance before automatically transferring it to target application. The only punctuation marks Auto Box© will supply are:

The Manual modes allow the user full control over the movement of text from Auto Box© to the target application. It is Auto Box©’s closest approximation to Dragon’s built–in Dictation Box.

The Literal modes are almost exactly like the  Manual modes. The only real difference is that they do not try to do any automatic spacing nor capitalization.

The Form Filler modes are almost identical to the respective  Default modes. The only real difference is that, in the Form Filler modes, if the utterance ends in “tab” Auto Box© will send a TAB keystroke immediately after automatically Transporting the text. This should move the insertion cursor to the next text field which needs to be filled out.

If the utterance ends in “enter”, Auto Box© will automatically Transport then send an ENTER keystroke. In browsers this will probably not move the insertion cursor to the next text field and neither punctuation nor capitalization will be forced (Although Dragon will probably capitalize the next word).

When Auto Box© is in the Dominant state it will always forcefully grab the focus after it has moved the text. There will be a slight delay (details can be found here) while the target application’s window is brought to the front of all other windows and the text is pasted in at the insertion point. The whole point of the Dominant mode is that Auto Box© will forcefully move to the front of all other windows and take the focus. This takes precedence over the setting for “Always On Top” — even if “Always On Top” is turned off, Auto Box©, in any Dominant mode, will always move to the front of all of the windows. Of course, if some other application has set one of its windows to be “always on top” it is impossible to predict which window will ultimately prevail.

When Auto Box© is in the Passive state it will not forcefully steal the focus. It will abide by the setting for “Always On Top”. If “Always On Top” is turned on, in this state Auto Box© will always float to the top though it will not take focus.

Auto Box© may be started with a number of commandline switches; realistically, this would only be useful when starting Auto Box© from a specialized command or script.

This is the commandline switch design specification:

If Auto Box© is started without any commandline switch it starts normally, recalling the user’s last used Mode and State.

If Auto Box© is started with more than one commandline switch it fails gracefully displaying a system message box.

If Auto Box© is started with a commandline switch which it does not recognize, it starts normally, recalling the user’s last used Mode and State.

If Auto Box© is started with a commandline switch which it does recognize it starts normally but enters the Mode and State as defined by the commandline switch. When Auto Box© subsequently closes it does not remember the Mode and State set by the commandline switch. However, if the Mode and/or State is changed by the user, that Mode/State will always be remembered for the next launch Mode/State.

These are the possible commandline switches:

These:

all open the Auto Box© help HTML file in the user’s preferred browser; Auto Box© does not open.

These:

all resolve to “automatic_dominant”.

These:

all resolve to “automatic_passive”.

These:

all resolve to “default_dominant”.

These:

all resolve to “default_passive”.

These:

all resolve to “messaging_dominant”.

These:

all resolve to “messaging_passive”.

These:

all resolve to “punctuation_dominant”.

These:

all resolve to “punctuation_passive”.

These:

all resolve to “manual_dominant”.

These:

all resolve to “manual_passive”.

These:

all resolve to “literal_dominant”.

These:

all resolve to “literal_passive”.

These:

all resolve to “form_filler_dominant”.

These:

all resolve to “form_filler_passive”.

These:

all resolve to “smart_dominant”.

These:

all resolve to “smart_passive”.

This is an example DVC command which opens the Auto Box© HTML help file:

Two of Auto Box©’s options can be set directly from the Mode menu — “Always On Top” and “Targeted”. The rest are available through the Options menu item which opens the configuration dialog:

Always On Top, when checked, forces Auto Box©’s main window to float on top of all other windows. If it is not in a Dominant mode, it is common for it to be on top but not have focus. If some other application has set one of its windows to be “always on top” it is impossible to predict which window will ultimately prevail.

When checked, Targeted will cause Auto Box© to remember a specific target application. When it comes time to Transport or Transfer (automatically or manually) the target window will be forced to come to the front and become active (even if it is minimized to the Taskbar).

When Targeted is not checked, Auto Box© will use Windows’ built–in window switching mechanism (like pressing ALT+TAB or ALT+ESCAPE); Auto Box© always uses the ALT+ESCAPE version.

For more details see Targeted.

The configuration dialog gives access to three delay settings: Targeting; Switch windows and Reactivate Auto Box© . All of these values are in milliseconds — 500 milliseconds equals one half of one second.

The Targeting delay determines how long Auto Box© waits between each attempt to discover an acceptable target application. When looking for such a target application, Auto Box© hides itself then looks for another window to take focus. It always takes some amount of time for the operating system to focus another window; this time value will vary based on the total number of windows open and the relative speeds of the computer and its graphics system.

The Switch Windows delay determines how long Auto Box© will pause after issuing ALT+ESCAPE to bring up the next window in Windows’ Z–Order or directly activating the target application. Auto Box© keeps trying to switch windows until an appropriate window gets focus. There are many factors which might affect what this value should be. If the computer is extremely fast and not doing a lot of other things in the background, values as low as 10 milliseconds have been known to work quite well. Practically, values much smaller than the default (30 milliseconds) are likely to cause the text movement to fail on modestly configured computers.

The Reactivate Auto box delay determines how long Auto Box© will pause after receiving a message from the OS that it needs to reactivate itself. This delay determines how long the target application will remain on top and having focus. If you frequently need to move the text insertion point in the target application while Auto Box© is still open you might want to make this value larger than the default. The same might be true if you like to see what is happening during the text movement process. There are quite a few factors which go into determining what the best setting is for this value.

The general reason for these options is to give the user the ability to configure Auto Box© to be as nimble as possible while achieving virtually perfect movement of text to the target application. If you notice the text disappearing into cyberspace instead of being reliably pasted into the target application consider:

When Not Targeted…

Increase the Switch Windows delay — sometimes all it takes is an increase of 10–15 milliseconds.

When Targeted…

If the problem of disappearing text only occurs when Targeted is checked, try increasing the Targeted delay. Here, you will probably need to try increases of 25–50 milliseconds.

If Auto Box© reactivates too quickly…

Try increasing the Reactivate Auto Box© delay.

If Auto Box© is too slow to respond…

Try decreasing the Reactivate Auto© Box delay.