[Emacs-vr-mode-devel] ANNOUNCE: vx-mode 0.08

[Jan R. <ja...@ry...>]

VX Mode allows you to use Dragon NaturallySpeaking with XEmacs. It is a
rewrite of Barry Jaspan's VR-mode. I started with small modifications to
VR-mode, the goal being to make it work with XEmacs, but I ended up
rewriting most of it.

The main goal of this project was to provide continuous dictation
support for natural text in XEmacs. Command and programming support were
considered secondary. I wanted to have a tool that would enable me to
dictate my e-mail in Gnus, as well as write long documents.

Another important goal was to be able to dictate without using
Windows. Obviously, Dragon NaturallySpeaking only runs under Windows, so
one has to use it in some way -- but I wanted to be able to run my
Windows installation in a VMware emulator or on a separate machine, with
my Emacs communicating with this machine over the network. I'm trying to
achieve as much as possible without actually interacting with the
Windows desktop, which might not even be visible in normal
circumstances.


Main features:

-- Works over the network -- your XEmacs does not have to run under
Windows, nor does it have to run on the same machine that Dragon
NaturallySpeaking runs on.

-- Supports Select-and-Say and an Emacs-based corrections menu. (Click
the third mouse button on a word or on a selection to get the
corrections menu)

-- Works with all modern XEmacs versions (tested with 21.4.15 and
21.5.17).

-- Works with abbrev-mode.

-- Synchronizes correctly. In fact, I don't even have a manual
synchronize function, and I have not managed to break synchronization in
a long time now.

-- Synchronizes efficiently. Instead of sending every change as a
character (with huge protocol overhead), we keep track of which region
of text has been changed and resynchronize the whole region (but not the
whole buffer) at the beginning of each utterance.

I wanted to announce this even though the software is really of Alpha
quality, because a number people have asked me to. For those of you who
want to dictate into an XEmacs running under Linux (or on a different
machine from the one that you run DNS on), this is a solution
that works right now. I'm running Dragon NaturallySpeaking under VMware
on a Linux host, and I use VX Mode to connect to it.

If you want to dictate into an XEmacs running under Windows, you will
have to wait -- I have to learn how to tell Dragon NaturallySpeaking not
to provide its own dictation "support" to XEmacs first.

If you're brave enough, get the software from
http://jan.rychter.com/vx-mode/vx-mode-0.08.tar.bz2

Plans for the future:

1. Rework the VX.exe executable to use the same APIs that Natlink
   uses. They are much more advanced than the standard ones that Dragon
   supplies and documents.

2. Use the advanced grammar APIs to implement proper context-sensitive
   command support. Emacs can provide us with loads of context
   information, we should use it! (Think of what TAB completion and
   dabbrev-mode do, grammars based on that would allow you to navigate
   your Emacs easily)

3. Implement functionality that would allow Emacs to manipulate the
   user's dictionary, so that clicking the third mouse button on a word
   gives several correction choices and the option to add this word to
   the dictionary.

I'm looking for help from people who are skilled with Windows C++
programming -- I could really use some help with task number (1) above.

--J.