Using Vocola

The easiest way to create and manage Vocola commands is by voice, using Vocola's built-in commands. Beginning and intermediate users should only need to learn the two commands described in the first subsection. The remaining subsections discuss commands for advanced features.

In the command descriptions below, words in square brackets are optional. For example, "Edit [Voice] Commands" means you can say either "Edit Voice Commands" or "Edit Commands".

How to Create and Load Voice Commands

With Vocola you can define commands for a specific application program, or define global commands which are active for all applications. You can use the following built-in commands to open the right command files:

After creating or modifying commands and saving the file, your commands will be loaded automatically and usable immediately unless there is an error. Any errors will be displayed in a pop-up window titled "Messages from Python Macros". Although this window cannot currently be resized, its contents can be cleared by closing it or its contents can be selected and copied to a larger window for easier viewing.

Vocola normally continues using the commands from the last error-free version of each file until there is a new error-free version available so that an unfortunate error does not disable the very commands you need to fix the error. These old commands are discarded the next time Vocola starts up.

Machine-Specific Commands

If you need to control more than one computer by voice (for example at work and at home) you can define commands which will only be enabled on a particular computer:

Machine-specific command files are also reloaded automatically.

Direct Loading

Sometimes it's useful to reload your command files explicitly. For example, if you modify an include file, Vocola doesn't know enough to reload all command files which use that include file. You can do it yourself using the following commands:

File Organization and Naming

• Put all Vocola source files in the folder NatLink/Vocola/Commands or in the alternative folder you chose when running the installer. The Edit commands give preference to the later folder if it exists.
• By default, all global commands are placed in _vocola.vcl; the "Edit Global [Voice] Commands" command edits this file.
• By default, application-specific commands for the application with executable name exec are placed in exec.vcl. For example, commands specific to Netscape.exe go in netscape.vcl; invoking the "Edit [Voice] Commands" command while Netscape is the active application edits this file.
• You can create additional files of global commands by using different .vcl filenames, each starting with an underscore; for example, an additional global command file of abbreviations could be called _abbreviations.vcl.
• Likewise, you can create additional files of application-specific commands by using .vcl files prefixed with exec_; for example, an additional Netscape command file could be called netscape_addresses.vcl.
• If you want commands to be active only on a certain computer, put them in a file containing @ followed by the computer name.  For example, commands in the file natspeak@venus.vcl would be valid only on the computer named "venus" with natspeak.exe running.
• Vocola files are translated into Python files and loaded by NatLink. For example, the Vocola command file NatLink/Vocola/Commands/netscape.vcl would be translated to the Python file NatLink/macrosystem/netscape_vcl1.py.
• Warning: Vocola files with base names (the part before the .vcl and the @machine part if any) containing characters other than letters, digits, and underscores are silently ignored by current (pre May 2007) versions of NatLink due to a NatLink bug.