Options Panel

The Vocola Options panel lets you customize Vocola's behavior in various ways. Activate the Options panel by saying "Vocola Options" or by right-clicking the Vocola tray icon and choosing "Options".

Command folder lets you change the folder where Vocola looks for command files, while Extensions folder lets you change the folder where Vocola looks for extensions.

Base $using set lets you specify a set of $using statements to be implicitly included in every Vocola command file and header file. For example, the first radio button choice specifies the implicit set:

$using Library; $using Library.Main; $using Library.Pointer;

The first statement above allows you to invoke functions in the Library namespace (which includes all Vocola library functions) without the ‘Library.’ prefix. The second and third statements above allow you to invoke functions in the Main and Pointer library classes without the ‘Main.’ or ‘Pointer.’ prefixes.

The second radio button choice could be used by Vocola 2 users whose existing command files call functions in the DragonLegacy library class. The third radio button choice allows specifying a custom $using set.

Having a large base $using set is not recommended, as it can make command definitions harder to understand.

Enable command sequences allows you to speak several commands without pausing. (See Command Sequences.) Maximum number specifies how many commands you can speak in a sequence. Larger numbers allow longer sequences but increase grammar complexity.

Require saying "Click" before name of clickable item means you must say for example "Click Cancel" instead of "Cancel" to dismiss a dialog box or "Click File" instead of "File" to open an application's File menu. (If you find "Click" hard to say all day, see the special variable <_itemInWindow> for an example of using a different word.)

Choosing this option can prevent invoking a button, menu, or hyperlink by mistake when dictating a single word or short phrase. WSR's "say what you see" feature is liberal and in some cases buggy. Here are two example problems that can be prevented by checking this box:

1. You're running Internet Explorer with your Favorites panel open, on a page with a search box plus some text and links. You speak your search word, but instead of seeing your word in the search box you see three links and two favorites highlighted.
2. You're composing a message in Windows Mail and you speak a phrase which happens to appear elsewhere in the message. Instead of recognizing your phrase as dictation, WSR moves the cursor to the phrase in the other paragraph.

Enable Vocola dictation, by disabling WSR dictation scratchpad. The WSR dictation scratchpad improves dictation in applications that aren't fully WSR-enabled. Vocola dictation is an alternative approach for the same purpose, and each has its advantages. The scratchpad's main advantage is that its text is fully WSR-enabled for selection and correction. Vocola dictation's main advantage is that you dictate and correct text in-line with your document's text rather than in a separate window. And Vocola's built-in dictation commands allow you to modify dictated text in most of the same ways as with WSR dictation.

Check this box to enable Vocola dictation and disable the WSR dictation scratchpad.

Note that the WSR user interface has an "Enable dictation scratchpad" option, but unchecking it won't enable Vocola dictation because in this mode WSR still captures all dictation. To use Vocola dictation you must check the Options Panel checkbox described here.

Changing this option requires restarting WSR to take effect.

Enable built-in commands allows you to enable or disable Vocola's built-in commands by group. See Built-in Commands for descriptions of the different command groups.