Hi all,

Can I create Dragon Naturally Speaking commands programatically? I know that these commands can be created as XML files and then converted to the dat format by the xmltodat (not sure of the right name) utility. Is there any documentation on this?

Are there any components that do this in managed code or that use COM?

Pranav

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Hi Lunis,

No I am not refering to creating commands by voice. I want to create commands from my program which is written in visual basic .net.

Pranav

I've once created - or, to be honest - have someone else create an Excel macro for me that created an XML file just like the one used by Dragon. But it was not for Dragon. But the principle is the same.

I suspect you could use any decent programming language to create the kind of XML file that Advanced Scripting can import.

As for the structure of the XML command file, I suggest doing a few XML exports of your existing commands and see how they are structured. It should not be that hard to re-create their structure. 

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Hi Bk82,

Yes, I have tried creating a command by looking at some samples but there is an error in my xml file and I can't tell what it is so was hoping for a schema to validate against. Documentation with samples would help to since I could look at that and correct my error.

Can you run your program successfully on a command exported from Dragon in XML format?

Rüdiger

Well, it's past the point where we can make any changes in the code, but we can still make changes to the Easter Egg!

An interesting thought. However, my program has to create the commands and then import them into Dragon Naturally Speaking so there is not much running to do with an existing command file.

I took the XML from an existing command and am generating that with suitable modifications.

Pranav

Why would you want to use a program for that? - Please don't answer.

So the problem is with any (or all) of the "suitable modifications". Why don't you do one at at time to determine which?

Since you asked for it, there is no such things as samples and a documentation.

Rüdiger

Well, it's past the point where we can make any changes in the code, but we can still make changes to the Easter Egg!

yes.  I do this all the time with Vocola.  In particular, I have a number of Ruby scripts that generate Vocola include files with things like lists of directories and email addresses.

in the past, I built a mini-Vocola compiler that generated XML files of DNS Advanced Scripting commands, which I could load into the DNS Command Browser.  This was a big pain, however,as you had to control the GUI to delete the previous commands and then import the new ones.  I recall issues with the Command Browser failing to update changed lists correctly as well.

Hi MDL,

This is the kind of response I have been waiting for. I am parsing some screen reader related script files and need to convert the output into commands. I have looked at vvocola once before but have not used it extensively. Could you share some code to generate a command or should I look at ruby?

Pranav

Sorry for the delay, I only scan this group occasionally.

During a Vocola include file is fairly easy as the syntax you need to generate is basically:

<listname> := (

written = spoken |

...

written = spoken );

the Ruby code mostly makes things prettier.

it's pretty easy to convert from the standard Dragon list format as used by Advanced Scripting to Vocola's form.  Attached is a simple piece of code to do this using the previous code.

 Example:

 ts-rhel6 [124]% cat text
1\hello
there
2\two
3
first

ts-rhel6 [125]% ruby convert.rb text

<text> := (
         3
      |  first
      |  hello = 1
      |  there
      |  two   = 2
);

(you can't tell here but the ='s are lined up)

convert.rb  (15 KB)

anyways, that's how to generate a list problematically.  Similar tricks will let you generate commands.

If you create or update a .vcl file, Vocola will (re)load it at the start of the next utterance.  Updates to .vch files only don't cause reloading.

I will be out of town next week.