At some stage in the not so distant future Nuance will be bringing Dragon NaturallySpeaking Version 12 to market. Beta testers have already been identified, and some people are already involved in TESTING the new release. For the record, I am not one of them.

 

So, I am curious to know what would users of DNS like to see incorporated into the next release of the software. As so many people who utilise this forum use Dragon in a multiplicity of ways, it will be interesting to see, and read the comments

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DNS 12.0 Professional, Windows 7, Intel Core i7 2630QM, 16GB of RAM. Second-Generation SpeechWare 6-in-1.

Our #1 favorite feature would be for end-user vocabulary, rules and phrases to be given priority over the manufacturer rules in the Vocabulary Editor, rather than the other way around. There's a reason why we have 1500 additional phrases in our vocabulary. Many of them work flawlessly all the time while we have to wrestle with others. 1 example would be the word “period”.

Our #2 favorite feature would be to give customers a toggle for those miserable Twitter Facebook commands which many professionals find annoying.

Our #3 favorite feature would be to expand on the Vocabulary Editor commands so that we can create end-user commands that don't require a momentary pause before and after the macro.

-------------------------

Click KB 2012 REV D to Download a 30 Day Evaluation of KnowBrainer 2012 

 

 

 

I would like to see "format that spelt out" reinstated

-------------------------
Jomark

Not really a feature but I would like them to do some serious testing preferably some public testing, whatever the technical reasons for the bugs or problems as I know some people will reply it is not their fault and publish a white paper on it.

It does not stop the only decent speech software being full of bugs.

Slightly different but I would also like it to be intelligent enough to delete everything from my ramblings but do not need to be there. lol j/k

Hey folks,

 

Having been a part of the development lifecycle for Dragon NaturallySpeaking and having been, at one point, the Beta test coordinator for such, everyone should be aware of the fact that once a product has reached the Beta test stage, the code is frozen. Therefore, making suggestions is basically an exercise in futility. If your suggestions are incorporated into the Beta product already, that's one thing. But if you are suggesting something completely new and different, it ain't going to happen.

 

Whether or not DNS 12 is in Beta, Nuance prohibits public discussions of such under their Beta test NDA. A quick way to ensure that you will never be a Beta tester for Nuance is to publicly discuss such information if you are privy to it.

 

Chuck Runquist
Technical Project Manager
VoiceTeach LLC
Home of VoicePower®: We don't make Dragon NaturallySpeaking, We make it better!

Honor isn't about making the right choices. It's about dealing with the consequences. - Midori Koto

-------------------------

Ok, Chuck, then let's make this a wish list for DNS 13.

I repeat one wish I made last time around - that 'Dates as spoken' should mean precisely what it says. That would give Nuance the ability to totally remove date options from the Options tab.

In addition, I should like the ability to delete native Dragon commands I never use. 'Developer' for instance was a word I used in isolation today. Turns out it is a command. Why the blankety-blank should I be unable to delete it? To whose detriment on God's earth would that be?

Ed

-------------------------

DNS 12 Pro, Windows 7 Professional, SP1, i7-2700K 3.50 Ghz Sandybridge, 16Gb DDR3 PC3-160000C9 2000Mhz dual channel RAM, SpeechMike 5276 and Samson Airline 77

 

Well, we'll just have to wait on that one. I know there's been a lot of discussion on problems related to both dates and UK/Canadian postal code issues. Perhaps these have been taken into consideration relative to any future release.

 

 

Because these commands are embedded and proprietary (patented), I doubt seriously that Nuance is going to let you play around with them ever. That you can take to the bank. Besides, if you were to delete one or more inadvertently, there would be no way for the user to recover such. I know that some would say they don't care, but when Dragon blows up in your face because of something like this you would care and there wouldn't be anything you could do about it short of completely uninstalling Dragon and reinstalling it, and we know what a headache that can be.

 

My suggestion would be to do like KnowBrainer does. That is, instead of deleting them, have the option to disable (deactivate) and reenable (reactivate) these commands. That would be possible (feasible), wouldn't interfere with the code or potentially corrupt the program, and would allow users to choose which commands to enable and/or disable.

 

Chuck Runquist
Technical Project Manager
VoiceTeach LLC
Home of VoicePower®: We don't make Dragon NaturallySpeaking, We make it better!

We would often be sorry if our wishes were gratified. - Aesop (620 BC - 700 BC)

-------------------------

Lunis, completely agree with the that the option should be given to end-users whether they wish to given the priority to overrule the embedded Nuance approach to the Vocabulary Editor.

If you work in digital media, then the Twitter/Facebook option is a godsend, and was a most welcome addition for a some people with the release of 11.5, on the other hand I remain eternally grateful to Lindsay (monkey8) for coming up with his "hack" on how to remove those options, as I found them a complete nuisance.

I would like to see many of the daily dictation bugbears eliminated with one example being such as the correct formatting of numbers. When I dictate "2525" I want "2,525" to be returned.

Additionally, I would like to see the inclusion of other currency signs in addition to the: $, €, £. Noticeable by absence is the currency sign for: Indian Rupee and the Philippine Peso.

I would also like to see a much greater expansion of the vocabulary utilised by Nuance, with each and every word reviewed by a professional lexicographer for each language edition released by Nuance.

The expansion of some of the formatting options introduced by DNS 11.5 which gave us the wonderful "quote that" option.

That should be expanded to include: single quote that, square bracket that, to include all the various different permutations available to including words in brackets. While some of these options are available in KnowBrainer, some people may not even be aware of the KnowBrainer forum, and in these difficult economic times, may not be able to afford the additional cost of KnowBrainer if they are not eligible for a free download.

While the manual that accompanies DNS is okay, I would like to see the inclusion of the Dragon NaturallySpeaking Training Video Getting Started with Dragon NaturallySpeaking, which retails for £19.99 in the UK being bundled in DNS 12 for free. Many of the "Ask the Dictator" videos, available on YouTube, which are very instructive and useful should be included on this video.

A significant amount of people do not have access to fast streaming broadband, even in the UK. I had a conversation with the gentleman in California some days ago, who informed me that he was still on dial-up, as broadband was not available in his particular location. I was truly surprised by this.

Nuance need to realise that the vast majority of people now learn visually, and it would be conducive to faster and constructive learning experience for individual users. I recognise that that may have commutations for people who make a living providing training/familiarisation.

The inclusion of a list of all the major companies traded on the major stock exchanges in the world would be very useful, as would be a list of more common forenames & surnames with their diacritical included. The Croatian name "Draško" being but one example!

The removal of the noise filtering algorithm, which Nuance introduced in DNS 11 needs to be removed as it has created nothing but problems.

Also, I note when I have changed the properties of words within the Vocabulary Editor, DNS sometimes includes an additional space after the word, which I would really like to see eliminated in DNS 12.

Chuck, grateful for your insight into the fact that the code is frozen once the beta edition has been released, your intervention is indicative of the completely blinkered and intellectually ignorant approach of Nuance when it comes to Dragon NaturallySpeaking.

In fact, such an approach is asininity of the worst type. Recognising that the people who program and write the code for DNS are truly brilliant individuals who have my complete respect, I am stunned that any company is not willing to take on board helpful and constructive suggestions, which will improve their in product, by making it more user-friendly to people's everyday practical requirements.

What you describe is typical of the behaviour of companies who enjoy oligopolistic hegemony, and it's to be regretted that Microsoft are not investing more resources in Window Speech Recognition. Nuance are nothing more than blinkered luddites.

Developing on this hegemony the pricing of DNS Professional is completely unjustifiable, which is the reason I utilise DNS Premium. However, I would be prepared to pay an additional £50-£75 for some of the features contained within the Professional Edition, mainly the ability to script, which I think a significant number of people would also.

Anyway, that is my wish list, and would be interested to read any more suggestions/observations that people have based on their utilisation of DNS for their daily professional work.

 

-------------------------
DNS 12.0 Professional, Windows 7, Intel Core i7 2630QM, 16GB of RAM. Second-Generation SpeechWare 6-in-1.

If I were you I would be more worried about what they are going to take away rather than what they are going to add.

Lindsay

-------------------------

www.pcbyvoice.com
www.pcbyvoice.co.uk

Chuck,

Delighted to hear about the Numbers maybe being addressed: that would be excellent news.

As to the other, absolutely, and I apologise for my inaccuracy of expression - I of course intended 'deactivation' when I wrote of deletion! That would be just dandy.

Mind you, if we accept what Max is saying, we may by then all be on an entirely new and exciting voice planet.....

Ed

 

 

-------------------------

DNS 12 Pro, Windows 7 Professional, SP1, i7-2700K 3.50 Ghz Sandybridge, 16Gb DDR3 PC3-160000C9 2000Mhz dual channel RAM, SpeechMike 5276 and Samson Airline 77

I could write a book on the future of voice recognition and human computer interfacing. Very exciting times for the development of voice recognition. I will drop a bomb and say with conviction that Naturally Speaking 12/13 will be the last of its kind. A relic of the past computing paradigm. In the post PC world (Android, iOS, Windows 8), voice recognition is a fundamental part of the operating system and how the user interacts with it. A third party add-on can't possibly integrate as deep as is now required. This is the realm of the operating system creators (Google, Microsoft, and Apple) themselves as they design the OS around the speech interface. Nuance still has a dominant place but it's on the back end doing the heavy lifting.

Max Roth
DynamicKeyboardOne for Naturally Speaking

-------------------------

ErgoArchitect Assistive Technologies - 

ShowNumbers Plus! Addon to Naturally Speaking - 

www.ergoarchitect.com 

If the OS developers are doing this then they would have to improve the specch recognition they already have. Apple are already doing this, but the dictation aspect has to goto a Nuance server for recognition before coming back to the user. This creates a delay of several seconds which isn't any good really. WSR is rubbish by comparison to DNS. So they would need to have something like DNS incorporated into the OS, unless internet connections go to light speed. You can see Nuance would licience their DNS technology out the these companies for their OS.

R

I agree with whoever said they have difficulty with the word period. I can understand why it happens when I originally dictate my phrase but, when I select the phrase with the. In it, there is usually no choice that changes the punctuation to the written word. Making a change that would make a selection possible is good enough for me.

In years past they had boasted a boost an accuracy, their product is already incredibly accurate as long as you are able to dictate to it correctly. I wonder what changes are going to be made on that front?

I do have a problem with them saying that it is 99% accurate right out-of-the-box without any training. I have never even been able to come close to 90% accuracy without doing initial training. Not that initial training is that big of a deal but a change in this respect might be welcome.

I have noticed that especially while browsing the Internet Dragon is very quick to interpret random commands when I have actually said nothing. I would like to see this addressed.

Yes, sending it off to process is not a good solution but it makes sense with the current limitations on mobile devices and their computing power. This is rapidly changing though. It won't be long before the client is doing most of the work or some combination of both. The current situation is just a stop gap til the technology matures, however, all these mobile OS will soon land on very powerful hardware (TVs/PCs/Next Generation Tablets) where it won't be such an issue. WSR has been rubbish because it was only a niche before- just a curiosity. Those days are over. With mobile and pervasive computing, the voice interface is just as important as the GUI if not moreso for lots of applications.

Max Roth
DynamicKeyboardOne for Naturally Speaking

-------------------------

ErgoArchitect Assistive Technologies - 

ShowNumbers Plus! Addon to Naturally Speaking - 

www.ergoarchitect.com 

Also, accuracy will increase because mics (+mic arrays) capable of good voice recognition will be integrated into the devices along with gesture, body, and eye tracking. Good speech recognition requires contextual information about the user and environment. I'm guessing the TV will likely bring it all together first in a way that really blows people away. All the pieces are already here.

Max Roth
DynamicKeyboardOne for Naturally Speaking

-------------------------

ErgoArchitect Assistive Technologies - 

ShowNumbers Plus! Addon to Naturally Speaking - 

www.ergoarchitect.com 

Well, speak of the devil, Nuance releases an in car voice recognition OS. Interesting it doesn't seem to be an SDK but the whole OS. I was going to qwip that Nuance better get into the OS business to build the kind of speech systems this new paradigm needs and apparently they already have!  

http://www.engadget.com/2012/05/22/dragon-drive-lets-you-take-the-wheel-while-nuance-takes-dictat/

 

Max Roth

DynamicKeyboardOne for Naturally Speaking 

 

-------------------------

ErgoArchitect Assistive Technologies - 

ShowNumbers Plus! Addon to Naturally Speaking - 

www.ergoarchitect.com 

The new product is called "Drive!"

 

Somebody in Nuance marketing may have been asleep at the switch when they chose this name. When I read it for the first time, I mistook the punctuation mark at the end for the letter L. Result:

 

Drivel

I would like it not to awake the microphone except upon "Wake Up" or "Listen to Me".

11.5 is repeatedly turning on the microphone by itself.

G.J.,

That problem is completely eliminated and more with Lindsay's SpeechStart application.

http://www.pcbyvoice.com/shop/pcbyvoice-speechstart/

Cheers

-------------------------

Tiger Feet

| DNS 12 Professional | KnowBrainer 2012 | Windows 7 Professional /64 Bit | Intel Core i7 Quad Core 3840QM (2.80GHz) 8MB | 16GB RAM. | 240GB Intel 520 Series SSD Boot Drive | 750GB 7200 rpm Secondary Drive  | Plantronics Wireless Handsfree Microphone CS60-USB. |

One thing that needs to change is the update rate. The concept of releasing service packs is outdated. Apps should autoupdate transparently like the android and chrome/chromebook does in a timely manner. This old paradigm of waiting to release updates in a big service pack is so limited and fundamentally skews the way companies relate to their customers (brainybanana's post highlights the frustration that can be created when bugs are not fixed quickly and put off). It's not just a technology issue. It's a corporate culture issue. A company with huge resources like Nuance can really work much closer to their users and be able to quickly release bug fixes and patches. This would greatly improve their image and goodwill in the community. Google has shown this model works even with very complex code bases. There should never be a code freeze. There should only be feature freezes.

Max Roth

DynamicKeyboardOne for Naturally Speaking. 

-------------------------

ErgoArchitect Assistive Technologies - 

ShowNumbers Plus! Addon to Naturally Speaking - 

www.ergoarchitect.com 

I would like the ability to delete or change in-built commands. There is nothing quite so dangerous as the "all" commands - especially as Dragon likes to hear the word "all" whenever you say anything even vaguely similar and spend three minutes deleting, bolding or italicising your entire document. I'd be happier if you had to say "entire document" instead of "all". I'd also like rid of the "page" command (equally dangerous, and not something I have ever intentionally used), and I'd like to be able to force Dragon to use "entire line" instead of "line", as it tends to overhear that. I'd also like to persuade it that when it hears "spell R", I'm actually saying "spell that". My expereince is that it overhears "all" and "this" and underhears "that" and "undo".

Finally, I'd like more control over formatting. I work in an industry where formatting is extremely important and choice vary from client to client. Dragon's belief that I want to format times, dates and monetary amounts the same way every time is wrong. Likewise, I'd like to be able to choose between curly and straight quotes without the workarounds I've had to work out.

I'd like Dragon not to interfere in text I'm not currently writing (it has a tendency to change letters that occur after dots in the line above). In fact, I#d like to be able to turn off all the formatting it does automatically with the exception of spaces. In theory I believe I can already do this, in practice, quite a lot of formatting seems to be excluded from this.

Also, I sometimes have to write in American spelling. I'd like an option where I can use my British English commands (for instance saying "open brackets" instead of "open parentheses") with US spelling instead of having to remember to change my commannds as well. I imagine that Americans would likewise like the option to use GB spelling with American commands (at least those working in industries where you match your spelling to the client, not to your personal preference).

Finally (and this may be something Dragon already does, but I can't find it), I'd like the ability to force the dictation of a word rather than a command with something simpler than dictation mode. I'd like to be able to say "Cap cap" and for it to know it should write "Cap", or to say "word cap" and it writes "cap", or "word comma" and it writes comma (with the correct spacing) rather than "," with the ability to correct it, then have Dragon keep the spacing it uses when I've dictated an actual comma.

I would also like it to work with a second screen.

I would like to be able to train sounds it can safely ignore (such as the telephone ringing or coughing or sneezing).

-------------------------

Delighted to read all the comments on this thread thus far. Hopefully Nuance are also reading them. The beta testing of DNS 12 is currently ongoing. I learned this indirectly via a NUANCE employee, who in the same manner as Chuck in his response to the posting made by "Hawiianlungs" told an academic to hold fire on a purchase of DNS 11; as they [Nuance] were putting DNS 12 through its paces.

Said academic was excited by the possibilities of DNS. In vino veritas, as the conversation took place in a pub.  In the same manner that some of the best leaks about Apple products have come from these kind of establishments. Remember the prototype iPhone that was lost or stolen, which gave the world the view of the iPhone 4 originated from a bar.

Additionally, one cannot help but notice that has been no comment/denial from the usual suspects, which strengthens the opinion that something is up. The silence is deafening. Presumably, a new addition of Dragon Dictate for the Mac is being tested/developed, and will be released at the same time.

Reviewing the releases of previous editions of Dragon, one can discern a release approximately every two years, so we can anticipate DNS 12 been released either towards the end of July/early August but that is a commercial decision/determination made by Nuance.

It is a matter of surprised that Nuance do not make the latest editions of DNS available to be downloaded by users. Microsoft make beta editions of the Windows operating system available, after a certain period of time they expire, unless a license purchased. There is no reason that a similar approach could not be adopted with respect to DNS. Time will tell.

Most people who contribute to this form are passionately interested in speech recognition, and would only be too delighted to take the time, and go to the trouble to evaluate DNS 12 to provide constructive feedback to the development team responsible for the product within Nuance.

 

-------------------------
DNS 12.0 Professional, Windows 7, Intel Core i7 2630QM, 16GB of RAM. Second-Generation SpeechWare 6-in-1.

There is no all command although there is a select all macro. If you dictate into an application that supports multiple undo/redo such as Microsoft Word, or even WordPad (but not NotePad or DragonPad), even in the worst-case scenario, you can undo the damage by saying undo or pressing Ctrl+z repeatedly until the damage is undone.

You can choose between curly quotes and straight quotes by entering curly quotes into your Vocabulary Editor. When we want to dictate straight quotes we say open quote and close quote. When we want to dictate curly quotes we say left quote and right quote, which we added. You'll find a step-by-step on how to enter curly quotes into the Vocabulary Editor when you look up “quote” in the Quick Tips which will eventually be accessible directly from the home page of this forum.

 

As far as dealing with brackets and parentheses are concerned, this can be accomplished by either creating specialty vocabulary entries (as previously mentioned) so that you don't have to pause as you dictate or you can create dedicated boilerplate text commands which would require a pause but would be bulletproof. 

Unfortunately “cap” is a built-in vocabulary command so even holding down the {Shift} Key won't deliver “cap” and good luck trying to dictate the word “cat”.

As far as being able to filter out specific sounds are concerned, to a small degree, both your 3-in-1 microphone and NaturallySpeaking's Nothing But Words algorithm are designed specifically for this purpose but as you can see, their results are somewhat marginal.

-------------------------

Click KB 2012 REV D to Download a 30 Day Evaluation of KnowBrainer 2012 

 

 

 

presumably you have also created a US English user for when you require US spelling.

Why not add "open bracket(s)" etc and other UK English to your vocabulary editor and vice versa.

Admittedly you will need to switch user each time but this could probably be done programmatically with a script since you have DNS Pro

-------------------------
Jomark

Thanks to all the people who explained workarounds for the things I'd like Dragon to do. I am well aware that you can already force Dragon to do all sorts of formatting, witness "two comma no space three hundred and forty three" to achieve 2,343. I also have a workaround for curly quotes (I used the add your own macros function - although this leads to problems with spacing, so I now have "open curly quotes", "close curly quotes", "initial curly quotes" and "final curly quotes" and if I need to change something, sometimes I am lucky enough that Dragon doesn't destroy the spacing around these and make me re-force it).

I also frequently say things like "ten point zero zero lowercase p dot lowercase m dot [pause] spacebar no caps". to get 10.00 p.m. followed by a space and then no capital letter, and woe betide me should I wish to make a minor change to this.  Which also brings up the point that I would like to be able to change letters in the middle of words with Dragon without Dragon destroying the whole word. If I have highlighted a ß and dictate ss (which is what we generally replace these with in English, for instance the town Gießen becomes Giessen), I would like Dragon not to assume I meant to replace the entire word with ss and do that for me instead. Dragon's spelling is hardly reliable enough for me to be able to spell G I E S S E N easily and quickly.

Please bear in mind that this is something that is important to ME for the way I work with Dragon. If the precise format of text is not important in your job and it isn't important whether you've said "€10.234 million at 10 p.m. on 11th March 2012", or “€ 10.234 million at ten pm on 11 Mar 2012” or  "€10,234,000 at 10 PM on 11.3.2012", so long as the information is correct (or correct formatting is only important to you once every hundred lines), then you probably have difficulty imagining how much time and effort I have to put into forcing Dragon to do this - especially if I subsequently have to make a change and Dragon instantly destroys all the surrounding spacing and capitalisation.

My point is that I would like Dragon to make these things easier in the first place rather than for me to have to use lengthy workarounds. For instance I would like to be able to say "autoformatting off" so that I can correct small things very precisely without Dragin making assumptions about the spacing and capitalisation I want. "autoformatting on" would obviously return Dragon to its normal state.

This is what's important in MY work. I have lengthy experience of how difficult it is to persuade programmers that something that isn't important to them could possibly be important to the job someone else does or that you could possibly do something often enough that a five minute workaround or carefully reinserting your original choice of spacing and capitalisation any time you need to make a minor change is a problem. So, as I say, thanks for the workarounds, they are useful, but my point is that I would like Dragon to integrate these things properly.

No one asked what we thought might realistically be the improvements in the next Dragon or asked us to restrict ourselves to things that couldn't be done with a workaround. It was even mentioned that the people at Dragon DON'T KNOW how all end users use their product. That is what I'm trying to explain.

I can only assume that those of you who think that this is a minor issue and that the existing workarounds are fine don't work in industries where formatting is important. I am a translator and work needs to go back to the client with their preferred formatting and spelling (including where this deviates from normal English). I don't get to choose what's normal English - and nor does anyone else who has to work to someone else's style guide. And I know for certain that I am not the only translator who uses Dragon.

On the "all" commands, I was obviously not clear enough. I thought people would recognise those commands that are used in conjunction with the word "all" (I had been assuming everyone else had also had similar horrible experiences with saying "delete or" and their entire document disappearing). To be clear, I mean commands such as:

select all

delete all

bold all

italicise all

Whatever you would like to call these ("select" is definitively a command, feel free to debate whether the "all" part is technically something else), they are dangerous. I was working on a 600 page document last week, and three times Dragon interpreted "Bold that" as either "bold all" or "bold page" (I was working in web layout, so Dragon interpreted "page" to mean "entire document". It took roughly three minutes for Dragon to select and bold the entire document (with nothing I could do to stop the process once it had started) and then another couple of nervous minutes for Dragon to undo this command (luckily it did undo back to the document#s original state - although sometimes Dragon does things it's impossible to undo. And then I still had to bold the section of text I was trying to bold in the first place (a heart stopping moment as I waited to find out whether it was going to apply bolding to the four words in question or whether it was going to bold the entire text again).

I want the ability to remove these command combinations from Dragon's vocabulary or to change them to something less likely to be heard at times when I have said something else such as "delete entire document". I am happy to disable it instead of delete it. I am happy if I can only disable it and not change it. I am also happy if Dragon simply changes "all" to "entire document" for all users. Whatever it takes to stop this happening without allowing me to accidentally destroy Dragon's ability to function. I am happy for Dragon's programmers to allow me to achieve this aim by a different route from any I have suggested. (Disabling commands would be ideal for "period", btw, as I imagine US users could learn to say "full stop" quite easily if they were always to use this, and you can write it easily by pausing between full and stop (using my US profile has shown me that "period" creates problems that "full stop" does not). )

I know there is a workaround where I can enter my own command for "delete all" etc. instructing Dragon to do nothing, but this takes time and should ideally be done for each command this can happen with in every program I work in (admittedly currently only 2 or 3 important ones), and then I can either export these to my US English profile or set them up there afresh. Please understand that workarounds are not ideal. I am asking for Dragon to make an improvement here. I understand that I may never live to see said improvement and that workarounds are better than nothing, but if no one mentions these things or if people say "that's not a problem, there's a workaround for that", then Nuance isn't going to realise they're a problem.

People quibbling at terms like "command" and "delete" or "remove" or "disable", please try and understand the underlying request here, and don't get caught up in the specific way I am expressing it. If you would like to rephrase it in a way that is more meaningful for programmers, feel free. What I want is a way of stopping Dragon from doing things to my entire document through mishears of common words. Even Dragon just selecting all costs me a couple of minutes to put right.

-------------------------

I think I understand exactly what you mean, but I don't think you will find the things you are asking for coming true in the very near future. So, not meaning to disillusion you, but maybe you should continue to follow the path of worksaounds instead. And there are quite some, when you think about it. Any more experienced, long time user of dictation software has become an expert in workarounds to some degree anyhow, inevitably.

One has to consider that Dragon hasn't been designed to be used in the particular manner (to do minute editing), but rather for continuous dictation to compose structured prose, and if they were to change that, or even add it as another option (which of course could be done technically), a whole load of confusion would be created.

As far as commands such as "bold that", or any command ending in the word "that" failing far too often, I cannot begin to tell you how many times it has frustrated me up until this day. Whenever appropriate, try "bold selection" instead, which is far more reliable.

If you encounter a problem with dictating German spelling, given your specific work, maybe I could show you some things that might help.

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!

Indigo Warrior,

Apart from using the vocabulary editor, there is another way of getting curly quotes (smart quotes) in Microsoft Word, Outlook or Publisher Using Dragon without creating your own command (with Alt+ 0147. Alt+ 0148 etc.)

First of all, make sure the 'Replace Straight Quotes with Smart Quotes' box is checked on the 'Auto Format as You Type' tab in 'Word Options.'  To get to that location:

Word Options | Proofing | AutoCorrect Options | Auto Format As You Type | "Straight quotes" with "smart quotes" |OK

Once that is done, you can then say, "Press Shift 2" in the UK English version of Dragon OR "Press Shift Apostrophe" in the US English version of Dragon. 

This sends the same keystrokes to Word that you use when typing and triggers 'curly quotes.'

Cheers

-------------------------

Tiger Feet

| DNS 12 Professional | KnowBrainer 2012 | Windows 7 Professional /64 Bit | Intel Core i7 Quad Core 3840QM (2.80GHz) 8MB | 16GB RAM. | 240GB Intel 520 Series SSD Boot Drive | 750GB 7200 rpm Secondary Drive  | Plantronics Wireless Handsfree Microphone CS60-USB. |

Brainybanana,

 

Nuance does monitor most of the forums, but if you are posting requests for modifications or new features, they will not add any of these posts to the database for feature modification or additions.

 

If you want them added to that database, then you have to go and click on the Send feedback option in the DNS Help. Otherwise, any useful suggestions may be reviewed, but they won't be entered as requests for new features or modifications.

 

Chuck Runquist
Technical Project Manager
VoiceTeach LLC
Home of VoicePower®: We don't make Dragon NaturallySpeaking, We make it better!

"What you are aware of you are in control of; what you are not aware of is in control of you." - Anthony de Mello

-------------------------

If we are making a wish list for future versions, one of mine would be commands that do the inverse of the recently introduced and extremely useful "capitalize XYZ"; perhaps it should be called "uncapitalize XYZ" or "no caps XYZ."

The ability to easily disable any command, or any group of commands, would also top my list.

right off the top of my head, and these are probably not the biggest ones:

be able to "type" : 00, for "o'clock"

(which just brought up another one: when I say "O" ["oh"], don't type a zero!)

When I say "select that", include the words "that", not just the previous selection worked on. The word 'that' is used often enough for this to become an added piece of the command.

Bring back "initial caps that". I need this a lot. When I have spelled something out, it capitalizes every letter, on "cap that".

(which just brought up one more: when I say "spell…", immediately, without going to the spell box, – in Mozilla Firefox, by the way, it restores down the window, instead.)

Now how do we get this thread to Nuance ?!

right off the top of my head, and these are probably not the biggest ones:

be able to "type" : 00, for "o'clock"

(which just brought up another one: when I say "O" ["oh"], don't type a zero!)

When I say "select that", include the words "that", not just the previous selection worked on. The word 'that' is used often enough for this to become an added piece of the command.

Bring back "initial caps that". I need this a lot. When I have spelled something out, it capitalizes every letter, on "cap that".

(which just brought up one more: when I say "spell...", immediately, without going to the spell box, - in Mozilla Firefox, by the way, it restores down the window, instead.)

Now how do we get this thread to Nuance ?!

PS: I just did a reply from the first post, and clicked on "save", but did not see my post anywhere; so apologies if it gets repeated. (Maybe it will be edited, and the duplicate deleted ?!)

Rsikam,

If Nuance doesn't add the "initial caps that" command, you can contact me directly and I can show you how to add that command. It's a tricky one because you have to be able to load and unload voice commands like DNS does internally to mimic the command exactly. It can be done but with a third party tool. Anyways, I only mention it because you seem to really need it and this is one area where even VBA can't do it. At least not how the original command worked. I could be wrong, though. Maybe Lindsay and Lunis can play code golf and get it down to 3 lines  

 

Max Roth
DynamicKeyboardOne 

-------------------------

ErgoArchitect Assistive Technologies - 

ShowNumbers Plus! Addon to Naturally Speaking - 

www.ergoarchitect.com 

 

Max,

I'll have to admit that, falling prey to my own hubris, I imagined it could even be done with as little as two lines of code in a script, and so I tried it, but failed, because quite obviously, distinct letters being spelled are apparently treated as distinct units, such as distinct words in that case.

However, considering that the underlying programming rules of the spelling function have been changed between version 9 and 10, and then again have been changed between version 10 and 11, if I were you I wouldn't go to the length of writing 300 lines of code just to make it work in version 11, because I would expect it to be changed all over again with version 12.

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!

 

Then why don't you just use it like this, if you want the word to be capitalized:

cap first letter [pause] second letter [pause] third letter…

The rules underlying the spelling functions have significantly changed in version 11, and my understanding is that the whole idea was to make it more immediate in terms of putting it out as dictated.

By the same token, the space that used to be automatically added in front of the spelling has been removed also.

I would also guess that, with the new version just around the corner, we will have to adapt to a few more changes coming our way anyhow.

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!

One of the new features in this forum is that now you have the ability to delete your own postings. It's available underneath every posting you have submitted.

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!

Chuck, thank you very much for the pointer as to where to place one's request for desired features.

One feature that I would find really useful in version 12 or greater of the software would be to load two vocabularies simultaneously and be able to switch between them with a simple voice command, rather than having to unload one vocabulary and load the second before it is available for use. This would allow me to not only efficiently use my radiology profile (the one I use most extensively), but to quickly bring up the general vocabulary to be able to more accurately communicate by e-mail using more colloquial speech.

Chris

-------------------------

Dual Core T9600 @ 2.80GHz, with 4G Ram, Windows 7, I7 2.67GHz with 8G Ram, Andrea USB, Samson Airline 77, Philips SpeechMike, Speechware 3 in 1, Dragon NaturallySpeaking Medical and 10.1,Knowbrainer 2011

So it it has actually been confirmed that version 12 is in the works?

Wheelstb, No one can answer this question. Those in the know are required to sign an NDA which forbids them from talking about it and those who are not in the know, are merely making an educated guess. Simply put, you're not going to get any information about the next version of NaturallySpeaking, assuming there will be another version of NaturallySpeaking, until just before it is released.

-------------------------

Click KB 2012 REV D to Download a 30 Day Evaluation of KnowBrainer 2012 

 

 

 

IndigoWarrior,

Instead of creating a command to perform curly quotes, try doing it from within the Vocabulary Editor. You'll find a step-by-step on this process in the Quick Tips when you search for “curly”. Note that we only use curly quotes, we never have to pause to deploy a command and we never have to deal with unwanted spacing issues. All that is required is to add Left Quote and Right Quote to your personal vocabulary via ANSI characters.



This is a new feature that won't likely go away and we use it frequently. Imagine dictating a run-on sentence that you need to turn into 2 sentences. Now imagine yourself using your mouse rather than your voice to delete that extra “and” which will create 2 sentences when you dictate period. If you accidentally fail to highlight the entire word, DNS anticipates the need and does it for you. The only workaround is to break it down into seperate steps by deleting the unnecessary characters and re-dictating rather than attempting to partially dictate/overtype. This can verbally be accomplished by saying something like insert after word/s, move left 1-20 and finally backspace 1-20. This isn't an efficient method for what you want to do but we don't expect Nuance to change this behavior because the manufacturer has to draw the line somewhere and if they try to please everyone, the program will simply be too lethargic. Nuance has to go with the more popular commands and if anything, we wouldn't be surprised if Nuance removed some features because they have clearly gotten them into trouble in some areas like Twitter and Facebook. We even turned off, via a hack, the XYZ commands because they made us work less efficiently.

Your best option might be to add words like Gießen to your vocabulary with a specialized Written Form. This is why the Vocabulary Editor is so flexible.

Unless you are using third-party command utility, such as KnowBrainer 2011, Bold All, Delete All and Italicize All are not NaturallySpeaking commands. Only select all is a DNS command.

-------------------------

Click KB 2012 REV D to Download a 30 Day Evaluation of KnowBrainer 2012 

 

 

 

Although I am not sure why you would need to change letters in the middle of a word, the efficient way to do it may be identical to the technique I use for changing a word or phrase in the middle of a sentence.

The technique is based on the observation that it is usually quicker to re-dictate an entire word or phrase -- even the parts that are correct -- than to deal with individual letters.

For example, if I dictate this...

 

"I would like to be able to change a letter in the middle of a word."

 

And then decide to change "a letter" to "letters," the slow way to do it is this:

1. Delete the word "a"
2. Move the cursor to the end of the word "letter"
   
3. Say "no space letter s"
   
4. Move the cursor back to its original position.

At each step, things can easy go afoul. It is not easy to select or delete short words like "a;" nor is it particulary reliable to tack an individual letter at the end of a word by dictating the letter (e.g., the "s").

 

The same thing can be accomplished faster and with less chance of error using three easy-to-say steps:

 

select change a letter    (which selects "change a letter")
change letters                 (which overtypes the selected text)
go back                          (which restores the cursor position)

 

Nice post IndigoWarrior. I wouldn't put so much stock in Nuance fixing all these issues though. Not because they don't want to, but simply because they have the impossible task of balancing the requirements of so many individuals and companies. Add to that how nebulous language is, the poor interfaces available to programmers, business constraints, and you get a sense of what they deal with. I know because I deal with it day in day out with my company. It's not that it's not important to the programmers, it's that the programmers have to deal with a myriad of considerations that the end user never sees. Software will always aim to satisfy the majority at the expense of the niche cases- it's just a fact of life. All this to say, the workaround is here to stay. Though, it's important to stick it to them and present all the shortcomings in hopes of getting things changed rather than relying on so many workarounds. I'm with you on that but the pragmatist in me, looking back at a decade of speech recognition, doesn't hold high expectations.


Max Roth
Maker of DynamicKeyboardOne for Naturally Speaking

-------------------------

ErgoArchitect Assistive Technologies - 

ShowNumbers Plus! Addon to Naturally Speaking - 

www.ergoarchitect.com 

Yes, indeed, nice post IndigoWarrior (Boadicca revisited?!).

I particularly like the idea of  a toggle Autoformat command. Great thinking!

But hidden in Chuck's post is the faintest glimmer of a thought that maybe something might be being done about dates in version 12, so let us live in hope.

Ed

-------------------------

DNS 12 Pro, Windows 7 Professional, SP1, i7-2700K 3.50 Ghz Sandybridge, 16Gb DDR3 PC3-160000C9 2000Mhz dual channel RAM, SpeechMike 5276 and Samson Airline 77

Ed,

Please don't quote me on DNS 12 because I have no knowledge of what is or is not going on. Anything that I've said is simply an educated guess.

Chuck Runquist
Technical Project Manager
VoiceTeach LLC
Home of VoicePower®: We don't make Dragon NaturallySpeaking, We make it better!

"The problem with communication is the illusion that is has occurred."- George Bernard Shaw

-------------------------

Releasing this close to Windows 8 is risky business. Windows 8 is a moving target and if they don't get a good tight integration with Metro, it will be a disappointment. They may be too ambitious with this release schedule but we'll see. Hopefully, they've been given access to Windows 8 long, long ago and have carefully kept pace with its twists and turns.

Max Roth
DynamicKeyboardOne for Naturally Speaking

-------------------------

ErgoArchitect Assistive Technologies - 

ShowNumbers Plus! Addon to Naturally Speaking - 

www.ergoarchitect.com 

 

Max,

 

You're quite a purveyor of doom and gloom. DNS 11.5 works just fine with Windows 8 release preview, even with Metro. I would suggest that you try it.

 

The hardest thing about Windows 8 is getting used to it in terms of the way that it works, I tested the release preview with 11.5 over the weekend and had no difficulties whatsoever.

 

Chuck Runquist
Technical Project Manager
VoiceTeach LLC
Home of VoicePower®: We don't make Dragon NaturallySpeaking, We make it better!

"Assumption is the mother of all screw ups" - Unknown

-------------------------

Thanks Chuck. I didn't know that 11.5 works already with Windows 8. I wonder if Microsoft incorporated the normal accessibility frameworks in their new Metro interface. If they did that would be great because ShowNumbers Plus! would work. I'll try it and report back. Thanks for the tip. 

 

I'm want to say that I love Nuance and their products and hope the best for them. I actually know some of their staff and they are great people who love this technology. I'm just stressing that voice recognition is fundamentally changing and the winners aren't so clear. I think the entrenched status quo is over. There are so many new startups moving into this space it's amazing. Every gesture control company, and their are legions, is exploring voice control as are all the manufacturers and market leaders, from Nintendo to BMW. That's exciting! 

 

Here is more examples of the tight integration I'm talking about. Notice the first link where Microsoft has built the voice recognition right into the Xbox IE. This is the kind of integration that is coming. Third parties like Nuance are at a distinct disadvantage but, for us the customers, we are in for quite a treat as the big 3 compete by making great voice control operating system. Not to mention that they will enable and promote free speech recognitions APIs to usher in a new era of ground up, voice centric, software.

 

btw- The E3 expo has been absolutely amazing this year. Microsoft and its partners have really blown people away with all these new hybrid laptops. Touch and voice recognition are here to stay.

 

http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/04/internet-explorer-coming-to-xbox-360-kinect-integration-and-all/

 

http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/04/xbox-360-software-at-e3-fifa-2013-madden-2013-kinect-forza/

 

http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/04/microsoft-enhances-xbox-bing-search-with-genre-navigation-exten/

 

Max Roth

DynamicKeyboardOne For Naturally Speaking

 

 

-------------------------

ErgoArchitect Assistive Technologies - 

ShowNumbers Plus! Addon to Naturally Speaking - 

www.ergoarchitect.com 

Just a little update to this thread: Google just revealed the next generation Android operating system called Jelly Bean and, lo and behold, offline voice dictation and Siri like functionality baked in. So, out of the box, across all android devices (phone, TV, PC, etc), you will have full voice control. No mention of the voice recognition SDK but I'm certain it will be accessible like everything else. It's interesting to think that the truly accessible voice platform might be a mobile OS rather than what we are accustomed to. DNS isn't going anywhere but it's days are numbered. Google is not going to port the Android OS to windows, but this will put pressure on Microsoft to do the same. A few years out most users will be using Microsoft's speech recognition and a few very specialized fields will remain with DNS if only because of legacy. Microsoft's solution will cost exactly 0 which is good news for all of us.


Max Roth
Dynamic Keyboard One for Naturally Speaking.

-------------------------

ErgoArchitect Assistive Technologies - 

ShowNumbers Plus! Addon to Naturally Speaking - 

www.ergoarchitect.com 

 

Max, just for kicks: what do you make of the fact that Nuance owns every relevant patent in speech recognition, and of the fact that every major player in the field seems to have direct ties to Nuance? I understand that the state of software patent law is [insert your favorite expletive here], but that's gotta count for something, no?

 

Perhaps I'm oversimplifying things, but it appears that every major breakthrough in speech recognition can be tied to Nuance (and its former incarnations). As such, I'd posit that Nuance will remain a leader in the field regardless of what Google, Microsoft, Apple, or platform-developer X do.

-------------------------

Eric Wright At work: DNS 12 Pro. At home: DNS 11.5 Pro,  KnowBrainer 2011, and Utter Command by RedStart Systems; Dragon Dictate 3 for Mac

 

Appetite for Dictation - My Blog

Hello! I think that DNS 12 is out but on the web doesn't say anything.

For now, it's only available for the nuance affiliate program (oneNetworkDirect, Commission Junction or TradeDoubler).

http://www.softpedia.com/get/Office-tools/Other-Office-Tools/Dragon-NaturallySpeaking-Professional.shtml  

Alberto,


Forget about Dragon 12. It's not released yet no matter what anyone says. The only place that you will hear about it having been released is from Nuance directly. If you don't hear it from Nuance, everything else is pure rumor and conjecture.

Chuck

"The least questioned assumptions are often the most questionable." -- Paul Broca

-------------------------

If you click the purchase button it takes you to Digital River, where you will see that the add clearly displays DNS Pro 11 rather than Ver. 12 which, as Chuck noted, has not been released. When Ver. 12 is eventually released, Nuance will announce it to their resellers and we, along with other resellers, will let everyone know right here.

-------------------------

Click KB 2012 REV D to Download a 30 Day Evaluation of KnowBrainer 2012 

 

 

 

I would like to see "Automatic" added to the font color options in the Command editor. I have some boilerplate text that is entered with my voice command, but the color is "Black" and that's a no-no in my documents. Word creates a new style based on the inserted text. IIRC, DNS does the same with the "Italicize that" command so those words or phrases are "Black" instead of "Automatic" as well.

-Susan