SECTION EIGHT POP UP WINDOWS, VIDEO ATTRIBUTES AND LIGHT BARS 8.1: INTRODUCTION So far we've shown you several ways to access the information displayed on your PC's screen. In the last section of this manual we showed you how to make use of Vocal-Eyes' fifty user definable screen windows to locate and read the information you want. Earlier, we introduced you to a number of hot keys to read units of text such as characters, words, lines, sentences and paragraphs. We even showed you how to set hot keys to read everything on your PC's screen above, below, to the left or to the right of your applications cursor. Well, unfortunately, not all of the screen information you will need to work effectively with your various applications software packages will always be displayed in the same screen location (to be read with windows) or near your applications cursor (to be read with the various read hot keys). Often, important information "pops up" in unpredictable screen locations or appears in an altered video state such as blinking characters, reverse video or different colors. Also, with increasing frequency in newer software packages, important information and menu choices are displayed in light bars, which are difficult to read using the standard read hot keys. But never Fear! Vocal- Eyes has a number of special features designed specifically to aid in the voicing of such difficult-to-access screen information. In this section we'll talk about three of them: the "read box" hot key, a group of hot keys you can use to detect and read special video attributes and the ability of Vocal-Eyes to perform light bar tracking. 8.2: THE READ BOX HOT KEY Many programs have an unfortunate habit of displaying their information in unpredictable screen locations. Every time the program's "pop up" window appears, it's as likely as not to have moved to a different corner of your PC's screen. Unfortunately, you can't create a window to read a moving target, which is why we've created a new hot key for you. Do you have a program that displays information in "pop up" windows? If so, why not load it in now. Go to the Hot Keys submenu in the Vocal-Eyes Voice Control Panel. Select menu option 31. This is your "read Box" hot key. Notice that this hot key is currently undefined. Select a hot key to assign to the read box function. How about CTRL-B for box. No, we can't use that key. It's already assigned as our read previous character hot key. Well then how about ALT-B? Or, if yours is a 101-key keyboard, the F11 or F12 key? Go ahead and press the hot key you'd like to assign. Now, return to your applications program and do whatever you need to do to cause it to produce a "pop up" window. Press your read box hot key. Did it read the information you wanted to hear? Most "pop up" windows use the same set of extended graphics characters to draw the top and bottom corners of their "pop up" windows or boxes. Pressing the read box hot key instructs Vocal-Eyes to search for these characters. If it finds them, Vocal-Eyes constructs a sort of temporary window using these graphics characters as the upper left and bottom right coordinates. It then reads the box the same as it would any normal screen window. We can't guarantee that your particular program's box will use the standard graphics characters to mark out its display box, but most do. Give this feature a try with your favorite "pop up" windows. We think you'll be pleasantly surprised. Vocal-Eyes will search the entire screen for a box. If none is found, Vocal-Eyes will beep indicating it could not find a box to read. As you can see, the Read Box hot key can be of great help. However, why not make it even easier yet? Suppose that in your program you would press ALT-F10 to pop up one list of options. Then to hear the box, you would have to press the Read Box hot key. How about setting the ALT-F10 key as a cursoring key and assign it to read the current box on the screen? Now when you press ALT-F10, Vocal-Eyes will allow your application to pop up its box and then read the entire contents of the box for you, all with one keystroke! Even though ALT-F10 is not technically a cursoring key, Vocal-Eyes does not care. Any valid keystroke can be defined as a cursoring key. Feel free to use the Read Box feature either or both ways, as a cursoring key or simply as a hot key. Both methods will save you valuable time. 8.3: AUTOBOX READ We talked briefly about the autobox read earlier in this manual. This feature is located in the screen menu, option sixteen. You can toggle the autobox read on or off. The default is off. If enabled, Vocal-Eyes will constantly monitor the entire screen for a box to pop up. Once it detects such a box, it will automatically be read. If something is being spoken when a box is popped up, Vocal-Eyes will silence the current text and start speaking the contents of the box. The box will only be read once. However, if another box pops up on top of an existing box, the new box will be read. If the new box is removed revealing the original box, Vocal-Eyes will than re-read the original box. If you would like to hear the box read again, you can simply issue the read box hot key described above. If several boxes are displayed on the screen at once, Vocal-Eyes will use some intelligence to figure out which box is of most importance. If you are using an unfamiliar program, we suggest you turn this feature on. It may make a totally silent program come to life. It's especially handy when installing new software, as many of these programs use boxes to give you instructions. 8.4: SCREEN ATTRIBUTES Although there is a wide variety of display screen types and video adapters, most can be grouped into three broad categories: monochrome, composite black and white and color. A monochrome monitor is a screen that displays in two colors: a background color and a foreground color. Occasionally these colors are black and white, but more commonly they are two different shades of green or amber. Differences in character style can be achieved, however, to highlight or otherwise accentuate portions of the monochrome display. Portions of the display can be intensified, or brightened. Portions of the display can blink, or appear underlined, or in reverse video--dark on light instead of the other way around. A color display is one that can display its information in a variety of colors. Portions of the display can also blink, appear highlighted, or in reverse video. A composite black and white monitor is much like a black and white television set. It receives a color signal, but then displays the various colors as different shades of gray. Every character displayed on any of these video systems also contains an associated attribute character. This attribute contains the information on what the actual character should look like. For example, green on blinking red or white underlined, etc. On color systems, the attribute contains both what the background color of the character is as well as the foreground color. Monochrome systems contain information such as whether the character is blinking or is underlined. Often it is important to know what these attributes are. Vocal-Eyes goes to great pains in order to make your life as easy as possible. Vocal-Eyes offers several features to help you in identifying and voicing text that appears on your PC's display screen in many of these different video modes. Here's how they work. 8.4.1: THE ATTRIB-ASCII HOT KEY Would you like to know the video attributes--color, intensity, etc.--of your current screen position? Select the Attrib-ASCII option, which is option thirty-eight on the Hot Keys submenu. Assign a hot key to this voice function. Now, return to DOS or your applications program and try pressing this latest hot key. Notice that Vocal-Eyes announces the ASCII value of your current cursor position and then follows by describing the video attributes. It might say "black on white," or "underlined on black," or even something like "blinking green on bright blue." If you're using a black and white monitor with a color adapter, notice that the video attributes will be announced just as though you were using a color display. Cursor around your screen, either in applications or Review Mode, and check out the video attributes in a variety of locations. Notice how certain groups of information, such as menu choices, bold-face text, etc., appear with similar attributes. 8.4.2: READING NORMAL, REVERSE, BLINKING, UNDERLINED AND HIGHLIGHTED TEXT Would you like to have Vocal-Eyes voice all of the normal, reverse, blinking, underlined or highlighted video text? Well, Vocal-Eyes provides you with hot keys to read all of these and more! Select the Hot Keys submenu in the Voice Control Panel. Examine options 33 through 37 and you'll discover that you can assign hot keys to read any or all of these special video attributes. Try using these hot keys with your favorite piece of applications software. Here's what will happen: Option 33: Normal - This hot key will read all "normal" text that appears on your PC's screen, which is to say all text that appears with a black background. It doesn't matter what the foreground color is. Option 34: Reverse - This hot key will read all "reverse video" text that appears on your PC's screen, which is to say all text that appears with any background color other than black. Option 35: Blinking - This hot key will read all blinking text that appears on your PC's screen. Option 36: Underlined - This hot key will read all "underlined" text that appears on your PC's screen. Depending upon your particular monitor and graphics adapter, your screen may or may not be able to display underlined text. Option 37: highlighted - This hot key will read all "highlighted" text that appears on your PC's screen, which is to say any text which appears in a highlighted, or "bright" condition. In other words, the foreground must be any bright color and the background can be any color at all. Set the hot keys that will best serve your purposes. 8.4.3: THE USER DEFINABLE ATTRIBUTE READ HOT KEY Perhaps your software displays important information in a way not covered by any of the above read attribute hot keys. Perhaps you're using a program that displays important information such as menu choices using red text on a brown background. The choices lay scattered about the entire screen display, so you can't construct a window to read them. Nor can you use one of your read attribute hot keys to accomplish this task. This is where Vocal-Eyes' user definable attribute read hot key comes in quite handy. The user definable read attribute hot key works exactly like any of the other read attribute hot keys, such as read normal text or read underlined text, which we've already discussed. The difference is, with this hot key you get to select the video attributes Vocal-Eyes looks for when the hot key is pressed. Here's how it works. First, go into the Hot Keys menu and select the thirty-nine "User Attrib" option. Assign an appropriate hot key. Are you using ALT-U for anything? Now, after you've exited the Voice Control Panel, try pressing your new hot key. Did anything speak? The user attribute defaults to all reverse text. Remember, that is text which contains any foreground color on any background color except black. If all of the characters on your display are the standard white on black, the user attribute hot key will not speak anything. However, it will beep to let you know it could not find any character which matched the user attribute. Also, like many of the other commands, this will only search within the active window. There very well may be text which matches the user attribute displayed on the screen but if it is not within the currently active window, Vocal-Eyes will ignore the characters. If you wish to change the user attribute from the default of any foreground on a not black background (reverse), read on. Enter Review Mode. Press the "A" key. Did you hear Vocal-Eyes say "User set for" and then announce the video attribute of the character under the Review cursor? There-- you've just defined your user definable read attribute. Exit Review Mode and press your User Attrib hot key. But wait a minute. That wasn't the attribute set you wanted Vocal-Eyes to voice for you. The attribute set you wanted is the one your program uses to display that menu selection way up on line one. No problem. Re-enter Review Mode and move your cursor to the menu choice that is displayed in your desired attribute set and press the "A" key again. Exit Review Mode and try your User Attrib hot key again. You can redefine the attribute Vocal-Eyes will look for when you press the User Attrib hot key as often and as many times as you like. Of course saving your .SET file will also save your User definable attribute set, making it the startup value for this hot key the next time you load that particular .SET file. 8.4.4: THE F1 COLOR PALATE What if you want to set the User Attribute to an attribute which is not currently displayed on the screen? Or what if you want to set it to something like "Any Bright on a Not Black background?" or "Any Blinking on Any Background?" There is another way to select the colors and other video attributes Vocal- Eyes will use with your User Attrib hot key. It's the F1 Color Palate, and you can use it not only to select your User definable attribute set but also, as you'll learn about soon, to set your light bar. Enter Review Mode and press the "A" key. Now, instead of accepting the announced value, press the F1 key. Notice that Vocal-Eyes responds, "Select Foreground - 1 Black." Is black the foreground color you'd like to assign to your User Attrib hot key? If it is, simply press ENTER now. If black isn't your desired foreground color, press the ARROW keys, SPACE BAR or BACKSPACE key to move through the various selections until you find the color you want. When you've found it, press ENTER. If you wished to completely cancel the command, simply press the ESCAPE key. You will be returned to Review Mode just as if you had never issued the F1 command. Now, if you haven't canceled the command, Vocal-Eyes prompts: "Select Background - 1 Black." Is black the background color you want? Press ENTER if it is, or as before, use your ARROW keys, SPACE BAR or BACKSPACE key to move through the selections until you've found the color or video attribute you want. Press ENTER to complete the selection process or if you want to forget it, press the ESCAPE key. As you become increasingly familiar with Vocal-Eyes' color palate you may recall the number of your desired color or attribute setting without having to cursor down to find it. If you do, feel free to simply type in the number and then press ENTER to complete the selection. When you first started up Vocal-Eyes, it took an inventory of what your system had to offer. One of those items is the type of video adapter. A Monochrome adapter is not capable of displaying color and a color adapter is not capable of underlining a character. Therefore, depending on what type of video adapter your system contains, the available options will change. Below are the complete lists which are available for both the foreground and background for both types of video adapters. Color system foreground: 1 Black 2 Blue 3 Green 4 Cyan 5 Red 6 Magenta 7 Brown 8 White 9 Dark Gray 10 Bright Blue 11 Bright Green 12 Bright Cyan 13 Bright Red 14 Bright Magenta 15 Bright Yellow 16 Bright White 17 Anything 18 Not White 19 Any Bright Monochrome system foreground: 1 Black 2 White 3 White Underline 4 Blinking Black 5 Blinking White 6 Blinking Underline White 7 Bright Black 8 Bright White 9 Bright Underline White 10 Bright Blinking Black 11 Bright Blinking White 12 Bright Blinking Underline 13 Anything 14 Not White 15 Any Blinking 16 Any Bright 17 Any Underline Color system background: 1 Black 2 Blue 3 Green 4 Cyan 5 Red 6 Magenta 7 Brown 8 White 9 Blinking Black 10 Blinking Blue 11 Blinking Green 12 Blinking Cyan 13 Blinking Red 14 Blinking Magenta 15 Blinking Brown 16 Blinking White 17 Anything 18 Not Black 19 Any Blinking Monochrome system background: 1 Black 2 White 3 Anything 4 Not Black As you can see, the options vary depending on the type of video adapter being used. If you are sighted, you will notice that each option is displayed using the attribute it is describing. This makes for a very colorful display. Did you notice some of the settings such as Anything, Not White, Any Bright, Not Black, Any Blinking, etc? These settings give you much more flexibility than having to select an exact color. Sometimes the exact color settings are not what you want. What if you wanted to speak every character on a Magenta background but you did not care what the foreground color was? No problem. Simply select Anything for the foreground and Magenta for the background. The Anything means just that, anything. If it is selected for the background, it would match every possible background possibility. If selected for the foreground, it would likewise match every possible foreground possibility. If you pick Not White for the foreground, it would match every character that did not have a white foreground. Any Bright foreground will match any character that contains any of the bright colors for the foreground using a color adapter or any bright setting on a monochrome adapter. All of the other settings work in a similar fashion. This gives you the most flexibility when working with the wonderful world of attributes. Notice the F1 key is also used to display the Review help information. The color palate will only be displayed if you press F1 immediately after pressing "A," "B," or "W." We have already talked about the "A" option. The others will be discussed later. 8.4.5: READING SCREEN ATTRIBUTES AS THEY CHANGE As you can see, Vocal-Eyes provides you with many powerful attribute read hot key functions. But what if you need to keep track of ongoing color and/or attribute changes in your screen display? Or what if you're exploring a new program, and you want to "scope out" the way the program integrates color and attribute changes into its command set? Hot Key menu selection 56 "Attr On/Off" controls Vocal-Eyes' Attribute read on/off feature. Assign a hot key to this feature, exit the Voice Control Panel and give this feature a try. Notice that pressing your Attrib on/off hot key once causes Vocal-Eyes to voice: "Read attribute change on." Pressing it a second time turns the feature back off. With the "read attribute change" feature turned on, Vocal-Eyes will announce any and all changes in color and/or video attributes, such as blinking, bright, underlined, etc. Turn this feature on and then press your read line hot key. Are there any attribute changes on your current line? How about in your current window? Are you working in an applications program that uses DOS screen service? Notice that each change in color or video attribute is announced "on the fly," the same as if you'd used one of your read hot keys to hear the screen text. Remember, you can also turn this feature on and off by using option twelve (Attribute Changes) in the screen menu. Feel free to use either or both the hot key and the menus for switching this feature on and off. 8.4.6: MAKING GOOD USE OF READ ATTRIBUTE HOT KEYS Most applications software packages come with some sort of installation program or default options menu. Almost always you can use this feature to set or modify the colors and other screen attributes used to display text, menu choices, menu default values, etc. You could, for instance, instruct your word processor to display all underlined text as underlined text and all bold faced text as highlighted text. Then you could use your read underlined and highlighted hot keys to tell at the press of a key which text is underlined or bold faced. Perhaps you have a set of pull down menus that use light bars to display the default menu choice. You could define your user definable attribute read hot key to read the color set your program uses to display the menu choices. But wait-- we've got a better idea. 8.5: LIGHT BAR TRACKING Many applications use light bars to display important program information, such as menu choices. Up to now, our discussions have been cursor oriented, which is to say we've been relying on cursor placement to direct us as to which text should be voiced. The trouble with light bars is that quite often they remove the cursor from your PC's screen altogether, which leaves you with the difficult task of attempting to determine exactly what is going on. Vocal-Eyes has solved this problem with a feature called light bar tracking. With it you can follow, or track, the progress of a light bar as it moves up, down or sideways across your PC's screen display. 8.5.1: WHAT IS A LIGHT BAR? Actually, a light bar is nothing more complicated than a portion of your PC's screen that displays information in a different color, or using a different video attribute such as highlighted, underlined, etc., than other information presented on the same screen. In its most basic form, you could have a PC screen that displays most of its text using white letters on a black background and a light bar that displays using black text on a white background. For the sighted user, light bars are a convenient means to display important information, such as menu selections. You might be presented with five choices, one of which is displayed using a light bar. Pressing one of your cursor keys would cause successive menu choices to be similarly highlighted. When you have moved the highlight, or light bar, to the menu choice you wish to select, usually a simple press of the ENTER key is all that's needed to complete the selection. In fact, you may not be aware of it, but Vocal-Eyes' Voice Control Panel uses light bars. The trouble comes when a program that uses light bars decides to remove the cursor from the screen altogether or, worse, "parks" the cursor in one position on the screen. Since we've been relying on the cursor to one degree or another to help delineate the text to be voiced, all you've been hearing up to now when you've tried to read a word, line or sentence when a light bar is on the screen is a beep telling you there isn't any text to be found. As you've already seen in previous parts of this section, Vocal-Eyes doesn't limit itself to cursor-oriented voice features. We've already described a number of hot keys that seek out different colors or video attributes--including one user definable attribute read hot key that you can set to look for any combination of colors or attributes. Well, using light bar tracking is sort of like using the user definable attribute read hot key-- only much better! 8.5.2: HOW IT WORKS Do you have a program that uses light bars to display menu choices or other important information? Go ahead and load it in now. Before you can try light bar tracking, you need to go into the Hot Keys menu and assign two hot keys. The first is to be found at Option 48 "Read Bar." When pressed, this hot key looks for a light bar and, if it finds one, reads it to you. Option fifty-eight "Bar Toggle" is the hot key you will use to turn light bar tracking on, off, or put it into automatic drive. Go ahead and assign both of these hot keys now. Try ALT-C for "current light bar" and ALT-L for "Light Bar Toggle." Now that you've assigned your bar track hot keys and returned to your applications program, do this. First, press your Bar toggle key enough times to turn the feature on. (Note: by default, bar tracking is in the "off" mode. For now, put bar tracking in the on mode.) Now, press your read bar hot key. What happened? Either Vocal-Eyes read something or it beeped at you. Here's why. Vocal-Eyes is pretty smart, but light bars come in a lot of different color and attribute combinations. By default, Vocal-Eyes will search for a light bar consisting of any foreground color on any background color except black. You'll probably have to tell Vocal-Eyes what to look for. You can also toggle the status of the current light bar mode from the general menu Option 5: Bar Track. Pressing ENTER while on this option will also rotor among off, on and auto. Feel free to use either approach for toggling the light bar status. 8.5.3: SETTING LIGHT BAR TRACKING Setting a light bar is as easy as setting the user definable attribute read feature. You can do it two ways. First, enter Review Mode. Place your cursor somewhere within the highlighted text. Vocal-Eyes will even help you out a little here. If you have light bar enabled when you enter Review Mode, Vocal-Eyes will check to see if there are any characters which match the current Light Bar attribute. If there are, the Review Cursor will be moved to the first character with the correct attribute and Vocal-Eyes will say "Cursor Moved." If there are no characters on the screen which match the current light bar attribute, the Review Cursor will be positioned at the applications cursor as always. Is your review cursor somewhere within the highlighted text? If so, simply press "B" for bar. Vocal-Eyes will announce your light bar's colors, and it will also remember these colors so that now whenever you press your read bar hot key Vocal-Eyes will read the bar for you. With light bar enabled, you don't have to press the Read Current Light Bar hot key to hear each new option. Instead, Vocal-Eyes will automatically speak the light bar when you press any of the four arrow keys. If there are no characters with the light bar attribute in the active window, you will hear a beep. This simply indicates nothing was found. Regardless of how you may have the four arrow keys defined in the cursoring menu, Vocal-Eyes will override your settings when Light Bar tracking is enabled. Does your program use light bars to display menu choices? If so, press your UP, DOWN, LEFT, or RIGHT arrow keys. Use whichever keys work with your applications program. Notice that each time you press these keys the light bar moves to a different menu selection and the new selection is automatically spoken for you. When you find the option you want, press ENTER. Your program will act on your choice and the light bar will likely disappear in favor of your program's work area, or be replaced by another set of light bars that mark a submenu to the first. When there are no longer any light bars on your screen, be sure to toggle your bar toggle hot key to the off position. Otherwise your four arrow keys will keep looking for a bar every time you press one of them, and, since there are no bars to be found, Vocal-Eyes will beep to let you know it can't find one. 8.5.4: USING THE COLOR PALATE Earlier, when we showed you how to set the user definable attribute hot key, we introduced you to Vocal-Eyes' color palate. We showed you how to call it up by pressing the F1 key immediately after pressing "A" for setting the user attribute. Well, you can use the color palate to set light bar tracking, too, and it works exactly the same way. To use the color palate to set the colors or attributes for your light bar, enter Review Mode and press "B" to begin the bar set procedure. Now, instead of accepting the colors currently beneath your cursor, press the F1 key. The color palate will display exactly as it did when you used it to set your attribute read hot key. As before, cursor down to the color you want and press ENTER, or, alternatively, type in the appropriate foreground and background numbers and follow each with a press of ENTER. 8.5.5: TRACKING TEN DIFFERENT LIGHT BARS You can set a different light bar color for each of your ten standard screen windows zero through nine. Remember, the first ten windows are special. The extended windows ten through forty-nine only hold the window coordinates for reading. The following discussion pertains only to the standard ten windows. Whichever window is the active one determines what light bar attribute to use. Perhaps your program displays a menu along the right edge of your screen. Why not define a window to encompass that portion of your screen and then set a light bar to track the menu choices? Do you have a program that uses light bars? Why not select one of your full-screen windows and then define the bar tracking to work with that program? Not only is a unique light bar color stored with each of the ten windows, but Vocal-Eyes also stores the status of the light bar with each window. This means by selecting a particular window, you can instruct Vocal-Eyes whether light bar mode should be on, off or auto and setup the actual light bar color. For example, lets say window five is active with light bar mode on and a color of red on blue. Now you switch to window 3. The current light bar mode and color will be reset to the status saved with window 3. If you switch back to window five, light bar mode will be on with a color of red on blue-- just like you left it. Remember, you can setup a cursoring key to active a different window or use a hot key which allows you to quickly select any of the ten windows. Also, once we get into hyperactive windows, you will see that simply by watching for a particular event to occur on the screen, a specified window can become active automatically. And of course by becoming active, the current light bar status and color will be effected as well. To set up light bar color and status for any of ten different windows, first, enter Review Mode and press F3. Select the window you want the bar track setting to be associated with. Of course, if you have assigned a keystroke to the "Select Window" hot key, you could use that in place of the F3. Now, either press "B" alone to choose the color set currently beneath your cursor or follow it up with a press of the F1 key to use the color palate. Now that the color for the light bar is set up, you should make sure the light bar status is set for off, on or auto depending on your particular needs. This can be set using either the Bar Toggle hot key or the Bar Track option in the General menu. Follow this procedure for as many windows as you'd care to use. Be sure to save your .SET file to retain your settings for the next time you run Vocal-Eyes. 8.5.6: THE READ BAR HOT KEY You don't have to have light bar tracking turned on in order to use the read bar hot key. You can use this key anytime. It will look for any text which matches the light bar color of the currently active window. If Window zero is currently active, pressing the read bar hot key will look for a bar with the colors and attributes you've set for Window zero. It will, of course only look within the coordinates of Window zero. If there's no light bar in the current window, Vocal-Eyes will beep to let you know none was found. If there was text in the current window matching the light bar attribute, notice that Vocal-Eyes spoke the text. If you press the Read Bar hot key a second time Vocal-Eyes will spell the text. If you again press the hot key a third time, Vocal-Eyes will spell the text phonetically. Each time you press this key in succession, Vocal-Eyes will either speak, spell or spell phonetically all text which matches the specified attribute. This works just like the read current word hot key. When it is spelling or spelling phonetically, Vocal-Eyes will drop the screen voice rate by two. This means if your screen rate is set up at five, the spelling would be pronounced at a speech rate of three. 8.5.7: SETTING LIGHT BAR TRACKING TO "AUTO" If you've been working along with us, you've noticed an "Auto" setting in your light bar toggle. With light bar tracking set to "Auto," Vocal-Eyes will watch your applications cursor closely. If light bar is set to auto and you press any of the light bar keys (left, right, up, or down) Vocal-Eyes will look to see if a light bar is being used. If it is, the new option will automatically be spoken. If Vocal-Eyes determines that a light bar is not being used, the normal Cursoring key definition for the key will be issued. Therefore, if you believe a light bar is being used but do not know exactly where or what color is being used, give the auto setting a try. The auto setting is by no means one hundred percent correct but will make an extremely good effort. For example, Vocal-Eyes may not think a light bar is being used when in fact, one is being used. Vocal-Eyes may think a light bar is being used when one is not or, it may recognize the wrong moving attribute as the light bar. With today's application programs having such complex screens, Vocal-Eyes can not possibly be one hundred percent accurate. However, feel free to give it a try. It will definitely be correct more times than not. It is an excellent technique, especially for new and unfamiliar programs. Normally, if you have Vocal-Eyes set for auto light bar and the applications program is not using a light bar, there will be no interference. If you have setup the light bar for auto and Vocal-Eyes finds the light bar correctly and speaks it, the color used will automatically be updated for the currently selected window light bar setting. This means, you can use the auto setting if you wish to determine the color and than turn on or off light bar tracking manually or automatically as needed. Basically, the auto setting tries to automatically determine if a light bar is being used, determine it's color and speak the new setting. If you set light bar to on, Vocal-Eyes assumes the color is in the current window and speaks anything with the specified color. By default, Vocal-Eyes comes up with bar tracking in the "Off" mode. If you are using an applications program which switches between using light bars and using the cursor, you may want to give the Auto setting a try. For unfamiliar programs, turning on the autobox read and auto light bar can make a world of difference.