Speech-enabled Applications On The Emacspeak Desktop

This document enumerates the speech-enabled applications available on the Emacspeak desktop. Note that depending on your Emacs installation, you may need to download and install extra applications to avail yourself of all of the features of the Emacspeak audio desktop. Emacs applications can be located via the various Emacs Lisp archives or by using popular WWW search engines. For one such comprehensive index, see the the Emacs Lisp Library.

Applications List

Here is a complete list of speech-enabled applications available under the latest Emacspeak release.

Speech-enabled applications on the Emacspeak audio desktop.
Multimedia
aumix Emacspeak front-end for configuring the auditory display.
cd-tool Control CD player from anywhere on the audio desktop.
freeamp Ubiquitous access to Freeamp mp3 with a single keystroke.
mpg123 Play mp3 files, with keyboard access to all functions.
realaudio Play RealAudio, RealMedia and mp3 streams. Includes presets for single click access to favorite streams.
mplayer Play Windows media and mp3 streams. Includes presets for single click access to favorite streams.
midge Compose and play MIDI files.
Document Authoring
xae XML authoring environment based on PSGML and XSL. Enables structured document authoring and interactive preview.
psgml Environment for authoring and maintaining XML and SGML documents. Provides structured authoring support including context-sensitive help based on current DTD.
tdtd Author and maintain XML and SGML DTD files.
auctex Authoring environment for TeX and LaTeX documents; template based authoring, voice locking support and structured browsing.
bibtex Maintain BIBTeX bibliographies.
reftex Browse cross-references in LaTeX documents.
texinfo Authoring support for creating texinfo documentation. Texinfo enables the production of both online hypertext and high-quality print documentation from a single source.
metapost Speech-enabled metapost mode for creating drawings using the metapost language.
enriched Rich-text authoring to provide a simple word processor.
Messaging
vm Mail reader featuring full mime support.
bbdb Manages email addresses and other contact information by seamlessly integrating with messaging applications.
eudc Universal Directory Client including LDAP support and seamless integration with messaging applications.
gnus Usenet news and email client with support for exotic information backends such as Slashdot etc.
message Email composition from within other applications.
supercite Enables flexible citations when composing email.
tnt Instant Messenger (AIM) client, with support for multiple parallel chat sessions.
erc Internet Relay Chat (IRC) client with voice locking support and parallel chat sessions.
imcom IMCom is a Python-based jabber client. Module emacspeak-imcom speech-enables IMCom with full audio formatting support. Chat sessions can be viewed within W3 with full ACSS support.
gnuyahoo GNUYahoo is a Yahoo messenger client.
mspools Interface for working with multiple mail spools; allows easy browsing of automatically archived mail.
mh-e Interface to the MH suite of email tools.
rmail Email client.
General Productivity Applications
search-and-replace Speech-enabled incremental search is available throughout the audio desktop. Audio formatting is used to aurally highlight search hits, and is used to advantage when providing spoken feedback during search and replace.
bs Tool for locating open buffers on the audio desktop.
buff-menu Browsing and selecting buffers on the audio desktop.
buff-sel Interactive selection of buffers on the audio desktop.
yasg Pattern-based selection of open buffers.
browse-kill-ring Speech-enabled browsable kill ring. Allows easy browsing of Emacs' builtin clipboard faclity.
calc Calculator with financial and scientific functions.
gnuplot Front-end to Gnuplot for plotting graphs; integrates with the symbolic calculator.
calculator Simple but powerful desktop calculator.
calendar Desktop calendar with an integrated appointment book.
custom Intuitive interface to customize Emacs' extensive set of customization options.
dictation Front-end to IBM ViaVoice dictation engine; spoken text is recognized using Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR), inserted into the current context and spoken back using Text To Speech.
dictionary Access dictionary servers.
babel Access Internet translation services.
dired Browse and operate on files and folders.
find-dired Seamless integration between the file browser and finder.
locate File browser interface for finding files.
finder Package browser for locating installed applications.
rpm Client for browsing installed RPM packages.
ediff Interface for browsing diff output; enables easy merging of different file versions, applying patches etc. Voice locking is used to advantage in aurally highlighting the differences.
shell Runs interactive command interpreters like BASH and TCSH.
ansi-colors Applies Aural CSS ACSS properties to convert ansi color codes to appropriate voice changes to produce audio formatted output.
eterm Speech-enabled terminal client for running full-screen applications like VI, Lynx and PINE.
ssh Front-end to SSH.
efs Front-end to remote file access using an FTP back-end.
tramp Front-end to remote file access using SSH backend.
eshell Command shell implemented in Emacs Lisp, making it independent of the underlying operating system.
outline Context-sensitive outline support for browsing documents.
folding Application for structuring and later obtaining structured views of files.
forms Forms-based interface for manipulating structured data. Useful for system administration tasks such as managing password databases and browsing log files.
filtertext Emacspeak client for progressively filtering text.
gridtext Emacspeak client for overlaying grids on text. Useful in browsing log files and other text output that has columnar structure.
hide Emacspeak client for hiding and exposing blocks of text. Blocks are automatically recognized by lines having a common prefix. This is used to advantage in imposing dialog structure on email conversations, skipping blocks of commented code etc.
hyperbole Information management system.
imenu Generates context-sensitive table of contents.
info Emacs' online hypertext documentation system. Emacspeak uses audio formatting to highlight menus and hyperlinks.
man UNIX online manual browser with full aural highlighting and structured browsing.
howto Emacspeak wizard for browsing Linux HOWTO documents.
ispell Front-end to interactive spell checker. Errors are aurally highlighted and available corrections automatically spoken.
flyspell Interactive spell checker that aurally and visually highlights misspelled words as they are typed.
net-utils Front-end to networking tools.
oo-browser Tool for browsing object oriented software codebases.
ocr Emacs front-end to OCR engines. This module provides speech-enabled access to image aquisition and document recognition tools available on the underlying platform.
vc Front-end to version control systems like CVS and RCS.
pcl-cvs Front-end for working with CVS repositories.
pronounce Emacspeak client for defining custom pronunciations. Pronunciations can be defined on a per-file, per-directory, or per-mode basis and persisted across sessions.
remote Emacspeak client for running remote sessions. Like the X windows system, Emacspeak supports a remote speech server, allowing an Emacspeak session running on a remote machine to send speech output to a server running on the local machine.
sawfish Speech-enables the Sawfish window-manager.
speedbar Context-sensitive browsing tool. Provides seamless browsing of the entire file system or a single file with the same consistent interface.
dismal Spread-sheet application with suport for customizing spoken feedback on a per-sheet basis.
analog Analog.el provides a log analyzer that can be customized to display system log files with a few convenient keystrokes.
eperiodic EPeriodic implements a periodic table of elements.
emacspeak-daisy Implements a digital talking book reader for DAISY3 talking books.
table-ui Emacspeak's rich table browsing interface. See Auditory User Interfaces (AUI) at http://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/raman/aui/aui.html for the theoretical underpinnings of this interface.
tar Front-end for browsing tar, jar and zip archives.
view File browser for reading etexts.
bookmark Create bookmarks that persist across Emacs sessions.
view-process Front-end for monitoring and controlling processes.
w3 Standards-compliant WWW browser with Aural CSS support.
w3m Light-weight WWW browser. Does not support table navigation, CSS or Aural CSS, but can be fast and light-weight.
url-template Emacspeak client that provides programmable URL templates. Pre-defined templates offer easy access to W3C mailing lists, CNN sites etc.
websearch Emacspeak websearch client with single click access to popular search engines. Once selected, the searcher prompts for the relevant input, performs the search, and speaks the result.
wizards Emacspeak wizards for performing common tasks.
clipboard Emacspeak clipboard for cut and paste among different emacspeak sessions, possibly running on different hosts.
help Speech-enabled online help across the audio desktop.
Software Development
jde Java Development Environment with interactive debugging support using the Java Platform Debug Architecture (JPDA). Provides a speech-enabled inspector and wizards.
ecb Emacs Class Browser with support for Java, C++, C and other popular languages. Provides navigable table of contents as well as a browsable method and function index for the file being editted.
gud Unified debugger front-end. Allows interactive debugging with fluent spoken feedback.
c Editting support for C, C++ and related languages with full aural highlighting and semantic support. Provides contextual spoken feedback using semantic context of code being editted.
compile Front-end to running batch compiles. Provides easy navigation through the lines containing errors.
perl Editting support for Perl. Features aural highlighting and easy access to online help.
python Editting support for interactive Python development. Features aural highlighting, structured browsing and debugging.
tcl Support for interactive TCL development including aural highlighting, structured browsing and interactive help.
sql support for SQL including aural highlighting and interactive SQL development.
generic Editting support for JavaScript and Apache configuration files with voice locking and structured navigation.
hideshow Hiding and showing blocks of C code.
make-mode Editting support for creating and maintaining Makefiles.
sh-script Editting support for shell scripts.
rpm-spec Editting support for RPM spec files.
tempo Support for creating and filling-in templates. Used to implement wizards in JDE, HTML helper mode and friends.
dmacro Dynamic macro package for template-based editting.
Distractions
entertain Speech-enabled access to numerous games including Dungeon, gomoku, solitaire,tetris, and Hangman.

Many shell-based tools., e.g., the napster.pl from Lincoln Stein's Napster package can be run effectively from within an Emacs shell. In such cases, Emacspeak utilities like filtertext and gridtext can be used to advantage in efficiently scanning and filtering the program output. Finally, note that when using full screen applications like PINE and Lynx when run within the Emacs terminal emulator (provided by package eterm) Emacspeak functions like a traditional screenreader.

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Email: T. V. Raman