Getting TextAloud 3.0.102 to Behave Like 2.85

[PNourse]

Getting TextAloud 3.0.102 to Behave Like TestAloud 2.85

When I copy text TextAloud 2.85 reads the text. While TextAloud is reading if I copy (Ctrl C) more text for editing or other purposes TextAloud continues to read with no hiccups or problems.

When I copy text TextAloud 3.0.102 reads the text. While it is reading if I copy more text for editing or other purposes TextAloud 3.0.102 displays errors in popup windows.

How can I continue to (Ctrl C) copy text while TextAloud 3.0.102 is reading and not have the errors popup?

I had to get a refund because I could not get around this issue. I like the new version and the voices that do not work in the older version. However the way it behaves leaves me no choice but to keep using the old 2.85.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
PAul

[Jim Bretti]

There is currently no option in TextAloud to ignore clipboard updates when we're speaking text. That might be worth adding as an option on the Clipboard Options dialog. If we had a checkbox there to ignore clipboard updates when speaking, would that solve the problem?

Here are two alternatives

1. Create a system wide hotkey for reading selected text. You can set this up under the TextAloud tools menu, you just need to be careful that the keystroke sequence you set up isn't already used as keyboard shortcuts in applications where you use the hotkey. So you would have one hotkey specifically for speaking selected text, independent of your clipboard copies. You would turn off the clipboard monitor feature in TextAloud.

2. The only place I know of where the dialogs you mention are a problem have to do with using TextAloud in single article mode. (Let me know if thats not right ... I may be missing something else). The second alternative I'm thinking of would be to set TextAloud to multi article mode. Under the Tools menu, click "Automatic Actions", and create / enable two automatic actions: Automatically speak new articles, and Delete article after speaking. Finally, set the default action for clipboard copies to "Add New Article" (the default setting).

With configuration (2), every clipboard copy will add a new article to TextAloud. The first new article will be automatically spoken, and when that article is finished speaking, the article is deleted, and speaking will continue with the next article.

Configuration (2) doesn't work if you're copying text to an intermediate editor to edit text before speaking.

To be complete, there is actually one other option ... use the clipboard prompt to decide how you want to handle each clipboard copy. As we discussed in email, the problem with this is that it involves an extra keystroke to click the Perform button.