Voice attack causing keyboard key repeats

[Alain Goyette]

Hello,

I am in the process of trying Voice Attack while I wait for Paypal to acknowledge that I exist (trying to purchase the program from Canada forces a Paypal login to purchase).

Under voice attack 1.5.3, my keyboard (English mapping - English (United State) language, and English (united State - International Keyboard) mapping typing the international accents characters (~ ` ^ " " , ) print double, and do not perform the Symbol + Character = Multilingual character macro.

Using the US keyboard prints the symbols properly.

As I communicate in French and English, I would rather not have to constantly have to switch keyboard definition. Can it be looked into?

(Windows 8 Pro with media center)

Thanks much.

[Gary]

Hi, Alain.

I will look at this.

Gary

[Gary]

I thought I knew what to do here, since this came up a long time back and was never resolved.  I went into control panel, clicked language, clicked, 'options' (English) and then added a French keyboard to my layout.  I removed the English keyboard layout from the list and then opened VoiceAttack.  I added a new command and I am just pressing the key that is, ` ~ (accent/tilde) on the US keyboard.  Issuing the command with Wordpad as the target yields, ù when it presses that key.  I'm at a loss, so if it is possible, can you give me a step by step rundown of what it is you are doing.  Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks a bunch!

Gary

[Gary]

If you want to take it offline, shoot a mail message over to sup...@voiceattack.com.

Gary

[Alain Goyette]

Certainly.

It has to do with the international keyset. The keyboard that use is just and ordinary 87 keys US English keyboard, with the International English overlay (from control panel).

What actually happens in this mode is that when you press any of the possible accents keys, that character is held into a temporary buffer and waits for the next key press. When the user then presses the next key, the overlay looks to see if the combination of the cached and pressed character would form a valid multilingual character and if so, displays it. If the combination of the buffered character and the pressed character is not a valid multilingual character, it then type the buffered character (~`^'") and the pressed character in sequence. This permits the US keyboard to print any accented character without having to call up the symbol tool, or to know the ASCII code of the multilingual character.

The problem appears to be in the way that Voice attack pools the keyboard, as when it is active and the international overlay is used, then all the possible accents characters (~`'"^) are duplicated on key press instead of being put in a temporary buffer.

As the US overlay does not buffer those characters, then this " double print" of the accent characters does not happen. By the same token, if I turn off voice attack then the problem disappear.

To get the international overlay on your keyboard, (Windows 8) got control panel -> clock, language and regions -> change input method -> select option on the English (United states) entry -> Add an input method -> look for and select: (QWERTY United states - International touch keyboard layout.

To make it active, use the language bar and select it.

Do not select a french keyboard layout as this assumes that you have a non-us keyboard and the mapping will be wrong.

On Tuesday, February 11, 2014 11:11:41 PM UTC-6, Gary wrote:

[Gary]

I will check this out.

Thanks for the info!

Gary

[Gary]

Hi, Alain.  I have finally circled around to be able to work on this.  You'll have to forgive me, I'm a little unfamiliar with most of the region/locale settings in Windows.

Here is what I did.  I went into Control Panel and I selected the, 'Language' applet.

I added the Qwerty US International input mode.

I clicked, 'advanced settings' on the left and selected the box that says, 'use the desktop language bar when it's available'

I clicked, 'save'.

I clicked on the small keyboard icon and told it to show me the language bar.  In the language bar, I changed from US to United States - International.

I opened VoiceAttack and added the following :

Press and release the ` ~ key

Press and release A key

I opened Wordpad and tried it out.  It displays, à.  Which is what we want.  I can also type it with the keyboard.

In Chrome, it displays, '`a just like you are saying.  However, I can type it properly with the keyboard, though:  à

So, I tried just adding a slight delay for the accent key :

Press and hold `~ key for 0.05 seconds and release

Press and release A key

Then, I test VoiceAttack in Chrome and it displays à (which is what we want).

Given this, it looks like it is an application-specific issue and you will need to adjust VoiceAttack's timing to compensate.

What is happening is that the key presses are happening too fast (a lot faster than a human normally types).

I hope this helps some!

Gary

Now I've got to put back all my language settings :)

[Alain Goyette]

This is working great! à â á è ê é î ò ô û ç

 

Because the accent can be used for different vowels, I used a slightly different format than what you gave below but it appear to be working just fine.

 

Command name: Accent aigue:

When I press ` ~ (do not allow to pass through)
Key press: press the ` key for .1 sec and release they key in window mode (not direct x).

repeat for ^ (accent circonflex)  and ‘ (accent grave + ccdille)

Thanks much!

 

Alain

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[Jan Kaluza]

I'm having the same problem with repeating accent keys on a standard German keyboard, even if I switch VA's shortcuts to off. When I close Voice Attack, it works normally again.

I don't understand the solution that Gary proposed, do you mean adding a command for VA to handle these accent keys? I don't want to have to add pass-through commands to VA for all the possible accent/character combinations if possible. Is there any way around this?

[Gary]

This is a known and frustrating issue, Jan.  At some point I will be able to get back to work on this.  I am not able to make this work with the solution given, and the only solution I know about is to kill VoiceAttack.

Sorry about that!

Gary

[Xanem]

Do you have a more specific timewindow than "at some point"? Because i would like to start using this program more widely, but as long as this problem excists i can't see myself keeping it open for longer periods. This is basically the single deal breaker for me to buy the full program. If can't provide more details on when, is there a way that i can easily follow if this problem is fixed? I might keep coming back here for a few weeks occasionally, to check for updates. But i know myself well enough to know that i'll start forgetting about that after a while.

[Gary]

I do not have a specific timeframe, nor any guarantee that this can actually be fixed.  I understand this affects a segment of users, but I am working diligently to push out fixes and features that affect a very broad range of users.  I *do* have this down to fix soon (I will need to prepare a separate test environment for this since it is very deep and debugging it as it is basically is a very large pain).  My suggestion for you would be to not purchase the software until it is squared away.  Like I said, it's on a list to do, 'at some point'.  That could be this week, next month or, if it is not fixable, never (probably not likely that it CANT be fixed, but you get the idea).  The only other option is to kill VoiceAttack when you are finished using your game, which looks like it is a giant hassle.

Sorry for that.  It's the best I've got right now :(

Gary