Sidebar Control and Voice Compatibility

[tigersof]

This is a really great extension, thank you! However, I need a couple of adjustments to make it compatible with voice recognition, which I rely on.

1. A shortcut key that would enable easy access to the extension in the sidebar, and with which I can easily interchange sidebar extensions/functions at will. Navigating the menu by voice is cumbersome and isn't always reliable. I can create a voice command that will handle this very easily with a shortcut key.

2. The search box of this add-on is incompatible with voice recognition. I believe this has something to do with rich edit controls. Perhaps this link may be of some help to you: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Rich+edit+controls+%2Bvoice&t=hy&va=z&ia=web

I would greatly appreciate an update to this extension that resolves the above issues.

NB for your reference, the text box I am currently writing into now on GitHub, is voice compatible, as is the title input box, too.

[lunu-bounir]

A shortcut key that would enable easy access to the extension in the sidebar

in FF? if so we will have it by the next release.

The search box of this add-on is incompatible with voice recognition

I am not sure what you meant. What voice recognition? Is this an extension or OS feature? Do you have a compatible extension?

[tigersof]

Hi Lunu,

Thank you for responding.

Yes, Firefox. Great, thank you! When is your next release likely to be?

I am not technical enough to explain it well to you. I found this out several years ago, but I was never able to get Dragon to work adequately in other applications never mind browsing, so did not investigate it further at that time. Until now!

All I can recall, is that it was something like RichEdit20 and other similar controls that were needed at that time, otherwise it would not be possible to dictate into the box with Dragon. Time has moved on and I guess things have changed, but I have not been keeping up with this. All I know, is that when I try to dictate into the input box in your extension, I am not able to do so successfully because it is not a recognised control. Dragon indicates this in its GUI with a green dot. A missing green dot indicates incompatibility. In this case, while Firefox is largely compatible, many extensions are not currently but quite probably could be.

I did a quick search to see if I could find the information about what I am talking about, prior to contacting you initially. Hence the link I provided. I thought there was a link in there to Nuance's "Guidelines for Developing Windows Applications" White Paper but that must have been another related search I did. This paper, although probably out of date now since it mentions older Dragon NaturallySpeaking branded products, lists the types of controls including internet among other things that work with the dictation software. I imagine, that while these controls and methods have been updated, similar still applies.

Since then, I have become aware of something called ARIA through another GitHub developer working on voice enabling a different extension, and who has already done a really great job in doing this in a short period of time. ARIA stands for Accessible Rich Internet Applications. A couple links below explain more about it:

• https://www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/aria/
• https://www.boia.org/blog/introduction-to-aria-for-web-accessibility

This may be the most up to date and relevant information/technology out there. I could not tell you if or how speech recognition would fit into this! I am hoping that you understand enough to fill that gap and can widen access to your extensions to other users, like myself, who rely on voice recognition among other assistive technologies to get things done.

I am hoping the information I have linked to helps in some way, and that I am not leading you astray. My apologies if it does.

FYI The software I am using now for voice recognition is Nuance’s Dragon Professional Individual (not OS integrated) in Windows, and it does generally work well, apart from incompatible applications. Google, Apple (OS integrated), and Microsoft Windows (OS integrated) also have their own versions, which work to varying degrees of success too.

Please let me know if you can help. Many thanks.

[lunu-bounir]

Thanks for the explanation. I think both issues are fixed. However, I need someone to confirm. Please try the developer version and let me know

1. Download the ZIP package from https://github.com/lunu-bounir/search-all-tabs/archive/refs/heads/master.zip
2. Open "about:debugging#/runtime/this-firefox" in a browser tab and turn the developer mode on.
3. Now press the "Load Temporary Add-on" button and point it to the ZIP file.

The extension will be installed for the current session. Give it a try with your software and see if it can detect the search box or not. Also, you can define keyboard shortcuts from "about:addons"

[tigersof]

Thank you, Lunu. Unfortunately, I am unable to load it in. Mozilla Firefox (developer) says it appears to be corrupt. I have tried downloading it a couple times just in case. Could you do this again, please?

I will probably test it later today now, but will get back to you as soon as I can. Thanks.

[tigersof]

Here's the error message via your method as you describe above:

There was an error during the temporary add-on installation. Error details File C:\Users\SK\Downloads\Mozilla\GitHub Lunu Tab Search Tool\search-all-tabs-master.zip does not contain a valid manifest

Hope that helps.

[lunu-bounir]

Extract the ZIP into a local directory and follow the steps. Instead of the ZIP, browse for the manifest.json file

[tigersof]

Thank you, Lunu. I did manage to install it in the end! This is a steep learning curve for me, I'n finding out all sorts of new things I had no idea about. I've been having some issues with the computer/software, so haven't got back to you yet to update on my findings. That will probably be over the weekend now. Thank for your patience, in the meantime.