Speech middleware vendor CommandSets.com has released ten command sets for the speech recognition system built into Mac OS X. Combined the sets add almost 700 spoken commands to Mac OS X’s vocabulary, according to Chuck Rogers of CommandSets.com.
CommandSets.com — a Web site dedicated to the distribution of voice commands for iListen from MacSpeech, ViaVoice from IBM, and Apple’s PlainTalk — was launched earlier this month during the Macworld Conference & Expo in San Francisco. The sets include PlainTalk versions of sets previously released for iListen and ViaVoice, including BBEdit, iCal, iPhoto, iTunes, Mail, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Messenger, and Apple’s TextEdit program. TextEdit sets for iListen and ViaVoice were also released; others will follow, according to Rogers.
Command Sets for iListen are imported directly into the application. ViaVoice’s Command Sets are in the form of Keyboard Shortcut Dictionaries, or KSDs. Command Sets for Apple’s PlainTalk are distributed as a collection of scripts that are installed in the Apple Speakable Items folder.
The new Command Sets sell for between US$7.50 and $25. For a limited time, CommandSets.com is giving away the full TextEdit command set for either iListen, PlainTalk, or ViaVoice for free. The download, and more information, can be found at the CommandSets.com Web site.