Dear Sabrina Would I be correct in assuming you mean the hot key to open the mike in ventrilo? I am attaching the full set of instructions for setting up an account in Ventrillo but here is the piece that refers to the hotkey: "Using the Setup Dialog with a Screen Reader If you are using JAWS you may have some trouble setting certain options. When setting the hot key in the preferences Window do the following: when in the preferences dialog activate your normal cursor in the usual way for your Screen reader (by hitting numpad slash if you are using JAWS) Tab through the dialog box. When you reach the hotkey element, press the key you want for your push to talk hotkey Escape from the hot key field by enabling your virtual cursor and moving to the OK button and activating it with a left mouse click. If you need to set other items in this dialog box that appear after the hotkey do it in reverse order with shift-tab." Cearbhall T: +353 (0)1 6364364 m: 08333 23487 E: omeadhrac@xxxxxxx -----Original Message----- From: vicsireland-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:vicsireland-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Sabrina McKiernan Sent: 17 November 2011 12:38 To: vicsireland@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [vicsireland] ventrilo query Hi all, Do any of you know how I can get ventrilo to accept a hot key? It seems to only take the left shift key. Using jaws 10 on windows x p Sabrina -- I am using the free version of SPAMfighter. We are a community of 7 million users fighting spam. SPAMfighter has removed 1105 of my spam emails to date. Get the free SPAMfighter here: http://www.spamfighter.com/len The Professional version does not have this message =========================================================== The vicsireland mailing list To unsubscribe at any time send a mail to: vicsireland-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word "unsubscribe", without the quotes in the subject of the message. To contact the moderator send mail to: tim.j.culhane@xxxxxxxxx For mor information on the Visually Impaired Computer Society visit: http://www.vicsireland.orgTitle: Setting Up Ventrilo
We have our own Ventrilo server hosted by Typefrag with the capacity for 10 members. We'll use this server for committee meetings.
Ventrilo is a voice communications program, whereby members connect to a central server. The user interface has a series of buttons through which you configure and use the program. Note there are no menu bars. There is a list box which shows all the channels on the server.
I have lifted these from the website of the server and modified them for our use.
Download Ventrilo's Client from:
http://www.ventrilo.com/download.php
Run the installation program with the default settings.
If you are using the JAWS screen reader, do not get the JAWS scripts, they make Ventrilo more difficult to use. Ventrilo is usable without scripts. Users of NvDA and Voiceover have not reported any problems with the following steps.
Start up the software from Start --> Programs --> Ventrilo --> Ventrilo.
Note that settings for servers are saved based on user names so if you add a new username you must re-enter all the server settings.
Under USER NAME, click the arrow next to it ( -> ), click NEW, and enter the name you wish to use to identify yourself at the meeting. You can also set up the phonetic spelling for the text to speech engine, so it says your name correctly when you connect or disconnect from the server. Note that if your punctuation level is set too high in your Screen Reader the buttons will simply say button rather than dash greater button.
Note that you do not require a password to support your user name. See the note on passwords below for further information.
Under SERVER, click the arrow next to it ( -> )
Click NEW, and enter the NAME:
"VICS"
or another friendly name you willl remember for this server.
Click OK. Then under Hostname or IP, enter:
ventrilo.typefrag.com
NEXT, make sure the port is set to:
35233
Ignore the password field for the moment. See below for further details.
Click OK again.
That set up will be saved. To connect, simply click CONNECT, and in the future after opening Ventrilo, simply just click CONNECT as the user name and server will be saved.
Click SETUP; from here, you can change your PUSH TO TALK hot key as well as incoming and outgoing amplification. Note that you can not speak on channel once in the setup dialog until you exit it. Increase outgoing amplification if you're too quiet to other people, and incoming if you can't hear them well enough. Note that you need to shift-tab to find these sliders or you will become stuck in the hotkey field. If this happens, use your virtual cursor to move to the OK button and click it to get out of the dialog. Refer to the hotkey section below. The first slider is incoming amplification and will increase the volume of all people on channel to you. The second slider is outgoing amplification and is used in situations where your microphone boost is insufficient to give you a reasonable volume on Ventrilo. Please use the mixer of your soundcard and any Microphone boost before increasing the outbound amplifiers.
You can test how you would sound on channel by shift-tabbing back to the test with test button. press space on this button to toggle this mode on. Use your hotkey to open up the transmit path and listen to the results. Toggle this option off when you are done testing. Be sure that "Use Push To Talk Hot Key" is CHECKED, then click in the field next to "Hot Key" and choose a hot key to press when you want to be heard - we would recommend: right control. Tabbing to the field wil achieve the same results if not using a mouse. .
Depress your right control to talk and let go when you have finished talking. When you are not depressing the controlkey, the speaker icon next to your name is red. When it is depressed, the icon is green.
If you wish to use a key such as grave accent there are 2 extra steps you will need to take care of to make this work. Uncheck use direct input to detect hotkey and check discard hotkey so that the non-modifier key is not passed through to other applications. Note however that screen readers such as JAWS will still see these key events if they are closed and relaunched once ventrilo is open. To fix this, close Ventrilo, relaunch your screen reader and finally relaunch Ventrilo.
If you are using JAWS you may have some trouble setting certain options.
When setting the hot key in the preferences Window do the following:
when in the preferences dialog activate your normal cursor in the usual way for your Screen reader (by hitting numpad slash if you are using JAWS)
Tab through the dialog box.
When you reach the hotkey element, press the key you want for your push to talk hotkey
Escape from the hot key field by enabling your virtual cursor and moving to the OK button and
activating it with a left mouse click.
If you need to set other items in this dialog box that appear after the hotkey do it in reverse order with shift-tab.
If you have trouble with the cursor sticking in the phonetic spelling field during account setup, hit windows M to minimize all applications then alt tab back into Ventrilo.
We would prefer that members not use auto-vox, and only use push to talk, or if members are using auto-vox disable it if they are not talking for a long period of time. Wherever possible members should avoid the use of speakers as they have a tendancy to loop sound back onto channel. Unless configured correctly autovox on speakers will cause feedback.
We will all be in the lobby initially. We will move into the meeting channel when it is time to commence the meeting. To change channels, arrow down to the channel title and press enter. If you have text to speech enabled, a "now entering the meeting channel" message is spoken.
To enable text to speech, activate the setup button. Control-tab to the events tab. Hit space on the "all tts" button. You may then disable any tts events you are not interested in.
You will also need to be in the chat window. The chat is an IRC style text chat. We use this for members to ask questions and to interact with members who have issues with their audio setup.
To open the chat window, activate the chat button. Be sure to check the Enable TTS checkbox. This means that messages that are entered into the chat window will b automatically spoken.
We might need to optimize microphone levels initially, best to close skype if you are not using it it messes with microphone levels at times.
Also to save and restore audio settings google for quickmix and configure it if you can to quickly set things the way you like them.
The password field located in the Connection Editor is used if members are specifically setup on the Ventrilo server as registered users or if a global password is setup for the Ventrilo server. A global password will prevent unwanted users from logging into our Ventrilo server and thus make sure that only VICS members could connect to our server.
That field is located in the Connection Editor instead of the Username options because passwords change on a server-by-server basis. One server could have a password of "abc" while another server has a password of "123". By having the password field in the server options, you are specifying a password for just that one particular server.
Modified by Cearbhall O'Meadhra on 28 June 2011