Voice-Activated Mouse Clicks with MacSpeech Dictate

By Ricky Buchanan • December 1, 2008

This entry is part 7 of 15 in the series Speech-to-Text Compilation

One feature missing from the still-new MacSpeech Dictate program is the ability to control the mouse. This addition won’t let you control the movement of the mouse, but we can teach you how to use your voice for mouse clicks. For those who have the ability to move the mouse, this could make the difference between a usable computer system and an unusable computer system.

To insert the commands to generate mouse clicks into MacSpeech Dictate you’ll first need to download two files. Download the files by right clicking (or command clicking if you have a one-button mouse) on the files and selecting “Download Linked File” if you’re using Safari, or selecting “Save Link As…” if you’re using Firefox. Just leave them in your Downloads folder for now:

[Edit: I have put a zipped version of the Mouse Click commands here so we don't have so many problems with Safari changing the file name.]

First, double-click on the xtool-20.dmg file to open it up. Now you need to put the XTool.osax file in the directory /Library/ScriptingAdditions. Here’s step by step instructions for those who need them - if you don’t need the detailed instructions, just scroll down to the next section.

Open the Finder and select “Computer” from the “Go” menu, like this:

Reminder: You can click on any of the pictures here to see a larger image.

Your Finder window will switch to displaying all the disks on your computer. Unless you’ve renamed it, the main disk will be called Macintosh HD. Double-click on that disk to open it:

Now open the Library folder on the hard drive you just opened, again by double clicking it:

Now you need to create a new folder. Press shift-command-N or select “New Folder” from the Finder menu, and name the new folder ScriptingAdditions:

Double-click on your new folder to open it.

Now go back to the window you opened first - the XTool 2.0 that you downloaded. Drag the file XTool.osax from that window to your new ScriptingAdditions directory. When you’re done, your new directory should look like this:

That part makes the mouse-clicking commands available to AppleScript.

Now we have to put the AppleScript commands into MacSpeech Dictate. If your mouse-clicks.commandstext file is still zipped - it will have a zipper on the icon and the word “ZIP” - then double-click it to extract the regular file which will have a plain icon which looks like a sheet of paper. This part’s much easier - just open up MacSpeech Dictate and select “Command Import” from the “File” menu:

In the dialog box, go to the Downloads folder (or wherever you downloaded the file to) and select the file mouse-clicks.commandstext that you downloaded. MacSpeech Dictate will process for a moment, then you should see this dialog box:

That’s all!

Congraatulations - you now have four new commands within MacSpeech Dictate. They can be used while you’re in dictation mode or in command mode. These are the commands:

Mouse click
Mouse double click
Mouse right click
Mouse middle click

The names should be self explanatory, the first two commands use the left mouse button, the third command the right button (opens context menus) and the fourth command the middle button (not often used).

These commands won’t move the mouse for you, the mouse clicks happen at wherever the current mouse location is. But if you want to take some strain off that mousing hand, not having to press the buttons is a good start.

We’re working on commands to move the mouse, and undoubtedly the MacSpeech Dictate team are doing the same and these commands will feature in Dictate itself very soon. In the mean time, I think this is a useful stop-gap measure.

Special thanks for the information in this article goes to Everardo Verguizas who put most of this information together for me on the MacSpeech Dictate forums, Hiroto from the AppleScript Forum on Apple.com who found XTool which does the actual mouse clicking, and of course Jean-Baptiste Le Stang who wrote XTool in the first place and made it freely available. The only part I did was streamline the process and write this article. The original download site for XTool is http://lestang.org/osax/XTool/XTool-2.0.dmg.tgz, I have redistributed it here because I suspect many readers won’t have Stuffit available to uncompress .tgz files and I wanted the process to be as simple as possible.

Please let us know how this works (or doesn’t work) for you - leave a comment or three at the end of this post.

- Ricky Buchanan and Everardo Verguizas

If you are going to buy or upgrade MacSpeech Dictate or Dictate Medical online, please consider using the links in this article. If you do, I'll get a commission - a small percentage of the sale price. It won't cost you anything and it will help to support me and ATMac.

Series Navigation«MacSpeech Dictate Instructional VideosMacSpeech Dictate Global Commands List & Cheat Sheet for 1.2.1»

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Categories: Information, OS X, Overuse Injuries, Primary Switch Users, Speech to Text, Users
Tags: apple, carpal tunnel syndrome, control mouse with your voice, dictation to text, dragon for mac, features, minimize typing, mouse, mouse alternative, mouse replacement, overuse, overuse injury, repeditive strain injury, rsi, speech commands, speech recognition, Speech to Text, strain, talk to your mac, tendonitis, tension, voice commands, voice recognition, voice to text

About the Author

Ricky Buchanan

Ricky Buchanan is 34 years old and the founder and main writer for ATMac. She's bedridden with severe CFS/ME or perhaps a primary mitochondrial disorder - the doctors are not sure. When she's not working on ATMac or her other websites she composes music, listens to audio books, does other disability advocacy, watches TV with her flatmate, and enjoys her cat.

82 Comments For “Voice-Activated Mouse Clicks with MacSpeech Dictate”

Paul J Natsch Dec 2nd, 2008 at 3:36 am

Very interesting! Going to give this a try with games that require right-clicks.
Paul J Natsch Dec 2nd, 2008 at 5:22 am

Quick update: Just tried this with Neverwinter Nights in fullscreen and it works perfectly even with the game sound and music on! This bodes well for other games.
diane bechtler Dec 2nd, 2008 at 7:46 am

finding Macspeech Dictate commands has turned to a search for the Holy Grail

I found the Grail. You can too,

Open system preferences. Select the microphone. Select speech recognition. Select commands. Open the speakable items folder Check what you need,(I checked them all) copy paste and print. Globals are the most useful since they work in all apps
diane bechtler Dec 2nd, 2008 at 7:46 am

i posted a list at my website
Ricky Buchanan Dec 2nd, 2008 at 12:10 pm

@Paul: That’s fantastic! Keep me updated about it. Perhaps you could write it up for AssistiveGaming too?
Ricky Buchanan Dec 2nd, 2008 at 12:12 pm

@Diane: I hate to rain on your parade but Speakable Items isn’t the same thing as Dictate Globals as far as I know. They may be (mostly?) the same syntax but it’s not the same thing, I hate to tell you So even if it works now, I think if MacSpeech update their command syntax then it won’t change what’s in the Speakable Items folder.
MHB Dec 2nd, 2008 at 2:08 pm

I’m excited about mouseclicks, but stumped. I added the scripting addition, but when I click to download the second file, it opens as a webpage that I can’t retrieve using Dictate. I right-clicked to save to downloads folder and nothing happens. My downloads folder is gone from my dock these days (???).

Thank you for this!
Ricky Buchanan Dec 2nd, 2008 at 6:14 pm

@MHB: Do you mean you can’t find your Downloads folder at all? Try going to the Finder and then “Home” from the “Go” menu, it should show you a bunch of folders and one will be labeled “Downloads”. If you drag it back to the Dock it should appear again, and you can also double-click on it in the Finder to see what’s inside.

Let me know how you go!
MHB Dec 3rd, 2008 at 3:47 am

Thanks for that. I got my downloads folder back where it should be, but when I go to file/import commands there is a dialog box saying that the format better be compatible. I clicked okay on that and when I drill down to my downloads folder the file I need to select is grayed out and an active. Next ideas?
MHB Dec 3rd, 2008 at 4:12 am

Got it. The downloaded file had 2 extensions … .txt at the end which I removed.
Ricky Buchanan Dec 3rd, 2008 at 10:33 am

@MHB: Congratulations on your persistence! Hope it’s working usefully for you now
JW Dec 7th, 2008 at 1:39 am

I tried to import the mouse-clicks.commandstext file into MacSpeech Dictate. When the file window opened themouse-clicks.commandstext file was not highlighted as an available file to be imported.

I just updated MacSpeech Dictate to version 1.2 .1 could this be the problem?
MHB Dec 7th, 2008 at 11:44 am

I think what happened to me was the file had two extensions. After I deleted, I think it was .txt, it became an available file. Does that help?
JW Dec 7th, 2008 at 11:55 am

I removed the .txt extension from the file and still it would not highlight when I went and use the import command with Dictate. I exported a command set for Finder commands and then imported them successfully because they showed up available during the import Finder window.This is the file I downloaded off this page “mouse-clicks.commandstext” and I removed the .txt extension from it.

Kind of puzzling, maybe I’m doing something wrong not sure.
Ricky Buchanan Dec 7th, 2008 at 12:12 pm

@JW: Perhaps try downloading the command set again with right-click and save from the link instead of opening the file then saving it? All I can think is perhaps it’s got corrupted when you downloaded it or else it possibly *still* has 2 extensions on it? Have you checked exact filename with highlighting it in Finder and then command-I for to display info about file?
JW Dec 7th, 2008 at 12:30 pm

Thanks everybody, I went to my Finder Preferences and turned on the “Show all file extensions” checkbox and found the.txt extension I was unable to see. It is now highlighted and imported fine. I will play around with it and see how it works for me.

Thanks again
Ricky Buchanan Dec 7th, 2008 at 12:43 pm

@JW: Oh, fantastic! Hope it works well.
JW Dec 7th, 2008 at 1:20 pm

I have tried the Xtool commands and they work very well. I am a quadriplegic who will be purchasing a product called the Head Mouse Extreme and this would really make things easier for me. By being able to activate mouse clicks via MacSpeech Dictate I would not need to be tethered to my computer for buttons or switches to operate another mouse I use. One feature that would be really great would be a mouse click and drag command. I currently use the Airline 77 head set sold by MacSpeech. I am free to roam around and dictate at will without having to be attached to any computer. Hopefully MacSpeech will bring out some mouse command enhancements soon.
Ricky Buchanan Dec 7th, 2008 at 3:07 pm

@JW: The click-and-drag is next on our list, actually, so stay tuned! I’d love to have you write up a bit about your experiences of making things accessible, anything relevant would be great if you’d like to write it
JW Dec 8th, 2008 at 1:05 am

I would like to let you know how it works when it gets released. Sounds good to me.
MHB Dec 8th, 2008 at 8:48 am

Unfortunately, it’s not working for me. Due to problems with the update for Dictate, I had to do a complete uninstall and reinstall of Dictate, download the update, create a new profile and then rerun this procedure. The commands show in the available commands window but nothing happens when I speak them. I am still having problems with Dictate also. I am just about to give up completely on Dictate, not just because of problems with the recent update and their lack of ability to incorporate mouse functions by now, but because I’ve been frustrated with them ever since I bought iListen which was a piece of crud.
Ricky Buchanan Dec 8th, 2008 at 10:48 pm

@MHB: That really sucks. I hope you can find a solution that works for you.
Greg Dec 10th, 2008 at 10:41 am

I have just upgraded to MacSpeech 1.2.1. And I’ve have successfully installed your command. However, using it is another story — for example, while in Safari I say the words “mouse click” then this page scrolls down only. I can’t seem to get it to do anything else. If I’m in the finder nothing happens at all. Am I doing something wrong? Could it be a conflict with this upgrade? This is exactly what I’ve been looking for and I really want to get it to work even if it means downgrading to 1.0 [ not that that would be much of a downgrade ]
Ricky Buchanan Dec 10th, 2008 at 11:50 am

@Greg: It should work fine with version 1.2.1. Are you having trouble with any other commands not doing the right thing, or is MacSpeech working as it should except for these mouse commands? Are you using Leopard or Tiger?
Greg Dec 12th, 2008 at 4:25 am

My OS is leopard. I did some further investigation, and noticed, first, that many of my global commands are duplicated in the command window, e.g. there are 2 file close, file new etc. Also, I followed Diane’s instructions to find Macspeech’s commands and all I found in that folder were a bunch of commands most likely from an old install of ViaVoice. I have also “successfully” installed the mouse click command — it even shows up in my list of globals, but when I quit and reopen MacSpeech, they are gone. I too am a quadriplegic who uses the head mouse, and I fear I may have to abandon the Mac and get a PC with Dragon. That would be one of the saddest days of my life. Any suggestions? BTW, fantastic website — please keep up the good work!
Greg Dec 12th, 2008 at 4:44 am

Correction: you are correct, the speakable items folder contains commands for use with Mac’s built-in voice commands. Commands for Macspeech are contained in one file in the application support folder, so one cannot remove or add from there.
Greg Dec 12th, 2008 at 4:48 am

One more thing: I should have mentioned in my first post today that despite the duplicate commands, and they all work fine except for the mouseclick commands.
Ricky Buchanan Dec 12th, 2008 at 12:29 pm

@Greg: There’s an article in the MacSpeech Dictate knowledgebase about duplicate commands appearing and what to do about it. I suspect if you do what they tell you, your mouse commands may be deleted and you may have to import the AppleScript commands again (from second last picture in this article). Let me know if that helps at all.
Ricky Buchanan Dec 12th, 2008 at 12:40 pm

For anybody still having trouble, including Greg and MHB, could you please follow these steps:

1. Open the Applications folder, then the Utilities folder inside it, then the application “Terminal”.
2. Copy and paste this command into the terminal:
ls -l /Library/ScriptingAdditions
and then copy and paste your results into a comment or email to me. The results will probably look very much like this:
total 0 drwxr-xr-x 3 rickybuchanan admin 102 26 Feb 2007 XTool.osax
3. Open your MacSpeech dictate program and select “Commands” from the “Tools” menu. A window with your commands will appear - on the left side of the window select “Globals” and then scroll down to find the commands beginning with the word “Mouse”. Select each one and just check what’s in the window marked “Source” - are any of them blank? If so, which ones?
4. Are you having any other trouble at all with any MacSpeech Dictate functions or commands? Is everything working perfectly?
4. Post your results here, or email to atmacjournal@gmail.com along with any other information that might be relevant.

Thanks! This will hopefully help me sort out what’s going on - whether my instructions don’t work for everybody, or if it’s somehow hitting another MacSpeech Dictate bug.
Bob Wines Dec 15th, 2008 at 3:37 pm

Dear Ricky,
I have tried to insert the “click” into Dictate as you have instructed but can’t select the mouse-clicks.commandstext.text to be imported as it is “greyed out”.
How do I get over this and select? Have inserted the XTool-2.0 as instructed.
Bob Wines.

[Comment moved from contact page by Admin.]
Ricky Buchanan Dec 15th, 2008 at 3:45 pm

@Bob: I suggest you turn on “Show all file extensions” in the Finder’s preferences - it seems that a .txt extension is getting appended when Safari downloads the file and you need to remove this before it can be imported. The file name needs to be simply mouse-clicks.comandstext with no other extensions to work properly.
Bob Wines Dec 15th, 2008 at 5:50 pm

Had done both before but it worked this time. Immediately got a fatal error but had typed cl in the search window of the dictate available commands(crashing when doing this has often happened in the past.)
You seem to be providing a wonderful service to those with impairement.
I wonder if you faced this problem with those using dictate or similiar. When I open a saved Word Document (say a letterhead) when I open it the insertion point is always at the top of the document when below the letterhead when saved.
Do you know how to get the insertion point below the letterhead either by saving it with the insertion point below or having a Command which will move the insertion point down (say 10 lines) after it has been opened.
I realise there was a Command in iListen but I suspect it may have worked only in the context of previously dictated material.
Would be useful for those wishing to use their own letterhead.
Many Thanks,
Bob Wines.
Tbone Dec 16th, 2008 at 9:33 am

I do not see mouse-clicks.commandstext file. Can someone point the location out to me?

TIA

Tbone
Polly Dec 16th, 2008 at 11:32 am

If what you need is the ability to click, doubleclick and right-click the mouse by voice, the shareware application Extra Suites [$10] lets you write Applescript to do those actions by voice using speakable items.

tell application “Extra Suites”
ES click mouse
end tell

tell application “Extra Suites”
ES click mouse with double click
end tell

I didn’t write these; I was given them by a helper on the Macscripter forum.
Lenny Rothbart Dec 16th, 2008 at 12:29 pm

There’s also the $10 AppleScript extension package which includes mouse click AND positioning commands, among other useful commands. The latest version dates back to OS 9, but it’s been working fine for me up through OS 10.4.11, & I’m guessing it’s probably fine with OS 10.5. Years ago, back when I was using ViaVoice, I had programmed a command that emulated Dragon’s Mouse Grid, allowing me to zero in on progressively smaller portions of the screen until the mouse was in the position I wanted (I couldn’t get it to actually draw the gridlines that delineated a nine-box area, but I got pretty good at estimating visually where they were). A version for Dictate will have to wait until MacSpeech starts including numeric variables in their AppleScript library — they obviously *have* capability for numeric variables, as they are used in such built-in commands as “Move Forward/Backward Words,” but so far they haven’t made them accessible to users.
Ricky Buchanan Dec 16th, 2008 at 1:22 pm

@TBone: Sorry about that, I accidentally messed up the coding in the article yesterday and hid the links! You can find them at the top of the article now.

@Lenny, @Polly: This XTools is essentially the same in functionality as the mouse clicks in ExtraSuites, but it’s free. The article’s only long because I walk people step by step through placing the scripting addition and importing the applescript commands - lots of people have trouble with that.
SK Dec 16th, 2008 at 4:20 pm

I am lost. I was able to download the Xtool, but not the mouse click commands from this page. When I double click on it, it shows the commands, but does not download them. If I drag it to the desktop from this page, I get an http document. I cannot import it into Mac Speech Dictate. I tried to change the settings as stated above to show all file extensions, but that does not help.
Any ideas? I am running 10.5.5 and have Mac Speech Dictate 1.2.1.
Martin Surrey Dec 16th, 2008 at 6:35 pm

I have followed your instructions , but I got to importing the Mouse click commands it was not an active file highlighted in my desktop folder. So I can not select it to import it. Also the XTool 2.0 is not active on my dexktop either. Even though I have followed your instruction for that part and it went ok. So the issue is that I cannot import the downloaded file Mouse click Commands.

Martin
Ricky Buchanan Dec 16th, 2008 at 10:53 pm

@SK, @Martin: I have replaced the Mouse Click Commands file with a zipped version so that Safari will stop messing with the file extension. I suggest you download the zipped version which is now listed at the top and install that.

@Martin: The XTools file will never be able to be double clicked so don’t worry about it. As long as you’ve put it in the right place per instructions, it will work.
Tbone Dec 17th, 2008 at 1:54 am

Ricky,

Worked like a charm! Thanks so much.

Tbone
SK Dec 17th, 2008 at 7:27 am

Forgive me for my ignorance. I double clicked on the Mouse Click Commands file above and it downloaded as a 2.6 kb file into my download window. However, the icon is a blank page and when I double click on it, it tells me, “Safari can’t open the file “mouse-clicks-1.commandstext” because no available application can open it.”

I had Stuffit and DropZip, but I just downloaded the free Stuffit Expander as I figured mine was dated. The mouse-click file from the download still will not open. Now when I click on DropZip, it tells me, “DropZip will not work without Stuffit Engine. Please reinstall from the original installer.”

I have Stuffit and DropZip and reinstalled Stuffit again from the download but it still does not work.

Can you help me or tell me where I need to write to get help. I really need the ability to click the mouse with these commands.

Thanks.
SK Dec 17th, 2008 at 7:46 am

OK, Theoretically, I got it to import as a command, but it doesn’t work. When I say, “Mouse Click”….it prints out the word mouse click.

I really don’t think it was zipped open.

Help!
Greg Dec 17th, 2008 at 8:35 am

Ricky, the mysteries of the computer never cease to amaze me, often times defying logic: I copied the line of text into terminal and continued to follow your instructions to prepare to send you an e-mail. I thought I would try to use the commands once more to make sure that they didn’t work — now they do work! I can’t begin to tell you how important these commands will be to my quality of life — this is not hyperbole! Please keep up the great work you are doing — looking forward to the drag command!
Ricky Buchanan Dec 17th, 2008 at 8:52 pm

@SK: Ignorance is always forgivable in people like you who are willing to learn! It sounds like Safari is automatically unzipping the file for you if the icon is a blank page already. So you don’t need to double-click on it, just proceed to the next part of the instructions. I’m not sure where you got up to in the instructions from what you’ve written - did you get the “Command import successful” dialog box as shown in the last picture?

Also, when you say “Mouse click” does it print the words into your document literally, or do you mean the words are shown under the status window like a recognized command?
Ricky Buchanan Dec 17th, 2008 at 8:53 pm

@Greg: Computers are indeed bizarre and strange in their behaviour - I’ve had similar things happen myself! I’m just glad it’s working for you now, and thank you sincerely for the praise, it’s greatly appreciated.
SK Dec 17th, 2008 at 8:59 pm

Yes, I got the dialog box that say “Command import Successful” and when I say, “Mouse click” it literally prints the words in the document.
atmacjournal (Ricky Buchanan) Dec 18th, 2008 at 5:40 am

I’d appreciate the stumblers among us stumbling “Voice-Activated Mouse Clicks with MacSpeech Dictate” http://is.gd/cjyq
Ricky Buchanan Dec 19th, 2008 at 12:20 am

@SK: I am baffled. Would you mind doing this for me: open your MacSpeech dictate program and select “Commands” from the “Tools” menu. A window with your commands will appear - on the left side of the window select “Globals” and then scroll down to find the commands beginning with the word “Mouse”. Firstly, are the four mouse commands there? Are the checkboxes beside them ticked like all the other commands? Select each one and just check what’s in the window marked “Source” - are any of them blank? If so, which ones?

Thanks for your persistance!
SK Dec 19th, 2008 at 8:02 am

Hi again. I tried it, but there are no commands with the word Mouse under Globals for me to select. Therefore, it doesn’t seem to be installed.

Any more ideas? I really do need this. The mouse is the hardest part of the computer for me.

Thanks,
SK
Ricky Buchanan Dec 19th, 2008 at 1:33 pm

@SK: I suggest you download and import the mouse commands again - just the mouse-clicks.commandstext part of it, not the XTools part. If they’re not there something must have gone wrong somewhere with the importing. Best of luck!
SK Dec 20th, 2008 at 7:26 pm

I followed the directions again. It is still not working. When I download the mouse-click command from this page, it appears within a second or two. Should it take longer? Again, I am not unzipping it, it appears as a blank page.

I tells me it has imported the command, but it doesn’t work. Again, when I say, “Mouse click”, it prints the words mouse click into my document.
Ricky Buchanan Dec 21st, 2008 at 10:51 am

@SK: It’s a very small file, and Safari’s probably unzipping it for you so those things shouldn’t matter. I can’t think of anything else that could be happening though, so if you email me at atmacjournal@gmail.com I’ll email you the file and we can keep poking at it that way. Don’t dispair - we’ll get it sorted out!
Steven Blue Dec 21st, 2008 at 11:16 am

Thank you for the printable lists of Dictate commands. I printed up the entire Dictate User’s manual, though I haven’t had the time to read and reread it to learn all the commands.
Yes, it would be nice to have more commands for different programs.
Thanks again
sjb
SK Dec 21st, 2008 at 8:12 pm

Thank you Ricky,

Once I got the file e-mailed to me (zipped), I unzipped it and followed the directions to import the command and now it works!!

Thanks!

Please let me know if anyone figures out how to move the mouse with this program.

SK
Grahame Wilson Dec 31st, 2008 at 11:10 pm

Hello Ricky,
Thanks for you’re efforts.

I’ve followed most of the hints you’ve given but….
The click commands were “successfully installed”. The commands all turn up in the list of global commands. When I say “MouseClick”, the words appear in the Status window, as do the other Mouse commands…..but Nothing else happens.
Ricky Buchanan Jan 1st, 2009 at 1:13 am

@Grahame: please follow these steps:

1. Open the Applications folder, then the Utilities folder inside it, then the application “Terminal”.
2. Copy and paste this command into the terminal:
ls -l /Library/ScriptingAdditions
and then copy and paste your results into a comment or email to me. The results will probably look very much like this:
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 3 rickybuchanan admin 102 26 Feb 2007 XTool.osax
3. Open your MacSpeech dictate program and select “Commands” from the “Tools” menu. A window with your commands will appear - on the left side of the window select “Globals” and then scroll down to find the commands beginning with the word “Mouse”. Select each one and just check what’s in the window marked “Source” - are any of them blank? If so, which ones?
4. Are you having any other trouble at all with any MacSpeech Dictate functions or commands? Is everything working perfectly?
4. Post your results here, or email to atmacjournal@gmail.com along with any other information that might be relevant.

Thanks! This will hopefully help me sort out what’s going on - whether my instructions don’t work for everybody, or if it’s somehow hitting another MacSpeech Dictate bug.
Grahame Wilson Jan 1st, 2009 at 12:32 pm

happy New Year Ricky,
I began following your instructions, then realised that in scripting additions, I had not opened the file xtool-20.dmg. Once this was done, everything worked fine. However, I’m now discovering that after multiple uses the mouse click command seems to lock up. It acts as though there is a queue of commands causing a traffic jam. Closing and reopening the programme clears the problem.
Once again, thanks for your help. Enjoy 2009.
Larry Jan 4th, 2009 at 3:51 am

I have not had much success with clicking the mouse by voice. when I open the commands box I find them listed however, it says, “click mouse,” and “click mouse times 2″ and so forth. When I use the commands in an application they are not executed.

What can I do to solve this problem?

Larry Jay
Ricky Buchanan Jan 5th, 2009 at 8:18 pm

@Grahame: I’m very glad your problem is resolved! I haven’t come across the locking up before, but I don’t actually use these commands myself so if it takes a while I might not have hit it. I use dwell clicking as it suits me better.

@Larry: Please go through the steps outlined 3 comments up for people who are having trouble and let me know the results. Then I can figure out what might be the problem.
David O'Connor Jan 8th, 2009 at 9:44 am

Greetings and a Happy New Year to everybody from New Zealand!

I have been using MacSpeech Dictate, for a few months now and I find it to be excellent.

Many grateful thanks, for the tip on inserting mouse clicking into the software. I have had a stretch in bed, and instead of my usual Headmaster Control System with puff switch for clicking, I have been using the SmartNav system which is more suitable in a lying down situation. Clicking using its own dwell or voice certainly does work okay but it is would be very useful to have the clicking incorporated into MacSpeech Dictate.

With mouse clicking in MacSpeech Dictate would it be possible to;

1. — a command for drag
2. — change the spoken command to a different word. For example;zap, instead of “mouse click” etc.

Any thoughts, hints, or advice on achieving this would be gratefully appreciated.

Cheers,

David
Larry Jan 8th, 2009 at 2:47 pm

Thanks for the reply. this is what i got: Last login: Mon Jan 5 06:59:28 on console
larry-jordans-imac:~ larryjay$ ls -l /Library/ScriptingAdditionsls -l /Library/ScriptingAdditions
—-Hope this helps.

this is what is listed for each one, In order from top to bottom:
click mouse
click mouse times
click mouse times 1 using middle button
and click mouse times 1 using secondary button
And now, am I having problems otherwise. By dictation recognition I believe he is very good. I would like to test its accuracy on a more permanent basis. In regards to commands, very often they do not work. It is possible that tied it will design custom commands may be three or four at once, and one or two of them simply do not work. I have checked the spelling, invisible space is and other things that I could imagine might cause a problem, but it is always to no avail. Some commands work all of the time, however they are at the simple ones.

Thank you for your attention and help in this matter as it is greatly appreciated.

Larry Jay

PS: I used to MacSpeech Dictate to insert the preceding comment, without error. So that portion works and so does he base spelling mode.
Ricky Buchanan Jan 8th, 2009 at 9:14 pm

@David: Usually longer commands are recognised better, which is why I used “mouse click”, but you can certainly change it to suit yourself. Here’s how:

Open your MacSpeech dictate program and select “Commands” from the “Tools” menu. A window with your commands will appear - on the left side of the window select “Globals” and then scroll down to find the commands you want to change. When you’ve selected the right command, just edit the field labelled “Command” then press enter - bingo, new name.

It seems from my testing that you need to quit MacSpeech Dictate and then start the program again for the new names to be properly recognized, but I am not certain that this.

Let me know how you go!
Ricky Buchanan Jan 8th, 2009 at 9:16 pm

@Larry: if your other MacSpeech Dictate commands are not working fully this is probably affecting the mouse click commands also. I suggest that you contact the support team at MacSpeech Dictate and resolve those issues first. Best of luck.
Larry Jan 10th, 2009 at 1:41 am

I want to thank you Ricky, for all your help. I got the mouse clicks to work. My general problem with commands, I think is my use of them. I will go back to square one for doing all but the most easy and often used commands. The others seemed to be intermittent in their behavior. Possibly MacSpeech support can help with that.

Again thank you so much for your help with this and the other efforts you and your team makes toward making MacSpeech Dictate usable.

Larry Jay
Ricky Buchanan Jan 10th, 2009 at 11:23 am

@Larry: That’s fantastic! I’m really glad you got the commands working, especially the mouse click commands. Can you explain what you changed to get them working, in case anybody else has the same problem?
David Jan 25th, 2009 at 2:29 pm

I am confused. I have downloaded everything, and imported the commands. The commands show up in my commands listing, and contain the simple AppleScript such as “click mouse times 1 using middle button”or such.
However, none of the commands for mouse bring any result. (Except in dictation, such as the other users have seen.)
When I click Run to test them, I get a syntax error “A identifier can’t go after this identifier.”
I played with AppleScript to to make a mouse command click on a certain spot on the screen (x,y) but then that is not really using the variable position of the mouse.
Ricky Buchanan Jan 26th, 2009 at 1:03 am

@David: Have you followed the instructions for installing the XTool file also? It sounds as if this may be missing. Check it’s done correctly and then try clicking ‘run’ on the AppleScripts again to see if they work.

If this doesn’t fix the problem, please take the steps 1-5 which I have posted for others having trouble- most recently Grahaeme. Just look at previous comments. Best of luck.
David Jan 26th, 2009 at 4:39 am

I reinstalled the x-tool, and now it works! Thank you
Ricky Buchanan Jan 26th, 2009 at 2:10 pm

@David: That’s fantastic! Glad you’ve got it working
Grant Sonnex Feb 19th, 2009 at 10:16 am

so glad I have bumped into your work. Seems like you are doing great things here. I have just switched from using Dragon NaturallySpeaking professional on Microsoft-based machines to using MacSpeech on a new Apple laptop. I didn’t realise how many of the facilities would be missing, but being able to use your mouse click commands at least restore something very useful — so thank you so much. I have also downloaded the global commands that you have listed (Heaven knows why the manufacturers don’t supply such things), and it would also be great to have the application-specific commands for mail, Safari, pages. Is that still work in progress, or are they now available somewhere? Thank you again for your invaluable help
Ricky Buchanan Feb 20th, 2009 at 12:18 pm

@Grant: Glad it’s helpful to you! I’m still working on the application specific lists, the Mail one is first and should be available very soon. Best of luck.
Ken Brooks Apr 3rd, 2009 at 1:40 am

I just installed this and it works. I’m really excited about it! Now, I want to take it to the next level.

I’m a computer programmer. I’m willing to dig into things. I looked into the text of mouse-clicks.commandstext. Eek! there is some complicated stuff in there! But what I’d really like to do is change it to use shorter words of my own choosing to activate the clicks. For example, “clicko”, “clicktwo”. Can you tell me how I might accomplish this?
Ricky Buchanan Apr 3rd, 2009 at 11:01 am

@Ken: Luckily for you, there’s an easier way than editing that file! It’s in MacSpeech Dictate’s export/inport format so it’s not meant for human editing. Longer commands are generally recognised better which is why we used them, but here’s how to change the names:

Open your MacSpeech dictate program and select “Commands” from the “Tools” menu. A window with your commands will appear - on the left side of the window select “Globals” and then scroll down to find the commands you want to change (they’re in alphabetical order). When you’ve selected the right command, just edit the field labelled “Command” then press enter - bingo, new name.

Best of luck!
Brian Koukol Apr 6th, 2009 at 11:25 pm

I installed everything as specified and I had a similar problem to some of the other posters. The words mouse click appear just like any other command or dictated word under the little dictation window, but the mouse button does not actually get clicked. This is the message I got when I went into terminal:

drwxrwxr-x 3 kurumaisu admin 102 Jan 21 12:57 Adobe Unit Types.osax
drwxr-xr-x 3 kurumaisu admin 102 Feb 25 2007 XTool.osax

The source seems to be correct in the command list as well, but when I click run under where you can look at the source, I get this error
AppleScript Error
«script» doesn’t understand the click mouse message.
Jim Oliver Apr 25th, 2009 at 6:35 am

Hi Ricky
I just installed the mouse click scripts from your website. They work for me. If someone could come up with scripts for moving the mouse around it would make my day.
Take care
Jim
Frances Leckie May 15th, 2009 at 2:02 am

Hi Ricky

I’m just going to echo the comments above, and say thank you very much for your “mouse clicks”!

I have just installed MacDictate - really impressed with the dictation, but seriously frustrated about the lack of mouse moving commands. I got used to “mouse anywhere” with ilisten, and that was great.

Really appreciate your efforts!

All the best

Frances
Ricky Buchanan May 20th, 2009 at 10:47 pm

@Jim: I’m glad the mouse click scripts are helping you. I’m working on an article about scripts for moving the mouse around using Dictate and a program called Maestro actually - you might want to try it yourself without an article if you are feeling brave! I’m pretty sick at the moment so it may be a while before articles get done, unfortunately.
Frances Leckie May 28th, 2009 at 11:32 pm

Hello Ricky

Really sorry to hear that you are not well at the moment — I hope that you will be feeling better soon, and I really appreciate you taking the time to respond to me.

I am so happy to be able to use Dictate to write like this, and I am feeling brave, so I would like to experiment with Maestro — but I can’t find it!

Is there a website where I can download it?

All good wishes

Frances
Ricky Buchanan May 31st, 2009 at 9:07 pm

@Frances: Jim very kindly send me the URLs that you need: Keyboard Maestro is the program, found at http://www.keyboardmaestro.com/

You can see documentation of the actions available at http://www.keyboardmaestro.com/documentation/3/actions.html

Let us know how you go!
Rick Martin Jun 19th, 2009 (3 weeks ago) at 4:31 am

The fact that Macspeech comes out with a medical version before developing a full correction feature, or mousegrid feature baffles me!!!??? I have Vista on Bootcamp with dragon 10 which blows Dictate away … but the free VR that comes on Vista is still better than Dictate and now has a pre beta macro feature!
jonathan Jun 21st, 2009 (2 weeks ago) at 1:57 am

I just upgraded Mac Dictate 1.5, can’t create a voice profile after 2-3 weeks working with Customer Support. I don’t have my old MAc Dcitate discs (the data disc was corrupted to re-install

The Mac Dictate Technical Support team dooesn’t know what’s wrong with the new upgrade, they have sent me a version 1.5.2 in order to fix the problem (clearly a more debugged version), they are escalating the issue to “technical mangement”.

I don’t have the old MAc Dictate discs on hand (they are sitting my in my office in Indonesia. The install went ok with Mac Dictate Tech Support but the system crashes when I try to create a voice profile.

Bottom line: if you buy the upgarede and this happens we pay for this Mac Dictate 1.5 upgrade upgrade, but installing disbles the old version. It seems like this is a less then ready-to-go Beta version of 1.5. The result is users in my situation are left “dead in the water” concerning Msc Dictate. I understand they are trying to iporve their product for our benefit, but should be careful not to disable the old version whilst installing a less than stable upgrade. The company;s response to me to is to thank me for my patience, until they are able to come up with a resolution.

I’d appreacaite any feedback from others with similar difficulties and if you came up with any solutions. I use a Mac Mice USB microphone and I’m not sure if the new Snowball microphone may be a better USB microphone, does anyone know if “the Snowball usb microphone” is Mac Dictate 1.5 compatible?

Looking forward to your feedback,

Jonthan
Paul Natsch Jun 23rd, 2009 (2 weeks ago) at 2:53 am

I just got the new MacSpeech Dictate version 1.5 upgrade as well but have experienced no problems with it. In fact it is noticeably better than the previous version. I still think the upgrade cost was ridiculous but I’ll definitely get my money’s worth out of it. I’m sorry to hear you’re having problems though.

Off the top of my head have you tried deleting the preference files, or at least removing them and putting them somewhere else, forcing MacSpeech Dictate to create a fresh set of preferences? If you have trouble locating the correct files let me know and I’ll do some digging for you.

You might also want to try the MacSpeech Dictate forums on their website. Other MacSpeech Dictate users congregate there and might be able to help you. I was just reading through some posts there and I came across the following:

“The first thing I try is to delete my profile, clear all my caches on my computer, and create a brand-new profile. This generally fixes the problem. By clearing my caches, I mean that I run a program called Onyx. It’s a free application available for download from many places on the Web. When I use it, I run all the “automated” tasks, such as clearing the system cache, the user cache, the Spotlight index, running the periodic UNIX tasks, etc. Then, with Dictate not running, I delete all of my user profiles.
From time to time, I have also had to completely reinstall the entire application. This requires that you delete all things MacSpeech from your computer and load the application from the very beginning again. The process takes a very short time.”

I don’t know if any of these things will help you but perhaps it couldn’t hurt to try? Please let me know if you find a solution.

Paul

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