Speech-enabled Applications On The Emacspeak Desktop

This document catalogs the speech-enabled applications available on the Emacspeak desktop. Note that depending on your Emacs installation, you may need to download and install extra applications to avail yourself of all of the features of the Emacspeak audio desktop. Emacs applications can be located via the various Emacs Lisp archives such as ELPA and MELPA.

Speech-Enabled Applications

Application Categories

As of the last update, there are a total of 207 speech-enabled applications in 15 categories on the Emacspeak audio desktop.

  1. DOCUMENTATION (5)
  2. DESKTOP (11)
  3. FINDERS (13)
  4. WEB (16)
  5. GOOGLE CLIENT (8)
  6. MESSAGING (17)
  7. CALENDARING (4)
  8. SHELL (7)
  9. TASKBAR (3)
  10. MULTIMEDIA (16)
  11. AUTHORING (15)
  12. READING (15)
  13. PRODUCTIVITY (30)
  14. PROGRAMMING (37)
  15. DISTRACTIONS (10)

Speech-enabled applications on the Emacspeak audio desktop.

DOCUMENTATION (5)

1 info Emacs' online hypertext documentation system. Emacspeak uses audio formatting to highlight menus and hyperlinks.
2 help Speech-enabled online help across the audio desktop.
3 man UNIX online manual browser with full aural highlighting and structured browsing.
4 woman Support for WoMan, the UNIX Man page reader implemented as a native Emacs application.
5 devdocs Browse downloaded devdocs.io documentation in Emacs.

DESKTOP (11)

1 ido Efficiently find buffers and files on the audio desktop --- the IDo way.
2 ibuffer Tool for locating open buffers on the audio desktop.
3 iswitchb Quickly switch to buffers on the audio desktop.
4 bs Tool for locating open buffers on the audio desktop.
5 buff-menu Browsing and selecting buffers on the audio desktop.
6 buff-sel Interactive selection of buffers on the audio desktop.
7 yasg Pattern-based selection of open buffers.
8 speedbar Context-sensitive browsing tool. Provides seamless browsing of the entire file system or a single file with the same consistent interface.
9 elscreen Speech-enables package ElScreen for managing Emacs window layouts.
10 sawfish Speech-enables the Sawfish window-manager.
11 DBus Support for DBus integration.

FINDERS (13)

1 dired Browse and operate on files and folders.
2 wdired Edit filenames within dired as a means of moving and renaming files.
3 ffap Find file or url at point.
4 locate File browser interface for finding files.
5 find-dired Seamless integration between the file browser and finder.
6 find-grep Using grep with find. also, se igrep.
7 efs Front-end to remote file access using an FTP back-end.
8 tramp Front-end to remote file access using SSH backend.
9 finder Package browser for locating installed applications.
10 rpm Client for browsing installed RPM packages.
11 Find Wizard Command emacspeak-wizards-generate-finder provides an easy to use front-end to UNIX find.
12 apt-get Emacs interface to Debian apt-get
13 elpa Support for the Emacs Lisp Package Archive.

WEB (16)

1 eww Built-in, Standards-compliant WWW browser with Aural CSS support.
2 w3 Standards-compliant WWW browser with Aural CSS support.
3 piglets Integrates Emacspeak with Firefox, with Fire-Vox providing spoken output through the emacspeak TTS server.
4 w3m Light-weight WWW browser. Does not support table navigation, CSS or Aural CSS, but can be fast and light-weight.
5 mozrepl Speech-enabled bridge between Emacs and the MozREPL extenxion for Firefox.
6 url-template Emacspeak client that provides programmable URL templates. Pre-defined templates offer easy access to W3C mailing lists, CNN sites etc.
7 EmapSpeak Audio-formatted access to Google Maps
8 webspace Emacspeak tool for displaying continuously updating headers, and browsing conveniently setup hypertext links to WebSpace content.
9 websearch Emacspeak websearch client with single click access to popular search engines. Once selected, the searcher prompts for the relevant input, performs the search, and speaks the result. In addition, see the Web wizards in Emacspeak Wizards.
10 webspace Emacspeak WebSpace --- provides interaction-free information access.
11 xslt Ability to apply XSL transforms to Web content before it is displayed.
12 lynx Single key interface for invoking lynx in an appropriately customized terminal buffer.
13 net-utils Front-end to networking tools.
14 babel Access Internet translation services.
15 mozrepl Connect to Firefox.
16 google Support for Google search --- including the Google tool-belt for refining searches.

GOOGLE CLIENT (8)

1 gblogger Blogger dclient using Atom Publishing Protocol.
2 greader Google Reader client using ATOM and REST.
3 gcal Google Calendar client using ATOM and GData.
4 gmaps Google Maps (V2) API client, that enables Maps exploration.
5 gphoto Google Picasa (photo albums) client using ATOM and GData.
6 gdocs Enables publishing documents to Google Docs from within Emacs using org-mode for authoring content.
7 gweb Provides a highly efficient suite of WebSearch utilities using Google's AJAX Search API.
8 gfeeds Provides efficient access to Blogs using Google's AJAX BlogSearch APIs.

MESSAGING (17)

1 vm Mail reader featuring full mime support.
2 bbdb Manages email addresses and other contact information by seamlessly integrating with messaging applications.
3 eudc Universal Directory Client including LDAP support and seamless integration with messaging applications.
4 gnus Usenet news and email client with support for exotic information backends such as Slashdot etc.
5 elfeed Feed reader for Emacs
6 newsticker Speech-enabled NewsTicker, a native Emacs RSS reader.
7 amphetadesk Emacs front-end to AmphetaDesk
8 rss Speech-enabled RSS viewer for RSS 0.9, RSS 1.0 and RSS 2.0
9 atom Speech-enabled ATOM viewer.
10 message Email composition from within other applications.
11 supercite Enables flexible citations when composing email.
12 erc Internet Relay Chat (IRC) client with voice locking support and parallel chat sessions.
13 emacs-jabber Speech-enables emacs-jabber, an Emacs Jabber client available from Sourceforge.
14 gnuyahoo GNUYahoo is a Yahoo messenger client.
15 mspools Interface for working with multiple mail spools; allows easy browsing of automatically archived mail.
16 mh-e Interface to the MH suite of email tools.
17 rmail Email client.

CALENDARING (4)

1 calendar Desktop calendar with an integrated appointment book.
2 diary Speech-enabled diary via EDiary.
3 appointments Speech-enabled appointments via the Emacs calendar.
4 todo Speech-enabled ToDo Lists.

SHELL (7)

1 shell Runs interactive command interpreters like BASH and TCSH.
2 ansi-colors Applies Aural CSS ACSS properties to convert ansi color codes to appropriate voice changes to produce audio formatted output.
3 eterm Speech-enabled terminal client for running full-screen applications like VI, Lynx and PINE.
4 ssh Front-end to SSH.
5 eshell Command shell implemented in Emacs Lisp, making it independent of the underlying operating system.
6 comint Support for running generic command interpreters.
7 xml-shell Interactive shell for browsing XML structures via libxml and XMLLint.

TASKBAR (3)

1 proced Proced is part of Emacs 23, and provides a front-end for monitoring and controlling processes.
2 view-process Front-end for monitoring and controlling processes.
3 analog Analog.el provides a log analyzer that can be customized to display system log files with a few convenient keystrokes.

MULTIMEDIA (16)

1 aumix Emacspeak front-end for configuring the auditory display.
2 cd-tool Control CD player from anywhere on the audio desktop.
3 mpg123 Play mp3 files, with keyboard access to all functions.
4 alsaplayer Play MP3 and OGG streams using ALSA.
5 zinf Play media streams using zinf.
6 madplay Play MP3 and OGG streams using Madplay.
7 vlc Play media streams. Includes presets for single click access to favorite streams.
8 mplayer Play Internet Media streams. Includes presets for single click access to favorite streams.
9 empv Play Internet Media streams. Player of choice for Youtube.
10 vuiet Discover and play music
11 sox Audio workbench for the Emacspeak desktop.
12 tune-in Search, Browse and play Internet radio stations
13 pianobar Play Pandora radio using the Open Source Pianobar command-line client.
14 librivox API client for listening to free Librivox audio books.
15 emms Emacs equivalent of XMMS --- a versatile multimedia tool. Provides a consistent user interface to a variety of media players.
16 midge Compose and play MIDI files.

AUTHORING (15)

1 nxml XML authoring environment by James Clark. Provides on the fly validation and voice locking.
2 xae XML authoring environment based on PSGML and XSL. Enables structured document authoring and interactive preview.
3 psgml Environment for authoring and maintaining XML and SGML documents. Provides structured authoring support including context-sensitive help based on current DTD.
4 tdtd Author and maintain XML and SGML DTD files.
5 xslt-process Interactive environment for working with XSLT.
6 auctex Authoring environment for TeX and LaTeX documents; template based authoring, voice locking support and structured browsing.
7 rst Authoring environment for RST documents. and LaTeX documents; template based authoring, voice locking support and structured browsing.
8 bibtex Maintain BIBTeX bibliographies.
9 reftex Browse cross-references in LaTeX documents.
10 texinfo Authoring support for creating texinfo documentation. Texinfo enables the production of both online hypertext and high-quality print documentation from a single source.
11 metapost Speech-enabled metapost mode for creating drawings using the metapost language.
12 enriched Rich-text authoring to provide a simple word processor.
13 evil EVIL == Emacs VI Emulation Layer. module emacspeak-evil speech-enables EVIL.
14 rdf-edit Speech-enabled editing of RDF/DAML ontologies using DAMLITE.
15 muse Speech-enables muse-mode an Emacs publishing package that enables Wiki-like authoring with the ability to publish the results to multiple formats.

READING (15)

1 ocr Emacs front-end to OCR engines. This module provides speech-enabled access to image acquisition and document recognition tools available on the underlying platform.
2 emacspeak-daisy Implements a digital talking book reader for DAISY3 talking books.
3 emacspeak-bookshare Implements a client for Bookshare, including a light-weight Daisy reader.
4 emacspeak-epub Implements a simple EPub reader.
5 view File browser for reading etexts.
6 bookmark Create bookmarks that persist across Emacs sessions.
7 org The org.el package is available in new versions of Emacs as text/org.el. It is built on top of outline mode and is a useful way to keep organized notes.
8 markdown Speech-enabled markdown mode.
9 remember Package remember.el in conjunction with org mode for keeping notes is a powerful way to remember related items of information. As an example, I now use the functionality provided by package remember in conjunction with org mode instead of maintaining a Web HotList; the org+remember solution captures a lot more context and keeps things far better organized.
10 outline Context-sensitive outline support for browsing documents.
11 folding Application for structuring and later obtaining structured views of files.
12 hide Emacspeak client for hiding and exposing blocks of text. Blocks are automatically recognized by lines having a common prefix. This is used to advantage in imposing dialog structure on email conversations, skipping blocks of commented code etc.
13 table-ui Emacspeak's rich table browsing interface. See Auditory User Interfaces (AUI) at http://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/raman/aui/aui.html for the theoretical underpinnings of this interface.
14 filtertext Emacspeak client for progressively filtering text.
15 gridtext Emacspeak client for overlaying grids on text. Useful in browsing log files and other text output that has columnar structure.

PRODUCTIVITY (30)

1 search-and-replace Speech-enabled incremental search is available throughout the audio desktop. Audio formatting is used to aurally highlight search hits, and is used to advantage when providing spoken feedback during search and replace.
2 browse-kill-ring Speech-enabled browsable kill ring. Allows easy browsing of Emacs' builtin clipboard facility.
3 calculator Simple but powerful desktop calculator.
4 ess Emacs interface to statistics packages like R
5 dismal Spread-sheet application with support for customizing spoken feedback on a per-sheet basis.
6 calc Calculator with financial and scientific functions.
7 gnuplot Front-end to Gnuplot for plotting graphs; integrates with the symbolic calculator.
8 eperiodic Periodic table of elements.
9 custom Intuitive interface to customize Emacs' extensive set of customization options.
10 dictation Front-end to IBM ViaVoice dictation engine; spoken text is recognized using Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR), inserted into the current context and spoken back using Text To Speech.
11 dictionary Access dictionary servers.
12 vdiff Package VDiff implements visual diff --- and is speech-enabled by module emacspeak-vdiff.
13 ediff Interface for browsing diff output; enables easy merging of different file versions, applying patches etc. Voice locking is used to advantage in aurally highlighting the differences.
14 forms Forms-based interface for manipulating structured data. Useful for system administration tasks such as managing password databases and browsing log files.
15 hyperbole Information management system.
16 imenu Generates context-sensitive table of contents.
17 ispell Front-end to interactive spell checker. Errors are aurally highlighted and available corrections automatically spoken.
18 flyspell Interactive spell checker that aurally and visually highlights misspelled words as they are typed.
19 find-things-fast Finds files within a project using cached list of files.
20 magit Emacs front-end to GIT
21 vc Front-end to version control systems like SVN, GIT, HG, CVS and RCS.
22 pcl-cvs Front-end for working with CVS repositories.
23 pronounce Emacspeak client for defining custom pronunciations. Pronunciations can be defined on a per-file, per-directory, or per-mode basis and persisted across sessions.
24 remote Emacspeak client for running remote sessions. Like the X windows system, Emacspeak supports a remote speech server, allowing an Emacspeak session running on a remote machine to send speech output to a server running on the local machine.
25 tar Front-end for browsing tar, jar and zip archives.
26 arc Browse various compressed archives.
27 Muggles Emacspeak Muggles exposes smart keybindings for performing common tasks.
28 wizards Emacspeak wizards for performing common tasks.
29 clipboard Emacspeak clipboard for cut and paste among different emacspeak sessions, possibly running on different hosts.
30 units Simple wizard for accessing Units tool --- a powerful units converter.

PROGRAMMING (37)

1 xref Support for cross-references via package XRef in Emacs-25.
2 company Complete anything support. Supports all features of package Company via a custom speech-enabled front-end.
3 flycheck On-the-fly syntax checking.
4 indium Javascript Development Environment with interactive debugging using Chrome Debugger API or NodeJS
5 tide Typescript Development Environment.
6 clojure-mode Support for editing Clojure source.
7 rust Speech-enable a suite of modules that provide an IDE for rust development --- rust-mode, rustic and racer.
8 cider A powerful IDE for Clojure development.
9 slime Superior Lisp Interaction mode for Emacs --- a powerful IDE for Common Lisp development.
10 jdee Java Development Environment with interactive debugging support using the Java Platform Debug Architecture (JPDA). Provides a speech-enabled inspector and wizards.
11 cedet Integrated Emacs Development Environment
12 ecb Emacs Class Browser with support for Java, C++, C and other popular languages. Provides navigable table of contents as well as a browsable method and function index for the file being edited.
13 gud Unified debugger front-end. Allows interactive debugging with fluent spoken feedback.
14 c Editing support for C, C++ and related languages with full aural highlighting and semantic support. Provides contextual spoken feedback using semantic context of code being edited.
15 compile Front-end to running batch compiles. Provides easy navigation through the lines containing errors.
16 perl Editing support for Perl. Features aural highlighting and easy access to online help.
17 ruby Speech-enables editing support for Ruby. Features aural highlighting and easy access to online help.
18 lua Editing support for interactive LUA development. Features aural highlighting, structured browsing and debugging.
19 Go Editing support for interactive Go development. Features aural highlighting, structured browsing and debugging.
20 geiser Support for interactive Scheme development including aural highlighting, an interactive REPL, structured browsing and interactive help.
21 racket-mode Support for interactive Racket development including aural highlighting, an interactive REPL, structured browsing and interactive help.
22 tcl Support for interactive TCL development including aural highlighting, structured browsing and interactive help.
23 python Editing support for interactive Python development. Features aural highlighting, structured browsing and debugging.
24 elpy IDE for interactive Python development.
25 tcl Support for interactive TCL development including aural highlighting, structured browsing and interactive help.
26 sql support for SQL including aural highlighting and interactive SQL development.
27 generic Editing support for JavaScript and Apache configuration files with voice locking and structured navigation.
28 hideshow Hiding and showing blocks of C code.
29 make-mode Editing support for creating and maintaining Makefiles.
30 sh-script Editing support for shell scripts.
31 rpm-spec Editing support for RPM spec files.
32 yasnippet Support for creating and filling-in templates using package YaSnippets. Used to implement wizards in JDE, HTML helper mode and friends.
33 dmacro Dynamic macro package for template-based editing.
34 oo-browser Tool for browsing object oriented software codebases --- this is largely obsoleted by ECB..
35 sage-shell-mode Speech-enable SageMath interaction.
36 ein IPython Notebook interaction from Emacs.
37 smartparens Speech-enable package smartparens for intelligently managing matching delimiters.

DISTRACTIONS (10)

1 entertain Speech-enabled access to numerous games including adventure, a multiplication puzzle and Hangman.
2 2048 Speech-enabled access to the 2048 game.
3 chess Speech-enabled access to GNU Chess .
4 threes Speech-enabled access to the Threes puzzle.
5 sudoku Speech-enabled access to SuDoku --- the number placement game.
6 gomoku Speech-enabled version of the traditional board game.
7 solitaire Speech-enabled version of the traditional board game.
8 tetris Speech-enabled version of Tetris with auditory icons and the needed UI enhancements to play eyes-free Tetris. See the paper entitled Conversational Gestures On The Audio Desktop (Assets 98) for the underpinnings of this enhanced UI --- online paper.
9 sudoku Speech-enabled version of the popular number placement game, SuDoKu
10 jawbreaker Provides a fluent auditory user interface to the JawBreaker game implemented in JavaScript on the Web. This uses the Piglets framework for Emacs integration, and uses the AxsJAX-enabled version of the JawBreaker game.

Additional Notes

Many shell-based tools., e.g., the napster.pl from Lincoln Stein's Napster package can be run effectively from within an Emacs shell. In such cases, Emacspeak utilities like filtertext and gridtext can be used to advantage in efficiently scanning and filtering the program output. Finally, note that when using full screen applications like PINE and Lynx when run within the Emacs terminal emulator (provided by package eterm) Emacspeak functions like a traditional screenreader.

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Email: T. V. Raman