Speakable Items - speech recognition

I just recently saw a demo about 'speakable items' and the different speech recognition programs built into Leopard -- Amazing!
However I am wondering how you create a new speakable item, I know there is a 'make this page speakable' command, but it doesn't seem to work or I am not exactly sure how to use it properly. For example I want to make an 'Open Gmail' command, how do I go about adding things like that??
Any ideas?
Thanks

I just tried the same thing you did. The file it created is IN the speakable items folder, but it's still not doing it. Maybe my intonation isn't right. AHA, that's it We say Geemail but I'm betting you typed it Gmail which is more like "Gumail". Go into that folder, rename that icon (Geemail, Jeemail, or G mail) and see if it works.
While I was researching this, I did find this page you might like.
http://lifehacker.com/software/speech-recognition/hack-attack-make-your-macs-spe ech-recognition-work-for-you-215764.php

Similar Messages

Tip: Speakable Items GONE? Recognition Doesn't Work?

If the Speakable Items folder is empty
"/Macintosh HD/Users/[username]/Libary/Speech/Speakable Items" you can restore the items by adding an new user account with admin rights.
Before loggin in to the newly added user check the Speakable Items directory once again if the files already showed up(this occured on my mac) if so you can remove the created user before even logging in, if not you must log in and go to the "/Macintosh HD/Users/[username]/Libary/Speech/Speakable Items" and copy the files to your main user account witch doesen't have the files.
Recognition doesen't work after the restoration of the files?
Uncheck the Addressbook Command Set or uncheck all the (null) items under the Addressbook configuration.
Hope it helped, it worked for me :P
Have fun talking to your MAC!!

Here is more detailed help , It helped others too .....
I had the same problem but I fixed it and I think I know how .
Go to home then library find the folder Speech , if it is not there , you log out and create anew test user .
From there go to the home folder , then library , then speech folder , make a copy then put it in the Shared file folder .
Log out and log into your normal user and go to the Shared folder get the Speech folder out and drop it into the Home library folder . Now you have the commands .
It still may not work , next open Speech in System Preferences click on the mic , Speech window opens , click commands ,open speakable items to make sure they are there , then uncheck all of the command sets .
Specially the address book one which I believe it to be the cause of this bug .
Start by only checking the app switching command (example: switch to Safari)
Turn on the speakable items and presto the commands should appear .
It is possible that if your address book is messed up , like info not in the proper fields somehow it affects these commands . But as long as I do not have them all checked it worked again for me .
The tech guy gave me another option which did not seem prudent , like reinstall the OS .
Luckily , thanks to the user friendly design of these machines and the OS which helps make it easier to fix problems , after a week of trying to figure it out , I think I did , at least for me .
Please let me know if this helps anyone and pass it along if it does .
G5 Mac OS X (10.4.6)

I am missing Speakable Items in the Speech commands window

Hi there,
I just realized that I can't command any speakable actions, I have NO commands in place in the speech commands window, and my -/user/library/speech/speakable items folder is empty.
I am administrator and single user of my Mac
I have no idea why it is empty, i suppose it has been like this from the day I have installed OSX, years ago now.
I have tried to install OSX from scratch on a separate partition, and of course, with this new system, the commands are in the proper place and the speech commands works.
However, when I re-import my profile with the SetUp assistant from the original partition, all the commands are lost, since the Speakable items folder is under my personnal home directory, it has just been copied, and left empty by the assistant with all my profile.
Can anyone help me and tell me which items i should copy from/to where to have the speech commands working ????

Same here.
I copied the Speakable Items folder from my old computer, but it still won't work.
I hope you get an answer!
ANSWER! - I had the same problem. Open up your Speech and turn off speakable. Than go to commands select address book click on configure if there is any Name that has (NUL) uncheck it. than go and turn on speakable again. Your commands should be there!
It worked for me! Good Luck!
Message was edited by: Acumowchek

Speech Recognition stops working after a minute of nonuse

I'm a grad student trying to keep from exacerbating my carpal tunnel and just figured out how to use the voice commands on my macbook. So far, they work great, they hear my voice, it does what I tell it to do, and I'm not constantly hitting apple+tab and apple+c and apple+v and so on, which really helps my wrists!
BUT. If I go for more than a minute or two without using a voice command, it stops working. I can't pinpoint anything else that triggers it other than if I stop using it for a little bit while I'm reading a paper or something. The microphone is calibrated and working, the little black arrows and the blue and green bars flash on the widget like it hears me, but then it won't give me the sound that says the command was recognized and it doesn't perform the command any time I try to use it again after a few minutes of not being used. It's like the recognition part goes to sleep and won't wake up.
If I go to the system preferences and toggle Speakable Itemst off and then on again, it starts working again until another minute or two of non-use. If I use spoken commands constantly, it will stay on for a good long while, but I'm not using it constantly that's the end of speech recognition. I really can't stop to just tell it some unneeded command to keep it awake all the time! Eventually, the computer gets confused if I turn the "speakable items" on and off too many times from the System Preferences, and it gets confused about whether or not it's turned on or off, or the widget disappears but the System Preferences panel thinks the Speakable Items is on.
I read somewhere that other people with a newer OS have a similar problem if they don't use the default speaking voice, so I switched to Alex and restarted, and the same thing is still happening.
I'm running 10.5.8, and using safari, word 2011, preview, nothing too crazy. My speech recognition is in "Listen only while key is pressed" mode, and like I said, works great until I stop using it for a minute or so. I'm using the internal microphone on my MacBook (dob circa 2008). Any tips on how I can actually keep my Speech Recognition useful? Thanks in advance!

OK, I have one more question now, seems to be the same as this question which was never answered years ago:
Speakable Commands>Application Switching -- how to delete items?
When I click on the triangle from the speech command widget and open speech commands, there is a TON of stuff there that I'll never ever use, but these things do not appear in the Library/Speech/Speakable Items folder so that I might be able to delete them. For example, one item I'd like to turn off is just the word "Home" and the computer keeps thinking that I said "Home" instead of whatever else I meant to say. Another keeps opening iChat or Mail, when I say "open new window" or something like that. I tried clicking, control clicking, option clicking, nothing will highlight a command in the Speech Commands window so that I might delete it.
The "Home" command only shows up when I'm using Word, in the "front window" list. However, the Application Speakable Items/Microsoft Word folder is empty. Is there some other way to get into the speakable commands list and weed out unwanted stuff?

How to Switch Off Speech Recognition

I activated speech recognition just to see what it can do and got the round microphone icon in my screen. As I press Esc I can give commands.
I want to get rid of this round thing in my screen though and switch off Speech Recognition completely because I never use it.
I can not find where to switch it off. Who does?

I have Snow Leopard 10.6.8. This has happened to me many times. I don't know why the circle surfaces, but the common response is false - in my preferences, Speakable items is set to OFF. Turning any of the Speech settings on or off does not make the circle window disappear. The only way I can get rid of it is to reinstall the operating system from scratch (not an update), which is an incredible pain. I've done this twice to get rid of the circle, and it's back again! This is clearly a Snow Leopard bug, since all the responses say when you go into preferences you should see that Speakable items is set to ON, and it's NOT.
Seriously, if ANYONE knows how it gets in this state, and how to get rid of it when it's not responding to preferences. Force Quit doesn't see it. Maybe there's a low level Console way to kill the app - I'd do anything to get rid of that circle...
GUYS - SNOW LEOPARD USERS! I SOLVED IT! I SOLVED IT! I still don't know what triggers it, but here's how you get rid of it without a reinstall:
1) Launch Activity Monitor in flat mode
2) Look for a running task called something like SpeechRecognitionServer and select it.
3) Hit the Quit Process button on the upper left!
Voila, that annoying circle is gone!!!
YIPPIE!
- Jeff
P. S. I just noticed that this bug still wasn't solved in Lion, so hopefully my solution will help Lion users as well. This bug definitely didn't exist in Leopard.

Speech recognition not working properly!

I just started trying out the speech recognition tool in Snow Leopard and I seem to be having problems with it. When I calibrate it (using the internal mic) it works fine and understands those phrases perfectly but when I actually say the exact same thing outside of the calibration process the computer doesn't seem to understand. I know it's picking up my voice because the little widget thing animates as is does when it hears sound and the "Speakable Items" option is set to on . It actually worked once yesterday when I tried it for the first time, I told it to switch to an app and it did but that was the end of it.
What should I do? I haven't updated the software to 10.6.1, would this perhaps solve the issue? I don't know if it worked before I upgraded to Snow Leopard because this is the first time I've tried it out

Had the same problem. Could only resolve by going back to Snow Leopard.

Speech Recognition Not Working. Why?

I have a 6-month old Macbook (OSX 10.5.5), and I want to try out the built in speech recognition software. For some reason, it won't accept any input, no matter the configuration I put it in. When I click calibrate, it's slow to open, and no matter what I do with the slider, it won't recognize my commands. I've tried it in a new account, but without success. It appears to be system-wide. Also, there are no items in the speakable items folder, and a feedback box does not appear on the desktop. Any ideas?

Im assuming you've used the Sound pane to check that the built-in mic is working, and that you've remembered to click on the "Speakable Items" radio button.
There are a couple of fixes that normally work when changing user helps, but it is possible that two user accounts have the same problems!
1)
Have you got any items in Address Book that are marked as "Company" but have no company name in them? This is an old problem that was supposed to have been fixed with Leopard, but I've heard people complaining about it occasionally since. If there are, try going through them and putting in the company names, then log out and back in again.
2)
Try deleting the preference files
com.apple.speech.recognition.recognizer.prefs.plist
com.apple.speech.recognition.AppleSpeechRecognition.prefs.plist
com.apple.speech.recognition.feedback.prefs.plist
all in ~/Library/Preferences/
Failing those, and the missing Speakable Items suggests that's not the fault, try downloading and reapplying the latest Combo updater.
If that doesn't do the trick, you may have to reinstall the OS.
Sorry!
Archie

Speech recognition feedback window won't disappear

There is an article on how to get the speech recognition to appear when it wont. But nothing for when turning off speakable items in preferences doest make that annoying little feedback window go away. Any ideas?
OS Lion 10.7.4

I just deleted the .speech.recognition..plist files, and they were automatically recreated by the system. After a restart I turned off then on the speech recognition and everything worked perfectly!

10.6.3 update failed to fix speech recognition?

Unless its just not working for me, anyone else not able to get speech recognition to work? It was broken in 10.6.2 and apparently not fixed with this weeks update... hmmm

HI,
Open System Preferences/Speech then select the Speech Recognition tab.
Make sure: Speakable items is turned On.
If it's already turned on, if you didn't repair disk permissions, do that now.
Quit any open applications/programs. Launch Disk Utility. (Applications/Utilities) Select MacintoshHD in the panel on the left, select the FirstAid tab. Click: Repair Disk Permissions. When it's finished from the Menu Bar, Quit Disk Utility and restart your Mac. If you see a long list of "messages" in the permissions window, it's ok. That can be ignored. As long as you see, "Permissions Repair Complete" when it's finished... you're done. Quit Disk Utility and *restart your Mac.*
FYI ... before you install any Apple software update, in the update window click; Show Details.
The "fixes" are listed there. For the v10.6.3 update included:
• improve the reliability and compatibility of QuickTime X
• address compatibility issues with OpenGL-based applications
• address an issue that causes background message colors to display incorrectly in Mail
• resolve an issue that prevented files with the # or & characters in their names from opening in Rosetta applications
• resolve an issue that prevented files from copying to Windows file servers
• improve performance of Logic Pro 9 and Main Stage 2 when running in 64-bit mode
• improve sleep and wake reliability when using Bonjour wake on demand
• address a color issue in iMovie with HD content
• improve printing reliability
• resolve issues with recurring events in iCal when connected to an Exchange server
• improve the reliability of 3rd party USB input devices
• fix glowing, stuck, or dark pixels when viewing video from the iMac (Late 2009) built-in iSight camera
Carolyn

Accidentally deleted speakable items app (plugin) on my mac, Accidentally deleted speakable items app (plugin) on my mac

Trying to fix something from an earlier problem and i deleted the Speakable Items App (~/System/Library/Speech/Recognizers/AppleSpeakableItems.SpeechRecognizer/Conte nts/PlugIns) Please help

Just used time machine to get plug in back, on my mac now
When i go to prefrences and click speech, the speech recognition is blank
i think in the process...i also may have deleted the "Info.plist" file in ~/System/Library/Speech/Recognizers/AppleSpeakableItems.SpeechRecognizer/Conten ts/ \, but from reading other things, this should have come back on its own, please help me :"(

Speakable Items

Every time I start my computer the speech program starts up. I know how to turn it off, but is there a way to set it to not start on start-up?

Open system preferences..Go down to System..then choose speech..In Speech recognition section Click Speakable items off. And on Text to untick all the boxes, next time you start up it should be silent

Ignore voice commands / Speech Recognition Server timeout

I'm fairly new to AppleScript but I've found it really entertaining and gloriously simple to pick up so far. I've been using it mostly to make my own speakable items for the Mac's voice control, and I've managed to write some basic things like voice commands to set/change volume and brightness. My goal at this point is to be able to do the majority of things I want to do on my computer by voice only. Sue me - I just rewatched Iron Man and I really wish I had a JARVIS system right now.
This means that the computer must always be listening for commands (I have set it to 'listen continuously with keyword', and set the keyword as 'optional before commands'). It defeats the purpose if I have to walk over and hit a key to start listening for commands. At the same time, I don't want to have to speak a keyword, because I will invariably forget to do so and it's also an added hassle (especially when I have several commands to say - I don't want to have to say the keyword before each command).
You might have an idea of where this is going. Obviously, if the computer is always listening, it will pick up on normal conversation and try to interpret it.
I could just deactivate voice commands when I'm not using it, but as I said earlier, I don't want to have to either hit a key or say a keyword. In other words, I want to be able to activate and deactivate voice commands by voice. Deactivating is easy. Activating is what presents an interesting problem, because if it's deactivated, how will it hear my reactivation command?
Thus, the first part of my question: is there a way - any way at all - to get voice commands to ignore commands until given some keyword, short of literally changing its settings to listen for a keyword before the command?
I decided to try to use speech recognition. This must, I think, be involved in some way, because as I said earlier, this presents the unique problem of having voice commands deactivated yet still able to recognise the reactivation command. I had noticed that while the computer is listening for a specific command, it ignores anything that isn't what it is listening for. I tried to use this to my advantage and wrote a script to listen for a reactivation command; until the reactivation command was given, the computer would ignore everything else. The problem is that the speech recognition server times out after two minutes. I have tried to increase this, but to no avail (see below for my attempts).
Thus, the second part of my question: assuming there is no other answer to my first question, is there a way to get speech recognition to listen indefinitely?
Here are the two things I tried to make the timeout last longer, specifically for five minutes (300 seconds) in both cases. Neither worked; both timed out after 120 seconds.
tell application "SpeechRecognitionServer"
set userinput to listen for {"resume voice commands"} giving up after 300
end tell
and
with timeout of 300 seconds
set userinput to listen for {"resume voice commands"}
end timeout

UPDATE: I have since come up with an alternate solution. I created two speakable items, one for 'deactivation' and one for 'activation'. The deactivation command uses UI scripting to set voice commands to 'keyword required' mode (i.e. the keyword is required before each command); the activation command simply sets it back to 'keyword optional' mode.
I figure that as long as I choose a keyword that's unique enough that it (and things that sound like it) won't come up too often in conversation, the computer will ignore anything I say once I activate the keyword requirement. Then, I only need to say the keyword once along with the reactivation command to bring it out of this 'ignore commands' state.
In a way, this is actually better, because it allows me to continue to use voice commands if I really need to, as opposed to having to say the reactivation command to get my computer to listen to me, saying my intended command, and then saying the deactivation command to make it ignore me again.
All the same, if anyone has answers to any of my two original questions, please don't hesitate to share your knowledge! It might come in handy later!

Speech Recognition Not responding

Hi, im running snow leopard 10.6.6 on a iMac 27inch intel. I want to use the Speech commands on the computer. The internal microphone is calibrated in speech. It is also selected in the audio prefs. But on my speakable items little circle thing im getting no bars lighting up. The arrows point at the microphone when i make noise but the bars do not light up and it does not respond to anything i say.
help?
its the same on my macbook pro 15inch intel.

Look in System preferences > Speech > Speech Recognition tab > Microphone: Internal microphone. Click the Calibrate icon and set the microphone sensitivity.
Also, do you have it set to always listen when a key is pressed like "escape" or set to listen continuously after a special keyword such as "computer".
Regards,
Captfred

Speech recognition server using all kinds of memory!

I'm running an imac 27" with 8gb of memory and have been doing some video work lately. Watching things with activity monitor I noticed that speech recognition server process was using 800mb + of memory. Normally I keep speech recognition started but activated by voice suppressed with the escape key.
I have already found that -using- speech commands prevents the computer display from going to sleep, like this discussion - https://discussions.apple.com/message/11395271?searchText=speech%20recognition%2 0server#11395271
I reported this as a bug to Apple, and they admitted there is a problem, and that maybe they will fix it but no guarantee.
I created a workaround for the display sleep that seems to alleviate both situations, I "wrote" an applescript to restart speakable items. It's pretty simple but you have to wait for the processes to go away, around 30 seconds or so.
Has anyone else seen or reported the excessive memory use with speech recognition?

That's wishful thinking if you think an update will be made overnight by Apple because of a complaint by an individual.
10.7.3 reportedly only updates:
Add Catalan, Croatian, Greek, Hebrew, Romanian, Slovak, Thai, and Ukrainian language support
Address issues when using smart cards to log into OS X Resolve issues authenticating with directory services Address compatibility issues with Windows file sharing
10.7.2 reportedly only updates:
iCloud stores your email, calendars, contacts, Safari bookmarks, and Safari Reading List and automatically pushes them to all your devices. Back to My Mac provides remote access to your Mac from another Mac anywhere on the Internet. Find My Mac helps find a missing Mac by locating it on a map and allows you to remotely lock the Mac or wipe all its data. Getting started with iCloud is easy. After installing the update, OS X will automatically present an iCloud setup panel. Simply enter an existing Apple ID or create a new one and then follow the on screen instructions. To learn more about iCloud visit http://www.apple.com/icloud.
The 10.7.2 update also includes Safari 5.1.1 as well as fixes that: Allow reordering of desktop spaces and full screen apps in Mission Control.
Enable dragging files between desktop spaces and full screen apps. Address an issue that causes the menu bar to not appear in full screen apps. Improve the compatibility of Google contact syncing in Address Book.
Address an issue that causes Keynote to become temporarily unresponsive.
Improve VoiceOver compatibility with Launchpad.
Address an issue that causes a delay in accessing the network after waking from sleep.
Enable booting in to Lion Recovery from a locally attached Time Machine backup drive. Resolve an issue that causes screen zoom to stop working. Improve Active Directory integration.
10.7.1:
Address an issue that may cause the system to become unresponsive when playing a video in Safari. Resolve an issue that may cause system audio to stop working when using HDMI or optical audio out. Improve the reliability of Wi-Fi connections. Resolve an issue that prevents transfer of your data, settings, and compatible applications to a new Mac running OS X Lion. Resolve an issue in which an admin user account could be missing after upgrading to OS X Lion.
These are each information from the various update pages.    While Apple has been known to include unreported updates in their version updates, the closest to something desired was the Voiceover improvement in 10.7.2. That though is of speech from putting the cursor over text to read out loud.
If they are running 10.7.3, and have not seen improvement, then my advice from my other post is good.
I would also indicate that one is running 10.7.3 in one's profile so one knows one isn't missing any updates that may not already be applied.

Speech Recognition stops paying attention.

hey all--
I was having trouble with my speech recognition (as well as a few other things) and so I finally deleted and reinstalled my system out of frustration. There are a lot of commands in the voice commands I don't want/use so I took some of them out or changed their wordings. I am also adding ones of my own.
My main trouble is that after a little bit, or 4-5 spoken commands, it stops listening to me. The green indicators indicate that it is hearing me just fine, but suddenly I can say "computer" all I want and it won't do a darn thing. If I open speech prefs, turn speakable off and back on, that'll fix it for another 4-5 commands. I am not in a noisy environment. It is very irksome!!
~G

OK, I have one more question now, seems to be the same as this question which was never answered years ago:
Speakable Commands>Application Switching -- how to delete items?
When I click on the triangle from the speech command widget and open speech commands, there is a TON of stuff there that I'll never ever use, but these things do not appear in the Library/Speech/Speakable Items folder so that I might be able to delete them. For example, one item I'd like to turn off is just the word "Home" and the computer keeps thinking that I said "Home" instead of whatever else I meant to say. Another keeps opening iChat or Mail, when I say "open new window" or something like that. I tried clicking, control clicking, option clicking, nothing will highlight a command in the Speech Commands window so that I might delete it.
The "Home" command only shows up when I'm using Word, in the "front window" list. However, the Application Speakable Items/Microsoft Word folder is empty. Is there some other way to get into the speakable commands list and weed out unwanted stuff?

Speakable Items - speech recognition

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for