Chrome browser extension that provides support for activating links and other elements by voice commands
This Chrome browser extension provides support for activating links and
other HTML elements using voice commands. It displays small numbers
next to each activatable element called hints and provides mechanisms
to activate these elements using the hint numbers. This allows creating
voice commands (via other software) that lets users activate links by
saying their hint numbers.
Like many Chrome browser extensions, this extension can also be used
with the Microsoft Edge browser.
Click by Voice provides two keyboard shortcuts suitable for manual use;
they are bound by default to {ctrl+shift+space} (pop up command
dialog box) and {ctrl+shift+,} (blur). You can rebind these as
desired like with any Chrome extension by following the link
chrome://extensions/shortcuts in your Chrome browser.
The blur shortcut removes keyboard focus from an element, returning it
to the overall webpage. This can be useful, for example, when you want
to page the website up and down but an input element like a text field
has focus.
The pop-up command shortcut pops up a small dialog box in the upper
right asking for the hint number that should be activated. At its
simplest, typing the number displayed next to an element then pressing
enter will dismiss the dialog box then click or focus that element as
appropriate. (Click by Voice uses heuristics to attempt to determine
whether an element should be clicked or focused if you don’t specify
which to do.)
To specify that something different be done with the element, add a
colon then an operation code. For example, 153:t opens the link with
hint number 153 in a new tab. Many different operations on hinted
elements are available, including copying the destination URL for a link
and copying the text of an element; see the
list of available operations for more.
Instead of providing a hint number, you can provide a CSS selector that
specifies which element you wish to activate. For example,
${button.go}:c clicks the first element that is both a button and of
class go. This feature is useful for programmatically activating
elements.
You can dismiss the command dialog box without activating anything by
typing {escape}.
You can change how hints are displayed for the current tab by using a
show hints command. The simplest such commands are:
:+ shows standard hints:++ is similar but displays more hints, attempting to hint every:- shows no hintsTo use these commands, just enter them into the hint number popup
instead of a hint number.
Click by Voice normally remembers the last such command you have given
(in any tab) and automatically uses it when a new page is loaded or the
current tab is reloaded. If you want to only temporarily change how
hints are displayed for a tab, add once after the colon; for example,
:once- turns off hints for the current tab until it is refreshed and
does not affect future loads of other tabs.
The hinting system is highly flexible, with these commands taking many
optional switches. For details, including how to change startup and
per-webpage defaults, see
displaying hints in detail.
Hint numbers are not shown when printing and should not show up when you
copy from a hinted webpage.
This extension by itself provides no voice functionality;
procurement of the needed voice commands is the user’s responsibility.
One recommended means of doing this is to use Vocola
(http://vocola.net/) to create the needed voice commands.
Writing voice commands to use Click by Voice should be straightforward.
As an example, here are some Vocola 2 commands that provide access to
much of the Click by Voice functionality:
CbV(command) := Clipboard.Set($command!!! Clipboard.Get("")) {ctrl+shift+.};
blur me = "{ctrl+shift+,}";
<once> := (once);
<mode> := (inline=i | overlay=o | hybrid=h | contrasting=c);
show [<mode>] hints [<once>] = CbV(:$2+$1);
show more [<mode>] hints [<once>] = CbV(:$2++$1);
hide hints [<once>] = CbV(:$1-);
<pick> 0..9 [0..9 [0..9 [0..9]]] = CbV($2$3$4$5:$1);
<pick> := ( pick = "" # guess whether to click or focus
| go pick = f
| click pick = c
| push pick = b # stay but open new tab w/ link or iframe
| tab pick = t
| window pick = w
| hover pick = h
| link pick = k # copy link destination address
| copy pick = s
);
These commands take advantage of another Click by Voice keyboard
shortcut, {ctrl+shift+.} by default, which makes Click by Voice accept
a command from the clipboard rather than via the pop-up dialog box. For
more on how this shortcut works, see
on making voice commands.
:+) does not find elements that are only clickable:++ should find most of these.:+o) should not disturb the flow at:+c) should make thechrome:// URLs like the settings and extensions pages or in built-inhttps://chrome.google.com URLs (e.g., the developer dashboard)click submit or click submit form twelve for a link named Submit Form with hint:+i to get previous behavior)Please address questions and issues to this
KnowBrainer thread.