weird reaction

[kingdark]

Hey all,
I have been having a weird problem lately. Now, I've only just discovered voice attack and I'm loving it so far. Anyway, I think I'm overlooking something, but first a few details to clear things up that may be the cause without me knowing it.

One: I'm from Belgium so my English is with an accent
Two: I'm using another voice command program together with this one, so if one doesn't pick it up, the other might

Now, sometimes, and I don't know if it's me doing this by accident, but sometimes, the program causes the keyboard to not respond anymore. Hitting keys will do nothing and hitting 'h' will open the 'help' tab in Firefox (for example) but if I exit the program, it works again, so I THINK that I must be overlooking something.

So, to clarify, sometimes, I am using the program with no problem whatsoever, and then without any real reason, as far as I can tell, the keyboard's keys don't do anything anymore.

Am I overlooking something obvious?

[Pfeil]

It's likely a modifier key is getting stuck, looks like in your case it's "Alt". You can verify this by pressing and releasing the physical "Alt" key when this situation occurs.


This could be caused by interference from another application, especially if the other "voice command program" you mention is also trying to press the same keys.


Also make sure you don't have any "Press" actions without matching "Release" actions in your commands.

E.G.

Code: [Select]

Press down Left Alt key
should have a matching

Code: [Select]

Release Left Alt key
if the intent is not to keep it held down.

[kingdark]

Well, I do have a command to use 'alt and then tab' so you can switch between programs (if you get what I mean) It might be that. I'm going to try and disable it. But if it is what you think it is, why would it disable all the keys on my keyboard?

edit:
and wow, what a fast answer, that's unusual in my book Thank you, for that alt command I did it 'hit alt' and then tab separately, I'm trying the key combination now instead.

[kingdark]

It literally just happened again, and by hitting the alt keys a couple of times, it resolved itself it seems. Could I share my profile with you, so you can take a look and see what the problem might be?

...aaaaand this is kind of awkward, because most of my commands are in voicebot, which is a competitor... I'm not sure what to do, should I leave it, or should I remove it?

[Pfeil]

Alt-Tab should look like

Code: [Select]

Press Left Alt+Tab keys and hold for 0,01 seconds and release
to ensure Alt is held down while Tab is pressed, and only released after Tab is released.


If a modifier key is getting stuck, it doesn't disable your keyboard, but as the name implies it modifies the effect of pressing certain keys.
If you press F while Alt is stuck, for example, you should see the "File" menu fold out, for example (in Windows Explorer, or Firefox).



If the issue is with a product other than VoiceAttack, that's something to contact that company about.

Either way I would strongly recommend against using any two applications that send keypresses, simultaneously; If you do so, coordinating between them is your responsibility.

[kingdark]

Thank you, I feel kind of embarassed to not have realized I was asking on the wrong forum that's a really stupid mistake to make. Still, I think your answer may have helped me though but as long as commands don't conflict, it should be fine using both programs right? I realize just now that it may not be a good idea to use the same commands over two programs because logically, it would then to execute that program two times.

So... Yhea, thanks

[Pfeil]

as long as commands don't conflict, it should be fine using both programs right?

That's not something that can be guaranteed.

At the very least, the first thing to try when you're having issues in future, is to run only one application and see if it still happens.