Preferences (Windows only)

To change your System Access and Sero preferences, simply choose Preferences from near the bottom of the Sero home screen. Alternatively, you may press Alt+P anywhere within Sero.

From within this menu, you will find several submenus which will allow you to customize the way Sero looks, speaks, acts, and reads.

General preferences

Key echo

The Key Echo setting will speak aloud the numbers and letters pressed on the keyboard. Check this box to activate this feature. Be aware that the Key Echo does not speak aloud when entering passwords.

Word echo

If you check this box, Sero will echo words that you have typed once you have pressed the Space, Enter, Tab or Shift+Tab keys.

Link alert type

This setting will alert you when a link is present on any given page or list of controls. A tone will be heard to indicate that you are on a link, and will beep when you allow a page to be read continuously.

You can alter the behavior of the Link Alerts, but by default, links will be indicated by a tone. The tone indicator will be heard right before the actual text of the link is spoken.

You can also have links indicated by a spoken word instead, by selecting Word from the drop-down list box.

If you do not wish to hear any link alerts, just select None from the drop-down list box. By selecting none, you will not hear a textual or auditory alert before the name of the link itself.

As a result, it may be somewhat difficult to accurately determine when links are present.

Note: if you are arrowing or Tabbing/Shift+Tabbing through the page, the alert indicator will not be used regardless of the setting you choose in this area.

The setting is only applicable when continuously reading through a page with the Modifier+Down Arrow.

Working sound

Sero will play a sound to let you know that the program is working on a task. The drop-down box in this portion of the General Preferences menu will allow you to change or turn off the sound that Sero makes when working.

The drop-down box contains three options:

Just remember that any changes made in this area won't take effect until you press the OK button.

If System Access or Sero is running on another machine when you make the change to the working sound preference, you will need to restart System Access or Sero on that other machine for the new working sound preference to take effect.

Text-to-speech preferences

When you enter this menu, press Shift+Tab to change the default language spoken. Move through the list by using the Up and Down arrows to find the language you prefer to be spoken aloud when reading text.

Note: This setting does not change the language used within Sero. You will need to read text in the language you have chosen to have the optimal effect.

For example, French speech will sound better when reading text in French.

The next option in this area will allow you to change your primary speech engine. Select one speech synthesizer from the given list as the engine you wish to hear when using Sero. First:

  1. Open the list by pressing Alt+Up Arrow or Alt+Down Arrow.

  2. Then use your Up and Down Arrow keys to move through these choices.

  3. When you are on the synthesizer you want, press Tab and then use you're Up and Down Arrow keys to browse the list of voices available for that synthesizer.

Note: Additional voices can be added to this list by purchasing them separately from Serotek. You can add new voices at any time by going to the My Account section and choosing a voice or group of voices from one of our many options.

After you have made your selection, you will then be able to revisit this area and will have access to the additional voices you have chosen.

Voice rate

You can also control the rate of the text being spoken. The Faster and Slower buttons will let you increase or decrease the rate at which text is read aloud.

Just move to the button you want and press it with the Spacebar. You will hear, "This is a test of your speech settings,” each time either button is pressed.

Voice pitch control

Pitch control will let you change the pitch of the speech with the Higher and Lower buttons. Each time you press Space on one of the buttons, you will hear, "This is a test of your speech settings."

Punctuation

You can also control the amount of punctuation that is spoken. The punctuation choices are: None, Some, Most, and All.

Use the Up and Down arrows to make your selection, and experiment with this option to find the punctuation level that best suits your reading needs.

Braille preferences

The first option allows you to choose from among Braille translation tables for various languages. Arrow up or down to move within this list to change the Braille Translation Table from US Grade 2 English to US Grade 1 English, and to review the other language options contained there.

The next control will allow you to turn off the speech engine and work directly from your Braille display only. Removing the check from this checkbox will keep the speech engine from running when a Braille display is active.

Make sure to tab to the OK button to save your Braille settings.

Font and Color Preferences

You can customize the appearance of Sero’s pages by changing the default text size, fonts, and colors.

Note these changes only affect pages on the Sero network and not external websites. You will need to adjust the setting options of Internet Explorer, or another web browser.

Font size (points)

You can modify the size of the text shown in Sero by…

  1. Opening the list box with Alt+Up Arrow or Alt+Down Arrow.

  2. Using the arrows to increase or decrease the size of your text. Font sizes can range from 12 to 64-point type. The default text size is 18-point type

Font

Some users find that some font styles are easier to read than others. The Sero’s preferences can be set to display three font types from the Font drop-down window: Arial, Times New Roman, and Verdana. Explore which works best for you. The default font type used by the Sero’s pages is Verdana.

Foreground color

This drop-down box will offer you choices for changing the colors of the text seen in Sero. Choose the colors that best meet your reading needs.

A word of warning: DO NOT set the foreground and background colors to the same color option. For example, setting both to Black would give the appearance of Sero’s pages not showing any text. Remember that you can always reset the features back to their default options by pressing the Reset button.

Background color

This drop-down box lets you choose Sero’s background color. Think of this setting as choosing the color of a piece of paper that your text will be written on when viewing Sero’s pages.

Keep in mind that you do not want the background and foreground colors to be the same, or it will look like your screen is blank. Remember that you can always reset the features explained in this section back to their defaults.

Unvisited link color

This drop-down box will let you change the color of the links you have not clicked on yet. Setting this control to a unique color will let you easily see what portions of Sero you have not yet visited.

Active link color

This drop-down box allows you to change the color of the focus area. As you navigate through the Sero’s pages, you can see which option will be started if you decide to activate that option.

You may not want to set this color to the same as the ones for Unvisited and Visited links, since this could make things confusing.

Visited link color

This drop-down box lets you specify the color of links you have already visited. Setting this option to a different color than the Unvisited Link color lets you quickly see what areas of Sero you have already visited.

At the bottom of this area you will find three buttons. Pressing OK will save the changes you have made, choosing Cancel will close this screen without making any changes, and selecting the Reset button will put Sero back to the original settings for font style, size and colors.

If you choose to reset your settings, you can go back and try new ones to see what works best for you.

Startup preferences

Note: This option is only available to those users who have System Access and Sero installed on their computers.

There are two options in this area. The first allows you the ability to start System Access automatically every time your computer starts. The start System Access when I Log Onto Windows checkbox will start System Access as soon as you log onto windows, or as soon as the windows logon screen disappears.

The second checkbox will let System Access speak when you are in the Windows logon screen that appears if you are using a password or have multiple accounts for starting Windows.

Manage My HomeServer

This allows you to enable the System Access HomeServer service. You can remove the service from your system, or stop the service; however, the HomeServer is needed for some aspects of Sero to run correctly. For example, this service needs to be running if you want to access your Media Library from another computer or device. Within the HomeServer page is a link to the preferences for remote controlling your home PC.

Sync preferences

These options require the use of specific hardware.

The first checkbox will allow you to have spoken labels created for content saved onto a Creative Labs Zen Stone MP3 player. These labels make navigating folders on this device easier when content from Sero is transferred to this device.

The second checkbox will allow you to control the portion of the BookSense XT where content for Sero will be stored. Check this box to let Sero save content directly on to the XT's internal flash storage.

If this checkbox is not checked, content will be sent to the device's SD storage card instead.


Last modified September 09, 2016

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