Author:Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
Translation by: John Ormsby
Audio provided by:Librivox
Chapter read by:Nessi
Text provided by: Project Gutenburg
MISS Audio is an audio player that displays interactive transcripts in multiple languages at the same time.
It's meant to aid in the comprehension of human speech in a foreign language. Here this is done by presenting the text of that speech in both the original language, and a translation, all at once.
The player consists of two columns of text and a control panel with buttons. The first column of text is in the original language of the audio. The second column of text is its translation.
Text in either column can be reached with the tab key as well as using a number of keyboard combinations described below.
It was a goal to make this application rich in accessibility features; suggestions for improvements are appreciated.
Users can point and click, or tab through and press enter, on any segment of text and the audio will begin playing at that point. The audio pauses automatically after each segment. If you wish to play continuously, without the pauses, hit the play button or use the key combination Control+Alt+spacebar.
If tabbing through one column of text, you may wish to jump to corresponding segment of text in the opposite column. To do this, press Control+Alt+t.
To move the focus to the highlighted segment in the original language press Control+Alt+1. Fort the translated text, press Control+Alt+2.
For screen reader users: To announce the translated segment corresponding to the current segment in focus, press Control+Alt+q. This command is intended to make it easy to tab through the original text and be able to read the corresponding translation without moving the focus.
To replay the currently highlighted segment, hit the replay button or press Control+Alt+l. To play the next segment, press Control+Alt+k or hit the right sided button below "Replay." To move backward and play the previous segment, press Control+Alt+j or hit the left sided button below "Replay."
For screen reader users: To announce the highlighted segment of the translated text at any time, press Control+Alt+o.
As mentioned before, the audio will stop automatically after each segment. Whenever you wish to hear the audio play continuously through all segments, just hit the play button or press Control+Alt+spacebar.
| Function | Keys | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Play/Pause | Alt + Control + spacebar or p | Play or pause the audio. |
| Stop | Alt + Control + s | Stop the audio and return to the beginning of the track. |
| Play Previous Segment | Alt + Control + j | Jump to the previous text segment and play. |
| Play Next Segment | Alt + Control + k | Jump to the next text segment and play. |
| Replay Current Segment | Alt + Control + l | Replay the current segment. |
| Announce Highlight in Translated Text | Alt + Control + o | For Screen Reader Users: Announce the highlighted segment of the translated text. This is for convenience while navigating the audio using the j, k, and l keys. |
| Announce Focus in Translated Text | Alt + Control + q | For Screen Reader Users: Announce the translated segment corresponding to whatever segment is in focus. This is for convenience while tabbing through the text of the original language. |
| Translate and Switch Columns | Alt + Control + t | This will jump the system focus from one column of text to the corresponding segment in the other one. Original language segments will jump to a translation and vice-versa. |
| Focus Original Highlighted Text | Alt + Control + 1 | Move the system focus to the highlighted segment in the original language. |
| Focus Translated Highlighted Text | Alt + Control + 2 | Move the system focus to the highlighted segment in the translated text. |
| Fast Forward | Alt + Control + f | Move forward one second. |
| Rewind | Alt + Control + r | Rewind one second. |
| Increase Speed | Alt + Control + x | Increase the speed of the audio. |
| Decrease Speed | Alt + Control + z | Decrease the speed of the audio. |
| Mute | Alt + Control + m | Mute the audio. |
| Volume Up | Alt + Control + u | Increase the volume. |
| Volume Down | Alt + Control + d | Decrease the volume. |
Before starting work on the project, I had already planned to use Able Player, an accessible media player, as a guide for implementing general accessibility features and best practices. As could be expected, the more pieces I examined and adopted into this project, the more I realized how much this project was lacking. This work is still in progress.
A big thanks to everyone involved in that project for enabling this learning experience.