Talks for the First Time
When using Talks for the first time you will hopefully find many of the features and services intuitive to use. Firstly remember that your phone can't easily be broken so relax. Talks like many screen reading application on the market for PC's simply tells you what is located on your phones visible screen, and can do this with varying levels of detail.
Initially you'll find that Talks gives you a large amount of information as to what is both on your phones display, and what various buttons do.
To begin it is very important that you familiarise yourself with your phones keypad, in general at the top just beneath the phones display either side of the joystick or navigation arrow system is soft keys one and two. These are some of the most important keys on the phone and ones that you'll very quickly begin to use regularly.
On the `stand by` screen which is the standard default screen that your phone displays when it is not being used soft keys one and two are assignable to a whole multitude of applications. This can be done by visiting `tools` in the main menu followed by `settings`, now scroll down to `phone` in here select `standby mode`, ensure that `standby` mode is switched off. Now below this choice you can change what soft key one and soft key two will do (referred to as left and right selection keys). These can be assigned to applications such as `contacts`, or `calendar` making these applications more accessible and easier to find. In essence assigning these keys to your most used applications or features is a kin to adding them to your start up menu on your PC.
It is also possible to assign the four arrow keys and the selection key to specific applications / features. Remember that these keys only perform the specified function whilst on the default standby screen. At all other times the keys perform operational functions i.e. options, back, up, down, left, right and select etc.
An essential key to locate is the `Talks` key, on most phones this is the `notes` or `edit` key, refer to your phones user guide to identify which key this is. If you can't access your phones user guide you can try pressing various keys on the phone, when you here Talks say the word `Talks` then you have found your Talks key.
The Talks key enables you to quickly and easily access a range of Talks features and functions. Normally achieved by pressing the Talks key followed by a second key to action the feature or function.
Some of the very useful features / functions are: -
Talks key followed by soft key two = tells you the services that are running on the phone such as blue tooth, the status of GPRS / 3G coverage, network strength and name followed by battery status.
Talks key followed by the select key = reads out what is currently on the phones display, Talks key followed by the number 9 key = the current time and date, Talks key followed by either number 5 or 6 = volume of Talks up / down respectively, Talks key followed by number 7 / 8 = Talks speed slower / faster respectively, Talks key followed by holding down the number 2 for a moment = changing Talks cursor mode,
There are many more short key presses that are available but the above represents some of the most useful ones.
If you have never used a phone before with speech then the first thing to note is that you don't have to wait for the speech synthesiser to stop speaking, just like with a PC running screen reading software if you know what you want to do or what needs pressing you can simply carry out that action, without waiting for Talks to finish speaking.
When scrolling through menus on the phone it is not necessary to press the soft key one followed by `open` to load that menu or open that application, you can simply press the select key located at the centre of your arrow system, or in some phones cases press the joystick down in the middle.
If ever you aren't sure what the option keys on a given screen do you can always press the Talks key followed by soft key one and Talks will repeat what the soft keys functions are on that specific screen. As well as Talks key then the select key reading the entire screen again.
This is merely an introduction to Talks, please read our additional instruction and introduction pages to learn more.
