BrailleNote: An overview of KeySoft Part 4: Brief tour of Options menu

The Options Menu on the brailleNote can be thought of as a combination of notification bar/Settings/Taskbar. On Windows Mobile screen, the top portion of the window is the Taskbar, containing items such as Start button, icons for clock, volume and so forth. Just like WM users can set their preferences under Settings dialog, BrailleNote users use Options Menu for this same task - configuring their preferences.

To access Options menu, from anywhere in KeySoft, press SPACE with O(DOTS 1-3-5) or FN+O. KeySoft says, "Options Menu." Just like any other menus and lists, use SPACE to move forward, BACKSPACE to move backward and ENTER key to select an item. To exit Options Menu, press the exit command (SPACE with E/ESC).

The Options menu comprises number of groups of functions, including:
* Status messages: Date and time, next appointment and battery status.
* General settings: Braille display options, keyboard settings, review voice, connectivity, activating/deactivating visual display.
* Contextual settings: Changing keyboard braille brade, using another language.
* Understadning current prompt: Spell the current prompt, hear text with maximum punctuation.
* Miscellaneous items: Inserting date/time/calculation, accessing user guide, reminders on speech settings and thumb-key toggle.

It'd be hard to describe all functions under Options Menu, so I'll describe notable items and a brief description of them:

• Date and Time: Used to find out date and time, as well as access Stopwatch (via Time item), similar to clock icon on the taskbar.


• Braille Display Options: used to configure the way a user reads braille, similar to configuring a PDA's screen/reading functions.


• Keyboard settings: Used to configure keyboard echo and other settings.


• Review voice: used to change speech characterisitcs, such as delete alert tone volume, turning speech on or off and so forth.


• Connectivity: Used to configure connectivity settings, including creating a new connections, connecting to a Wi-Fi network, searching for Bluetooth devices and so forth.

And many others. For more information on Options Menu, I suggest looking up the user guide (I'll provide the link on a separate post).

Next and final installment: Switching to and exiting out of a task.