Windbag 3

A text based communication system for Windows

Windbag is a text based communication aid program for people with literacy skills. It provides many ways to store and retrieve messages. It has two main screens - the chat box and the phrase bank.

• Type and speak your messages.
• Use abbreviations.
• Predctive typing to speed up input.
• Smart context based message store.
• Keep commonly used messages near the top of the list.
• Speak from the clipboard.
• Use recorded or synthetic messages.
• Works with most text to speech systems for Windows.
• Use Windbag to read back text created in other programs.

The Windbag Chat Box
The chat box allows you to speak as you type for free conversation. It contains a number of tools to speed up the rate of speech:

• Type in messages with abbreviation expansion and word prediction.
• Speak pre-stored texts by line, sentence or paragraph - or speak selected text.
• Instant responses with a single key.
• 26 instant messages with two keys.
• Load and save the contents of many chat boxes for future use - ideal for presentations.

The Windbag Phrase Bank
The phrase bank provides an easy method to speak out commonly used messages very quickly. Messages may be in synthetic or digitised speech. A smart message minder keeps the messages you use most frequently near the top of the list.

• Intuitive phrase bank with messages arranged by context and topic.
• Store any number of phrases.
• Select from your 3000 most commonly used phrases with only three selections.
• Most commonly used messages are automatically suggested first.
• Have common messages recorded by a friend.
• Search for the right message, by text or using your own codes.
• Leave gaps in messages to fill in as you speak.

For users who cannot use the keyboard, Windbag is compatible with all alternative access methods. In particular, our on-screen keyboard, The Grid, provides a very efficient control of Windbag for switch users.