PhoneFloater 1.1 is a telephony application which can turn your GeoPort equipped Macintosh into an intelligent personal answering machine and speakerphone, providing you with the best in personal communications for your well connected Macintosh. It is a very simple application to use, but all of us need help sometime, so this document was provided for just that reason. From this document, you should be able to learn and use all of the features of PhoneFloater within ten minutes. And if you do have any problems, the Balloon Help should also be able to help you along the way.
Let me take this space to thank you for purchasing PhoneFloater through the Kagi shareware system, and if you haven't already, please register. We have great things in store for future versions of PhoneFloater, including OpenDoc support, and your support helps me produce newer and better versions.
2. Starting PhoneFloater for the first time
Now that you have downloaded and uncompressed the archive, you want to get started with PhoneFloater. When you launch PhoneFloater for the first time, it will create a few files in your system's Preferences Folder. These files may include : PhoneFloater Preferences, PhoneFloater Log, PhoneFloater Catalog, PhoneFloater Message List, and PhoneFloater Greeting. Don't worry if you do not have all of these files right away, they will be created as you go ahead and use PhoneFloater.
After creating it's necessary files, PhoneFloater will ask you to personalize your copy with your name and company name (Figure 2-1). It is only necessary to enter your name, but if your company get's a site license I recommend entering the name properly.
Once you have completed the personalization process, you can go ahead and use PhoneFloater for placing or receiving calls. All call operations in PhoneFloater are handled through the Phone window (Figure 2-2). Depending on the situation, this window will let you dial a number, answer a call, or inform you of messaging progress when you do not want to be disturbed.
Now that you have PhoneFloater up and running, try using it to call someone by following the instructions below.
3. Dialing a number
Dialing a number with PhoneFloater is quite simple. Simply enter a number in the provided text box (as shown in Figure 3-1), and press the dial button.
Once you have entered the number, the Dial and Mute buttons become available, allowing you to dial the number and control the microphone settings.
There are quite a few different ways in which to enter a number into that text box. The simplest method is by typing the name in the field, but the other ways may prove useful at times as well. Once you have dialed a number once, PhoneFloater stores it in it's Speed Dial popup menu, seen alongside the phone number (shown below in Figure 3-2). To dial a number from the Speed Dial popup menu, simply click in the popup menu and select the number you want (remember to hold down the mouse button when selecting a menu item).
Another method of entering a number in the Phone window is by using Drag and Drop. PhoneFloater supports Macintosh Drag & Drop throughout the application, and will let you drop a number of different items into the Phone window in order to enter a number. The items which you can drag include :
• plain text (from another application which supports Drag & Drop)
• PowerTalk business cards with a valid phone number field
• PhoneFloater saved files (more information below)
• PhoneFloater Catalog (Phone Book) entries
The last method (and coolest) is by using Speech Recognition to enter a number. PhoneFloater supports Speech Recognition throughout the application, and this includes entering numbers. To enter a number using speech recognition, simply speak out the number you want to dial (you will have to speak slower than normal though).
Once you have entered a number in the Phone window, you can save that window as a PhoneFloater file. This file can then be dragged and dropped onto the Phone window to enter a number.
4. Answering the phone
When an incoming call is detected PhoneFloater will change the appearance of the Phone window, changing the Dial button to Answer, allowing you to answer the call (shown below in Figure 4-1).
To answer the call normally, either pick up your telephone handset, or press the Answer button in the Phone window. Once you have pressed the Answer button, you can speak using your PlainTalk™ microphone and speakers as a full-duplex speakerphone. After answering, the Answer button changes to a Hang Up button, allowing you to terminate the call (or you can select Hang Up from the Phone menu). Terminating the call (either by the button or the Hang Up menu command) changes the appearance of the Phone window to normal (as seen in Figure 2-2).
5. Using the Phone Book
PhoneFloater's Phone Book is an excellent way of storing and retrieving your frequently called numbers, or for keeping track of which number goes with which person. By associating a name with each number, the Phone Book provides you with an effective method of storing numbers.
The Phone Book window provides you with facilities to Add, Remove, Edit, and Dial phone book entries. The Phone Book window (shown below in Figure 5-1) lists your names in the order in which they were entered, showing you the name and number of each entry.
Adding a number to the Phone Book window is easy. Simply click the Add button in the lower left corner to start the process. This will display the Add/Edit dialog (shown below in Figure 5-2). In this dialog, you must enter both the name and number which you wish to add the the Phone Book. The dialog will not let you add an entry with a blank name or number field.
Once you have entered your information, press the OK button to have the list save and display this new entry.
Editing an item is just as simple. To change an item which you have previously entered, hilite that item by single clicking on it, and press the Edit button, or just double-click the item. The Add/Edit dialog is displayed, withthe information already filled out for you. You can either choose to change the information, or Cancel the request.
To remove an item from the Phone Book, hilite that item by single clicking on it, and press the Remove button. This will permanently remove the item from the list, so make sure you have selected the right item. There is no Undo for this action!
Finally, you can dial a number right out of the Phone Book by hiliting it and pressing the dial button. Or, if you do not wish to dial the number right away, select the item, and Drag & Drop it to the Phone window.
6. Tracking your calls
PhoneFloater has provided you with the ability to track all calls placed from the application since version 1.0. New in this release is the ability to track all incoming calls as well. The Call Log window is the facility in PhoneFloater which allows you to view the log of tracked calls. Calls which have been placed with PhoneFloater appear in BLACK, while calls which are received (either answered normally or through voice mail) are shown in RED, (as shown below in Figure 6-1).
The Call Log window has two buttons, for clearing the entire log, and for redialing logged numbers. The redial facility is useful if you do not have the number stored elsewhere. Simply hilite the number you wish to dial, and press the Dial button. Received calls cannot be redialed, as PhoneFloater does not support Call Display.
The Call Log window can be saved to a separate file by selecting Save As… from the File menu. This can be used to save a monthly log of all calls placed or received for billing purposes. Just save the log as a separate file, and press the Clear All button on the Call Log window to reset the log for another month.
7. Voice Messaging with PhoneFloater
New in PhoneFloater 1.1 is the Voice Messaging system. This system allows you to use your Macintosh as a single mailbox voice-mail system for taking messages when you are busy or away from your Macintosh. Setting it up is a cinch. By default the messaging system is turned off in PhoneFloater, but turning it on involves only a few clicks. To turn voice messaging on, go to the Preferences menu item in the Edit menu. Choosing this will bring up a movable modal dialog (as shown in Figure 7-1). In the popup menu, select Voice Messaging so that your screen matches Figure 7-1.
To turn on voice messaging, click in the On button (as shown above). This will activate the messaging system within PhoneFloater. While you have this dialog open, you may want to record your voice message and set a limit on the message length you are willing to record. Once you have set your options, click in the OK button to dismiss the dialog.
Now that you have PhoneFloater all setup to receive messages when you are away, let's have a look at what happens when a message is recorded.
PhoneFloater will answer the phone and take a message if a voice call is detected by the Geoport software. Your telephone gets answered on the number of rings which you set in the Express Modem control panel. Make sure that you set "Auto Answer Incoming Calls" in the Express Modem Control Panel to on, otherwise the telephone won't be answered by PhoneFloater.
When a call is answered by PhoneFloater, and a message taken, the message is saved in the PhoneFloater Prefsƒ folder, within your system's Preferences folder. The message is saved as a PhoneFloater sound file, which is playable within the PhoneFloater application. To check whether or not you have any messages, select Voice Messages from the Phone menu. This will open the voice messages window (shown below in Figure 7-2).
Any messages that have been taken by PhoneFloater will appear in the message list, showing the date and time recorded, the message duration, and whether or not they have been listened to. To play a message, select the message and press the Play button, or double-click the message in the list. To stop playback of a message, press the Stop button while the message is playing.
Any message from the list can be saved as a System 7 sound file by selecting the message and press the Save As.… button. Alternatively, you can drag and drop the message to any other application that supports drag and drop of sounds (ie. Scrapbook or Finder).
To delete a message, select it from the list, and press the Remove button, or drag and drop the message to the trash can. Either method cannot be undone, so make sure you are deleting the correct message.
8. Speech Recognition
PhoneFloater supports the Apple Speech Recognition system, from version 1.5 on up. Using the speech system is easy, and offers you a new and exciting way to use PhoneFloater.
To enable speech recognition within PhoneFloater, you must first install the Apple Speech Recognition system software, and having installed that, open the Preferences window from the Edit menu, and select Speech Recognition from the popup menu. To turn on recognition, press the On button for both Speech Recognition and Speech Feedback Window. Also, you may want to set your hotkey for quickly enabling and disabling recognition within the application. This is only useful if you are not using the Push-To-Talk feature of the Speech recognition system.
When the recognition system is turned on, the Speech Feedback window appears (as shown below in Figure 8-1). The character shown in the window will vary according to your global speech preferences chosen in the Speech control panel.
There are many different ways to use speech recognition with PhoneFloater. Below is a list of items that can be spoken and recognized during normal application use.
Speech Dictionary
• All menu commands (except Hang Up, because the speech source is busy while using the speakerphone)
Certain speech commands for menus are not exactly as the menu text appears. These menus and their
NB. When speaking numbers, you should speak slower than you would normally so that the recognizer
has time to process and input each number you speak
• Any item from the Phone Book (ie. to call Apple, just say Phone Apple)
• Buttons in the open and save dialog windows (ie. Open, Cancel, Desktop, Save, New Folder)
• OK and Cancel buttons within the Preferences, Phone Book Edit, and Speed Dial Edit dialog windows
9. Drag and Drop
PhoneFloater supports Macintosh Drag & Drop throughout the application. Below is a list of what can be dragged and dropped from each window in PhoneFloater.
• Phone Window
• Drops To : text, text clippings, Phone Book entries, PhoneFloater files, and PowerTalk business cards.
• Drags From : text
• Phone Book window
• Drops To : none
• Drags From : text, and PhoneFloater files (you must hold down the key to do this).
• Log window
• Drops To : none
• Drags From : none
• Speed Dial Editor
• Drops To : text, text clippings, Phone Book entries, PhoneFloater files
