We are now at the end of January and I think the time has come to let you know about some of the new features coming to Leasey version 10.
The Beta Testers and I have been working literally day and night on creating some good features to get version 10 started. Don’t forget that the first release of version 10 will not contain all the features we will be releasing throughout 2025. I am quite sure a lot more will arrive in due course. However the below is what will be in the first release.
Product Authorisation.
The way in which Hartgen Consultancy products are authorised has been with us for 10 years and by and large it has worked well. However, there are good reasons why it should be changed:
1. From an administration perspective, the activation files need to be compiled using JAWS.
2. More importantly, if for whatever reason the activation fails, it requires a manual file to be sent to you with instructions upon where to place that file on the machine. Some people do not have the skills to do this.
The new system, which will be part of Leasey version 10, is easier to administer. The activations can be created faster, and, in time, it should be possible to ensure that when a product is purchased, you can get instant access to it. That part of the process will not be in the first iteration of this version but that is under consideration. For the time being, the activations can be produced much faster.
When the product is installed, it should automatically activate. If it does not, an activation key can be Emailed to you. The documentation will describe how to enter the manual activation key, although Leasey will prompt you to do this automatically if the activation fails. This is a far more elegant method of dealing with activations.
When you purchase Leasey or a Leasey upgrade, we will still need to know your JAWS serial number.
Leasey Specific Apps.
During the past decade, we have made extensive use of special API’s, Application Program Interfaces, to provide services that we know many of you enjoy. Good examples would be working with podcasts, RSS feeds and converting time from one country to another.
These API’s are provided by external sources. Unfortunately, if something does not work, or we would like to enhance the service, we can only work within the limits of what those companies are prepared to offer, and in most cases, that isn’t much. So it is time to start creating Leasey’s own apps to deal with these situations.
In Leasey version 10, you will see our own created apps for the time conversion features, RSS reading and podcasts. This is just the start of making changes to the ways in which core functionality operates. Not everything can be done at once, but you will see many changes this year. The Leasey Radio app is one of the services which is due for improvement later in the year as an example.
What this means is that shortly after releasing Leasey version 10, we will be stepping away from these older methods of accessing particular services.
So if you do use the news services, RSS, podcasts, and time conversions especially, you will want to make sure that you have purchased an upgrade to version 10 before that is done because otherwise you will find you can no longer get access to them.
Not only do these new Leasey apps offer more robust functionality, but they also give us additional features customers have wanted for years. A good example would be to work with troublesome RSS feeds for reading content. But by far the most requested improvements centre around working with podcasts.
Here are some highlights of the new podcasts app.
When searching for a podcast to add to your list of favourites, it is now possible to play the most recent episodes so you can gain an appreciation of the content and quality before you add it. That is not possible in version 9. You can only read the overall description and the details of each episode.
The process for locating a favourite podcast feed you have stored is identical to what is available now.
However, when a feed is accessed, the following is new.
The page contains details of the 20 most recent episodes. JAWS is becoming more problematic as time goes by in terms of handling large web pages. So you will only see 20 episodes listed.
However, there are Next Page and Previous Page links. This means that you can move back through the feed to see all of the early episodes.
A specially built audio player is included. You are able to download the episode of the podcast to the computer. However, the player allows you to access and play each episode on the provided page. Controls exist to play and pause the audio, adjust the volume, and skip forward through the audio. You can either use a slider to move through the audio content, or buttons exist to move forward and back by 30 seconds or a minute at a time.
There is also a speed control. You can adjust the playback speed in small increments, faster or slower, and the setting is retained even when you revisit the LeaseyCast area.
A levelled heading indicator denotes the start of each new episode and accompanying show notes.
The ability to skip by chapter marked sections is under review, but you will not see this in the first iteration of Leasey version 10.
In addition, LeaseyCast (as we refer to it) does now contain the ability to check for podcast updates. You will be able to move into a list to see which of your favourite podcasts have new episodes. You can of course go straight to those episodes and work with them.
ChatGPT.
I’ve written extensively about the functionality being provided to use ChatGPT. The major difference between when that blog post was written and now is that we have the ability to save and load conversations. So if you have a conversation with ChatGPT, you can save it and recall it again at any time in the future.
When you recall it, a brief summary of the content is given so as to remind you of what has taken place. ChatGPT is fully aware of what you have previously discussed.
Don’t forget that this is about much more than asking questions. It contains a good range of specially designed tools such as a Thesaurus, dictionary, utilities to work with text in many different ways, the ability to transcribe audio to text, create images from text and more.
AI Tools.
A keystroke exists allowing you to move directly to one of three online AI tools: ChatGPT, FSCompanion and Ask Microsoft Accessibility.
Weather App Settings.
For many years Leasey has made available a very comprehensive weather app. When you configure the settings, it is now easy to determine the options which have been previously selected, just as you can with the comprehensive range of options which can be customised for ChatGPT.
Time Conversion.
The features to find a time in any location, and to convert a time from one location to another on a specific date, have been completely rewritten and they are now dedicated Leasey apps. It is hoped we will have no more difficulties with those.
Winamp Time Reporting.
For those people who use the Winamp audio player, the scripts have been adapted so that JAWS reports time in an hours, minutes and seconds format. Currently, if you check the elapsed or total time in Winamp with JAWS, and the file length exceeds an hour, you hear the number of minutes and seconds. These and other time values are now reported in an hours, minutes and seconds format. This was a customer requested feature.
Typing the Date and Time.
Many people use the feature of Leasey where you can press the Leasey key followed by Right Arrow. This types the date into a document at the cursor position. A customer wanted greater flexibility over the output.
You can now select between the current format, with the components separated by dashes or with forward slash characters.
Mozilla Thunderbird.
In the first release of Leasey version 10, we are making a start on providing some enhanced support for the Thunderbird Email client. Highlights include:
The ability to read individual headers with keystrokes, such as the date of the message, the author and subject.
The ability to copy the author’s Email address directly to the clipboard.
If you have selected to read messages automatically, skip the first line in the virtual buffer since it contains the subject line.
A keystroke to speak and spell the incorrectly spelled word in the spell checking dialog.
To set Thunderbird so it always launches a specific mail account Inbox.
Keystrokes to move to the next list or tree view.
Conclusion.
We are pretty much feature complete for this first release of version 10.
It is unlikely that any further features will be created beyond that stated above. There are now an enormous number of documentation changes to make and new chapters to write. But Leasey version 10 will be made available as quickly as we can in February.
If you do use some of the services such as podcasts or RSS feeds etc, you have a chance to pre-order the upgrade before we discontinue those older services.
I hope this gives you a good insight as to what is coming and when.
Do enjoy Leasey version 10 when it comes along!