Windbag

Windbag is a text based communication aid program for people with literacy skills. 

The Windbag screen is divided into two parts - at the top is the Chat Window (with optional prediction to the right) and at the bottom is the message window (with optional topics to the left).

The Chat Window

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 and speak your messages.
• Use abbreviations for common words & phrases.
• Predictive typing to speed up input.
• Speak pre-stored texts by line, sentence or paragraph - or speak selected text.
• Load and save the contents of many chat boxes for future use - ideal for presentations.
• Speak from the clipboard (for reading from other programs).

The Message Window

The message window displays your phrase bank, which provides an easy method to speak out commonly used messages very quickly.

• Type in messages with abbreviation expansion and word prediction.
• Instant responses with a single key.
• 26 instant messages with two keys.
• Messages may be in synthetic or digitised speech.
• Messages are automatically searched as you type in the chat box
• Intuitive phrase bank with messages arranged by topic.
• Store any number of phrases.
• Have common messages recorded by a friend.
• Leave gaps in messages to fill in as you speak.  

Access

For users who cannot use the keyboard, Windbag is compatible with all alternative access methods. In particular, our on-screen keyboard, The Grid 2, provides a very efficient control of Windbag for switch users.

Speech

Windbag is provided with high quality speech, available in many languages.  Samples of the voices can be heard on the speech samples page.