Introduction
Welcome to the customization section of the Brailliance articles! We’re going to break down each setting on your device, and we will explain what each one does to make sure you make your device, YOURS. On Brailliant models, this is referred to as the “Options Menu.” You can access this menu on Brailliants by pressing an “O Chord.” Sadly, on Chameleon and Mantis devices, this is just called “Settings,” and there is no command to access it from anywhere. You’ll need to go to the main menu, and find “Settings.” Remember, you can use all the navigation methods to get to each item, press “Enter” to edit each setting, and so on. now, let’s get started!
Airplane Mode
This is quite self explanatory. Most devices have this option, especially when you want to turn off all radios on your device. Remember that, once you turn on this mode, you will not have access to your bluetooth connections to your terminal devices, or Wi-fi.
Format Markers
Back in the old days, braille notetakers when displaying documents, had special symbols to indicate things such as new lines and page breaks. Use this option to enable or disable these when reading files. This option may not be important to some to save room on their display, but you can enable it for nostalgic purposes.
Cursor Visible
This option you may not wish to change, unless you are comfortable with this. Essentially, this turns off the cursor that will appear on applications such as the editors and calculator. You can still use standard navigation commands to move by letter, word etcetera, however you will not see if it’s the correct word unless you are using text-to-speech models.
Cursor Blink
Since we’re ttalking about the cursor, you can change if you want it to constantly move up and down, or if you want it to stay still on a document or calculator entry. Note that you cannot control the blink speed of this cursor. Screen readers on computers can allow you to change this speed if you are using a braille display, but it only affects the screen reader and not the on board device apps.
Message Display Time
Like a standard computer, sometimes your braille display needs to give you a notification, but it disappears after a while. You can change how long you want it to stay on the display, in seconds. If you ever just need to dismiss the notification after you’re done reading, press a “Cursor” button above any cell. The maximum time you can put in this field is 30 seconds.
Sleep Time
Since we’re already entering times, let’s go ahead and talk about sleep time. This value will be in minutes, with “0” turning that setting off. After not using the braille display for a while, the unit can turn off by itself. It won’t completely turn off, it will just be on stand-by, like your smartphone.
Word Wrap
If you want to have your devices try and fit as many words as possible on the braille display before you have to press the “Right” thumb key to move forward, leave this option to on. However, if you wish to read and have the braille display fill in part of words at the very end and pressing the “Right” thum key takes you to the rest of the word, turn this option off. The best example is, if you typed on a braille or typewriter, and you hear the bell ring and you were about to type in a long word. Would you rather try and type the word and finish it on another line, or would you push the “Return” lever, press the “Line Feed” bbutton and write the whole word out? This is the exact same thing on your braille display. Personally, I like to have the words on another line if there’s not enough room, rather than having the first two letters at the end, and then I have to scroll down to read the rest. In this case, word wrap is on.
Condense Blank Lines
Speaking of lines, have you ever had a document, and the author of said document loves the “Enter” key so much, they have quadruple spacing on said document? Well, this option forces the display to skip all those blank lines for a much better reading experience. Leave this option to on to get said experience. No matter how many lines there are between sentences, the display will make sure you don’t see them.
Confirm Delete
This only applies to the file manager. If you want it to ask you, “Are you sure you want to delete this file,” leave this to “On.” Otherwise, if you don’t want it to ask you every single time, turn this to “Off.”
Device Feedback
These next couple of options control if your device should beep, or vibrate, or both when getting a notification, such as a Wi-Fi or bluetooth connection. The device can also beep when you press an invalid key combination. In the case of Chameleon and Brailliant models, you will hear a click, any time you make a mistake, a beep when you are in the middle setting when changing voice speed, and a higher pitched click when you reached the maximum or minimum setting numbers for volume and speed. You can toggle either of these options on or off, according to your preference.
Thumb Key Configuration
This option allows you to change what each of the front thumb keys do. When you press “Enter” on each thumb key number, you are presented with four options. “Previous, Left, Right, or Next.” On brailliants, the keys are labeled, “Previous, Up, Down, and Next.” Select what you want each thumb key to do, and when you’re happy, find “Save Configuration.” Keep in mind this ONLY controls the on board applications. Screen readers have their own ways to configure what each thumb key does.
Wireless Notifications
Use this option to control whether you want your device to tell you if it connected successfully to a Wi-Fi network, or if it disconnects. It is recommended you leave this option turned on for more security of you knowing you are connected to the internet to do things such as updating your device or downloading books.
Terminal Settings
The next two options (three if using a braille keyboard model) control a couple aspects of the tterminal. This controls if you want the device to start in the terminal app, open the USB connection, and lock the keyboard. Let’s look at these in more detail.
Start in Terminal
When you first turn your device on, you are placed in the main menu. However, if this option is on, it will take you straight into the terminal app. This could be easier if you know you don’t intend to use your device to create documents, read books, or use the calculator.
USB Connection
In this menu option, you have three options. The “Always Ask” option will make it to where when you connect your display to a USB device, it will ask you if you want to open the terminal app. Select “Ok,” and you are placed in the USB connection of the terminal. If you select “Never ask,” the display will do nothing after connecting it, and you have to go into the terminal manually. If you select “Always Connect,” any time you connect the display to a USB connection, you are taken straight to the terminal app right away.
Locking the Keyboard
If you are using a braille keyboard variant of these displays, you have the option to disable the keyboard when using the terminal completely. This could be useful if all you plan to do is read text, or, if you are using a Mac, you can take advantage of the “Braille Display Mirroring” feature, where if you have multiple students wanting to read something, they won’t be able to type accidentally into the document. Only the controller will be able to mess with anything, and the “Lock Keyboard” option is enabled on the braille keyboard models of other students.
One-handed Mode (Braille Keyboard Models ONLY)
If you have the use of only one hand, HumanWare has ensured you are not left out of using these products. When you enable this setting, braille input will change. For instance, now, rather than pressing the letter “G” and getting an immediate result, you now have to press “Space” after you type it. This can be very useful, especially when a person is getting acquainted with using a keyboard for the first time with one hand. No need to worry about the order of the dot combinations, just make sure you at least know the dot patterns and type them however you find it easier. If you want to perform a chorded command like a “G Chord,” press “Space” before typing in the letter “G,” then press another “Space” after that. It takes quite a bit of practice, but people with the use of only one hand can type as fast as someone with two hands, which is honestly very impressive!
Key Repeat (Mantis ONLY)
This is very similar to the windows computer feature where if you press and hold down a key, it will type in the key multiple times you press. For instance, if I hold down “A,” it would just keep typing the letter “A” until I release it. I keep this option to off, to avoid multiple typing of characters.
Sticky Keys (Mantis Only)
This applies to the modifier keys of your Mantis. If this option is enabled, the “Control, Alt, Windows, FN, and Shift” keys when pressed, will stay prressed down. For example, let’s say you have issues with your hands and cannot press multiple keys at once. With this option enabled, you could press one of those modifier keys first, then let go of that key and find the second part of the command. For example, in the editor, if I wanted to write a “Capital J,” then I’d press Shift, then the letter J by itself. You can press any modifier key twice to lock it, which basically means you can press multiple commands without having to press that modifier each time. In this case, if I wanted to select multiple lines of text, I could press “Shift” twice, and just keep pressing “Down Arrow” by itself, until I am happy with my selection, then press “Shift” once to unlock or release it. Keep in mind, this only works in the native Mantis apps. In the terminal, the respective devices have their own sticky keys settings. You can also press “Shift” five times from anywhere in the Mantis interface, and find “Ok” to turn on this feature. Use this same procedure to turn that feature off from anywhere as well.
Main Menu management (Brailliant ONLY)
One of the options on the Brailliant is to be able to “Clean” your main menu. Use the options on the list and press “Enter” to toggle them on or off. You can practically disable ALL of the apps, EXCEPT for the options menu. In my use case, I disabled everything but the terminal, since I know I’m only using that option. To put this simply, you can make your braille display as smart or dumb as you wish!
About
See this option if you want to know the version number, serial number, and a few other technical details of your braille display. This could be useful when you are on the phone with technical support, and they ask you what the serial number of your device is. Use standard navigation commands to move through the information list.
Change Language
This option will let you change what default language you want to use. When you press “Enter” on a language, your device will restart, using that language for its voice and braille display when it is done restarting. Your profiles you set are NOT changed.
Conclusion
Wow! So many settings, right? Well, you can either read the whole article to find the setting you have a question aboutt, or you can use heading navigation to skim and find the setting you’re looking for to give you a better explanation. You notice we left out a few settings, and this was on purpose. We feel like those are separate items that need their own articles. We hope this article was beneficial to be able to customize your braille display’s basic settings! Happy customizing!