I have just built simon (from git) on a KUbuntu 12.04 + kubuntu-ppa-backports system. Simon itself seems to be working fine, and can detect audio and train samples (though it doesn't seem to have any that come with it), but as of yet I haven't figured out how to trigger it to use the "Dictation" command/plugin to actually dictate text into a window.

My (eventual) goal here is to use Simon to dictate (primarily) Python code into an IDE (Eric4, written in PyQt), I would also like to be able to dictate text into Chromium, Thunderbird and the like, but the primary task I'd like to accomplish is programming. I have used Dragon Naturally Speaking to accomplish this on Windows (almost a decade ago), so I'm aware of the need to do lots of customization to get it working well. At the moment I'm just evaluating whether this is going to be workable at all.

I expected the "Standard" scenario to be similar to the DNS standard, that is, by default when you speak, the recognizer types out the words you select to whatever window currently has focus. I'm okay with having a command-and-control word trigger that (e.g. "Take Dictation"), but I can't figure out how to make that command show up in the "Commands" section of the Standard scenario editor.

I've also been unable to get a custom scenario to activate. Here I create a new scenario, go to the Context window, and add a regex for window title of .*eric4.* (which should match the IDE's window title), but when alt-tabbing to the window I see the "deactivated" notification from simon. I've tried the same thing with ".*Mozilla.*" for Thunderbird with no luck in getting it to activate the scenario.

I realize these are rather trivial setup issues, but as of yet they've blocked me from even evaluating whether the project could be used for the purpose.

Hi there!

Free text dictation is not yet supported (only command & control). We're working on it, though, stay tuned for updates.

Best regards,
Peter