AsTeRICS Grid Dynamic Communicator
19 – Main menu – Settings
General settings
In the Main Menu, we find the Communicator Settings section. When we enter to this page, we can see two main sections: General Settings and User Settings.
The General Settings are applied to all users of the device.
On one hand, we find the Application Language. The application automatically detects the language of the zone from which we are accessing, so it will show us the whole application in our language if there is a translation of it.
In Miscellaneous, we can Synchronize navigation and locked/fullscreen state for online users. We can also set a Passcode for unlocking the user interface (numbers only).
If we have enabled status synchronization on two devices and, on one of them, we put the communicator in full screen mode, automatically, on the other device on which we are connected with the same account, the communicator will be enter in fullscreen mode too.
The same applies to the screen lock. If in one of the devices, in which we are connected with an account, we put the communicator in visualization mode and lock it, automatically, all the devices connected with that user and that have the Synchronize status option enabled will be locked. Once locked, each device will be unlocked separately using the unlocking system that we have defined (numeric or by 7 clicks if we have not set any numeric code).
(TRICK 1) If we want that the user have the communicator locked and in full screen mode while we work on the configuration of the user’s communicator from another device, we will not check the synchronize status option. In this way, on the user’s device, we will activate the lock and the full screen (in that order) and on our device we will have it unlocked to be able to continue working on its configuration.
(TRICK 2) If we have set a numeric unlock code and we forget it, we can unlock it by pressing any number very quickly (without delay) a few times. In any case, as well as the user name and password we recommend to have them written down (saved).
If we want to define the navigation status (full screen and/or lock) on each device separately, we will disable the synchronize status option.
User settings
The User Configuration is linked to the current user and synchronized with other devices in the case of online users.
The Grid content language refers to the grid(s) whose content is translated into several languages, as explained in the tutorial AsTeRICS Grid Communicator – 14 – Actions – Change content language / voice. The most common is to have the Automatic option activated.
Voice refers to the synthesized voice that reads the content of the cumulative phrase (collect element). By default, the system shows all the voices corresponding to the language of the content, although we can activate the option Show all languages to see all the voices available in all languages. Before selecting the voice, we can Test reading a sentence to see if it suits the user who will use the communicator.
(TRICK) It is very important to read the section of the manual that clarifies the issue of synthesised voices and the need to install a text-to-speech engine on Android and IOS mobile devices to avoid the problems caused by the use of online voices.
In the Colors section, we can perform different actions such as change the Default element background color. This color only affects cells in which we have not assigned a color code in the General tab.
We can also change the Default grid background color.
In this example we have selected two colors for the cell and the grid background:
The final result will be the one you can see in the following screenshot.
Transparent cells, such as those in the cumulative phrase, appear with a green background and the grid background appears blue. In case this is not the expected result, we can always Restore the original color of the cells (elements) and the grid background.
A very important option in this section is the choice of the color scheme for Categories, according to the type of word it represents if we have activated the option Activate color categories of grid elements. Currently, the two most commonly used color schemes are the Fitzgerald key and the Goosens key, although we can leave cells (elements) without assigning any scheme. For each of these two schemes, we have chosen two color palettes, one of them more intense in color than the other.
If we are going to use one of these schemes, it is very important to define it before starting to fill in the cell content, since, depending on the chosen scheme, the Color options of the category that appears in the Label section (General tab) when edit a cell (element) vary.
Below is an example of the word type options that appear in the Label section with the Fitzgerald key,
And in the following screenshot, we show you an example of the word type options that appear in the Label section with the key Goosens.
Here is an example of the same communicator with the two schemes.
From the Element labels section, we can Transform the text of the cells to force the change from uppercase to lowercase or vice versa for all the panels.
The notifications section allows us to activate/deactivate and configure the backup notifications. Given the importance of keeping backups, we can set a reminder at any time interval we wish. If we do not want to receive notifications, we can deactivate it by leaving the value at 0 in the selector bar.
Finally, in Miscellaneous, we have the section on Grammatical Correction which is explained in this chapter of the manual.
