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One of the advantages of the BrailleNote is that there is already a provision for running programs. In other words, when HumanWare or someone else creates a program for KeySoft, a user can run it on his or her BrailleNote. As of 2011, apart from sendero, no one can write programs that'll run directly under KeySoft. However, there are programs written by HumanWare and others (via KeySoft extensions or through web applets) which allow a BrailleNote user to use his or her BraileNote at a new level.
One of the fascinating facts about BrailleNote is that a user can play games. Not just any game, but so-called "text adventures," also known as interactive fiction.
Here is an archive of the games that we have that can be played on the BrailleNote (requires KeySoft 7.x or later). Just press ENTER on Text Adventure Games link, download and unzip the archive and you are good to go.
There are a few KeySoft Extensions created by HumanWare which allow a user to perform useful tasks with a BrailleNote. These include Concise Oxford Dictionary and Thesaurus for BrailleNote and Nemeth Tutorial for KeySoft.
Concise Oxford Dictionary and Thesaurus allows a user to look up the word under the cursor to find out its meaning. Also, it allows a user to find synonyms and antonyms for a given word and hear its pronunciation. The user can also type a word directly into the program to hear its definition, synonyms, and antonyms.
The Nemeth Tutorial allows a user to learn the Nemeth Braille Code for Mathematics and Science Notation. Please note, however, that, as of the time of this writing, no BrailleNote product directly supports the Nemeth code. The Nemeth tutorial will teach you how to use Nemeth, but the BrailleNote cannot speak or translate to or from that code.
For BrailleNote mPower and PK, one needs to purchase the actual program to use it. It comes on a card which a user needs to insert into their BrailleNote in order to utilize the extensions. For apex users, the program files are already installed on the Flash Disk; all the user needs is the license key for the given software.
To find out more and to download these programs (if you are an Apex user), go to Optional Software link.
Some BrailleNote users wrote several web-based programs on their own for the BrailleNote family and other platforms, including games, utilities and so forth from programmers and programming students such as Alex H. Note that most of these programs require use of KeyWeb (the BrailleNote's web browser) to function, while some were written for PC's.
Alex H. wrote several programs for fun, including Unit Converter, Blackjack and others. Click Alex's Programs link to download a copy. As with the text games above, the file is a zip archive, so unzip it into a folder to start using the programs and reading their documentation.
Alex H also made a Periodic Table of Elements database for use with the Keybase application (Keysoft 7.0 or later). This is useful for looking up information about an element, including name, symbol, atomic weight, group, and more. Once you download this file, unzip it into the "keybase" folder on your BrailleNote's flash disk, and simply select it from the listed databases in keybase to use it. If you try to edit this database and get an error, try these steps:
Marvin V has written a few applications, also in the form of web pages you can store on your BrailleNote (except the Tetris Guide, which is in both U S and UEB braille formats). The utility called Playlist Shuffler is in keyword text format. There are instructions within it for creating the instructions file as a web page. The application is template-based, meaning you alter the text document and save a web page (htm) file in ascii format for each playlist you wish to work with. Further information may be found within that file at the top. Also included within the zip file is a folder which contains some text adventure games Marvin has played over the years, and thought were memorable. Also in that folder are walkthroughs and solutions for most of those games. Lastly, Marvin developed a database which you can use on your bn. It allows you to store usernames, passwords, and other information for any accounts you might create. ?Amazon, email providers, Bookshare, and PayPal are some examples.) The database also features help messages for many of the fields, and the records will be sorted in order of the date they were added by default. The date field is hidden from the user. Also, the password field is readable, and doesn't display asterisks instead of the password. If you're using speech, the username and password fields will be spelled out when you look through the records. When you unzip the file, whatever folder you choose as your destination, the programs and games will appear in their own folders within that folder, and the passwords database will be in the folder you chose itself. You should move that file to your keybase folder on the flash disk, then use the database manager to access it. Answer yes to the "create the database" prompt. If you are using an mPower, when the file extracts, after the "delete the original book" prompt, you will get a "system cannot find the path specified" error, but you should just ignore it. The file will unzip without any problems. Click this link to download the zip file.
Joseph L wrote several programs - either as part of schoolwork or for fun. As of November 2010, he wrote a small program called "testprog" that'll run on a PC. This program is a collecgtion of small programs, including odd/even number verifier, printing a sentence you typed or counting number of characters in a sentence. To save or download this program, select this link.
A number of users created custom system sound packs for BrailleNote. These are compressed (zip) files that needs to be unpacked to "none" folder of Flash Disk. As of 2012, these are:
More programs to come...
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