This chapter provides an overview of the basic setup and basic settings:
AsTeRICS Grid initially starts with a welcome view giving the choice between:
- Use AsTeRICS Grid without registration: choose this option in order to create a local default user (offline user) and directly start using AsTeRICS Grid.
- Register now: choose this option in order to sign up for an online user, which makes it possible to synchronize the grids across devices.
In AsTeRICS Grid a user in general holds a set of grids which realize a specific solution for this user. A user doesn't necessarily have to be a real person, it's also possible to create a "user" for a specific use case, for instance a specific smart home control interface.
Online users are users whose configuration is automatically synchronized with a cloud storage. This makes it possible to login on different devices while the configuration is always up-to-date on each device.
The following information is important for registering an online user:
- The only data that is needed are a username and a password. The username is needed for uniquely identifying a user and the password for securing his account and encrypting the data.
- If you want to use AsTeRICS Grid completely anonymously, just use a username without any relation to your person.
- Since all data is end-to-end encrypted only the user itself can ever see his data and configuration, no server admin or anyone else.
- End-to-end encryption is great for privacy, however it has the drawback that the data is lost, if you logout your online account on all devices and forget your password. In this case there is no possibility of password recovery, so remember your password carefully. It's also highly recommended to do backups of your grids (see Editing grid set).
- Usernames must start lowercase, valid characters are [a-z], [0-9] and ["-", "_"], valid length is 3-16 characters.
Offline users are users whose configuration is only saved offline in the storage of the currently used browser. This type of user is perfectly suited for use cases where AsTeRICS Grid is only used on a single device.
The following information is important regarding offline users:
- All data of an offline user never leaves the device, it's stored in a browser-internal database.
- Usernames must start lowercase, valid characters are [a-z], [0-9] and ["-", "_"], valid length is 3-16 characters.
After logging in for the first time you get to a Choose how to start page. Here you can either import a backup or choose one of the suggested grid sets to start. Click on Details to learn more about a specific grid set.
Under More search options you can filter the suggestions for languages or single grids.
Click on Use it to import a specific board.
Info about Open Board Format (OBF): OBF is an open format for exchanging grids across different AAC tools and is specified on the official website. AsTeRICS Grid supports importing OBF files (.obf and .obz) using the options Restore backup from file or Import custom data from file.
Under Settings -> General you can select the following settings:
- Application Language: Usually the app automatically uses the language of the browser respectively the operating system, if a translation for that language is available. You can manually change the app user interface to other existing translations. You're welcome to contribute to missing translations at this project on crowdin.com.
- Lock user interface: You can set a password (numbers only) to lock/unlock the user interface.
- Notifications: Decide how often the app should remind you to make a backup.
- Synchronize navigation and locked/fullscreen state for online users: Decide if these settings should apply on this device only or accross all devices for online users.
Under Settings -> Language you can select the following settings:
- Grid content language: if you're using a multilingual grid set, you can change the current language of the grid set here. The language can also be changed by the AAC user using an element action, see action to switch language / voice.
- Current voice: Select which voice to use for your monolingual grid set respectively for the language chosen as Grid content language. Information on voices can be found in chapter 11. If you have a grid set you want to use multilingually, you will have to use the respective action to switch languages and voices.
- Secondary voice: If your grid set is translated to other languages you configure that an element first speaks the label with the
current voiceand afterwards with the voice set as secondary voice. So one can hear a label first in one and then the other language. - Link voice language: If set, the Spanish voice will automatically speak the Spanish translation (if available), regardless of the current content language set, i.e. the current language of the labels. If not set, the voice will speak the label in the current content language, e.g. a Spanish voice will speak the text of a German (current content language) label. This makes sense if specific voices aren't available and a voice of a similar language should be used (e.g. Spanish and Basque).
Under Settings -> Input Methods you can select the following settings:
- General input settings: Decide the minimum pause for collecting and speaking the same cell several times in a row.
- Acoustic Feedback Options: Settings for feedback options for special input methods can be set here or in the settings for the specific input method.
Under Settings -> Integrations you can select the following settings:
- ARASAAC: If you're using the grid set in Spanish, you can activate an automatic grammar correction.
- Expternal speech service: Make additional voices available in the app. This requires technical knowledge how to start and use the external speech bridge.