<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace">Gustav, Simon,</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace">Thank you so much for the insight. I definitely hadn't considered those cases. I'll give it some thought today and decide one of the following to remedy the situation.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace">1. Add the missing features and functionality to KMouth.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace">2. Revive Jovie and clean it up quite a bit since it has bit rotted significantly in the past 5 years or so.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace">I'm leaning towards 1 now since KMouth needs some love and attention anyway. If we go that direction KMouth would need the following features to be feature complete with the use cases described above.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace">a) A queue of what will be spoken as well as control over the queue to remove entries, etc.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace">b) Voice settings to be able to switch between voices quickly.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace">c) A tray icon and/or more shortcut keys to be able to speak, play, stop, pause, etc. like Jovie had.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace">d) Speak clipboard contents.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace">for b I really didn't like that Jovie had voice settings that were separate from Speech-Dispatcher's settings. In my mind we should be able to control what voice settings (language, volume, pitch, etc.) directly by manipulating speech-dispatcher configuration. But for that to work the configuration gui would need to directly manipulate speech-dispatcher's .conf files and have a way to tell it to reload them when we change them. I'm not sure if that's already implemented in speech-dispatcher itself yet or not. If not it shouldn't be too tricky to add though. The other items should be pretty straightforward.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace">thanks,</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace">Jeremy<br></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Fri, Oct 22, 2021 at 4:50 AM Gustav Degreef <<a href="mailto:gustav97@gmail.com">gustav97@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">Thank you Jeremy for the opportunity to address this directly.<br>
<br>
In my opinion, Jovie/jovie placement is indispensable for those of us <br>
who are partially sighted (not blind). In my opinion, a screen reader <br>
(very useful for the blind) actually gets in the way for people like me. <br>
Jovie does a very simple and straightforward task - it reads the most <br>
recent content of the clipboard. Jovie allows for selecting text (and <br>
reading it out) in virtually all of the major applications/tasks (and <br>
virtually all others) that a primarily desktop user needs for every day <br>
use. Those functions/tasks where jovie/replacement is needed are:<br>
<br>
1) Text edit/read - in my case (imc) Kate<br>
2) e-mail client - imc thunderbird<br>
3) browser - imc Firefox<br>
4) pdf reader - imc Okular<br>
5) word processor - imc LibreOffice<br>
6) text from "program to user output" (error messages, text boxes, <br>
command line output, etc).<br>
7) miscellaneous programs not so often used.<br>
<br>
In my experience/opinion:<br>
Kmouth is cumbersome and unwieldy and requires too many steps.<br>
using the command line adds several steps that disturb the flow of work, <br>
it is not simple to have to switch windows and then have to type a command.<br>
<br>
Indispensable (for partially sighted) aspects of Jovie or Jovie replacement:<br>
<br>
1) SIMPLE interface with as few clicks or steps or commands to get <br>
speech output. - ideal use is with mouse or keyboard shortcut. Currently <br>
jovie takes three simple steps with mouse or keyboard shortcut - text <br>
select, text copy, then start/etc. speech output.<br>
2) being able to select all or ONLY part of a piece of text - with the <br>
mouse or shortcut.<br>
3) Easily start/stop and pause/resume speech output with mouse or shortcut.<br>
4) Sits in system tray or functions from menu that appears on right <br>
click of mouse (or keyboard shortcut).<br>
<br>
<br>
There are currently add ons to programs that COULD fulfill most of these <br>
requirements, however they do not all work well:<br>
<br>
1) ) Kate - no plugin, no built in function for tts.<br>
2) Thunderbird - Read Aloud plugin: very limited, it reads the ENTIRE <br>
message with some headers. Does not allow for selecting a portion of the <br>
text, can't stop, can't pause/resume. Totally inadequate for a bottom <br>
posted list message.<br>
3) Firefox - Read Aloud plugin: works quite well, has all needed functions.<br>
4) Okular - nice built in tts function, easy to select text, right click <br>
mouse to output speech. However it outputs (at least on opensuse) two <br>
simultaneous speech streams (of the same text) with different voices and <br>
it is impossible to understand.<br>
5) LibreOffice - has a tts plugin but it is cumbersome and adds several <br>
steps. It has a nice feature to output the contents of the clipboard <br>
but it requires too many steps.<br>
6) program to user output - kmouth or command line seem the only <br>
alternative to Jovie<br>
7) miscellaneous programs (with no plugins or built in tts) - same as 6)<br>
<br>
It seems clear that a lot of developers are aware/are working on tts for <br>
various programs, and that is very encouraging and great. However, it is <br>
a time of great transition and the tts functions (without Jovie) are <br>
quite inadequate for the partially sighted (for example, from macular <br>
degeneration which is fairly common). Thanks, Gustav.<br>
<br>
On 10/22/21 1:56 AM, Jeremy Whiting wrote:<br>
> Hello all,<br>
><br>
> I've been quietly watching this conversation for a bit but need to <br>
> chime in here. I'm the one that changed the name from ktts to Jovie <br>
> many years ago. Then deprecated Jovie itself when QtSpeech came about. <br>
> I'm very curious about what use cases there still are for Jovie. <br>
> Shortly before the name change from ktts to Jovie it was drastically <br>
> changed to just be a gui on top of Speech-Dispatcher. QtSpeech as a <br>
> library does the same thing but has no gui, is only useful from <br>
> applications. My question is what do you use Jovie for exactly? Here <br>
> are the ways replacements using QtSpeech "Just Work" in my mind.<br>
><br>
> Want to hear notifications from any KDE application like Jovie/ktts <br>
> did? Turn that on in the application's notifications configuration. It <br>
> uses QtSpeech to speak the notification, title, message or both. Just <br>
> like it did previously with ktts/jovie.<br>
> Want to read a document out loud? Use Okular's QtSpeech actions in <br>
> it's menu. It sends either the selected text or the current page to be <br>
> spoken to Speech-Dispatcher directly for listening to the document.<br>
> Want to read out loud a web article of some kind? Use Firefox's tts <br>
> features to read it out to you. It doesn't use QtSpeech, but interacts <br>
> with speech-dispatcher directly if I recall correctly.<br>
> Want to type some text and hear it spoken? This can be done in a <br>
> number of ways. 1. spd-say command line tool. 2. espeak or espeak-ng <br>
> or festival, or pico or any other tts directly from command line. 3. <br>
> Use KMouth if you prefer to have a gui. KMouth uses speech-dispatcher <br>
> directly if I recall correctly and provides a nice gui with a <br>
> customizable dictionary of commonly used words, etc.<br>
><br>
> With the above, what is the use of Jovie anymore? If there's a use <br>
> case that isn't covered by the above we can certainly revive Jovie and <br>
> fill the gap if there is one, but in my mind the above uses are <br>
> already covered.<br>
><br>
> thanks,<br>
> Jeremy Whiting<br>
><br>
> On Thu, Oct 21, 2021 at 4:15 PM Jude DaShiell <<a href="mailto:jdashiel@panix.com" target="_blank">jdashiel@panix.com</a> <br>
> <mailto:<a href="mailto:jdashiel@panix.com" target="_blank">jdashiel@panix.com</a>>> wrote:<br>
><br>
> Quite agree with you on that score. A new version of redcore<br>
> Linux is<br>
> available for download and it has a very current kernel and its<br>
> default<br>
> desktop is kde plasma. Maybe one thing jovie might do when<br>
> started up is<br>
> to locate something like espeak-ng or espeak or speech-dispatcher and<br>
> start those up first then come up on its own. If it finds<br>
> speech-dispatcher maybe remind the user to run spd-conf to get<br>
> speech-dispatcher configured correctly but could generate a default<br>
> spd.conf file and let the user know that it's there and maybe<br>
> reconfigure<br>
> if problems arise.<br>
><br>
><br>
> On Thu, 21 Oct 2021, Gustav Degreef wrote:<br>
><br>
> > Festival was not much of an improvement in voice quality. <br>
> Embrola, as you<br>
> > say, was too difficult to configure. I'll check out Fenrir,<br>
> and tdsr but the<br>
> > voice quality is TOTALLY secondary - a smoothly working<br>
> jovie/espeak (or<br>
> > equivalent) is quite adequate to get things done. Which in<br>
> theend is really<br>
> > the important thing. Gustav<br>
> ><br>
> > On 10/21/21 1:56 PM, Jude DaShiell wrote:<br>
> > > fenrir and tdsr are a couple more to check out and mbrola and<br>
> festival can<br>
> > > maybe help the human speech situation though not easily<br>
> configured.<br>
> > ><br>
> > ><br>
> > > On Thu, 21 Oct 2021, Gustav Degreef wrote:<br>
> > ><br>
> > >> Actually, Jovie replaced ktts quite some years ago.? <br>
> Qtspeech is supposed<br>
> > >> to<br>
> > >> be a partial replacement, but there is no frontend program to<br>
> manage the<br>
> > >> output of speechdispatcher (like Jovie). ? e-speak works<br>
> fine for me, but<br>
> > >> bothers everyne else who listens to my computer outptut (my<br>
> partner and<br>
> > >> friends).? e-speak is clear enough, just does not sound<br>
> like a person.?Â<br>
> > >> Good,<br>
> > >> I'll look into espeak-ng, thanks! Gustav<br>
> > >><br>
> > >> On 10/21/21 11:04 AM, Jude DaShiell wrote:<br>
> > >>> I had read somewhere ktts was supposed to have replaced<br>
> jovie. Also,<br>
> > >>> espeak-ng is a successor to espeak. It's good you got any<br>
> of this<br>
> > >>> working.<br>
> > >>><br>
> > >>><br>
> > >>> ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 21 Oct<br>
> 2021 04:36:27<br>
> > >>> From: Gustav Degreef <<a href="mailto:gustav97@gmail.com" target="_blank">gustav97@gmail.com</a><br>
> <mailto:<a href="mailto:gustav97@gmail.com" target="_blank">gustav97@gmail.com</a>>> To: Simion<br>
> > >>> <<a href="mailto:simion314@gmail.com" target="_blank">simion314@gmail.com</a> <mailto:<a href="mailto:simion314@gmail.com" target="_blank">simion314@gmail.com</a>>>,<br>
> <a href="mailto:kde-accessibility@kde.org" target="_blank">kde-accessibility@kde.org</a> <mailto:<a href="mailto:kde-accessibility@kde.org" target="_blank">kde-accessibility@kde.org</a>><br>
> Subject: Re: Is there a<br>
> > >>> project that is jovie successor?<br>
> > >>><br>
> > >>> Hi Simion,<br>
> > >>><br>
> > >>> Thanks for your input and effort.?? ?? I carefuly looked<br>
> over everything<br>
> > >>> you<br>
> > >>> mentioned, including the script but it has taken me a long<br>
> time.?? ?? I<br>
> > >>> only<br>
> > >>> have a<br>
> > >>> rudimentary??? knowledge of scripts.?? ?? ?? So<br>
> modifying or writing<br>
> > >>> scripts<br>
> > >>> is beyond<br>
> > >>> my current possibility, especially with my vision<br>
> problems.?? ?? But it<br>
> > >>> really<br>
> > >>> helped me to look everything over.?? ?? I decided the<br>
> best way was to go<br>
> > >>> back<br>
> > >>> to<br>
> > >>> trying to install it from the opensuse repos.?? ?? I had<br>
> failed the first<br>
> > >>> time and<br>
> > >>> created a great confusion in my setup. But it was a spare<br>
> "test" setup on<br>
> > >>> a<br>
> > >>> separate partition.?? ?? I spent a lot of time cleaning<br>
> up the repos,<br>
> > >>> updating and<br>
> > >>> cleaning up. And now Jovie works on opensuse 15.3!?? ?? <br>
> The packages come<br>
> > >>> from<br>
> > >>> unofficial repos, but someone else with the tech knowhow has<br>
> put it<br>
> > >>> together.?? ?<br>
> > >>> I am "forced" to upgrade soon, since the opensuse 15.2 EOL<br>
> is soon.?? ??Â<br>
> > >>> But<br>
> > >>> now I<br>
> > >>> can move forward hopefully for another 1.5 years, the life<br>
> of 15.3 until a<br>
> > >>> better solution comes.?? ?? I hope you or someone else<br>
> can help come up<br>
> > >>> with<br>
> > >>> a<br>
> > >>> replacement for Jovie.?? ?? Thanks for your<br>
> efforts.?? ?? Gustav.<br>
> > >>> p.s. I'm posting back on the list in case it may help<br>
> someone else.<br>
> > >>><br>
> > >>> On 9/13/21 1:13 AM, Gustav Degreef wrote:<br>
> > >>>> On 8/30/21 7:15 PM, Simion wrote:<br>
> > >>>>> Hi Gustav,<br>
> > >>>>> I personally would try to compile it, if I am unable I<br>
> would try first a<br>
> > >>>>> simple bash script, the issue with next script is that is not<br>
> > >>>>> queuing?????????? the tasks so you can get 2 speakers at<br>
> the same time<br>
> > >>>>> or<br>
> > >>>>> you<br>
> > >>>>> can edit the script to "killall" previous taks (so an<br>
> application that<br>
> > >>>>> runs<br>
> > >>>>> in background would be needed to improve the experience)<br>
> > >>>>><br>
> > >>>>> #! /bin/bash<br>
> > >>>>><br>
> > >>>>> xclip -out -selection primary | xclip -in -selection clipboard<br>
> > >>>>> xsel --clipboard | tr "\n" " " | espeak<br>
> > >>>>> #end script<br>
> > >>>>><br>
> > >>>>> or maybe python or nodejs<br>
> > >>>>> I am tempted to write something to do some cleanup on the<br>
> input,<br>
> > >>>>> like when I want to read an entire reddit page of omments<br>
> would be nice<br>
> > >>>>> if<br>
> > >>>>> I<br>
> > >>>>> could?????????? clean it up?????????? first and remove<br>
> all the<br>
> > >>>>> "reply/report<br>
> > >>>>> ..." buttons labels<br>
> > >>>>> The reason I decided that in future I would use espeak is<br>
> because in my<br>
> > >>>>> current configuration jovie uses speech dispatcher and<br>
> speech dispatcher<br>
> > >>>>> uses<br>
> > >>>>> espeak , Qt5 is a new extra layer so a new placed that<br>
> could cause<br>
> > >>>>> problems<br>
> > >>>>> (but yes Qt5 would be nice to have if you plant to write a<br>
> cross<br>
> > >>>>> operating<br>
> > >>>>> system desktop application).<br>
> > >>>>><br>
> > >>>>> I have no plans to upgrade from my system<br>
> soon,?????????? maybe when I<br>
> > >>>>> will<br>
> > >>>>> upgrade my computer or I am forced to upgrade.<br>
> > >>>>><br>
> > >>>>><br>
> > >>>>> You probably need to install and configure espeak, the<br>
> language and<br>
> > >>>>> speed,<br>
> > >>>>> you can have a key bind to?????????? run the script, you<br>
> can modify the<br>
> > >>>>> script<br>
> > >>>>> to?????????? add something like "killall espeak" to stop<br>
> the previous<br>
> > >>>>><br>
> > >>>>> Sorry I can't help more.<br>
> > >>>>><br>
> > >>>>> Regards, Simion<br>
> > >>>> Hi Simion,<br>
> > >>>><br>
> > >>>> Thanks for taking the time and for your effort.<br>
> > >>>><br>
> > >>>><br>
> > >>>>> On 8/28/21 11:42 PM, Gustav Degreef wrote:<br>
> > >>>>>> Hi Simion,<br>
> > >>>>>><br>
> > >>>>>> Thanks for your detailed reply.?????????? I use<br>
> opensuse leap 15.2<br>
> > >>>>>> with<br>
> > >>>>>> KDE<br>
> > >>>>>> plasma 5.18.6, Qt 5.12.7. ?????????? Jovie continues to<br>
> work fine even<br>
> > >>>>>> though<br>
> > >>>>>> it has been deprecated.?????????? However, it no longer<br>
> works on<br>
> > >>>>>> opensuse<br>
> > >>>>>> 15.3 and 15.2 end of life is in December this year.<br>
> Someone has built<br>
> > >>>>>> packages for Jovie on the Open Build Service of Suse, but<br>
> I could not<br>
> > >>>>>> get<br>
> > >>>>>> it<br>
> > >>>>>> to install properly, I think it's due to the Qt changes,<br>
> I got a<br>
> > >>>>>> dependency<br>
> > >>>>>> mess.<br>
> > >>>>>><br>
> > >>>>>> I have been trying to find a replacement for Jovie for 3<br>
> years at<br>
> > >>>>>> least,<br>
> > >>>>>> since it was clear it would no longer be<br>
> maintained.?????????? Read<br>
> > >>>>>> Aloud<br>
> > >>>>>> is<br>
> > >>>>>> a plugin for Firefox that fills all the browser needs.<br>
> Thunderbird also<br>
> > >>>>>> has<br>
> > >>>>>> a Read Aloud plugin, but it only works for single emails<br>
> and top posted<br>
> > >>>>>> replies, list messages, etc.?????????? It reads only<br>
> from top to<br>
> > >>>>>> bottom<br>
> > >>>>>> without being able to select only parts of the<br>
> mail.??????????<br>
> > >>>>>> LibreOffice<br>
> > >>>>>> has a text to speech plugin that even reads the clipboard<br>
> contents, but<br>
> > >>>>>> it<br>
> > >>>>>> is cumbersome.?????????? Okular has a nice TTS function,<br>
> but it often<br>
> > >>>>>> starts<br>
> > >>>>>> two different simultaneous but voices of the same text<br>
> which can't be<br>
> > >>>>>> understood.?????????? Sometimes id functions<br>
> fine.?????????? That is<br>
> > >>>>>> where I<br>
> > >>>>>> use TTS the most, and periodically to read out error<br>
> messages, text<br>
> > >>>>>> boxes<br>
> > >>>>>> etc (for which Jovie is indispensable and for which I<br>
> don't have an<br>
> > >>>>>> adequate<br>
> > >>>>>> substitute).<br>
> > >>>>>><br>
> > >>>>>> Any suggestions??????????? Perhaps to compile Jovie from<br>
> a tar<br>
> > >>>>>> binary??????????? Or are you seriously thinking of<br>
> building a<br>
> > >>>>>> replacement<br>
> > >>>>>> for<br>
> > >>>>>> Jovie? Thanks, Gustav.<br>
> > >>>>>><br>
> > >>>>>> On 8/26/21 12:01 PM, Simion wrote:<br>
> > >>>>>>> Hi, no problem ,<br>
> > >>>>>>><br>
> > >>>>>>> btw my name is Simion no Simon, don't worry it is OK<br>
> just want to<br>
> > >>>>>>> mention<br>
> > >>>>>>> it to prevent issues like typos in emails<br>
> > >>>>>>><br>
> > >>>>>>> I still use Jovie, from my fork with a few crash fixes<br>
> > >>>>>>> I have some scripts that I use directly espeak .<br>
> > >>>>>>><br>
> > >>>>>>> I was not yet forced to give up on Jovie but my<br>
> conclussion was to not<br>
> > >>>>>>> use<br>
> > >>>>>>> Qt if I have to write my own replacement,<br>
> > >>>>>>><br>
> > >>>>>>> since I would not need some crossplatform solution I<br>
> could probably<br>
> > >>>>>>> make<br>
> > >>>>>>> a<br>
> > >>>>>>> python application , or even something that runs in the<br>
> > >>>>>>> browser????????????????????????????????????????????? <br>
> or nodejs.<br>
> > >>>>>>><br>
> > >>>>>>> But for now on my distro I can still compile jovie , I<br>
> have a keyboard<br>
> > >>>>>>> with<br>
> > >>>>>>> multipmedia keys so my workflow is to copy paste stuff<br>
> in clipboard<br>
> > >>>>>>> and<br>
> > >>>>>>> using my keys I can play/pause/resume. I still use<br>
> espeak as backend<br>
> > >>>>>>> with<br>
> > >>>>>>> voice speed set to max.<br>
> > >>>>>>><br>
> > >>>>>>><br>
> > >>>>>>> On 8/26/21 12:37 PM, Gustav Degreef wrote:<br>
> > >>>>>>>> Hello Simon,<br>
> > >>>>>>>><br>
> > >>>>>>>> I saw your old message on the accessibility<br>
> > >>>>>>>> list.????????????????????????????????????????????? I<br>
> also have<br>
> > >>>>>>>> serious<br>
> > >>>>>>>> eye<br>
> > >>>>>>>> problems, though I am not<br>
> > >>>>>>>> blind.????????????????????????????????????????????? I<br>
> have been<br>
> > >>>>>>>> using<br>
> > >>>>>>>> Jovie<br>
> > >>>>>>>> for most of my computer time for years and I am trying<br>
> to find a<br>
> > >>>>>>>> replacement for<br>
> it.????????????????????????????????????????????? In<br>
> > >>>>>>>> my<br>
> > >>>>>>>> situation a screen reader is not<br>
> > >>>>>>>> suitable.???????????????????????????????????????????<br>
> Excuse me for<br>
> > >>>>>>>> writing<br>
> > >>>>>>>> you<br>
> directly.????????????????????????????????????????????? Can I ask<br>
> > >>>>>>>> you<br>
> > >>>>>>>> more about this<br>
> issue??????????????????????????????????????????????<br>
> > >>>>>>>> Gustav<br>
> > >>>>>>>><br>
> > >>>>>>>> On 5/12/18 10:18 AM, Simion wrote:<br>
> > >>>>>>>>> Hello, So I know that jovie is not be ported to KDE5<br>
> and that the<br>
> > >>>>>>>>> idea<br>
> > >>>>>>>>> is<br>
> > >>>>>>>>> to use QtSpeech, I can't find if someone started a<br>
> replacement for<br>
> > >>>>>>>>> jovie<br>
> > >>>>>>>>> that uses QtSpeech yet.<br>
> > >>>>>>>>> I plan to investigate QtSpeech and see if it works<br>
> properly on<br>
> > >>>>>>>>> Linux,<br>
> > >>>>>>>>> if<br>
> > >>>>>>>>> there is no such a project started is there any<br>
> interest in it?<br>
> > >>>>>>>>><br>
> > >>>>>>>>><br>
> > >><br>
> > >><br>
> ><br>
> ><br>
> ><br>
><br>
<br>
</blockquote></div>