[Kde-accessibility] an idea i have been thinking about

[david powell]

problems that i can see from a blind persons point of view 
and a possible way that could be tackled to try and solve it 


mainly i had the idea to the solution before it accured to me 
how bad the problem needs to be looked at 

i was initaly thinking of using the current avalable tts with the view 
to creating wav/ogg files that could be used in standard knotifications 
where the tts is not avalable 

then it sort of accured to me that if there is no tts configured in kttsd 
how easy would it be to auto detect a tts and try to do install it 
but then i spotted the bigger problem 

it may be posable for a blind person to get the machine set up in the first 
place 
by someone for them , but after that they are pritty much on there own , and 
any problem 
and configuration would realy need someone there who can help them 

maybe ok in an educational establishment but when thay need to call an 
technition or friend
over to help then it can get too much for them to constantly ask for help 

anyway 
was thinking that it should be possible to build a script that would auto 
detect and configure 
kttsd's voices 
as it also accuerd that the kttsmgr interface could be hard to use , and in 
most cases imposible if
not configured with a voice 
(this is assuming a working screen reader )

so the idea came to create a audio driven menu system to aid configuration of 
it 
(and maybe other things later )

anyway partly would depend on the feature request i posted but in its self is 
a diferent application 
idea

using a hotkey ( in kde ) the following program (description of it ) should be 
started  
think it should be part of kdeaccessibility 

a driven speech configuration script 

to do this  without a tts configured it will use audio files (.wav or .ogg) 
that contain the menu options 

the actual text to be spoken will be the translation of the text recorded as a 
wav by tts for the avalable tts languages 
that we can currently use (so to be fair we dont have french but we dont have 
a french voice to use anyway ) 
so it is posable to get translations 

giving an option system in a way like you get on those phone menues " press 1 
for .... etc  would alow it to be used 
and let a blind person be able 

by using pre recorded tts output in the distribution we can get it to speek in 
any language that we have a voice for 
so even if the default language of izulu was that the user has selected as the 
desktop , the menu audio will play in that 
even if that voice is not installed or canot be found 
so the user will get a spoken mesage back even if the tts will not start 

if this application can be started on kde login it would be benifical to 
people who are blind or low sighted 
as i feel that thay could be totaly lost if there tts fails 

anyway dont know what you think , but could posibaly be extended to other 
functions 
maybe include menus for system functions , or to start some other applications 
also 

i dont think it will be a replacment for a screan reader but feel that it may 
be a verry usefull seprate 
package that does not depend on the tts system working 

basicaly its an attempt to provide a method so that a blind person may walk up 
to a machine (with kdeaccessisbility installed )
and within a short time should be able to have any avalable tts software 
enabled and working 

idea open to descussion , and guess it needs a developer or two willing to 
write it 

(hope it makes sense )

Dave