[Kde-accessibility] Speech Dispatcher, KDE, dcop, and perlbox

[david powell]

On Tuesday 22 November 2005 2:09 am, Luke Yelavich wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 22, 2005 at 12:33:15PM EST, david powell wrote:
> > > > I want to
> > > > expend my energy solving accessibility problems; not solving
> > > > multimedia framework problems.
> > >
> > > Another issue to consider is the use of hardware speech synthesizers. I
> > > am well aware that more people these days use software speech, however
> > > there are many of us who prefer to use hardware speech, for a few
> > > reasons. Have you thought of the best way for implementing support for
> > > that?
> >
> > there is provision in kttsd to drive a synth by running a commandline
> > function if the h/w synth as software that lets you do basic  say_text "
> > message to speak " type  commands
>
> The problem with this approach, is that many software as well as
> hardware synths actually send back information about the text they are
> currently speaking, and other status messages when the speech has been
> flushed, etc.
>
> > other than that , its information on them , and the not having any about
> > them that is the biggest problem , if we had details of them then it
> > would be easyer to say for certain ,
>
> The speakup project is a great source of info, as it supports many
> hardware synths that are commonly used even today.
will have a look 
>
> > the problem that a hardware synth may have is once given text to speak it
> > is often the case that there is no way of stopping it , and its the
> > interface method that it uses for this sort of command that is dificult
> > with the drivers method that would currently work with one
>
> Yes there is indeed a way of stopping it. I am currently using a DECtalk
> Express speech synthesizer with speakup on the console, and have no
> problem shutting it up whenever I need to. There is also another screen
> reader of sorts that uses the DECtalk Express, and I am pretty sure it
> can do the same. I intend to try it out shortly to confirm this.
did not think DEC where still going last i heard was there takeover by
compaq all DEC products seem to have disapeared since , 

again at the moment , since we seem to be heading for a SD backend
it would be more usefull for them to be supported by SD  directly 
rather than kktsd
 
>
> > another solution that i have had success with is a second sound card
> > one being driven by arts/alsa for normal sounds and having kttsd
> > using the alsa driver  on the second card for speech
> > i still get some applications fail trying to use the first card together
> > but have no problems with the speech on the second card
>
> The 2nd soundcard is a good idea, but most people won't see the point of
> having a 2nd card, especially if they have come from Windows where
> everything can come out the one card, with something like Windows-Eyes
> speaking, as well as a sound playing.
guess this is bit like having dual monitors 
you never understand the full advantages until you get used to them 
for someone who has difficulty seeing the screen and uses tts its worth it 
the fact that the audio can be manualy controlled by the volume on indipendent 
speakers and no messing around trying to use software mixes helps
helps when you can mute or adjust one output and not the other 
even windows users may find it an advantage (if windows supports use of it in 
that way )

just the fact that i can have the tts output set at a constant level on the 
one card that is never changed regardless of the level i have the other card 
at for playing music , kde sounds etc helps 

Dave
>
> Luke
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