How to configure Qtspeech - definitely moving forward!

[Jeremy Whiting]

Ok, another update. I found the QtSpeech linux version randomly selects a
plugin, but if told a specific plugin to use happily uses that every time.
So I updated my okular patch to add an okular configuration setting on the
Accessibility page to let you select the speech engine with the default
being speech-dispatcher. Hopefully this okular patch will make it into the
next release (just missed Applications 19.08 though, so it will be in 19.12
or whatnot. I'm hoping to have klipper changes in place for plasma's next
minor release also. Will get that started shortly.

Jeremy

On Sun, Sep 22, 2019 at 12:50 PM Gustav Degreef <gustav97 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Thanks Simion,
>
> I will look for "ReadPlease 2003" and try it out with either Wine or
> VirtualBox, appreciate the help, Gustav
>
> On 9/22/19 9:29 AM, Simion wrote:
> > Hi Gustav,
> > no problem about the name, it happens all the time :-)
> >
> > about the voices, those natural voices are compatible with Microsoft
> > Speech API,
> > when I was using Widows and later in Wine I used a program called
> > "ReadPlease 2003", the program is abandoned  now but it still works
> > and it should work with any  voice that are compatible with Windows
> > but I never tried. The feature this program has and I never found in
> > other programs is that it highlights the current line or word that is
> > spoken, this makes it easy  to go back one paragrpah or 2 if you were
> > interupted or want to hear something again and also easy to skip
> > forward if you hit some paragraphs with mathematical equations. As I
> > said I suggest to get used of using faster and faster voices, your
> > family will understand and you will read same texts 2 times faster so
> > you gain time, at that speed any voice will sound robotic, this would
> > not work if you want other to listen with you (but you can have a
> > normal speed and a fast speed talker in jovie)
> >
> >
> > On 9/22/19 2:54 PM, Gustav Degreef wrote:
> >> Hi Simion,
> >>
> >> Sorry about the spelling error, happens often with my vision problems.
> >>
> >> You are absolutely right!  The Pause does work!!!  I just have to wait
> >> till it gets to the end of the sentence or sometimes paragraph.  But
> >> that is fine.  And now with the Keyboard Shortcuts, Jovie is great!  I
> >> read a lot of articles in Medicine and I am often interrupted.  If I
> >> can
> >> not pause and resume it is often a struggle to find where I was
> >> listening.  This is great!!!
> >>
> >>  From what you and others are saying and from what I've read, I think I
> >> understand better.  Correct me if I am wrong, but don't you have to
> >> tell
> >> speech-dispatcher which voice (e-speak, festival, etc.) to use?  If I
> >> can figure out how to tell speech-dispatcher which voice to use then
> >> Jovie (or Qtspeech) will then output my choice?  I have looked into it,
> >> and there are several (about 6 different) voices I can use in Linux.
> >>
> >> Thanks for the suggestion about Wine.  I am familiar with it and have
> >> tried it many times.  If I could find a Windows program to do what
> >> Jovie
> >> does, I certainly would try to use it with Wine.  I tried a lot of
> >> programs in Windows to just simply read out selected text and I never
> >> found a simple and easy one. I gave up.  Now with the Keyboard
> >> Shortcuts
> >> defined, Jovie is great.  I am sorry it is being deprecated.  But that
> >> is what happens in Linux and I am very used to it, it's the price for
> >> constant improvement in the system as a whole.
> >>
> >> Thanks a lot for your help, Gustav
> >>
> >> On 9/22/19 2:59 AM, Simion wrote:
> >>> Hi Gustav
> >>> about the Pause button, I think is not instant, it need to finish the
> >>> phrase, can you try to Pause  and wait half a minute and see if I am
> >>> right about this.
> >>> My fixes are not related to this, mostly I found bugs when sending
> >>> text to Jovie from scripts and sending weird values , Other bug was
> >>> about changing talkers (I use an english and a romanian talker)
> >>>
> >>> About better voices, Jovie uses speech dispatcher and this one uses
> >>> festival or espeak depending on how is configured, so you need to
> >>> google those programs.
> >>> I do not know if those natural sounding voices are compatible with
> >>> this Linux programs,  other alternative is to try Windows
> >>> programs in
> >>> Wine, I did this a many years back and it worked.
> >>>
> >>> Btw you did not read my name correctly, is  Simion , don't worry
> >>> about it though, it happens all the time
> >>>
> >>> On 9/22/19 2:22 AM, Gustav Degreef wrote:
> >>>> Hi Simon,
> >>>>
> >>>> Thanks a lot. I found how to configure the shortcuts.  I
> >>>> configured 4 -
> >>>> Read clipboard, Stop, Pause, Resume.  All work fine except
> >>>> Pause.  It
> >>>> works only 20% of the time.  I often have to repeat the shortcut
> >>>> over
> >>>> and over to get it to pause, and often it does not pause.  When it
> >>>> does,
> >>>> Resume always works.  This is the same behavior I have always
> >>>> had with
> >>>> the tray icon and why I had given up trying to use it.  If your
> >>>> fixes
> >>>> fix this then I would certainly be very pleased.  I don't need any
> >>>> other
> >>>> functionality other than the voices.  People are always around and
> >>>> using
> >>>> the headphone  adds another cable to my already cluttered
> >>>> desk.  I
> >>>> would
> >>>> still very much like to be able to at least TRY different
> >>>> voices.  But
> >>>> the documentation for doing this with Jovie, has been very hard to
> >>>> come
> >>>> by and I have not been able to find any that really describes how
> >>>> to do
> >>>> it.  Only a bit here and there of partial information that I can
> >>>> not
> >>>> put
> >>>> together.  Thanks for yours and others efforts, Gustav
> >>>>
> >>>> On 9/18/19 4:31 AM, Simion wrote:
> >>>>> Hi Gustav,
> >>>>> You can use keyboard shortcuts to control Jovie, you need to create
> >>>>> this shortcuts, you can do it in system Settings, keyboard shortucts,
> >>>>> Global section I think. I have a keyboard with an extra row of Media
> >>>>> keys so I use those buttons . I use a voice with max speed (I had to
> >>>>> train by incrementally increasing it) so it is weird for others to
> >>>>> understand, the solution is to use headphones when others are around.
> >>>>> I tried finding more natural sounding voices but I discovered that I
> >>>>> prefer  faster speed so I can read things faster and the
> >>>>> voice is
> >>>>> not
> >>>>> important at all.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> My commit messages  in Github explain what bugs fix, if
> >>>>> you are not
> >>>>> affected by those you can use the version from your repos.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> The only issue I have now is in this scenario:
> >>>>> I open say 3 articles  in browser, use reader mode if
> >>>>> needed, copy
> >>>>> paste them in clipboard one by one and have jovie read the clipboard
> >>>>>
> >>>>> so now I have the 1,2,3 articles in a list to be read and Jovie is
> >>>>> reading the1st one,
> >>>>> if I use Pause and then Resume while reading article 1 , it reads
> >>>>> Article 2, 3 and finaly it continues to finish Article 1 . It did not
> >>>>> bother me that much to fix the bug though.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> When Jovie will not work I am considering  write a
> >>>>> replacement,
> >>>>> maybe
> >>>>> in Python or JS so anyone can read the code, edit and try fixing or
> >>>>> extending it the current solution where you would use QtSpeech that
> >>>>> wraps speechdispatcher that wraps festival or espeak is cery
> >>>>> convolutede, QtSpeech was bugged when I tested it and I am not that
> >>>>> good at programming to build Qt from source and try to fix it I also
> >>>>> prefer to use LTS distributions
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> On 9/18/19 2:20 AM, Gustav Degreef wrote:
> >>>>>> Hello,
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Yes, I am also still using Jovie.  I use it only from the
> >>>>>> tray
> >>>>>> icon.  I
> >>>>>> select the text, copy from context menu and then click on the tray
> >>>>>> icon
> >>>>>> and select to speak clipboard contents. The only other
> >>>>>> functionality I
> >>>>>> can use is to stop the speaking at some point.  I have
> >>>>>> tried to
> >>>>>> pause
> >>>>>> and resume from the tray icon (which is the main functionality
> >>>>>> that I
> >>>>>> would like) but it never works properly.  I have tried to
> >>>>>> configure
> >>>>>> jovie to use a different voice than e-speak but i have read and
> >>>>>> read and
> >>>>>> never succeeded.  E-speak is fine for me, but it drives
> >>>>>> my wife
> >>>>>> crazy,
> >>>>>> and my friends hat the voice, no matte how i change the various
> >>>>>> settings.  I can continue to use Jovie (without Qtspeech) as
> >>>>>> long as it
> >>>>>> keeps working.  But since it is deprecated, I am trying
> >>>>>> to be
> >>>>>> prepared
> >>>>>> when it no longer works.  That is the only reason I am
> >>>>>> trying to
> >>>>>> move
> >>>>>> from Jovie.  Thanks a lot for your input.  I
> >>>>>> would like to
> >>>>>> try your
> >>>>>> modifications., Gustav.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> On 9/17/19 9:58 AM, Simion wrote:
> >>>>>>> Hi, I am still using Jovie, it is still present in Kubuntu 18.04
> >>>>>>> repositories.
> >>>>>>> When Jovie will be removed from the repos I think I may try to
> >>>>>>> write
> >>>>>>> some scripts and some GUi if needed to replace it.
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> In my humble opinion we Linux users we need some cross desktop
> >>>>>>> basic
> >>>>>>> application, I am not sure about the desktop integration part but
> >>>>>>> from
> >>>>>>> what I seen when testing QtSpeech it  makes
> >>>>>>> more sense for
> >>>>>>> me to
> >>>>>>> avoid the extra Qt abstraction or make multiple backends.
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> out of curiosity what Jovie features you use?
> >>>>>>> I use the following
> >>>>>>> - the dbus /command line interface to call Jovie from scripts
> >>>>>>> - the Global shortcuts
> >>>>>>> - the context menu in the tray icon to change languages(that I
> >>>>>>> contributed)
> >
>
>
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