How to configure Qtspeech - definitely moving forward!

[Gustav Degreef]

Thanks Jeremy for tracking this down and for your patches for Okular. 
The subsequent work on Klipper would be absolutely great!  I am very
much looking forward to them.  Can't thank you enough for your
efforts.  Gustav

On 9/24/19 9:36 PM, Jeremy Whiting wrote:
> 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
> <mailto: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)
>     >
>