Is there a project that is jovie successor? (fwd)

[Jude DaShiell]

I had read somewhere ktts was supposed to have replaced jovie.  Also,
espeak-ng is a successor to espeak.  It's good you got any of this
working.


---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 21 Oct 2021 04:36:27
From: Gustav Degreef <gustav97 at gmail.com> To: Simion
<simion314 at gmail.com>, kde-accessibility at kde.org Subject: Re: Is there a
project that is jovie successor?

Hi Simion,

Thanks for your input and effort.   I carefuly looked over everything you
mentioned, including the script but it has taken me a long time.   I only have a
rudimentary?  knowledge of scripts.    So modifying or writing scripts is beyond
my current possibility, especially with my vision problems.   But it really
helped me to look everything over.   I decided the best way was to go back to
trying to install it from the opensuse repos.   I had failed the first time and
created a great confusion in my setup. But it was a spare "test" setup on a
separate partition.   I spent a lot of time cleaning up the repos, updating and
cleaning up. And now Jovie works on opensuse 15.3!   The packages come from
unofficial repos, but someone else with the tech knowhow has put it together.  
I am "forced" to upgrade soon, since the opensuse 15.2 EOL is soon.   But now I
can move forward hopefully for another 1.5 years, the life of 15.3 until a
better solution comes.   I hope you or someone else can help come up with a
replacement for Jovie.   Thanks for your efforts.   Gustav.
p.s. I'm posting back on the list in case it may help someone else.

On 9/13/21 1:13 AM, Gustav Degreef wrote:
> On 8/30/21 7:15 PM, Simion wrote:
>> Hi Gustav,
>> I personally would try to compile it, if I am unable I would try first a
>> simple bash script, the issue with next script is that is not
>> queuing????????  the tasks so you can get 2 speakers at the same time or you
>> can edit the script to "killall" previous taks (so an application that runs
>> in background would be needed to improve the experience)
>>
>> #! /bin/bash
>>
>> xclip -out -selection primary | xclip -in -selection clipboard
>> xsel --clipboard | tr "\n" " " | espeak
>> #end script
>>
>> or maybe python or nodejs
>> I am tempted to write something to do some cleanup on the input,
>> like when I want to read an entire reddit page of omments would be nice if I
>> could????????  clean it up????????  first and remove all the "reply/report
>> ..." buttons labels
>> The reason I decided that in future I would use espeak is because in my
>> current configuration jovie uses speech dispatcher and speech dispatcher uses
>> espeak , Qt5 is a new extra layer so a new placed that could cause problems
>> (but yes Qt5 would be nice to have if you plant to write a cross operating
>> system desktop application).
>>
>> I have no plans to upgrade from my system soon,????????  maybe when I will
>> upgrade my computer or I am forced to upgrade.
>>
>>
>> You probably need to install and configure espeak, the language and speed,
>> you can have a key bind to????????  run the script, you can modify the script
>> to????????  add something like "killall espeak" to stop the previous
>>
>> Sorry I can't help more.
>>
>> Regards, Simion
>
>
> Hi Simion,
>
> Thanks for taking the time and for your effort.
>
>
>>
>>
>> On 8/28/21 11:42 PM, Gustav Degreef wrote:
>>> Hi Simion,
>>>
>>> Thanks for your detailed reply.????????  I use opensuse leap 15.2 with KDE
>>> plasma 5.18.6, Qt 5.12.7. ????????  Jovie continues to work fine even though
>>> it has been deprecated.????????  However, it no longer works on opensuse
>>> 15.3 and 15.2 end of life is in December this year. Someone has built
>>> packages for Jovie on the Open Build Service of Suse, but I could not get it
>>> to install properly, I think it's due to the Qt changes, I got a dependency
>>> mess.
>>>
>>> I have been trying to find a replacement for Jovie for 3 years at least,
>>> since it was clear it would no longer be maintained.????????  Read Aloud is
>>> a plugin for Firefox that fills all the browser needs. Thunderbird also has
>>> a Read Aloud plugin, but it only works for single emails and top posted
>>> replies, list messages, etc.????????  It reads only from top to bottom
>>> without being able to select only parts of the mail.????????  LibreOffice
>>> has a text to speech plugin that even reads the clipboard contents, but it
>>> is cumbersome.????????  Okular has a nice TTS function, but it often starts
>>> two different simultaneous but voices of the same text which can't be
>>> understood.????????  Sometimes id functions fine.????????  That is where I
>>> use TTS the most, and periodically to read out error messages, text boxes
>>> etc (for which Jovie is indispensable and for which I don't have an adequate
>>> substitute).
>>>
>>> Any suggestions?????????  Perhaps to compile Jovie from a tar
>>> binary?????????  Or are you seriously thinking of building a replacement for
>>> Jovie? Thanks, Gustav.
>>>
>>> On 8/26/21 12:01 PM, Simion wrote:
>>>> Hi, no problem ,
>>>>
>>>> btw my name is Simion no Simon, don't worry it is OK just want to mention
>>>> it to prevent issues like typos in emails
>>>>
>>>> I still use Jovie, from my fork with a few crash fixes
>>>> I have some scripts that I use directly espeak .
>>>>
>>>> I was not yet forced to give up on Jovie but my conclussion was to not use
>>>> Qt if I have to write my own replacement,
>>>>
>>>> since I would not need some crossplatform solution I could probably make a
>>>> python application , or even something that runs in the
>>>> browser???????????????????????????????????????????  or nodejs.
>>>>
>>>> But for now on my distro I can still compile jovie , I have a keyboard with
>>>> multipmedia keys so my workflow is to copy paste stuff in clipboard and
>>>> using my keys I can play/pause/resume. I still use espeak as backend with
>>>> voice speed set to max.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 8/26/21 12:37 PM, Gustav Degreef wrote:
>>>>> Hello Simon,
>>>>>
>>>>> I saw your old message on the accessibility
>>>>> list.???????????????????????????????????????????  I also have serious eye
>>>>> problems, though I am not
>>>>> blind.???????????????????????????????????????????  I have been using Jovie
>>>>> for most of my computer time for years and I am trying to find a
>>>>> replacement for it.???????????????????????????????????????????  In my
>>>>> situation a screen reader is not
>>>>> suitable.??????????????????????????????????????????? Excuse me for writing
>>>>> you directly.???????????????????????????????????????????  Can I ask you
>>>>> more about this issue????????????????????????????????????????????  Gustav
>>>>>
>>>>> On 5/12/18 10:18 AM, Simion wrote:
>>>>>> Hello, So I know that jovie is not be ported to KDE5 and that the idea is
>>>>>> to use QtSpeech, I can't find if someone started a replacement for jovie
>>>>>> that uses QtSpeech yet.
>>>>>> I plan to investigate QtSpeech and see if it works properly on Linux, if
>>>>>> there is no such a project started is there any interest in it?
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>
>