Is there a project that is jovie successor? (fwd)
Jeremy Whiting
jpwhiting at kde.org
Fri Oct 22 14:45:34 BST 2021
Sorry Simion, not Simon. No disrespect intended.
On Fri, Oct 22, 2021 at 7:43 AM Jeremy Whiting <jpwhiting at kde.org> wrote:
> Gustav, Simon,
>
> Thank you so much for the insight. I definitely hadn't considered those
> cases. I'll give it some thought today and decide one of the following to
> remedy the situation.
>
> 1. Add the missing features and functionality to KMouth.
> 2. Revive Jovie and clean it up quite a bit since it has bit rotted
> significantly in the past 5 years or so.
>
> I'm leaning towards 1 now since KMouth needs some love and attention
> anyway. If we go that direction KMouth would need the following features to
> be feature complete with the use cases described above.
>
> a) A queue of what will be spoken as well as control over the queue to
> remove entries, etc.
> b) Voice settings to be able to switch between voices quickly.
> c) A tray icon and/or more shortcut keys to be able to speak, play, stop,
> pause, etc. like Jovie had.
> d) Speak clipboard contents.
>
> for b I really didn't like that Jovie had voice settings that were
> separate from Speech-Dispatcher's settings. In my mind we should be able to
> control what voice settings (language, volume, pitch, etc.) directly by
> manipulating speech-dispatcher configuration. But for that to work the
> configuration gui would need to directly manipulate speech-dispatcher's
> .conf files and have a way to tell it to reload them when we change them.
> I'm not sure if that's already implemented in speech-dispatcher itself yet
> or not. If not it shouldn't be too tricky to add though. The other items
> should be pretty straightforward.
>
> thanks,
> Jeremy
>
> On Fri, Oct 22, 2021 at 4:50 AM Gustav Degreef <gustav97 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Thank you Jeremy for the opportunity to address this directly.
>>
>> In my opinion, Jovie/jovie placement is indispensable for those of us
>> who are partially sighted (not blind). In my opinion, a screen reader
>> (very useful for the blind) actually gets in the way for people like me.
>> Jovie does a very simple and straightforward task - it reads the most
>> recent content of the clipboard. Jovie allows for selecting text (and
>> reading it out) in virtually all of the major applications/tasks (and
>> virtually all others) that a primarily desktop user needs for every day
>> use. Those functions/tasks where jovie/replacement is needed are:
>>
>> 1) Text edit/read - in my case (imc) Kate
>> 2) e-mail client - imc thunderbird
>> 3) browser - imc Firefox
>> 4) pdf reader - imc Okular
>> 5) word processor - imc LibreOffice
>> 6) text from "program to user output" (error messages, text boxes,
>> command line output, etc).
>> 7) miscellaneous programs not so often used.
>>
>> In my experience/opinion:
>> Kmouth is cumbersome and unwieldy and requires too many steps.
>> using the command line adds several steps that disturb the flow of work,
>> it is not simple to have to switch windows and then have to type a
>> command.
>>
>> Indispensable (for partially sighted) aspects of Jovie or Jovie
>> replacement:
>>
>> 1) SIMPLE interface with as few clicks or steps or commands to get
>> speech output. - ideal use is with mouse or keyboard shortcut. Currently
>> jovie takes three simple steps with mouse or keyboard shortcut - text
>> select, text copy, then start/etc. speech output.
>> 2) being able to select all or ONLY part of a piece of text - with the
>> mouse or shortcut.
>> 3) Easily start/stop and pause/resume speech output with mouse or
>> shortcut.
>> 4) Sits in system tray or functions from menu that appears on right
>> click of mouse (or keyboard shortcut).
>>
>>
>> There are currently add ons to programs that COULD fulfill most of these
>> requirements, however they do not all work well:
>>
>> 1) ) Kate - no plugin, no built in function for tts.
>> 2) Thunderbird - Read Aloud plugin: very limited, it reads the ENTIRE
>> message with some headers. Does not allow for selecting a portion of the
>> text, can't stop, can't pause/resume. Totally inadequate for a bottom
>> posted list message.
>> 3) Firefox - Read Aloud plugin: works quite well, has all needed
>> functions.
>> 4) Okular - nice built in tts function, easy to select text, right click
>> mouse to output speech. However it outputs (at least on opensuse) two
>> simultaneous speech streams (of the same text) with different voices and
>> it is impossible to understand.
>> 5) LibreOffice - has a tts plugin but it is cumbersome and adds several
>> steps. It has a nice feature to output the contents of the clipboard
>> but it requires too many steps.
>> 6) program to user output - kmouth or command line seem the only
>> alternative to Jovie
>> 7) miscellaneous programs (with no plugins or built in tts) - same as 6)
>>
>> It seems clear that a lot of developers are aware/are working on tts for
>> various programs, and that is very encouraging and great. However, it is
>> a time of great transition and the tts functions (without Jovie) are
>> quite inadequate for the partially sighted (for example, from macular
>> degeneration which is fairly common). Thanks, Gustav.
>>
>> On 10/22/21 1:56 AM, Jeremy Whiting wrote:
>> > Hello all,
>> >
>> > I've been quietly watching this conversation for a bit but need to
>> > chime in here. I'm the one that changed the name from ktts to Jovie
>> > many years ago. Then deprecated Jovie itself when QtSpeech came about.
>> > I'm very curious about what use cases there still are for Jovie.
>> > Shortly before the name change from ktts to Jovie it was drastically
>> > changed to just be a gui on top of Speech-Dispatcher. QtSpeech as a
>> > library does the same thing but has no gui, is only useful from
>> > applications. My question is what do you use Jovie for exactly? Here
>> > are the ways replacements using QtSpeech "Just Work" in my mind.
>> >
>> > Want to hear notifications from any KDE application like Jovie/ktts
>> > did? Turn that on in the application's notifications configuration. It
>> > uses QtSpeech to speak the notification, title, message or both. Just
>> > like it did previously with ktts/jovie.
>> > Want to read a document out loud? Use Okular's QtSpeech actions in
>> > it's menu. It sends either the selected text or the current page to be
>> > spoken to Speech-Dispatcher directly for listening to the document.
>> > Want to read out loud a web article of some kind? Use Firefox's tts
>> > features to read it out to you. It doesn't use QtSpeech, but interacts
>> > with speech-dispatcher directly if I recall correctly.
>> > Want to type some text and hear it spoken? This can be done in a
>> > number of ways. 1. spd-say command line tool. 2. espeak or espeak-ng
>> > or festival, or pico or any other tts directly from command line. 3.
>> > Use KMouth if you prefer to have a gui. KMouth uses speech-dispatcher
>> > directly if I recall correctly and provides a nice gui with a
>> > customizable dictionary of commonly used words, etc.
>> >
>> > With the above, what is the use of Jovie anymore? If there's a use
>> > case that isn't covered by the above we can certainly revive Jovie and
>> > fill the gap if there is one, but in my mind the above uses are
>> > already covered.
>> >
>> > thanks,
>> > Jeremy Whiting
>> >
>> > On Thu, Oct 21, 2021 at 4:15 PM Jude DaShiell <jdashiel at panix.com
>> > <mailto:jdashiel at panix.com>> wrote:
>> >
>> > Quite agree with you on that score. A new version of redcore
>> > Linux is
>> > available for download and it has a very current kernel and its
>> > default
>> > desktop is kde plasma. Maybe one thing jovie might do when
>> > started up is
>> > to locate something like espeak-ng or espeak or speech-dispatcher
>> and
>> > start those up first then come up on its own. If it finds
>> > speech-dispatcher maybe remind the user to run spd-conf to get
>> > speech-dispatcher configured correctly but could generate a default
>> > spd.conf file and let the user know that it's there and maybe
>> > reconfigure
>> > if problems arise.
>> >
>> >
>> > On Thu, 21 Oct 2021, Gustav Degreef wrote:
>> >
>> > > Festival was not much of an improvement in voice quality.Â
>> > Embrola, as you
>> > > say, was too difficult to configure. I'll check out Fenrir,
>> > and tdsr but the
>> > > voice quality is TOTALLY secondary - a smoothly working
>> > jovie/espeak (or
>> > > equivalent) is quite adequate to get things done. Which in
>> > theend is really
>> > > the important thing. Gustav
>> > >
>> > > On 10/21/21 1:56 PM, Jude DaShiell wrote:
>> > > > fenrir and tdsr are a couple more to check out and mbrola and
>> > festival can
>> > > > maybe help the human speech situation though not easily
>> > configured.
>> > > >
>> > > >
>> > > > On Thu, 21 Oct 2021, Gustav Degreef wrote:
>> > > >
>> > > >> Actually, Jovie replaced ktts quite some years ago.?Â
>> > Qtspeech is supposed
>> > > >> to
>> > > >> be a partial replacement, but there is no frontend program to
>> > manage the
>> > > >> output of speechdispatcher (like Jovie). ? e-speak works
>> > fine for me, but
>> > > >> bothers everyne else who listens to my computer outptut (my
>> > partner and
>> > > >> friends).? e-speak is clear enough, just does not sound
>> > like a person.?Â
>> > > >> Good,
>> > > >> I'll look into espeak-ng, thanks! Gustav
>> > > >>
>> > > >> On 10/21/21 11:04 AM, Jude DaShiell wrote:
>> > > >>> 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
>> > <mailto:gustav97 at gmail.com>> To: Simion
>> > > >>> <simion314 at gmail.com <mailto:simion314 at gmail.com>>,
>> > kde-accessibility at kde.org <mailto: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!?? ??Â
>> > 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.?? ??Â
>> > > >>> 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?????????????????????????????????????????????Â
>> > 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?
>> > > >>>>>>>>>
>> > > >>>>>>>>>
>> > > >>
>> > > >>
>> > >
>> > >
>> > >
>> >
>>
>>
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