Re: no joy...

[Michael Torrie <torriem gmail com>]

On 12/22/2011 01:58 PM, Gary Kline wrote:
>       i am reallty not doing anything that arcane.  the nutshell
>       of it is that in 
>
>       "while (!done loop)"
>
>       gvim [ or another editor that can use abbreviations ]
>       creates a series of text files.  1 to some N.  what it
>       written to  each file is then read aloud via espeak -f;
>       this application is an attempt to help those who are speech
>       impaired or mute and have a small laptop.  i have been
>       smallish gadgets that lack a keyboard.   

Okay that explains things a little bit better.  Why are you involving a
text editor like gvim or kate?

Shouldn't you just either write the text you want to speak to a file and
the espeak that?  Or use a pipe to send espeak text?  Or maybe use some
kind of speaking api (maybe espeak has an api)?

If I wanted to espeak something I would use fopen to write the text to a
temporary file, then spawn espeak -f to read that.  Or most probably I'd
use popen() and send espeak the text through a pipe.  That's more basic
Linux programming than GTK programming of course.

>       my app is not targeted at people who would use the device
>       that has a touchscreen [plus hard drive + batteries].  I'
>       tried one of these things in 2003 and a later model in '09.  
>       my disability is fairly pronounced, but i could barely lift
>       this box.  i believe you could even play games on it.
>       for me, the screen was not that easy to press.  i prefer an
>       actual keyboard.  


>       if i'm talking to people or a person i am hard to understand
>       without a few weeks of getting used to my speech patterns;

Well you are understandable now in e-mail, and what you are trying to do
is becoming more clear.

>       with a shell script that i put together in 20 minutes, i
>       could type onto my EEE-900A and the computer would be my
>       voice.  i have been in touch with the people who are
>       developing the "$100 laptop" that is being used globally.
>       they said: sure, create a gui app that can be used by the
>       physically disabled or deaf.  

Okay so you are trying to come up with a graphical program whereby you
can type something (say in a text box) and have espeak speak it so that
others can hear and understand you?  Do I have this right?

>       this morning, i got gvim to spawn a Konsole; espeak  echos
>       what i typed.  but while the display button (with other
>       buttons) can find something i typed earlier, there is no 
>       way to close the display window.  i need some means  of 
>       putting buttons on the display window.

Hmm.  Maybe you should post your code so that others can see what it
does so far.

>       in my 11.10 ubunto, the makefile for one zetcode did not
>       build the top menu bar.  the two buttons below were there.
>       either i'm missing some gtk package, or something else is
>       broken.  [?]

I'm not familiar with zetcode.