Storm,
The shortcomings of Speech Dispatcher are well known to me. For what > >> its worth I am a software
developer and an end user, and I empathize > >> with your and others frustrations with the current
technology. In > >> many ways I have similar frustrations with Speech Dispatcher but for > >>
slightly differing reasons.
Unlike some on this list I don't exclusively rely upon free software > >> like Espeak. I have
purchased a number of commercial text to speech > >> systems like Dectalk, Eloquence, and Cepstral,
and am just as > >> disappointed with Speech Dispatcher's lackluster support for them as > >> I am
with its support for Espeak. After all, I might even have more > >> of a reason to gripe since I paid
money for what were supposedly > >> better quality text to speech systems, but am getting lackluster
results because there is a definite and obvious difference in > >> performance with the way Orca
did with those synthesizers using Gnome > >> Speech and the performance Orca has with using Speech
dispatcher. Its > >> clearly a case of Speech Dispatcher being a less desirable solution > >> for
handling speech drivers.
The point here is this. So far I have heard a few suggestions of > >> adding direct support for Espeak
in Orca. Basically, writing a Espeak > >> module that gives Orca direct control over the TTS output.
While I see where people are going with this I see two major problems > >> with it.
First, adding Espeak support to Orca assumes everyone uses Espeak, > >> and only benefits Espeak
users. Anyone who happens to use something > >> like a commercial speech solution like Cepstral Dianne
or a free > >> speech solution like Festival still get shorted. The developer > >> resolves the
problem with Orca and Espeak, which is fine if one > >> happens to be using Espeak, but does nothing
for the rest of us who > >> may have other preferences.
Therefore unless we are looking into the option of supporting every > >> speech system directly by
Orca I am not in favor of supporting Espeak > >> directly. Its a lot of work that only supports a
single text to > >> speech system, and there is a more effective way of fixing the > >> problems with
Espeak without resorting to direct Espeak support.
Writing a better alternative to Speech Dispatcher may be such a > >> solution, and not only resolve
problems with Espeak but might offer > >> improvements for Eloquence, Festival, Cepstral, etc as well.
Second, adding Espeak support to Orca only helps Orca. This does not > >> offer a means of offering
improved text to speech support to other > >> applications and games. If we think about Orca and only
Orca > >> accessibility we may in fact be shortchanging ourselves in the long > >> run by excluding
more long term accessibility solutions.
For example, as many of you may know Microsoft Windows offers a > >> speech API, Sapi, which is
available to any and all applications.
It is used by screen readers like Jaws, NVDA, and Window-Eyes for > >> traditional screen reader
speech output, but is by no means limited > >> in scope to screen readers. Jim Kitchen, a popular
author of > >> accessible audio games, has used Sapi to speak various things in his > >> games.
Nextup has a number of speech enabled applications like > >> TextAloud, WeatherAloud, and NewsAloud
that speaks the weather, news, > >> and various other things aloud via Sapi voices.
Microsoft has a map program that speaks driving or walking directions > >> aloud as well. My point
being that text to speech support has many > >> applications besides screen readers and we should not
shortchange > >> ourselves by focusing exclusively on Orca, and ignoring the bigger > >> picture here.
Yes, Speech Dispatcher has problems, and here is an opportunity to > >> address that issue. Rather
than including support directly into Orca > >> I think what we need to do is replace Speech Dispatcher
with a more > >> stable, more reliable, API for text to speech that does everything > >> Sapi does
for Windows users. Yeah, we can use it in Orca for speech > >> output, but consider developing
something that can be used in talking > >> weather applications, news applications, e-book readers,
whatever.
Plus offer support for as many free and commercial speech engines are > >> out there so that the user
can use what he or she wants to use rather > >> than limiting ourselves to one and only one text to
speech system.
I know, for example, I read a lot of books. Quite a number of them > >> are e-books. However, when
reading books I find Espeak gets on my > >> nerves. Espeak is alright for day to day tasks like
checking mail, > >> writing code, or something like that but not really for reading a > >> good book.
For that I switch over to one of the Cepstral voices which > >> is more human sounding, more
realistic, and is the reason I was > >> willing to put a little money out for some higher quality
voices for > >> Linux. Therefore if I took time out of my day to write such a speech > >> system I'd
want to be able to be able to choose which text to speech > >> system I want for specific situations
than exclusively devoting all > >> my effort into one text to speech system which I tolerate more than
> >> like.
So to sum up my thoughts let's consider expanding this support a bit, > >> not focus so much on
including Espeak support into Orca, and see what > >> we can do to come up with a better alternative
to speech Dispatcher > >> rather than putting all or eggs in one basket with Orca and Espeak.
On 8/27/14, Storm Dragon <stormdragon2976 gmail com> wrote:
Howdy, Nearly every other screen reader has multiple ways to > >>> interact with speech. NVDA has a
built in espeak, and the other > >>> nonfree readers have synths as well, I think most have a built
in > >>> Eloquence. Never once, have I heard any of those users complain that > >>> their screen
reader has entirely too many ways to talk. Also, as far > >>> as I am aware, no one has ever said
"Man, I really wish my screen > >>> reader had to jump through layer after layer of junk to speak."
Speech-dispatcher is ok, for minimal usage, but it crashes with > >>> alsa, has odd puctuation
inconsistancies, and is slow as molasses.
The last time development of speech-dispatcher even reached a > >>> snail's pace was when open-speech
or whatever was called was made > >>> because people weree frustrated with the lack of progress made
by > >>> speech-dispatcher. I'm not even asking to replace spd. Let the > >>> people who like it use
it. That's one thing that makes Linux rock, > >>> there's usually more than one way to do things. for
some people, > >>> speech-dispatcher may be fine. for me, it's falling rather short.
Also, with a reliable way to deliver speech, speech-dispatcher can > >>> drag on it its currently
abysmally slow progress, and we can have > >>> fully working espeak.
Speech-dispatcher has been around and for a long time now, and there > >>> still not full support for
espeak... No way to use variants, and you > >>> have to hack it to use freasonably fast espeak.
Thanks Storm > >> _______________________________________________ orca-list mailing > >> list
orca-list gnome org > >> https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/orca-list Visit > >>
http://live.gnome.org/Orca for more information on Orca. The manual > >> is at > >>
http://library.gnome.org/users/gnome-access-guide/nightly/ats-2.html
