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Re: [orca-list] Announcing Speech Switch: making Linux a hospitable place for TTS engines like Voxin

I want to use libpeas (or some other such library) for plugins and the
like. Such a contribution would be welcome.

On Thu, 2020-12-03 at 12:12 +0100, Didier Spaier via orca-list wrote:

Do you have a pointer on what Chrys proposed, and why it was refused?

Anyhow Chrys has provided SOPS, which is a good start for writing
plugins:
https://github.com/chrys87/simple-orca-plugin-system
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Simple_Orca_Plugin_System

Also indeed people are allowed to propose changes and fixes:
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/orca/-/issues

and contributions are accepted, Joanie us not the only
author listed here
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/orca/-/commits/master/

So I really don't understand what you are complaining about.

Cheers,
Didier

On 03/12/2020 08:59, Arkadiusz Kozioł wrote:

Maybe not...

Hrys tried to do something to orca, but why it was refused?

Only one developer's maintaining orca now, as i see in commits,
without 
translator commits. ANd how many people develop nvda?

Maybe there's a problem. NO more developers, which are accessed 
possibility to propose some changes and fixes.

W dniu 03.12.2020 o 05:51, Krishnakant Mane via orca-list pisze:


This keeps on bubbling up and then sinking.

Orca documentation (from a programmer's or scripter's point of
view ) 
has been wanted for so long.

There could have been many contributors if that was in place.

I would go to the extent of saying that given a choice to go back
in 
time and choose between Orca documentation and a couple of
features, I 
would choose the former.

I say this because once such documentation is in place, any one
who is 
interested would get started quickly and in the long run the
community 
ends up having more contributors thus more features.

On 03/12/20 12:29 am, Rastislav Kish via orca-list wrote:

Hi there,

hmm, why?


How does Speech Dispatcher limit used modules?

Like yes, SD is licenced under GPL, but that doesn't apply for 
independend parts like speech modules, which can have their own
licences.


I personally think Speech Dispatcher is a very well made
system, it 
has even a great documentation (unlike Orca for example).


The only speech related problem I see on Linux is, that Orca
and may 
be other screenreaders? don't provide, or at least I'm not
avare of a 
way to speak through them.

That means I have to implement speech configuration in every
single 
application which wants to speak, what is a drag, especially if
doing 
the settings part wouldn't even be necessary without the speech
stuff.

This however is not a problem of Speech Dispatcher, but an Orca
issue.

Fixing it requires fixing Orca, which is problematic for a new 
contributor due to the above mentioned lacking documentation.


So, I'd say documenting Orca is something we currently need
much more 
than an obsolete speech system.

In fact, I'd personally go even further, and say, that we need 
documenting Orca and Linux accessibility stack in general the
most 
out of everything else.


Just look at NVDA and its addon repositories. How many great
plugins 
can you count there?

Well, tens, if not hundreds of them, I didn't really count
them 
myself. :) NVDA has a great addons-developing documentation,
which 
allows anyone with at least basic skills with Python and
object 
oriented programming to easily get in and develop a plugin
with 
minimal time spent on finding out how to do it.


And how many addons do we have for Orca?


Well, I know about one, aiming to make Orca able to work with 
NvdaRemote, and even thatone is incomplete and seems rather
hacky to me.

What's totally understandable, since there are no resources to
teach 
the proper way to do it.


If we want Linux accessibility to grow and not get fractioned,
we 
need to get in more people. And to get in more people, we need
to 
give them an easy way to enter, without need for a lengthy
Orca 
reverse engineering process.


Well, I've ended up probably a bit off of the original topic,
so 
returning to the original idea. There is quite a lot relevant
work to 
do here. I recommend investing time in them, it will help a
hlot.


Best regards


Rastislav


On 2. 12. 2020 17:27, Bill Cox via orca-list wrote:

Source code for the TTS modules is already available on
Github 
<https://github.com/waywardgeek/speechswitch>;.  The full
system 
will  be running by January 1, and will be an alternative to
Speech 
Dispatcher.

I would like to thank the Voxin and Orca authors for all
their 
efforts over the years.  I rely heavily on both of these
tools to 
remain productive at work.

Voxin broke again for me on Monday after a Linux update was
pushed 
to my corporate laptop.  This is not the fault of the Voxin 
authors!  They do this work out of charity, knowing that
blind and 
low vision folks around the world rely on their efforts. 
The 
problem is the architecture of Speech Dispatcher, which is
hostile 
to commercial TTS engines.  I will this with Speech Switch.

In the future, any Linux user, blind or sighted, will be able
to 
easily install Voxin and likely several other commercial TTS 
engines.  You'll be able to buy a TTS license once, and use
that 
same binary installer on any Linux distro, for years to
come.  
Updates to your Linux installation will no longer break the 
connection to your favorite TTS engine, so long as your
distro tests 
that Orca works with Espeak as part of their release
process.  This 
is my promise with Speech Switch.

Speech Switch currently supports Voxin, Espea, and PicoTTS. 
Over 
the next few days, I am going to write the initial version of
Speech 
Switch's command interpreter for SSIP, which is the command
language 
used by Speech Dispatcher.  By January, you will be able to
replace 
/usr/bin/speech-dispatcher with a symbolic link to 
/usr/bin/speechswitch, and everything should just work.

I could use help from volunte who would like to contribute! 
In 
particular, I'd like some help writing a new Python library
to allow 
Orca users to select either Speech Dispatcher or Speech
Switch.  
Replacing /usr/speeech-dispatcher with a symlink to 
/usr/speechswitch is just a temporary hack.  Writing wrappers
for 
other TTS engines would also be appreciated.  I've tried to
make 
writing a TTS backend module as simple as possible, and I
link only 
to libc, so your compiled modules should port across
distros.  I 
also could use help from testers on various Linux distros.

If you're interested, send me an email to 
waywardgeek gmail com 
<mailto:waywardgeek gmail com>

Thanks,
Bill


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-- 
Regards,
Krishnakant Mane,
Project Founder and Leader,
GNUKhata <https://gnukhata.in/>
//(Opensource Accounting, Billing and Inventory Management
Software)//

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Orca wiki: https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/Orca
Orca documentation: https://help.gnome.org/users/orca/stable/
GNOME Universal Access guide: 
https://help.gnome.org/users/gnome-help/stable/a11y.html


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Orca wiki: https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/Orca
Orca documentation: https://help.gnome.org/users/orca/stable/
GNOME Universal Access guide: 
https://help.gnome.org/users/gnome-help/stable/a11y.html
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