Re: [orca-list] OT: Best console screen reader for roguelikes?

[Jude DaShiell <jdashiel panix com>]

nethack uses . for empty floor space if you use the nh-accessibility 
configuration file to play the game.  When the . character isn't used and 
you encounter spaces, it means you're in a dark room and need to use a 
light source to see.
Earlier I had suggested adding a white cane to the game and maybe a 
mobility instructor for newly blinded players but that went nowhere.



On Fri, 15 Jan 2021, Mewtamer via orca-list wrote:

> Even with a console screen reader, I haven't had much luck with the
> few console rogue-likes I've tried.
>
> I think part of the problem is that rogue-likes tend to represent the
> dungeon map on-screen as a grid of ascii characters with empty floor
> tiles represented as white space while most console screen readers are
> designed primarily for reading plain text. Reading whole rows of such
> a map often doesn't parse well, especially with the asumption that
> whitespace is unvoiced, and while it would be useful to be able to
> read character-by-character up and down columns and not just
> left-and-right across rows, or to have the screen position of the
> character under the reading cursor spoken, to my knowledge, no console
> screen reader provides either of these functions.
>
> That said, regarding options for console screen readers:
>
> Speakup is probably the most widely used console screen reader,
> usually with espeakup acting as a bridge between it, the user, and
> espeak(-ng). Alternatively, I believe speechdup can serve as a bridge
> between speakup and speech dispatcher, allowing the use of any tts
> engine with a speech dispatcher module. That said, unless things have
> changed, speakup is stuck in the Linux Kernel's staging tree and isn't
> available by default on distros with a blanket no staging policy for
> the kernel packages they ship. I believe the main offenders in this
> regard are Fedora and some other RedHat-Family distros. I've used
> espeakup before, find it works well for text adventures such as those
> made by Infocom, but I was never able to get the hang of its screen
> review functionality.
>
> Fenrir is the up and coming new kid on the block, written in python
> and living entirely in userland with support for speech dispatcher and
> I think direct support for a few TTS engines without speech dispatcher
> needed as a go-between. I don't know much beyond that.
>
> I personally use SBL, which I like for its hold caps lock and use
> arrow keys for screen review, but it doesn't voice white space even
> when reading character-by-character, and while I generally prefer it's
> "print to the screen quietly" then screen review output style to
> espeakup's "try to read everything as it's printed to the screen"
> style, I find espeakup's style works better for text adventures,
> though I've had no luck with either for rogue-likes. Sadly, as far as
> I know, Knoppix(the distro my setup is based on) and OpenSuse are the
> only distros it ships with, and the nature of Knoppix means there
> isn't even a .deb readily available to try and install on other
> Debian-based systems.
>
> There's also yasr, but I know nothing about that one.
>
> As for distros,
>
> As mentioned above, Knoppix uses SBL as it's console screen reader,
> and Knoppix is meant primarily as a live distro, so you can run it
> without installing it... that said, Knoppix by default boots with
> accessibility turned off, the ability to enter boot options isn't
> accessible, and while you just need to change one line in one config
> file on the iso to make booting with accessiblity enabled the default,
> the read-only nature of the iso9660 filesystem means either editing ta
> DVD-sized file in a hex editor or mounting the iso, copying it's
> contents to a writeable folder, editng the config file, and rebuilding
> the iso, or writing it to a bootable USB stick and changing the config
> file afterwards.
>
> If you use the talking version of Debian's installer and don't select
> a desktop environment at the install additional software step, you'll
> end up with a command-line only install of Debian with espeakup
> talking before you even get to the log-in prompt. Do note, the talking
> version of the Debian installer, unless things have changed, makes
> useof long, numbered lists, and instead of scrolling and pressing
> enter on your choice, you have to type in the number of your choice,
> which can be quite annoying for steps with lots of options if you
> don't want the defaults and don't know the numbers for your choices
> ahead of time.
>
> Slint, which is based on Slackware, offers a choice between espeakup,
> speechdup, and Fenrir if memory serves... and I believe it's setup for
> havign one as the default, but easily switching to another if one
> works better for certain tasks.
>
> All that said, if everything is setup properly, you should be able to
> switch between the console and the GUI on the same system. Generally,
> a Linux machine will run a number of virtual consoles referred to as
> tty1-tty12(though some setups go all the way to tty24). Usually, if
> your system boots directly into the GUI, it's doing so on
> tty1(somethimes tty6, it depends on the distro) and all the other ttys
> are available for working in text-only mode(and in fact, I don't think
> it's allowed to have xservers running on more than one tty on most
> systems). Generally, to switch between ttys, you use alt+the function
> key corresponding to tthe number o f the tty(e.g. alt+f1 goes to tty1,
> alt+f4 goes to tty4, etc... no idea how tty13+ are accessed when
> available). When in a gui, you you might need to add ctrl to the
> keyboard shortcut since many alt+Fx are taking by GUI-specific
> functions. If your system is setup correctly, you can seamlessly
> switch between Orca in the GUI ontty1 and a console screen reader in
> the console on all the other ttys(Knoppix is setup this way if booted
> with accessibility enabled, I'm not familiar with setting it up
> elsewhere, though the main challenge is ensuring both Orca and the
> console screen reader can access the sound system without locking the
> other out).
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