Question about speech-dispatcher inclusion

[Lukas Loehrer]

Unlike the original poster, I find the gnome-speech driver for espeak
to work ok, but it probably very much depends on the machine, in
particular on the sound card. That said, I believe that
speech-dispatcher should seriously be considered for inclusion, be it
only for the fact that it will give us Alsa audio playback for all
supported synths. I see Alsa support as a very strong requirement
nowadays. It would be very nice to solve this problem in one place
only instead of in every synth. When going with speech-dispatcher, it
would be desirable to replace the current generic driver for espeak
with one that uses espeak natively.

The alternative is to try to improve Alsa support in portaudio in order to
fix the sound problems some people experience with the gnome-speech
driver for espeak. 

Best regards, Lukas

Henrik Nilsen Omma writes ("Re: Question about speech-dispatcher inclusion"):
> Hi,
> 
> An interesting post that seems to have gone unanswered. I'm not the most 
> qualified to write about speech drivers, but I'll give my view.
> 
> We opted to go with the gnome-speech option because of some limitations 
> in speech-dispacher and because the Orca speech-dispacher driver was 
> still in alpha when we made the decision. We certainly did not want the 
> Orca -> Gnome-speec -> speech-dispatcher -> espeak chain that some 
> people were using at the time.
> 
> How are you running it now, with the Orca SD driver? What would be the 
> advantage of writing a direct espeak driver for Orca? (I ask because I 
> don't know, not rhetorically)
> 
> I generally a fan of the idea of speech-dispatcher, the flexibility it 
> gives. But it's fair to ask if we need the extra layer if we can have 
> direct drivers for espeak and festival? These will after all be the 
> mainstay of our offering.
> 
> Henrik
> 
> Michael Curran wrote:
> > Hi all,
> >
> > I have just started using Ubuntu as of a few days ago.
> >
> > I have been using Debian and Gentoo (all with speakup) for many years, but 
> > this is my first time at being able to simply install a Linux OS all with a 
> > working and accessible GUI.
> >
> > Congrats to the Ubuntu Accessibility team so far for making this a reality. 
> > And of course well done to the Orca team for making an ever improving screen 
> > reader for Gnome.
> >
> > As the subject line says, I have a query about speech-dispatcher's inclusion 
> > in Ubuntu.
> >
> > Is there a reason why speech-dispatcher can not be included on the Desktop 
> > live cd? I have tried both 6.10 and 7.04 and this seems to be the case.
> >
> > I absolutly love ESpeak (for many reasons). But putting in the 7.04 live cd 
> > and having Orca come up talking with ESpeak the way it did made mee quite 
> > disappointed to see ESpeak used in this state.
> >
> > The problem was the responsiveness, and the jumpyness.
> >
> > As I understand, Orca was using gnome-speech, with a gnome-speech driver for 
> > ESpeak.
> >
> > I am not blaiming the author of that driver, I'm sure there must be 
> > limitations to gnome-speech to have it act in this way.
> >
> > But, as soon as I installed Ubuntu successfully, I quickly installed 
> > speech-dispatcher, and told Orca to use that instead.
> >
> > Straight away, absolutely wonderful. Using Orca was pretty much as 
> > responsive as using NVDA, or Jaws or Window Eyes or Hal, on Windows.
> >
> > Because I have only just joined this list, and only just started using 
> > Ubuntu, I'm sure I have missed why speech-dispatcher isn't included on the 
> > live cd. But, I really do think that we must push for it to be.
> >
> > Or another option is to write an Orca synth driver for ESpeak directly. But, 
> > so far, my dealings with gnome-speech havn't been that good. Even with 
> > festival its still a little jumpy.
> >
> > Its fine to have an accessible operating system, but I always feel the most 
> > important thing is responsiveness. Using Speakup, you press a key things 
> > just happen, using NVDA or Jaws etc, things just happen. But trying to use 
> > Orca with a slow synth driver, its seriously like walking through fog. You 
> > know where you are if you move carefully and slowly, but you can't just run 
> > like the wind.
> >
> > I know that Orca is much better than this, but using it with the espeak 
> > gnome-speech driver, it wasn't that enjoyable.
> >
> > Another surprising thing was that when I changed to speech-dispatcher, 
> > because espeak is forced by speech-dispatcher to use aplay, I was able to 
> > play sound files in Gnome quite nicely, and still have Orca talking.
> >
> > Where as with gnome-speech, I think that wasn't working, at least on my 
> > system anyways.
> >
> > I am thinking of spending some of my time, when I'm not developing NVDA that 
> > is, to perhaps work on Unbuntu Accessibility if I can. Perhaps one thing I 
> > could do is look at writing an espeak driver for Orca, or perhaps try and 
> > work out the issues that exist in gnome-speech.
> >
> > I would really like to help out in anyway I can.
> >
> > I am currently writing NonVisual Desktop Access (NVDA) 
> > [http://www.nvda-project.org/] which is a free and open source Screen Reader 
> > for Windows.
> > BTW: NVDA can use ESpeak via its sapi5 driver, and this is certainly my 
> > choice of synth, when I don't have access to Eloquence/Viavoice.
> >
> > The main reasons I started developing NVDA was because of the price of 
> > commercial screen readers in Windows, and also the fact that a lot of blind 
> > users were not yet ready to move to Linux. Of course I'd love for all blind 
> > people to be able to use Linux full-time, but I'm sure we all realise that 
> > that is not yet the case.
> >
> > I figured that if I could prove that a usable screen reader for Windows 
> > (that is free and open source) could be written, then perhaps more blind 
> > people would put their trust in this type of software, and perhaps give them 
> > ore confidence  to try out Linux, perhaps Ubuntu.
> >
> > Anyway, Thanks so much for all the people who have done such fine work with 
> > Ubuntu, and Linux Accessibility in general.
> >
> > Mick
> >
> >
> >   
> 
> 
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