Re: [PHP] Server-Side Speech --- New Project Discussion (PHP/C++ Developers?)
At 3:53 PM -0400 4/26/07, Daniel Brown wrote: Anyone who's interested in jumping on, let me know. We may not create a PHP-based TTS system, but we can do the next best thing. Besides, everything has to start somewhere! Daniel: But of course, you can count me in -- after all, I started this thread. If you can get the project to the point were I can upload something to my site that can generate a sound file from text, I'll take it from there. The point of all this is to provide a simple way for civilians to have their sites speak. I certainly can do all the documentation and design/write the software that will make it easy for the end user to use -- that's not a problem. The problem is having the text-to-sound routines being autonomous and free from requiring the user to seek assistance from their host for installation. If you can get it to that, this project is doable. Cheers, tedd -- --- http://sperling.com http://ancientstones.com http://earthstones.com -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] Server-Side Speech --- New Project Discussion (PHP/C++ Developers?)
That's what I'm going to try to do, Tedd. I'll post updates throughout the day to include the new mailing list address and such (so we're not flooding the PHP list with stuff about a specific project) and other relevant information. On 4/27/07, tedd [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: At 3:53 PM -0400 4/26/07, Daniel Brown wrote: Anyone who's interested in jumping on, let me know. We may not create a PHP-based TTS system, but we can do the next best thing. Besides, everything has to start somewhere! Daniel: But of course, you can count me in -- after all, I started this thread. If you can get the project to the point were I can upload something to my site that can generate a sound file from text, I'll take it from there. The point of all this is to provide a simple way for civilians to have their sites speak. I certainly can do all the documentation and design/write the software that will make it easy for the end user to use -- that's not a problem. The problem is having the text-to-sound routines being autonomous and free from requiring the user to seek assistance from their host for installation. If you can get it to that, this project is doable. Cheers, tedd -- --- http://sperling.com http://ancientstones.com http://earthstones.com -- Daniel P. Brown [office] (570-) 587-7080 Ext. 272 [mobile] (570-) 766-8107
Re: [PHP] Server-Side Speech --- New Project Discussion (PHP/C++ Developers?)
Even beyond the scope of what this small project will be, I was thinking (for once!) that it probably will not be too horribly difficult to incorporate some code into PHP itself that would allow functions such as text2wav(), et al. After all, the Festival TTS engine itself, which we'll be using as a foundation (and first floor even), is already written in C++, so hopefully back-porting it to PHP's native C language core won't prove to be too much of a nightmare. Just a thought On 4/27/07, Daniel Brown [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: That's what I'm going to try to do, Tedd. I'll post updates throughout the day to include the new mailing list address and such (so we're not flooding the PHP list with stuff about a specific project) and other relevant information. On 4/27/07, tedd [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: At 3:53 PM -0400 4/26/07, Daniel Brown wrote: Anyone who's interested in jumping on, let me know. We may not create a PHP-based TTS system, but we can do the next best thing. Besides, everything has to start somewhere! Daniel: But of course, you can count me in -- after all, I started this thread. If you can get the project to the point were I can upload something to my site that can generate a sound file from text, I'll take it from there. The point of all this is to provide a simple way for civilians to have their sites speak. I certainly can do all the documentation and design/write the software that will make it easy for the end user to use -- that's not a problem. The problem is having the text-to-sound routines being autonomous and free from requiring the user to seek assistance from their host for installation. If you can get it to that, this project is doable. Cheers, tedd -- --- http://sperling.com http://ancientstones.com http://earthstones.com -- Daniel P. Brown [office] (570-) 587-7080 Ext. 272 [mobile] (570-) 766-8107 -- Daniel P. Brown [office] (570-) 587-7080 Ext. 272 [mobile] (570-) 766-8107
Re: [PHP] Server-Side Speech --- New Project Discussion (PHP/C++ Developers?)
On 4/27/07, Daniel Brown [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Even beyond the scope of what this small project will be, I was thinking (for once!) that it probably will not be too horribly difficult to incorporate some code into PHP itself that would allow functions such as text2wav(), et al. After all, the Festival TTS engine itself, which we'll be using as a foundation (and first floor even), is already written in C++, so hopefully back-porting it to PHP's native C language core won't prove to be too much of a nightmare. Just a thought Is it 100% C++? that could be a serious problem, AFAIK, unless we are creating a shared library of course, because from that point, the language doesn't matter (not sure about static, but i believe it is the same) And what about other TTS engines? FreeTTS? Festival-lite? Tijnema On 4/27/07, Daniel Brown [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: That's what I'm going to try to do, Tedd. I'll post updates throughout the day to include the new mailing list address and such (so we're not flooding the PHP list with stuff about a specific project) and other relevant information. On 4/27/07, tedd [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: At 3:53 PM -0400 4/26/07, Daniel Brown wrote: Anyone who's interested in jumping on, let me know. We may not create a PHP-based TTS system, but we can do the next best thing. Besides, everything has to start somewhere! Daniel: But of course, you can count me in -- after all, I started this thread. If you can get the project to the point were I can upload something to my site that can generate a sound file from text, I'll take it from there. The point of all this is to provide a simple way for civilians to have their sites speak. I certainly can do all the documentation and design/write the software that will make it easy for the end user to use -- that's not a problem. The problem is having the text-to-sound routines being autonomous and free from requiring the user to seek assistance from their host for installation. If you can get it to that, this project is doable. Cheers, tedd -- --- http://sperling.com http://ancientstones.com http://earthstones.com -- Daniel P. Brown [office] (570-) 587-7080 Ext. 272 [mobile] (570-) 766-8107 -- Daniel P. Brown [office] (570-) 587-7080 Ext. 272 [mobile] (570-) 766-8107 -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] Server-Side Speech --- New Project Discussion (PHP/C++ Developers?)
Okay, anyone interested in joining the project can subscribe to the official mailing list (sounds fancy!) set up for the project at: http://isawit.com/mailman/listinfo/php-vox I'm looking forward to getting into discussions and debates, and getting the project off the ground. On 4/27/07, Tijnema ! [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 4/27/07, Daniel Brown [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Even beyond the scope of what this small project will be, I was thinking (for once!) that it probably will not be too horribly difficult to incorporate some code into PHP itself that would allow functions such as text2wav(), et al. After all, the Festival TTS engine itself, which we'll be using as a foundation (and first floor even), is already written in C++, so hopefully back-porting it to PHP's native C language core won't prove to be too much of a nightmare. Just a thought Is it 100% C++? that could be a serious problem, AFAIK, unless we are creating a shared library of course, because from that point, the language doesn't matter (not sure about static, but i believe it is the same) And what about other TTS engines? FreeTTS? Festival-lite? Tijnema On 4/27/07, Daniel Brown [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: That's what I'm going to try to do, Tedd. I'll post updates throughout the day to include the new mailing list address and such (so we're not flooding the PHP list with stuff about a specific project) and other relevant information. On 4/27/07, tedd [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: At 3:53 PM -0400 4/26/07, Daniel Brown wrote: Anyone who's interested in jumping on, let me know. We may not create a PHP-based TTS system, but we can do the next best thing. Besides, everything has to start somewhere! Daniel: But of course, you can count me in -- after all, I started this thread. If you can get the project to the point were I can upload something to my site that can generate a sound file from text, I'll take it from there. The point of all this is to provide a simple way for civilians to have their sites speak. I certainly can do all the documentation and design/write the software that will make it easy for the end user to use -- that's not a problem. The problem is having the text-to-sound routines being autonomous and free from requiring the user to seek assistance from their host for installation. If you can get it to that, this project is doable. Cheers, tedd -- --- http://sperling.com http://ancientstones.com http://earthstones.com -- Daniel P. Brown [office] (570-) 587-7080 Ext. 272 [mobile] (570-) 766-8107 -- Daniel P. Brown [office] (570-) 587-7080 Ext. 272 [mobile] (570-) 766-8107 -- Daniel P. Brown [office] (570-) 587-7080 Ext. 272 [mobile] (570-) 766-8107
Re: [PHP] Server-Side Speech --- New Project Discussion (PHP/C++ Developers?)
On Thu, April 26, 2007 2:53 pm, Daniel Brown wrote: As a result of an ongoing thread, I am launching a project that should allow users on shared hosting accounts and other restricted Unix-like hosting systems to utilize text-to-speech synthesis, primarily the Festival TTS engine. The goal of the project will be to create a miniature, portable TTS system that a user can upload to their hosting account and use right away, without the need to compile the system or have access to privileged-only libraries. The ultimate aim here is for a user to be able to do the following, from start to finish: 1.) Determine a need for text-to-speech synthesis on the web. 2.) Locate this project. 3.) Download the compiled binaries and PHP source code. 4.) Upload the binaries and code to their existing hosting account. 5.) Set permissions on directories and configure the system as necessary. 6.) Integrate the system into their existing architecture and design. 7.) Use the system. I may set up a small mailing list for the project, as well as a forum to use with development, bugtracking, et cetera. I'm not entirely sure whether I will be hosting the entire project on one of my servers, or if I will use SourceForge for some or all of the hosting. Anyone who's interested in jumping on, let me know. We may not create a PHP-based TTS system, but we can do the next best thing. Besides, everything has to start somewhere! I was thinking more along the lines of a PECL extension... That comes with some implicit things like: hosted at pecl.php.net built into PHP source using 'pecl' webhosts would install it, or not, as they see fit It probably wouldn't really help out the person whose host refused to install this extension in the first place. But it would increase the number of webhosts who just provide it so the average developer wouldn't need to dink around trying to install binaries that might not even be allowed to execute. -- Some people have a gift link here. Know what I want? I want you to buy a CD from some indie artist. http://cdbaby.com/browse/from/lynch Yeah, I get a buck. So? -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] Server-Side Speech --- New Project Discussion (PHP/C++ Developers?)
On Fri, April 27, 2007 11:00 am, Daniel Brown wrote: Even beyond the scope of what this small project will be, I was thinking (for once!) that it probably will not be too horribly difficult to incorporate some code into PHP itself that would allow functions such as text2wav(), et al. After all, the Festival TTS engine itself, which we'll be using as a foundation (and first floor even), is already written in C++, so hopefully back-porting it to PHP's native C language core won't prove to be too much of a nightmare. Ah! You're thinking you need to rewrite it in C to make it tie in to PHP. Not so, I think. You simply need to write wrapper functions in C that let PHP talk to the compiled library which can just be straight from its C++ source -- Or *any* language that builds a compiled library. PHP is just a glue that is written in C (not C++) to tie together the various extensions that can be written in ANY language. In theory, you could take a COBOL program and make a PHP extension out of it, without re-writing the dang thing in C. At least, that's how I understand it, having stumbled my way through writing one silly extension myself... -- Some people have a gift link here. Know what I want? I want you to buy a CD from some indie artist. http://cdbaby.com/browse/from/lynch Yeah, I get a buck. So? -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] Server side speech
On Wed, April 25, 2007 7:10 pm, Robert Cummings wrote: On Wed, 2007-04-25 at 16:26 -0500, Richard Lynch wrote: On Wed, April 25, 2007 3:27 pm, Daniel Brown wrote: That's fine if you can find a shared host (as the OP states he's using) that's willing to install it on their servers. Or you have a spare computer in your closet that you can install the same OS as the server has, and the you compile the binary, and upload that, and then you can just 'exec' that. Bleh, this is the era of virtualization... instal vmware server and then have a any given distro virtualized as a development server for migrating binaries to production servers. I do this with various Red Hat, Debian, Ubuntu, and CentOS flavours. And it's the only way to run Windows to test in IE. I happen to have a lot of hardware laying around... Part of why I'm buying a house. Too much stuff. VMWare is nifty if your computer has the ooomph to handle it. I got turned off of VMWare early on, because I found myself endlessly tweaking the RAM settings to get better performance out of whichever VM I was needing at any given time, and it was too painful to do that. -- Some people have a gift link here. Know what I want? I want you to buy a CD from some indie artist. http://cdbaby.com/browse/from/lynch Yeah, I get a buck. So? -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] Server side speech
On Fri, 2007-04-27 at 15:44 -0500, Richard Lynch wrote: On Wed, April 25, 2007 7:10 pm, Robert Cummings wrote: On Wed, 2007-04-25 at 16:26 -0500, Richard Lynch wrote: On Wed, April 25, 2007 3:27 pm, Daniel Brown wrote: That's fine if you can find a shared host (as the OP states he's using) that's willing to install it on their servers. Or you have a spare computer in your closet that you can install the same OS as the server has, and the you compile the binary, and upload that, and then you can just 'exec' that. Bleh, this is the era of virtualization... instal vmware server and then have a any given distro virtualized as a development server for migrating binaries to production servers. I do this with various Red Hat, Debian, Ubuntu, and CentOS flavours. And it's the only way to run Windows to test in IE. I happen to have a lot of hardware laying around... Part of why I'm buying a house. Too much stuff. VMWare is nifty if your computer has the ooomph to handle it. I got turned off of VMWare early on, because I found myself endlessly tweaking the RAM settings to get better performance out of whichever VM I was needing at any given time, and it was too painful to do that. I first used vmware back in 2000 and thought it was cool then, but the currently free vmware server is a completely different beast than that was. First it provides common OS choices to choose form when installing an OS. It suggest what you should allocate as minimum and good memory settings, and it provides tabbing between multiple running VMs and also includes really easy bridged networking etc so your vms can transfer between the host computer and even other VMs. And of course, one of my favourite features is that it can now connect an ISO image on the host as the CDROM. Ditto for floppy disk images (if you want to install windows 3.11 like I did (for giggles and farts :)) Cheers, Rob. -- .. | InterJinn Application Framework - http://www.interjinn.com | :: | An application and templating framework for PHP. Boasting | | a powerful, scalable system for accessing system services | | such as forms, properties, sessions, and caches. InterJinn | | also provides an extremely flexible architecture for | | creating re-usable components quickly and easily. | `' -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] Server side speech
At 4:25 PM -0400 4/25/07, Brad Bonkoski wrote: Daniel Brown wrote: Tedd, On all of the *nix boxes I use (and have used) I've had to install Festival manually, so I would definitely not say that it's commonly found on there especially for a server configuration. But it IS commonly available, so why not just make it a prerequisite for utilizing this utility? Because I said: You see, what I'm thinking is, if I can get the code/technique, then I might be able to provide a way for non-technical types to have their sites speak I don't want to make it so technical that even I can't do it AND I (like most) don't have control over what my host does. Cheers, tedd -- --- http://sperling.com http://ancientstones.com http://earthstones.com -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] Server side speech
At 7:24 PM -0400 4/25/07, Justin Frim wrote: Perhaps lightly off-topic, I had to make a quick audio CAPTCHA to complement a visual one for a web site. I was thinking of having a server-side TTS system, but that just became too big a can of worms for the size of the project. I also had the restriction that the hosting service provider refused to install any machine-code executables or compile any programs to be installed on their servers. So instead I used a collection of 95 sound clips, each one being a recording of an ASCII character spoken out loud, with the file named as the 2-digit hex code of the respective character. All the PHP script had to do was concatenate the audio data portion of the necessary files, then create a new header and send the result as a single audio file to the user-agent. Worked like a charm. (I should also mention the audio clips were in IMA-ADPCM format, so a simple concatenation like that didn't break anything.) I did a similar thing with this: http://sperling.com/examples/captcha/ After I write it up, I will be providing the code to the public. I simply used mp3 files (my own voice) and made all files the same size. That way, to create a key, I simply loaded the header that contained the length and then a set number of other files were appended to that -- the length was always the same. However, I did run my audio captcha by a couple dozen visually impaired testers to fix any problems that they might have -- it's interesting to see what they see. Cheers, tedd -- --- http://sperling.com http://ancientstones.com http://earthstones.com -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] Server side speech
No, I meant a dedicated server that you lease in a datacenter, not one
that you'd have to be responsible for in your own home. I had Comcast cable
Internet, too my speeds were actually pretty good (in northeast
Pennsylvania) with them and Adelphia, whom they bought out last year. About
4Mbps down and 1.5Mbps up, average. Not too shabby.
What I was offering is to compile the code on one of my machines (Linux)
and zip'ing the file so that you could download it, bundle it with your
code, and upload it to your server in your account. Your host shouldn't
have to do anything at all if I rewrite some of the C source and rewrite the
Makefile to compile all of the modules to be in a same-directory structure
(or a subdirectory of the runtime directory). This would mean that you
wouldn't have to install anything in /usr/lib or something like that. It,
instead, could be something like /home/sperling/audio/ with libraries
installed in directories under that. You'd want it there instead of a
web-accessible directory, and then you'd call it from PHP like so: ?
passthru('../command --flag -b -l -a -h); ?
Just a suggestion though.
On 4/26/07, tedd [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Tedd,
If you want, I'll zip up my compiled binary of Festival for you to
try
on your system. I'll put it up on one of my servers so that you can
download it.
I really like Richard's idea of making a PECL component for
Festival
there's something to look into this weekend
--
Daniel P. Brown
[office] (570-) 587-7080 Ext. 272
[mobile] (570-) 766-8107
Daniel:
That would be great -- however, I'm running a Mac and from what I've
read, it don't run on a Mac.
The PECL thing would be great, but that means that host would still
have to install it, right? You see, I've never used a PECL extension.
Thanks very much for your interest and help.
Cheers,
tedd
--
---
http://sperling.com http://ancientstones.com http://earthstones.com
--
Daniel P. Brown
[office] (570-) 587-7080 Ext. 272
[mobile] (570-) 766-8107
Re: [PHP] Server side speech
tedd wrote: However, I did run my audio captcha by a couple dozen _visually impaired_ testers... ..snip... ...it's interesting to see what _they see_. nothing? ;-) -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] Server side speech
Heh crude, but it made me smile. On 4/26/07, Justin Frim [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: tedd wrote: However, I did run my audio captcha by a couple dozen _visually impaired_ testers... ..snip... ...it's interesting to see what _they see_. nothing? ;-) -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php -- Daniel P. Brown [office] (570-) 587-7080 Ext. 272 [mobile] (570-) 766-8107
Re: [PHP] Server side speech
At 10:44 AM -0400 4/26/07, Daniel Brown wrote:
No, I meant a dedicated server that you lease in a datacenter, not one
that you'd have to be responsible for in your own home. I had Comcast cable
Internet, too my speeds were actually pretty good (in northeast
Pennsylvania) with them and Adelphia, whom they bought out last year. About
4Mbps down and 1.5Mbps up, average. Not too shabby.
What I was offering is to compile the code on one of my machines (Linux)
and zip'ing the file so that you could download it, bundle it with your
code, and upload it to your server in your account. Your host shouldn't
have to do anything at all if I rewrite some of the C source and rewrite the
Makefile to compile all of the modules to be in a same-directory structure
(or a subdirectory of the runtime directory). This would mean that you
wouldn't have to install anything in /usr/lib or something like that. It,
instead, could be something like /home/sperling/audio/ with libraries
installed in directories under that. You'd want it there instead of a
web-accessible directory, and then you'd call it from PHP like so: ?
passthru('../command --flag -b -l -a -h); ?
Just a suggestion though.
Daniel:
Wow! That's a lot for work for you. However, if you're willing to do
it, I'll spend the time to see if I can get it to work on my end.
This would be a good thing if we can get this to work.
Thanks a bunch.
Cheers,
tedd
--
---
http://sperling.com http://ancientstones.com http://earthstones.com
--
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To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
[PHP] Server-Side Speech --- New Project Discussion (PHP/C++ Developers?)
As a result of an ongoing thread, I am launching a project that should allow users on shared hosting accounts and other restricted Unix-like hosting systems to utilize text-to-speech synthesis, primarily the Festival TTS engine. The goal of the project will be to create a miniature, portable TTS system that a user can upload to their hosting account and use right away, without the need to compile the system or have access to privileged-only libraries. The ultimate aim here is for a user to be able to do the following, from start to finish: 1.) Determine a need for text-to-speech synthesis on the web. 2.) Locate this project. 3.) Download the compiled binaries and PHP source code. 4.) Upload the binaries and code to their existing hosting account. 5.) Set permissions on directories and configure the system as necessary. 6.) Integrate the system into their existing architecture and design. 7.) Use the system. I may set up a small mailing list for the project, as well as a forum to use with development, bugtracking, et cetera. I'm not entirely sure whether I will be hosting the entire project on one of my servers, or if I will use SourceForge for some or all of the hosting. Anyone who's interested in jumping on, let me know. We may not create a PHP-based TTS system, but we can do the next best thing. Besides, everything has to start somewhere! -- Daniel P. Brown [office] (570-) 587-7080 Ext. 272 [mobile] (570-) 766-8107
Re: [PHP] Server-Side Speech --- New Project Discussion (PHP/C++ Developers?)
On 4/26/07, Daniel Brown [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: As a result of an ongoing thread, I am launching a project that should allow users on shared hosting accounts and other restricted Unix-like hosting systems to utilize text-to-speech synthesis, primarily the Festival TTS engine. The goal of the project will be to create a miniature, portable TTS system that a user can upload to their hosting account and use right away, without the need to compile the system or have access to privileged-only libraries. The ultimate aim here is for a user to be able to do the following, from start to finish: 1.) Determine a need for text-to-speech synthesis on the web. 2.) Locate this project. 3.) Download the compiled binaries and PHP source code. 4.) Upload the binaries and code to their existing hosting account. 5.) Set permissions on directories and configure the system as necessary. 6.) Integrate the system into their existing architecture and design. 7.) Use the system. I may set up a small mailing list for the project, as well as a forum to use with development, bugtracking, et cetera. I'm not entirely sure whether I will be hosting the entire project on one of my servers, or if I will use SourceForge for some or all of the hosting. Anyone who's interested in jumping on, let me know. We may not create a PHP-based TTS system, but we can do the next best thing. Besides, everything has to start somewhere! -- Daniel P. Brown [office] (570-) 587-7080 Ext. 272 [mobile] (570-) 766-8107 I'm not sure what it is exactly, i know which thread you are referring to so i guess i will need to read that one, but i don't have time for that, but it looks very interesting this. Just count me as in :) I have server running here at my lan, and i use that for development, so i have root access to it :) It's running apache + PHP + MySQL, all compiled from source, i know how to compile apps etc in linux. I have experience in programming in various languages, which include the required PHP C++. You may think that i'm too young (15) for this project, but please, don't under estimate me. Also, because i'm so young, i can learn things very quick. I understand new things very quickly. I'd like to write the hardest part of the code because i learn most from that :) Tijnema -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] Server-Side Speech --- New Project Discussion (PHP/C++ Developers?)
It's just an open-source project to be done on an at-will, volunteer basis. Once I get the wheels in motion, I'll let you know. For now, I'm still just trying to see if anyone's willing to help out. On 4/26/07, Tijnema ! [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 4/26/07, Daniel Brown [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: As a result of an ongoing thread, I am launching a project that should allow users on shared hosting accounts and other restricted Unix-like hosting systems to utilize text-to-speech synthesis, primarily the Festival TTS engine. The goal of the project will be to create a miniature, portable TTS system that a user can upload to their hosting account and use right away, without the need to compile the system or have access to privileged-only libraries. The ultimate aim here is for a user to be able to do the following, from start to finish: 1.) Determine a need for text-to-speech synthesis on the web. 2.) Locate this project. 3.) Download the compiled binaries and PHP source code. 4.) Upload the binaries and code to their existing hosting account. 5.) Set permissions on directories and configure the system as necessary. 6.) Integrate the system into their existing architecture and design. 7.) Use the system. I may set up a small mailing list for the project, as well as a forum to use with development, bugtracking, et cetera. I'm not entirely sure whether I will be hosting the entire project on one of my servers, or if I will use SourceForge for some or all of the hosting. Anyone who's interested in jumping on, let me know. We may not create a PHP-based TTS system, but we can do the next best thing. Besides, everything has to start somewhere! -- Daniel P. Brown [office] (570-) 587-7080 Ext. 272 [mobile] (570-) 766-8107 I'm not sure what it is exactly, i know which thread you are referring to so i guess i will need to read that one, but i don't have time for that, but it looks very interesting this. Just count me as in :) I have server running here at my lan, and i use that for development, so i have root access to it :) It's running apache + PHP + MySQL, all compiled from source, i know how to compile apps etc in linux. I have experience in programming in various languages, which include the required PHP C++. You may think that i'm too young (15) for this project, but please, don't under estimate me. Also, because i'm so young, i can learn things very quick. I understand new things very quickly. I'd like to write the hardest part of the code because i learn most from that :) Tijnema -- Daniel P. Brown [office] (570-) 587-7080 Ext. 272 [mobile] (570-) 766-8107
[PHP] Server side speech
Hi gang: Most text to speech techniques concentrate on making the browser or desktop application do the translation of web text to speech. For example, there are several listed here: http://www.oatsoft.org/Software/listing/Repository However, server-side text to speech is possible by delivering the sound to the browser via EMBED or BGSOUND tags -- an example of this can be seen here: http://nihseniorhealth.gov/ I contacted NIH, but they said that they hired a firm to do that for them and as such the source code is not subject to the freedom of information act. So, my question is -- is there anywhere I could get free code to do that? Thanks, tedd -- --- http://sperling.com http://ancientstones.com http://earthstones.com -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] Server side speech
On Wed, April 25, 2007 2:00 pm, tedd wrote: However, server-side text to speech is possible by delivering the sound to the browser via EMBED or BGSOUND tags -- an example of this can be seen here: I have run Festival server side via PHP to generate audio snippets of spoken word. All you really need is one of the desktop packages to have a command line interface and http://php.net/exec -- Some people have a gift link here. Know what I want? I want you to buy a CD from some indie artist. http://cdbaby.com/browse/from/lynch Yeah, I get a buck. So? -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] Server side speech
I had actually done something almost exactly like this as an experiment a few months back at http://isawit.com/tts/login.php. The audio download portion may no longer work, though I can't remember if I removed the code from that specific server or not. It was just for my own fun and edification, not any kind of project. What it did was allow someone to go to the site, type in a phrase, the server converted it to audio (WAV) and the user could download it. However, it could easily be embedded into the page. Then my desktop computer would access the database on the server once per minute to read unread phrases through a PHP/BASh hybrid to read aloud the phrases users entered. I had a simple CLI email script on my end, too, that allowed me to zip a response to the user in either audio or text format. I used Festival's TTS engine, which worked just fine for me. I did some modifications to it and then wrote some simple script wrappers for it. Summary: check out Festival's TTS. The voices need work, but it's understandable, and it definitely does work. On 4/25/07, tedd [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi gang: Most text to speech techniques concentrate on making the browser or desktop application do the translation of web text to speech. For example, there are several listed here: http://www.oatsoft.org/Software/listing/Repository However, server-side text to speech is possible by delivering the sound to the browser via EMBED or BGSOUND tags -- an example of this can be seen here: http://nihseniorhealth.gov/ I contacted NIH, but they said that they hired a firm to do that for them and as such the source code is not subject to the freedom of information act. So, my question is -- is there anywhere I could get free code to do that? Thanks, tedd -- --- http://sperling.com http://ancientstones.com http://earthstones.com -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php -- Daniel P. Brown [office] (570-) 587-7080 Ext. 272 [mobile] (570-) 766-8107
Re: [PHP] Server side speech
Ditto on Festival. I've used it in the past as a trigger on MUD text to vocalize messages sent by players. Cheers, Rob. On Wed, 2007-04-25 at 15:08 -0400, Daniel Brown wrote: I had actually done something almost exactly like this as an experiment a few months back at http://isawit.com/tts/login.php. The audio download portion may no longer work, though I can't remember if I removed the code from that specific server or not. It was just for my own fun and edification, not any kind of project. What it did was allow someone to go to the site, type in a phrase, the server converted it to audio (WAV) and the user could download it. However, it could easily be embedded into the page. Then my desktop computer would access the database on the server once per minute to read unread phrases through a PHP/BASh hybrid to read aloud the phrases users entered. I had a simple CLI email script on my end, too, that allowed me to zip a response to the user in either audio or text format. I used Festival's TTS engine, which worked just fine for me. I did some modifications to it and then wrote some simple script wrappers for it. Summary: check out Festival's TTS. The voices need work, but it's understandable, and it definitely does work. On 4/25/07, tedd [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi gang: Most text to speech techniques concentrate on making the browser or desktop application do the translation of web text to speech. For example, there are several listed here: http://www.oatsoft.org/Software/listing/Repository However, server-side text to speech is possible by delivering the sound to the browser via EMBED or BGSOUND tags -- an example of this can be seen here: http://nihseniorhealth.gov/ I contacted NIH, but they said that they hired a firm to do that for them and as such the source code is not subject to the freedom of information act. So, my question is -- is there anywhere I could get free code to do that? Thanks, tedd -- --- http://sperling.com http://ancientstones.com http://earthstones.com -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php -- .. | InterJinn Application Framework - http://www.interjinn.com | :: | An application and templating framework for PHP. Boasting | | a powerful, scalable system for accessing system services | | such as forms, properties, sessions, and caches. InterJinn | | also provides an extremely flexible architecture for | | creating re-usable components quickly and easily. | `' -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] Server side speech
At 2:07 PM -0500 4/25/07, Richard Lynch wrote: On Wed, April 25, 2007 2:00 pm, tedd wrote: However, server-side text to speech is possible by delivering the sound to the browser via EMBED or BGSOUND tags -- an example of this can be seen here: I have run Festival server side via PHP to generate audio snippets of spoken word. All you really need is one of the desktop packages to have a command line interface and http://php.net/exec Richard: I've read about Festival and there are even some php routines that use it. But I'm doing this from/for a virtual host. I'm looking for a set of routines that I could place server-side and thus use to speak web text. I need something that I can share with others, not something special for just my site. -OR- Is there a standard *nix package that I could access via exec to do this? Is Festival commonly found on *nix? You see, what I'm thinking is, if I can get the code/technique, then I might be able to provide a way for non-technical types to have their sites speak. Maybe it's just foolish thinking, but I'm prone to that. :-) Thanks for your help. Cheers, tedd -- --- http://sperling.com http://ancientstones.com http://earthstones.com -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] Server side speech
Tedd, On all of the *nix boxes I use (and have used) I've had to install Festival manually, so I would definitely not say that it's commonly found on there especially for a server configuration. On 4/25/07, tedd [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: At 2:07 PM -0500 4/25/07, Richard Lynch wrote: On Wed, April 25, 2007 2:00 pm, tedd wrote: However, server-side text to speech is possible by delivering the sound to the browser via EMBED or BGSOUND tags -- an example of this can be seen here: I have run Festival server side via PHP to generate audio snippets of spoken word. All you really need is one of the desktop packages to have a command line interface and http://php.net/exec Richard: I've read about Festival and there are even some php routines that use it. But I'm doing this from/for a virtual host. I'm looking for a set of routines that I could place server-side and thus use to speak web text. I need something that I can share with others, not something special for just my site. -OR- Is there a standard *nix package that I could access via exec to do this? Is Festival commonly found on *nix? You see, what I'm thinking is, if I can get the code/technique, then I might be able to provide a way for non-technical types to have their sites speak. Maybe it's just foolish thinking, but I'm prone to that. :-) Thanks for your help. Cheers, tedd -- --- http://sperling.com http://ancientstones.com http://earthstones.com -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php -- Daniel P. Brown [office] (570-) 587-7080 Ext. 272 [mobile] (570-) 766-8107
Re: [PHP] Server side speech
Daniel Brown wrote: Tedd, On all of the *nix boxes I use (and have used) I've had to install Festival manually, so I would definitely not say that it's commonly found on there especially for a server configuration. But it IS commonly available, so why not just make it a prerequisite for utilizing this utility? On 4/25/07, tedd [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: At 2:07 PM -0500 4/25/07, Richard Lynch wrote: On Wed, April 25, 2007 2:00 pm, tedd wrote: However, server-side text to speech is possible by delivering the sound to the browser via EMBED or BGSOUND tags -- an example of this can be seen here: I have run Festival server side via PHP to generate audio snippets of spoken word. All you really need is one of the desktop packages to have a command line interface and http://php.net/exec Richard: I've read about Festival and there are even some php routines that use it. But I'm doing this from/for a virtual host. I'm looking for a set of routines that I could place server-side and thus use to speak web text. I need something that I can share with others, not something special for just my site. -OR- Is there a standard *nix package that I could access via exec to do this? Is Festival commonly found on *nix? You see, what I'm thinking is, if I can get the code/technique, then I might be able to provide a way for non-technical types to have their sites speak. Maybe it's just foolish thinking, but I'm prone to that. :-) Thanks for your help. Cheers, tedd -- --- http://sperling.com http://ancientstones.com http://earthstones.com -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] Server side speech
That's fine if you can find a shared host (as the OP states he's using) that's willing to install it on their servers. On 4/25/07, Brad Bonkoski [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Daniel Brown wrote: Tedd, On all of the *nix boxes I use (and have used) I've had to install Festival manually, so I would definitely not say that it's commonly found on there especially for a server configuration. But it IS commonly available, so why not just make it a prerequisite for utilizing this utility? On 4/25/07, tedd [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: At 2:07 PM -0500 4/25/07, Richard Lynch wrote: On Wed, April 25, 2007 2:00 pm, tedd wrote: However, server-side text to speech is possible by delivering the sound to the browser via EMBED or BGSOUND tags -- an example of this can be seen here: I have run Festival server side via PHP to generate audio snippets of spoken word. All you really need is one of the desktop packages to have a command line interface and http://php.net/exec Richard: I've read about Festival and there are even some php routines that use it. But I'm doing this from/for a virtual host. I'm looking for a set of routines that I could place server-side and thus use to speak web text. I need something that I can share with others, not something special for just my site. -OR- Is there a standard *nix package that I could access via exec to do this? Is Festival commonly found on *nix? You see, what I'm thinking is, if I can get the code/technique, then I might be able to provide a way for non-technical types to have their sites speak. Maybe it's just foolish thinking, but I'm prone to that. :-) Thanks for your help. Cheers, tedd -- --- http://sperling.com http://ancientstones.com http://earthstones.com -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php -- Daniel P. Brown [office] (570-) 587-7080 Ext. 272 [mobile] (570-) 766-8107
Re: [PHP] Server side speech
Daniel Brown wrote: That's fine if you can find a shared host (as the OP states he's using) that's willing to install it on their servers. I guess I am just thinking the alternative is creating your own package and using that, which again would force an external entity for the system to support, unless there is some way for PHP to do text-to-speech translation, which seems way out of scope for a scripting language On 4/25/07, Brad Bonkoski [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Daniel Brown wrote: Tedd, On all of the *nix boxes I use (and have used) I've had to install Festival manually, so I would definitely not say that it's commonly found on there especially for a server configuration. But it IS commonly available, so why not just make it a prerequisite for utilizing this utility? On 4/25/07, tedd [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: At 2:07 PM -0500 4/25/07, Richard Lynch wrote: On Wed, April 25, 2007 2:00 pm, tedd wrote: However, server-side text to speech is possible by delivering the sound to the browser via EMBED or BGSOUND tags -- an example of this can be seen here: I have run Festival server side via PHP to generate audio snippets of spoken word. All you really need is one of the desktop packages to have a command line interface and http://php.net/exec Richard: I've read about Festival and there are even some php routines that use it. But I'm doing this from/for a virtual host. I'm looking for a set of routines that I could place server-side and thus use to speak web text. I need something that I can share with others, not something special for just my site. -OR- Is there a standard *nix package that I could access via exec to do this? Is Festival commonly found on *nix? You see, what I'm thinking is, if I can get the code/technique, then I might be able to provide a way for non-technical types to have their sites speak. Maybe it's just foolish thinking, but I'm prone to that. :-) Thanks for your help. Cheers, tedd -- --- http://sperling.com http://ancientstones.com http://earthstones.com -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] Server side speech
No, that's one of my servers. In all honesty, though, a dedicated server or VPS is so cheap nowadays that it's almost not worth going with a shared host anymore for any real programming. Because if you pay for your own server (this one is less than $60 per month) and administer it yourself (or hire someone --- plug shame=offlike me!/plug) you can do a lot more than a shared host, of course. It could be possible, though, depending on your host's system configuration, to put a pre-compiled Festival binary in your home directory and calling it from there. Right off the top of my head, aside from security policies on the box, I can't think of any reason this wouldn't work. On 4/25/07, tedd [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I had actually done something almost exactly like this as an experiment a few months back at http://isawit.com/tts/login.php. The audio download portion may no longer work, though I can't remember if I removed the code from that specific server or not. It was just for my own fun and edification, not any kind of project. What it did was allow someone to go to the site, type in a phrase, the server converted it to audio (WAV) and the user could download it. However, it could easily be embedded into the page. Then my desktop computer would access the database on the server once per minute to read unread phrases through a PHP/BASh hybrid to read aloud the phrases users entered. I had a simple CLI email script on my end, too, that allowed me to zip a response to the user in either audio or text format. I used Festival's TTS engine, which worked just fine for me. I did some modifications to it and then wrote some simple script wrappers for it. Summary: check out Festival's TTS. The voices need work, but it's understandable, and it definitely does work. Far-out! Is it your server, or a hosted account, or does it not matter? Cheers, tedd -- --- http://sperling.com http://ancientstones.com http://earthstones.com -- Daniel P. Brown [office] (570-) 587-7080 Ext. 272 [mobile] (570-) 766-8107
Re: [PHP] Server side speech
On 4/25/07, Brad Bonkoski [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: unless there is some way for PHP to do text-to-speech translation, which seems way out of scope for a scripting language Give it a couple of years. ;-P -- Daniel P. Brown [office] (570-) 587-7080 Ext. 272 [mobile] (570-) 766-8107
Re: [PHP] Server side speech
On Wed, April 25, 2007 3:17 pm, tedd wrote: At 2:07 PM -0500 4/25/07, Richard Lynch wrote: On Wed, April 25, 2007 2:00 pm, tedd wrote: However, server-side text to speech is possible by delivering the sound to the browser via EMBED or BGSOUND tags -- an example of this can be seen here: I have run Festival server side via PHP to generate audio snippets of spoken word. All you really need is one of the desktop packages to have a command line interface and http://php.net/exec Richard: I've read about Festival and there are even some php routines that use it. But I'm doing this from/for a virtual host. I'm looking for a set of routines that I could place server-side and thus use to speak web text. If you can compile (or find it compiled) on the exact same OS, you can probably upload the binary and then use 'exec' on your own program. I've had some success doing this on a shared host. You might also be able to convince the webhost to just install Festival for you. It would take them about 5 minutes, at most... They might be leery, of course, if they think it will be too resource-intensive. I need something that I can share with others, not something special for just my site. Is there a standard *nix package that I could access via exec to do this? Is Festival commonly found on *nix? Festival is a standard *nix package, but NOT commonly found on *nix installs, I don't think. It's trivial to install, but most folks don't need it, so don't install it. You see, what I'm thinking is, if I can get the code/technique, then I might be able to provide a way for non-technical types to have their sites speak. Maybe it's just foolish thinking, but I'm prone to that. :-) Let me put it this way: There is unlikely to be anything with a better chance of suceeding in this endeavor than Festival. :-) If you build a really cool way for people to make their sites provide text-to-speech capabilities that everybody wants, and all that's needed is for webhosts to install your software and Festival, then they're gonna install Festival, because their users will demand it. In the short term, there almost-for-sure isn't any easy way to upload some magic widget that will work cross-platform and do text-to-speech. So you're going to have to create demand for your project, by making it super cool. As I always tell my indie musician friends: Remember the 3 D's: Demand Drives Distribution This is usually about why they shouldn't be chasing after somebody to be their Distributor until after they have enough fans to make it financially viable (and the Distributors will come knocking on their door). In this case, however, I'm suggesting that the Demand for your cool software could cause the Linux Distributions to include Festival. Waiting/Looking for the other way around, a distribution that includes some kind of text-to-speech that you can use, is unlikely to be fruitful. -- Some people have a gift link here. Know what I want? I want you to buy a CD from some indie artist. http://cdbaby.com/browse/from/lynch Yeah, I get a buck. So? -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] Server side speech
On Wed, April 25, 2007 3:27 pm, Daniel Brown wrote: That's fine if you can find a shared host (as the OP states he's using) that's willing to install it on their servers. Or you have a spare computer in your closet that you can install the same OS as the server has, and the you compile the binary, and upload that, and then you can just 'exec' that. You'll have to fight with it, maybe, if it's stupid about where to find config files and you'll have to set up the exact same path on your closet box that you have on your live server, and convince it with --prefix to install everything where you can get at it, but I've done this with several packages. Or if you have SSH on your shared host (some do; some don't) you can download and compile on the server, again with --prefix, to get what you want. It's sometimes challenging, particularly with badly-written 'configure' scripts that have never actually correctly implemented --prefix and all that, but it's usually do-able, eventually, if you keep at it. Though, honestly, it's usually easier to just find a better host for a little more money where they'll install Festival (or whatever) for you, if you just ask them. I suppose a *real* hacker at this point would just offer to add Festival as a PECL extension to PHP. That would be kinda fun... Probasbly not terribly difficult. And could lead to a heck of a lot of interesting PHP applications... -- Some people have a gift link here. Know what I want? I want you to buy a CD from some indie artist. http://cdbaby.com/browse/from/lynch Yeah, I get a buck. So? -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] Server side speech
Tedd, If you want, I'll zip up my compiled binary of Festival for you to try on your system. I'll put it up on one of my servers so that you can download it. I really like Richard's idea of making a PECL component for Festival there's something to look into this weekend -- Daniel P. Brown [office] (570-) 587-7080 Ext. 272 [mobile] (570-) 766-8107
Re: [PHP] Server side speech
On Wed, April 25, 2007 3:33 pm, Daniel Brown wrote: On 4/25/07, Brad Bonkoski [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: unless there is some way for PHP to do text-to-speech translation, which seems way out of scope for a scripting language Give it a couple of years. ;-P Somebody somewhere has probably gone down this path... They may even have a working prototype that does some limited text-to-speech output... But, really, running Festival (or whatever, if you prefer another) or even making it a PECL would almost-for-sure work out better. -- Some people have a gift link here. Know what I want? I want you to buy a CD from some indie artist. http://cdbaby.com/browse/from/lynch Yeah, I get a buck. So? -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] Server side speech
Richard Lynch wrote: If you can compile (or find it compiled) on the exact same OS, you can probably upload the binary and then use 'exec' on your own program. I've had some success doing this on a shared host. You might also be able to convince the webhost to just install Festival for you. It would take them about 5 minutes, at most... They might be leery, of course, if they think it will be too resource-intensive. Perhaps lightly off-topic, I had to make a quick audio CAPTCHA to complement a visual one for a web site. I was thinking of having a server-side TTS system, but that just became too big a can of worms for the size of the project. I also had the restriction that the hosting service provider refused to install any machine-code executables or compile any programs to be installed on their servers. So instead I used a collection of 95 sound clips, each one being a recording of an ASCII character spoken out loud, with the file named as the 2-digit hex code of the respective character. All the PHP script had to do was concatenate the audio data portion of the necessary files, then create a new header and send the result as a single audio file to the user-agent. Worked like a charm. (I should also mention the audio clips were in IMA-ADPCM format, so a simple concatenation like that didn't break anything.) Let me put it this way: There is unlikely to be anything with a better chance of suceeding in this endeavor than Festival. :-) If you build a really cool way for people to make their sites provide text-to-speech capabilities that everybody wants, and all that's needed is for webhosts to install your software and Festival, then they're gonna install Festival, because their users will demand it. In the short term, there almost-for-sure isn't any easy way to upload some magic widget that will work cross-platform and do text-to-speech. So you're going to have to create demand for your project, by making it super cool. Well, there _is_ the alternative of writing an entire TTS engine in PHP... should you have the knowledge, inclination, processing speed, and crazyness to attempt such a task. ;-) -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] Server side speech
On Wed, 2007-04-25 at 16:26 -0500, Richard Lynch wrote: On Wed, April 25, 2007 3:27 pm, Daniel Brown wrote: That's fine if you can find a shared host (as the OP states he's using) that's willing to install it on their servers. Or you have a spare computer in your closet that you can install the same OS as the server has, and the you compile the binary, and upload that, and then you can just 'exec' that. Bleh, this is the era of virtualization... instal vmware server and then have a any given distro virtualized as a development server for migrating binaries to production servers. I do this with various Red Hat, Debian, Ubuntu, and CentOS flavours. And it's the only way to run Windows to test in IE. FWIW, my dev box is a measly Athlon 2400 with 2 gigs RAM (yeah yeah, Lynch has a shittier system than me ;), and having 2 or 3 VMs running at the same time is quite smooth unless I'm running something heavy in each. VMWare also lets you access running virtual machines on another computer (sort of like VNC but better). Cheers, Rob. -- .. | InterJinn Application Framework - http://www.interjinn.com | :: | An application and templating framework for PHP. Boasting | | a powerful, scalable system for accessing system services | | such as forms, properties, sessions, and caches. InterJinn | | also provides an extremely flexible architecture for | | creating re-usable components quickly and easily. | `' -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
Re: [PHP] Server side speech
On Wed, 2007-04-25 at 16:17 -0400, tedd wrote: At 2:07 PM -0500 4/25/07, Richard Lynch wrote: On Wed, April 25, 2007 2:00 pm, tedd wrote: However, server-side text to speech is possible by delivering the sound to the browser via EMBED or BGSOUND tags -- an example of this can be seen here: I have run Festival server side via PHP to generate audio snippets of spoken word. All you really need is one of the desktop packages to have a command line interface and http://php.net/exec Richard: I've read about Festival and there are even some php routines that use it. But I'm doing this from/for a virtual host. I'm looking for a set of routines that I could place server-side and thus use to speak web text. I need something that I can share with others, not something special for just my site. You can't stand on the shoulders of giants if you don't invite them to the party -- Me :) Cheers, Rob. -- .. | InterJinn Application Framework - http://www.interjinn.com | :: | An application and templating framework for PHP. Boasting | | a powerful, scalable system for accessing system services | | such as forms, properties, sessions, and caches. InterJinn | | also provides an extremely flexible architecture for | | creating re-usable components quickly and easily. | `' -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
