Re: [sugar] Using threads in an Activity
Hi Shikar, You might want to look at how James Simmons uses threads in his ReadEtexts Activity to do speech synthesis using a thread too.. http://dev.laptop.org/git?p=activities/readetexts;a=blob;f=ReadEtextsActivity.py;h=c8c7086a4dd9448a2f81b96150dcb551c6d5d217;hb=HEAD Around line 56 or so... Hope it helps :) Best, Hemant ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
[sugar] super user privileges for speech-dispatcher and location of configuration files for olpc
Hi, We want to run the speech-dispatcher daemon service on the XO for providing a speech synthesis environment in the laptop. For our purpose we want to modify the configuration file of speech-dispatcher in /etc/speech-dispatcher/speechd.conf from sugar-control panel. sugar-control panel requires the configuration file to be user writable (which is not the case with the file in /etc/speech-dispatcher). The idea that we are getting at the moment is to maintain a copy of /etc/speech-dispatcher/speechd.conf somewhere in /home/olpc/.folder/speechd.conf. and start the daemon service by pointing to this directory instead of /etc/speech-dispatcher. This would allow us to modify the configuration file from sugar-control panel. For the above idea I will have to modify the speech-dispatcher package (for olpc2, olpc3) to relocate the configuration file to the new user writable directory and modify the init script for speech-dispatcher to look for the configuration file in the new directory. Can anybody suggest alternatives, or any caveats regarding the suggested approach? Thanks! Hemant ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] next sugar meeting: text-to-speech
Hi all, My apologies for not being present for this sugar meeting (my school exams got over today). * santhosh and HFactor present Dhvani, a text-to-speech system for indian languages. o santhosh has already worked into integrating Dhvani into Speech Dispatcher. This is great news! The packaging of speech dispatcher and dotconf is going on, and we'll pick up some speed now that we are free from exams. One of the dependencies of speech-dispathcer,DOTCONF is already approved and the author of the package has been sponsored by a FEDORA Packaging mentor. The next package to be accepted will be speech-dispatcher. in today meeting we have agreed on the convenience of having a meeting mainly focused on the use of text-to-speech systems in Sugar. If everybody agree, will take place Tuesday March 25 at 15.00 UTC. Brilliant,! I've added a few points that I think I would like to discuss with the sugar team. I'm sending this to the Accessibility list in the hope that someone will be interested in contributing in this area. If you are interested in attending, please add to the attendants and topics in: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Sugar_dev_meeting#Tuesday_March_25_2008_.28.22TTL-meeting.22.29_exceptional_time:_15.00_.28UTC.29 Just for an update, I tried running orca with speech-dispatcher and at a high level it worked fine. However since we have not been able to integrate basic speech synthesis in sugar, I have avoided researching about this option just yet. Thank you for keeping a special meeting for TTS! Best, Hemant ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] Interested in the Google Summer of Code
Hi all, As you all would be already aware that we have been planning/designing/experimenting with speech synthesis tools for the XO. So after all the designs (and next Sugar Meeting for TTS) I'd like to undertake the project and write code to integrate speech synthesis into Sugar in the coming summer. I think the work will mostly involve playing with sugar-control-panel, and a little bit with GTK Selections for the highlight and speak option. So it'll be really nice if someone from the Sugar Team becomes a mentor for the project. I've already put a basic idea plan at http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Summer_of_Code/Ideas#Integration_of_Speech_Synthesis_Technology_into_Sugar Thanks! -- Hemant ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] Control-panel GUI design
Hi, I had posted about the Speech Synthesis Control Panel as well. Can we also discuss the inclusion of speech synthesis control parameters within this control panel, while this discussion is alive? A link to my previous post - http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/sugar/2008-March/004411.html Hi, I added the section to the sugar-control-panel page so we can discuss the designs for the detail pages here. http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Sugar_Control_Panel#GUI_for_the_command_line_tool Thanks, Hemant ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] Speech Synthesis Integration - User Interfaces and other Implementation Considerations
Hi, Can someone please take a look at this mail and provide some guidance please. Thanks! Hemant On Sat, Mar 1, 2008 at 11:18 PM, Hemant Goyal [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi, I was thinking while the packaging of speech dispatcher continues I could finalize certain UI considerations for speech synthesis. I had a word with Tomeu and he advised me to write all the points in a mail to the list. Particularly we want to focus on : 1. A Speech Configuration Management for Sugar 1. Provision of a control panel for modifying speech synthesis parameters 2. How these parameters will be stored and retrieved when changes are made 3. What parameters to expose? 1. Language - Perhaps this should be the sugar default? 2. Voice Selection - Male/Female, Child/Adult, Age 3. Rate 4. Pitch 5. Volume 2. GUI considerations 1. A Speech Synthesis Button 1. Has many states - Play/Stop (Pause?) 2. Reveals a control panel for modifying the speech synthesis parameters and provides a text box for getting some text data for speech synthesis? 2. What to text to send for speech synthesis? 1. If some text is highlighted then that text should be sent 2. If no text is highlighted and speech synthesis button is clicked 1. Send data of some active window and provide karaoke style highlighting of text? 2. Continue synthesis until the end of the document or stop button is pressed 3. Possibly a Speech Synthesis keyboard shortcut too - Should effect the Speech Synthesis button 4. Speak out a welcome message to the child when the XO boots up? (Hello xyz welcome to sugar or something like that?) Please share any other ideas which you think can improve the User Experience wrt speech synthesis. I'd like to write the patches and wrap up the coding by the time speech dispatcher RPMs are ready so that we can roll this feature in the XOs and get some feedback :) Thanks! -- Hemant Goyal ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] New multilingual dictionary activity
Hi, Next steps: * I have a Speak button that I'd like to hook up to espeak with the appropriate accent loaded. Josh, any interest in helping to get that working? Should I just wait for the speech server? The speech dispatcher API is what you can use for the speech synthesis. The python API is accessible here : http://cvs.freebsoft.org/repository/speechd/src/python/speechd/client.py?view=markup I am still trying to get the speech dispatcher and its dependencies packaged for Fedora :\. And that is the only reason why the speech server is still not present on the XO :(. I really request an expert to look into this and help speed up the work. In the long run, we plan to explore other Text to Speech engines other than eSpeak (because of voice quality issues). So coupling your app with eSpeak is not so sensible when you can directly use speech-dispatcher for all testing. I have a few unapproved speech-dispatcher packages here: http://www.nsitonline.in/hemant/stuff/speechd-rpm/ You'll need dotconf packages to install speech dispatcher. Perhaps Assim can help you get a *usable* dotconf pacakge. I'd gladly hook your activity to speech dispatcher and make it self voicing _once_ speechd gets accepted in the OLPC build. Thanks! Hemant ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
[sugar] An Update about Speech Synthesis for Sugar
Hi, It s great to see many other developers sharing the idea we have been trying to implement right within the Sugar Environment. We have been working on integrating speech-synthesis into Sugar for quite some time now. You can check out our ideas here : http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Screen_Reader We are also documenting all our ideas and requirements with respect to Speech Synthesis in this Requirements Analysis Document here : http://www.nsitonline.in/hemant/stuff/Speech%20Synthesis%20on%20XO%20-%20Requirements%20Analysis%20v0.3.5.pdf It outlines some of our immediate as well as long term goals wrt speech-synthesis on the XO. Your ideas, comments and suggestions are welcome. I'd like to update the list about our progress: 1. speech-dispatcher has been selected as a speech synthesis server which will accept all incoming speech synthesis requests from any sugar activity (example: Talk N Type, Speak etc) 2. speech-dispatcher provides a very simple to use API and client specific configuration management. So whats causing the delays? 1. speech-dispatcher is not packaged as an RPM for Fedora, so at present I am mostly making a RPM package so that it can be accepted by the Fedora community and ultimately be dropped into the OLPC Builds. You can track the progress here : https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=432259 I am not an expert at RPM packaging and hence its taking some time at my end. I'd welcome anyone to assist me and help speed up the process. 2. dotconf packages which speech-dispatcher is being packaged by my team mate Assim. You can check its progress here : https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=433253 Some immediate tasks that we plan to carry out once speech-dispatcher is packaged and dropped into the OLPC builds are : 1. Provide the much needed play button, with text highlight features as discussed by Edward. 2. Port an AI Chatbot to the XO and hack it enough to make it speak to the child :). 3. Encourage other developers to make use of speech-synthesis to make their activities as lively and child friendly as possible :) 4. Explore orca and other issues to make the XO more friendly for blind/low-vision students @James : We envision that speech-synthesis will surely get integrated with Read in due time. I think it would be great if maybe Gutenberg text could be loaded right from Read only? I was not planning on anything so fancy. Basically, I was frustrated that I had a device that would be wonderfully suited to reading Gutenberg etexts and no suitable program to do it with. I have written such an Activity and am putting the finishing touches on it. As I see it, the selling points of the Activity will be that it can display etexts one page at a time in a readable proportional font and remember what page you were on when you resume the activity. The child can find his book using the Gutenberg site, save the Zip file version to the Journal, rename it, resume it, and start reading. It will also be good sample code for new Activity developers to look at, even children, because it is easy to understand yet it does something that is actually useful. I have written another Activity which lets you browse through a bunch of image files stored in a Zip file, and it also would be good sample code for a new developer, as well as being useful. Warm Regards, Hemant ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
