Hello,
You could also support eSpeak. I know it can be used via sapi, but
eSpeak offers also a interface via a dll which can be used. It could
even be installed with the SSIP server and be used as the default
vvoice, allowing applications to use speech in systems where neither
sapi nor JAWS or window eyes are installed or ready for use.
The eSpeak syntheziser offers several languages and there is active
work on it, and it runs also on *nix, making it a good choice for the
linux SSIP server, if it will be developped. I am sure its developper
I think he's called Jonatan will be happy helping out with that.
hth
Marlon
2007/11/26, Macarty, Jay {PBSG} <Jay.Macarty@xxxxxxxx>:
All,
Some of you may be aware that I have been working for some time now
on a server for the Speech Synthesis Interface Protocol, SSIP, for
the windows platform. I started out trying to implement the server in
Auto-It but couldn't get the multi-threading functionality or object
oriented capabilities I wanted. I then switched to ruby but the 1.8
version didn't have the interface and abstract class support I wanted
and the executable packaging wasn't quite what I wanted either. I
have now switched the development over to C# and found the
capabilities I wanted. There is still a little clean-up of the
initial beta release and I'll have to find a website to host the
download installer, but here is a description of the initial release.
SSIP is a non-synthesizer specific protocol for producing speech output.
The specs haven't been updated in a while but can be found at the URL
http://www.freebsoft.org/doc/speechd/ssip.html
SSIP uses a simple socket connection and a text command syntax. To
produce the spoken output "this is a test." a calling client program
might send these commands:
set client_name j.macarty:demo:test1
speak
this is a test.
.
The set client_name command simply identifies this client session for
tracking purposes since the server supports multiple client sessions
concurrently. The speak command tells the server to start receiving
text to be spoken. The text input is terminated by a line containing
a single dot. this also triggers the server to send the text to the
output speech channel.
The SSIP for windows server supports output to JAWS, window-Eyes or
SAPI. The SpeechManager class uses an interface named ITextToSpeech
with implementation classes written for each of these 3 output
channels. The server was written with C# 2.0, instead of 3.x, because
some corporate builds, including ours here at work, are still using
Dot Net 2.0. Rather than attempting to set up the COM interface for
SAPI and Window-Eyes, I decided to use the tlbimp utility and build
assemblies for them. This allowed for simply creating the objects
like SpVoice for SAPI and SpeakClass for Window-Eyes. Also, once the
assemblies were built, it was easier to examine them using the ildasm
tool to see the method calls and signatures.
The current server supports multiple client connections. I tried it
out with 3 clients; one speaking thru JAWS, one speaking thru
Window-Eyes, and one speaking thru SAPI. The SAPI interface also
supports the SET RATE, SET VOICE, and SET VOLUME SSIP commands. The
server also supports the SSIP CHAR command for immediately speaking a
single character. The SSIP BLOCK structure command set and the Speech
Synthesis Markup Language, SSML, support are not included in this
release but will be added.
The install includes a small Auto-It program called SSIPVoiceClient
which allows one to test out the server. The client contains an input
text field where you can enter SSIP commands to send to the server
and an output text area which echoes back the server response codes.
I'll post another update when I have arranged for a download host and
have finished packaging up the install program. I'm hoping to provide
a java client API for the SSIP server, if Sina hasn't already
developed one, and some client examples in other languages as well.
__________
View the list's information and change your settings at
//www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind
--
When you say "I wrote a program that crashed Windows," people just
stare at you blankly and say "Hey, I got those with the system, for
free."
Linus Torvalds
__________
View the list's information and change your settings at
//www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind
