Hi Tim,<br><br>As Gilles pointed out, once we are done with integration of speech-dispatcher we intend to explore orca which I think is used by many people with low-vision. orca has built-in support for speech-dispatcher and from my understanding provides locational information to the user.<br>
<br>I request you to explore orca with speech-dispatcher as the speech-synthesis engine once if you have not already done so.<br><br>Thanks!<br>Hemant<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Feb 10, 2008 10:30 PM, <<a href="mailto:accessibility-request@lists.laptop.org">accessibility-request@lists.laptop.org</a>> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">Send accessibility mailing list submissions to<br> <a href="mailto:accessibility@lists.laptop.org">accessibility@lists.laptop.org</a><br>
<br>To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit<br> <a href="http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/accessibility" target="_blank">http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/accessibility</a><br>or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to<br>
<a href="mailto:accessibility-request@lists.laptop.org">accessibility-request@lists.laptop.org</a><br><br>You can reach the person managing the list at<br> <a href="mailto:accessibility-owner@lists.laptop.org">accessibility-owner@lists.laptop.org</a><br>
<br>When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific<br>than "Re: Contents of accessibility digest..."<br><br><br>Today's Topics:<br><br> 1. Re: Screen reader software -- any progress? (Hemant Goyal)<br>
2. Re: Screen reader software -- any progress? (Duane King)<br> 3. Re: Screen reader software -- any progress? (Tim hobbs)<br> 4. Re: Screen reader software -- any progress? (Gilles Casse)<br><br><br>----------------------------------------------------------------------<br>
<br>Message: 1<br>Date: Sat, 9 Feb 2008 22:50:51 +0530<br>From: "Hemant Goyal" <<a href="mailto:goyal.hemant@gmail.com">goyal.hemant@gmail.com</a>><br>Subject: Re: [laptop-accessibility] Screen reader software -- any<br>
progress?<br>To: "Brad Paulsen" <<a href="mailto:brad.paulsen@gmail.com">brad.paulsen@gmail.com</a>><br>Cc: <a href="mailto:accessibility@lists.laptop.org">accessibility@lists.laptop.org</a>, Assim Deodia<br>
<<a href="mailto:assim.deodia@gmail.com">assim.deodia@gmail.com</a>><br>Message-ID:<br> <<a href="mailto:8c53493a0802090920q498f74aeo303ae65b0d7e19@mail.gmail.com">8c53493a0802090920q498f74aeo303ae65b0d7e19@mail.gmail.com</a>><br>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"<br><br>Brad,<br><br>Maybe we should coordinate our efforts. We are presently working to bring<br>speech synthesis capabilities on the XO.<br><br>We have made significant progress and are documenting our results here :<br>
<a href="http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Screen_Reader" target="_blank">http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Screen_Reader</a> [It is slightly outdated wrt the<br>DBUS speech server, as we are planning to dump that approach and instead use<br>
speech-dispatcher]<br><br>At present Assim Deodia is working to improve the eSpeak phoneme data for<br>better voice quality/output on the XO, and I am working on integrating<br>speech-dispatcher in the XO as a means of providing a simple to use speech<br>
synthesis api.<br><br>I have opened a Ticket which might interest you :<br><a href="http://dev.laptop.org/ticket/6284" target="_blank">http://dev.laptop.org/ticket/6284</a><br><br>Best,<br>Hemant<br><br>This posting is very new and, at the moment, consists only of a block<br>
> diagram of the approach I am proposing. I have several pages of narrative<br>> in the works at the moment and I am hoping to post the first version of it<br>> to the Free Speech wiki article sometime this weekend. In the meantime,<br>
> please check out the links in the "See also" section of the article. Those<br>> linked-to articles contain links to other speech-related efforts currently<br>> underway for the XO (for example, eSpeak).<br>
><br>> Cheers,<br>><br>> Brad<br>-------------- next part --------------<br>An HTML attachment was scrubbed...<br>URL: <a href="http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/accessibility/attachments/20080209/5b25bee4/attachment-0001.htm" target="_blank">http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/accessibility/attachments/20080209/5b25bee4/attachment-0001.htm</a><br>
<br>------------------------------<br><br>Message: 2<br>Date: Thu, 7 Feb 2008 22:23:12 -0800<br>From: Duane King <<a href="mailto:dking@pimpsoft.com">dking@pimpsoft.com</a>><br>Subject: Re: [laptop-accessibility] Screen reader software -- any<br>
progress?<br>To: <a href="mailto:accessibility@lists.laptop.org">accessibility@lists.laptop.org</a><br>Cc: Assim Deodia <<a href="mailto:assim.deodia@gmail.com">assim.deodia@gmail.com</a>>, Hemant Goyal<br>
<<a href="mailto:goyal.hemant@gmail.com">goyal.hemant@gmail.com</a>><br>Message-ID: <<a href="mailto:200802072223.12534.dking@pimpsoft.com">200802072223.12534.dking@pimpsoft.com</a>><br>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"<br>
<br>Brad,<br> Another advantage to using the speech dispatcher and its API is that a lot of<br>wok can be leveraged from it; There is an entire community gathered around it<br>already, and its already used in production systems by blind computer<br>
professionals like myself, hence why I suggested it to Hemant off the list.<br><br>I would personalky love it if more people joined our little co-oped efforts;<br>and by all means your group - or any others - are more then welcome to do so.<br>
<br>- Duane<br><br>On Saturday 09 February 2008 09:20:51 am Hemant Goyal wrote:<br>> Brad,<br>><br>> Maybe we should coordinate our efforts. We are presently working to bring<br>> speech synthesis capabilities on the XO.<br>
><br>> We have made significant progress and are documenting our results here :<br>> <a href="http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Screen_Reader" target="_blank">http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Screen_Reader</a> [It is slightly outdated wrt the<br>
> DBUS speech server, as we are planning to dump that approach and instead<br>> use speech-dispatcher]<br>><br>> At present Assim Deodia is working to improve the eSpeak phoneme data for<br>> better voice quality/output on the XO, and I am working on integrating<br>
> speech-dispatcher in the XO as a means of providing a simple to use speech<br>> synthesis api.<br>><br>> I have opened a Ticket which might interest you :<br>> <a href="http://dev.laptop.org/ticket/6284" target="_blank">http://dev.laptop.org/ticket/6284</a><br>
><br>> Best,<br>> Hemant<br>><br>> This posting is very new and, at the moment, consists only of a block<br>><br>> > diagram of the approach I am proposing. I have several pages of<br>> > narrative in the works at the moment and I am hoping to post the first<br>
> > version of it to the Free Speech wiki article sometime this weekend. In<br>> > the meantime, please check out the links in the "See also" section of the<br>> > article. Those linked-to articles contain links to other speech-related<br>
> > efforts currently underway for the XO (for example, eSpeak).<br>> ><br>> > Cheers,<br>> ><br>> > Brad<br><br><br><br><br><br>------------------------------<br><br>Message: 3<br>Date: Sat, 9 Feb 2008 18:09:01 -0800<br>
From: "Tim hobbs" <<a href="mailto:tim.thelion@gmail.com">tim.thelion@gmail.com</a>><br>Subject: Re: [laptop-accessibility] Screen reader software -- any<br> progress?<br>To: <a href="mailto:dking@pimpsoft.com">dking@pimpsoft.com</a>, "Discussion of accessibility on the OLPC"<br>
<<a href="mailto:accessibility@lists.laptop.org">accessibility@lists.laptop.org</a>><br>Message-ID:<br> <<a href="mailto:650efde80802091809l6f01c651v34e32dd2aee43036@mail.gmail.com">650efde80802091809l6f01c651v34e32dd2aee43036@mail.gmail.com</a>><br>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1<br><br>I am strongly opposed to the use of a vanilla Activity-Speech<br>dispatcher communicating for the following reasons:<br>1. Visually impaired and cognitively impaired persons *must* have a<br>
standardised keyboard navigation system which is both intuitive(with a<br>low learning curve), and well intigrated into the speech server,<br>Speech dispatcher does not mandate such a thing.<br>2. There is no geometric or locational information sent with the<br>
text. I for one have very low visual acuity, this means that my eyes<br>don't stay in one place and have difficulty tracking from line to<br>line. I very successfully use a setup where the current line is<br>positive polarity, and the background text is negative<br>
<a href="http://www.timthelion.com/emacs-current-line-polarity.png" target="_blank">http://www.timthelion.com/emacs-current-line-polarity.png</a> , I work<br>even better if the current line of text is magnified. A plug-in to<br>
speech dispatcher which instead of speaking or outputting to brail,<br>magnified text at an appropriate location on the screen is impossible<br>without that location being tracked by the Activity.<br><br>I have written a proposal for a different protocol which solves these<br>
problems. <a href="http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Accessibility_Line_Based_Interface" target="_blank">http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Accessibility_Line_Based_Interface</a><br>I urge you to look at this and consider what it provides that speech<br>
dispatcher does not, namely:<br><br>1. A very simple intuitive, "navigational" instead of "magic hotkey"<br>keyboard accessibility setup.<br><br>2. Geometric information about text.<br><br>Otherwise, I believe the two standards/protocols to be functionally<br>
identical so there should be no real need to change course. Maybe my<br>ideas can be implemented as easily as having SayText take (text, x, y,<br>w,h) and implementing line based keyboard accessibility which triggers<br>
such events in Sugar Activities.<br><br>Thankyou,<br>Timothy<br><br><br>On 2/7/08, Duane King <<a href="mailto:dking@pimpsoft.com">dking@pimpsoft.com</a>> wrote:<br>> Brad,<br>> Another advantage to using the speech dispatcher and its API is that a lot<br>
> of<br>> wok can be leveraged from it; There is an entire community gathered around<br>> it<br>> already, and its already used in production systems by blind computer<br>> professionals like myself, hence why I suggested it to Hemant off the list.<br>
><br>> I would personalky love it if more people joined our little co-oped efforts;<br>> and by all means your group - or any others - are more then welcome to do<br>> so.<br>><br>> - Duane<br>><br>> On Saturday 09 February 2008 09:20:51 am Hemant Goyal wrote:<br>
> > Brad,<br>> ><br>> > Maybe we should coordinate our efforts. We are presently working to bring<br>> > speech synthesis capabilities on the XO.<br>> ><br>> > We have made significant progress and are documenting our results here :<br>
> > <a href="http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Screen_Reader" target="_blank">http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Screen_Reader</a> [It is slightly outdated wrt the<br>> > DBUS speech server, as we are planning to dump that approach and instead<br>
> > use speech-dispatcher]<br>> ><br>> > At present Assim Deodia is working to improve the eSpeak phoneme data for<br>> > better voice quality/output on the XO, and I am working on integrating<br>> > speech-dispatcher in the XO as a means of providing a simple to use speech<br>
> > synthesis api.<br>> ><br>> > I have opened a Ticket which might interest you :<br>> > <a href="http://dev.laptop.org/ticket/6284" target="_blank">http://dev.laptop.org/ticket/6284</a><br>> ><br>
> > Best,<br>> > Hemant<br>> ><br>> > This posting is very new and, at the moment, consists only of a block<br>> ><br>> > > diagram of the approach I am proposing. I have several pages of<br>
> > > narrative in the works at the moment and I am hoping to post the first<br>> > > version of it to the Free Speech wiki article sometime this weekend. In<br>> > > the meantime, please check out the links in the "See also" section of<br>
> the<br>> > > article. Those linked-to articles contain links to other speech-related<br>> > > efforts currently underway for the XO (for example, eSpeak).<br>> > ><br>> > > Cheers,<br>
> > ><br>> > > Brad<br>><br>><br>><br>> _______________________________________________<br>> accessibility mailing list<br>> <a href="mailto:accessibility@lists.laptop.org">accessibility@lists.laptop.org</a><br>
> <a href="http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/accessibility" target="_blank">http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/accessibility</a><br>><br><br><br>--<br>-<br>Tim<br><a href="mailto:tim.thelion@gmail.com">tim.thelion@gmail.com</a><br>
<br><br>------------------------------<br><br>Message: 4<br>Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 12:03:13 +0100<br>From: Gilles Casse <<a href="mailto:gcasse@oralux.org">gcasse@oralux.org</a>><br>Subject: Re: [laptop-accessibility] Screen reader software -- any<br>
progress?<br>To: Discussion of accessibility on the OLPC<br> <<a href="mailto:accessibility@lists.laptop.org">accessibility@lists.laptop.org</a>><br>Message-ID: <<a href="mailto:47AED9F1.6090603@oralux.org">47AED9F1.6090603@oralux.org</a>><br>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed<br><br>Hi Tim,<br><br>Speech-dispatcher is a back-end: it manages speech synthesizers and<br>audio output, it does not interfere in fact with the user interface.<br>
<br>The text to be said is supplied to Speech-dispatcher by a client<br>compliant with the user interface (text based or GUI).<br><br>Available clients today:<br>- Speechd-el for a talking emacs,<br>- Speechd-up for Speakup,<br>
- The Orca screen reader can also communicate with speech-dispatcher.<br><br>Speech dispatcher offers distinct audio modules: speech can be said via<br>Alsa, OSS, NAS or PulseAudio.<br><br>Best regards,<br>Gilles<br><br><br>
<br>------------------------------<br><br>_______________________________________________<br>accessibility mailing list<br><a href="mailto:accessibility@lists.laptop.org">accessibility@lists.laptop.org</a><br><a href="http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/accessibility" target="_blank">http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/accessibility</a><br>
<br><br>End of accessibility Digest, Vol 11, Issue 3<br>********************************************<br></blockquote></div><br><br>