[ot] Windows programming

[ot] Windows programming

[Shane]

Hey all,

I have a Windows app I'd like to have a go at writing. 
Some here may be interested as well.  It'd use the com0com
project:
http://com0com.sourceforge.net/

to emulate an accent SA or dectalk and pass the input of
the serial port to sapi, basically enable softspeech via a
virtual serial port.  This could be assigned to vmware and
Speakup would be able to use it as a hardware synth. 
Basically I want a self-contained laptop without having to
hall around the Accent SA.

Problem is, I'm used to programming under Linux where such
an emulator would be trivial.  Open a /dev/ttySx device,
poll it, translate the input and call the speech functions. 
I'm just wondering what the simplest api to use under
Windows would be for a Linux programmer without too much of
a learning curve.  I've looked at mfc and Windows c++ code
and it looks like nothing I've ever encountered.  I'm
thinking a system like cygwin or minw32 would work but how
complete is their emulation of serial ports (termios etc.)
select/poll and do these unix like systems support the
SAPI.

Shane

-- 
http://www.cm.nu/~shane/

Re: [ot] Windows programming

[Kerry Hoath]

I'm sure your solution would be more complete however note that vmware can 
emulate a serial port that can be connected to a named pipe. This might 
illiminate a layer of complexity or add one.
Sorry that isn't much help but it's something to think on.
Regards, Kerry.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Shane" <shane-keyword-speakup.aca783@cm.nu>
To: <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Friday, June 22, 2007 3:31 AM
Subject: [ot] Windows programming


> Hey all,
>
> I have a Windows app I'd like to have a go at writing.
> Some here may be interested as well.  It'd use the com0com
> project:
> http://com0com.sourceforge.net/
>
> to emulate an accent SA or dectalk and pass the input of
> the serial port to sapi, basically enable softspeech via a
> virtual serial port.  This could be assigned to vmware and
> Speakup would be able to use it as a hardware synth.
> Basically I want a self-contained laptop without having to
> hall around the Accent SA.
>
> Problem is, I'm used to programming under Linux where such
> an emulator would be trivial.  Open a /dev/ttySx device,
> poll it, translate the input and call the speech functions.
> I'm just wondering what the simplest api to use under
> Windows would be for a Linux programmer without too much of
> a learning curve.  I've looked at mfc and Windows c++ code
> and it looks like nothing I've ever encountered.  I'm
> thinking a system like cygwin or minw32 would work but how
> complete is their emulation of serial ports (termios etc.)
> select/poll and do these unix like systems support the
> SAPI.
>
> Shane
>
> -- 
> http://www.cm.nu/~shane/
>
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> 

Re: [ot] Windows programming

[Doug Sutherland]

The simplest windows programming environment for a linux programmer 
is of course GNU C, which you have already mentioned. Cygwin is more 
full functioned than MinGW but more complex and has a few quirks that 
I really do not like, for example it's installation process is bizarre and 
annoying, the way it maps windows directories to unix naming is weird,
the options for file types can be confusing, and I found that sometimes 
its impossible to remove all of cygwin. It creates some files that just 
cannot be deleted, I hate software that does that. On the other hand 
it's an impressive environment, you can almost have it look exactly 
like a linux machine.I have used Cygwin and MinGW and I have to 
say that MinGW was simple in the way I like it. I do not like complex 
development environments. I don't want to spend a week just to 
figure out how to do hello world. MinGW is faster to get actually 
programming with, and although limited in comparison, was just 
right for my needs. It has the win32 API:

http://www.mingw.org/docs.shtml#win32api

I did some win32 with this and I loved it because it's GNU and very 
straightforward. The Win32 API however is extremely complex and 
very annoying. Surprised? <g> Your battle will be more one of 
understanding the win32 API that one of tools. It can take quite a 
while to do the simplest of things with win32. I would recommend 
looking for some small tutorials, that's what I did and found a few 
that got me started. Find a getting started tutorial for MinGW and 
look for really simple win32 examples. I didn't do any win32 serial 
code but you can most likely find some examples on the net. 
I don't know anything about SAPI.

  -- Doug

Re: [ot] Windows programming

[Gregory Nowak]

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Hash: SHA1

Another option for a development environment is microsoft's windows
services for unix:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=896C9688-601B-44F1-81A4-02878FF11778&displaylang=en

If you want to use an ide, which uses mingw as the compiler, check out
dev-c++:

http://www.bloodshed.net/dev/devcpp.html

It's fairly accessible with wineyes, a bit more so after I created a set
file and key label dictionary for it.

As for a win32 tutorial, I found:

http://winprog.org/tutorial/

to be useful. 

Since we're discussing this on here, does anyone know of anything for
c/c++ that would abstract the win32 api a bit more, so it wouldn't be
such a chore to program for it, making it a bit easier to write win32
applications? Thanks.

Greg



On Thu, Jun 21, 2007 at 09:49:37PM -0500, Doug Sutherland wrote:
> The simplest windows programming environment for a linux programmer 
> is of course GNU C, which you have already mentioned. Cygwin is more 
> full functioned than MinGW but more complex and has a few quirks that 
> I really do not like, for example it's installation process is bizarre and 
> annoying, the way it maps windows directories to unix naming is weird,
> the options for file types can be confusing, and I found that sometimes 
> its impossible to remove all of cygwin. It creates some files that just 
> cannot be deleted, I hate software that does that. On the other hand 
> it's an impressive environment, you can almost have it look exactly 
> like a linux machine.I have used Cygwin and MinGW and I have to 
> say that MinGW was simple in the way I like it. I do not like complex 
> development environments. I don't want to spend a week just to 
> figure out how to do hello world. MinGW is faster to get actually 
> programming with, and although limited in comparison, was just 
> right for my needs. It has the win32 API:
> 
> http://www.mingw.org/docs.shtml#win32api
> 
> I did some win32 with this and I loved it because it's GNU and very 
> straightforward. The Win32 API however is extremely complex and 
> very annoying. Surprised? <g> Your battle will be more one of 
> understanding the win32 API that one of tools. It can take quite a 
> while to do the simplest of things with win32. I would recommend 
> looking for some small tutorials, that's what I did and found a few 
> that got me started. Find a getting started tutorial for MinGW and 
> look for really simple win32 examples. I didn't do any win32 serial 
> code but you can most likely find some examples on the net. 
> I don't know anything about SAPI.
> 
>   -- Doug
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

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Re: [ot] Windows programming

[Steve Holmes]

I might give mingw a looky some time.  I messed with cygwin a while
back and I didn't mind the overall environment all that much but I
hated the installer! I found the pick list to be completely
inaccessible.  I couldn't track the selection status of any of the
list items within each package category.  I sure didn't want to
install every single package so when I had such a hard time picking
packages, I finally gave up on it.  I also wrote to the developers on
the support list about the installer and the response was the program
was so complex and intrenched that it would be nearly impossible to
change it.  So I am no longer interested in doing anything with
cygwin.

My only other experience with the windows API was with Visual Basic
and the internal object browser.  I found quite a bit of information
in the help system within the browser.  That would probably next to
impossible to pull that info without the Microsoft development
environments such as in Visual Studio.  Perhaps the tutorials Greg
mentions is a big help.
-- 
HolmesGrown Solutions
The best solutions for the best price!
http://holmesgrown.ld.net/

Re: [ot] Windows programming

[Littlefield, tyler]

The windows API is... weird.
I went from windows API to linux, and it was a nice change.
With windblows, you get to pass the size of everything, and it doesn't know 
how to take arguments by reference, or return something besides 0 or error 
most of the time.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Steve Holmes" <steve@holmesgrown.com>
To: <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Thursday, June 21, 2007 10:55 PM
Subject: Re: [ot] Windows programming


>I might give mingw a looky some time.  I messed with cygwin a while
> back and I didn't mind the overall environment all that much but I
> hated the installer! I found the pick list to be completely
> inaccessible.  I couldn't track the selection status of any of the
> list items within each package category.  I sure didn't want to
> install every single package so when I had such a hard time picking
> packages, I finally gave up on it.  I also wrote to the developers on
> the support list about the installer and the response was the program
> was so complex and intrenched that it would be nearly impossible to
> change it.  So I am no longer interested in doing anything with
> cygwin.
>
> My only other experience with the windows API was with Visual Basic
> and the internal object browser.  I found quite a bit of information
> in the help system within the browser.  That would probably next to
> impossible to pull that info without the Microsoft development
> environments such as in Visual Studio.  Perhaps the tutorials Greg
> mentions is a big help.
> -- 
> HolmesGrown Solutions
> The best solutions for the best price!
> http://holmesgrown.ld.net/
>
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup 

Re: [ot] Windows programming

[Gregory Nowak]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

How did you go about learning the windows api? Did you use tutorials,
if so, then which ones? If you used books, did you get them, and
scanned them yourself, or had someone scan them for you, did you get
them on tape from rfbd/nls, or did you get them in braille, or
electronically?

Greg


On Thu, Jun 21, 2007 at 11:04:10PM -0700, Littlefield, tyler wrote:
> The windows API is... weird.
> I went from windows API to linux, and it was a nice change.
> With windblows, you get to pass the size of everything, and it doesn't know 
> how to take arguments by reference, or return something besides 0 or error 
> most of the time.
> 

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Re: [ot] Windows programming

[Littlefield, tyler]

winprog.net has a good tutorial.
It dives in fast, and assumes knowledge of c/c++, which I would recommend 
someone reading lots of before they take a dive for windows API.
After that, extensive searching on msdn, is what helps lots.
You can get a list of data types, and while you don't have to remember them, 
after coding a bit, you will get to know the most widely used.
HTH,
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Gregory Nowak" <greg@romuald.net.eu.org>
To: <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Thursday, June 21, 2007 11:22 PM
Subject: Re: [ot] Windows programming


> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> How did you go about learning the windows api? Did you use tutorials,
> if so, then which ones? If you used books, did you get them, and
> scanned them yourself, or had someone scan them for you, did you get
> them on tape from rfbd/nls, or did you get them in braille, or
> electronically?
>
> Greg
>
>
> On Thu, Jun 21, 2007 at 11:04:10PM -0700, Littlefield, tyler wrote:
>> The windows API is... weird.
>> I went from windows API to linux, and it was a nice change.
>> With windblows, you get to pass the size of everything, and it doesn't 
>> know
>> how to take arguments by reference, or return something besides 0 or 
>> error
>> most of the time.
>>
>
> - -- 
> web site: http://www.romuald.net.eu.org
> gpg public key: http://www.romuald.net.eu.org/pubkey.asc
> skype: gregn1
> (authorization required, add me to your contacts list first)
>
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> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
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> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup 

Re: [ot] Windows programming

[Travis Siegel]

Actually, I'm very definitely *not* a fan of visual basic.
I use powerbasic instead (http://www.powerbasic.com)
It comes with a rather large subset of the windows api calls already  
converted to powerbasic includes, and I simply study those when I need  
to know what api is needed to do something.
Also, in addition to having one large win32api.inc file, they also  
have broken it into smaller includes such as tcp/ip, comm, playback  
services, graphic manipulation, sapi speech, and more.
It's really an excellent development environment, 100% accessible, and  
programs are considerably smaller than any visual basic program you'll  
ever see.  Not to mention, everything you need for the execution of  
the program is compiled into the exe file, so there's no need to hope  
the folks have the proper dlls on their systems.
And, they're still supporting, upgrading, and creating new versions of  
their tools.
They even still sell powerbasic for dos.
Now, how's that for support.
In fact, pb for dos was just upgraded to version 4.0 (from 3.5) only a  
year or two back.


On Jun 22, 2007, at 1:22 AM, Gregory Nowak wrote:

> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> How did you go about learning the windows api? Did you use tutorials,
> if so, then which ones? If you used books, did you get them, and
> scanned them yourself, or had someone scan them for you, did you get
> them on tape from rfbd/nls, or did you get them in braille, or
> electronically?
>
> Greg
>
>
> On Thu, Jun 21, 2007 at 11:04:10PM -0700, Littlefield, tyler wrote:
>> The windows API is... weird.
>> I went from windows API to linux, and it was a nice change.
>> With windblows, you get to pass the size of everything, and it  
>> doesn't know
>> how to take arguments by reference, or return something besides 0  
>> or error
>> most of the time.
>>
>
> - --
> web site: http://www.romuald.net.eu.org
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> (authorization required, add me to your contacts list first)
>
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>

Re: [ot] Windows programming

[Kerry Hoath]

make your synth emulation table driven that way you can emulate a whole 
stack of synths like doubletalk dectalk porttalk and accent that should 
cover most things.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Shane" <shane-keyword-speakup.aca783@cm.nu>
To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Sunday, June 24, 2007 4:00 AM
Subject: Re: [ot] Windows programming


> On Fri, Jun 22, 2007 at 12:00:51AM -0700, Littlefield, tyler wrote:
>> winprog.net has a good tutorial.
>> It dives in fast, and assumes knowledge of c/c++, which I would recommend
>
> Exactly what I was looking for thanks.  On another note, is
> there programming info out there for the Dec Express?  I
> have the Accent SA manual so could emulate a good portion
> of its codes.  The SA manual is quite good about
> documenting things but as the DEC is probably more widely
> used, it might be supported by more software.
>
> S
>
> -- 
> http://www.cm.nu/~shane/
>
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> Speakup mailing list
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> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>