DecTalk Settings from Within Speakup?

DecTalk Settings from Within Speakup?

[Chime Hart]

For maybe 16years since I purchased a DecTalk U S B, many of you know I 
experience frustrations many times a day as the pitch, volume, and rate drop 
suddenly. Well, a couple of months ago, 1 of my Linux experts had an e-mail 
exchange with Kirk, who mentioned something about defalt settings. Well, I 
looked in a copy of speakup_dectlk.c, was able to see where the rate says 180, 
meanwhile we set it at 229. Or the volume which I think says 60 when we set at 
86. Those are just 2 examples. Only by jussling those insert functions to alter 
volume or pitch will put them back after a sudden drop. Some time ago we created 
an alias to reload this dectalk when it gets hozed.
/usr/bin/sudo /sbin/modprobe  -r speakup_dectlk; /usr/bin/sudo /sbin/modprobe 
speakup_dectlk; sudo cp /usr/local/bin/characters 
/sys/accessibility/speakup/i18n/
However, even altering some of those values, I would also need to know what 
replacement to send dectalk so it might `always respect my changes.
I guess David in Canada was the last person who modified these drivers. I will 
be quite honest, each time I see Okash post, I become hopeful. But now with some 
amunision from Kirk, I hope among the movers-and-shakers, maybesome sort of fix 
or even better a real U S B driver can be created.
I realize, I am only a user-and-not a programmer, but if I were to guess, most 
Speakup users are programmers. Anyway, thanks in advance, whatever any of you 
can do. I had even considered sending Kirk an audio file demonstrating these 
issues, but I haven't yet patched out of an ear-phone jack to a recorder.
Chime

Re: DecTalk Settings from Within Speakup?

[Gregory Nowak]

Have you tried running

speakupconf load

as root to bring your dectalk back to normal? I think that would be
simpler than unloading and reloading the module again. Do you set your
speech defaults through speakup, or somehow on the dectalk itself? If
you don't set your speech defaults through speakup, then what is
almost certainly happening is that speakup is reinitializing the
dectalk with its own settings. Even if you are setting your speech
parameters through speakup and this is still happening, you could
still run speakupconf load in a cron job every few minutes, and that
would keep bringing your dectalk back to normal without your
intervention, and without losing speakup by unloading and reloading the
module.

BTW, I think most speakup users are not programmers.

Greg


On Tue, Apr 14, 2020 at 06:39:40PM -0700, Chime Hart wrote:
> For maybe 16years since I purchased a DecTalk U S B, many of you know I
> experience frustrations many times a day as the pitch, volume, and rate drop
> suddenly. Well, a couple of months ago, 1 of my Linux experts had an e-mail
> exchange with Kirk, who mentioned something about defalt settings. Well, I
> looked in a copy of speakup_dectlk.c, was able to see where the rate says
> 180, meanwhile we set it at 229. Or the volume which I think says 60 when we
> set at 86. Those are just 2 examples. Only by jussling those insert
> functions to alter volume or pitch will put them back after a sudden drop.
> Some time ago we created an alias to reload this dectalk when it gets hozed.
> /usr/bin/sudo /sbin/modprobe  -r speakup_dectlk; /usr/bin/sudo
> /sbin/modprobe speakup_dectlk; sudo cp /usr/local/bin/characters
> /sys/accessibility/speakup/i18n/
> However, even altering some of those values, I would also need to know what
> replacement to send dectalk so it might `always respect my changes.
> I guess David in Canada was the last person who modified these drivers. I
> will be quite honest, each time I see Okash post, I become hopeful. But now
> with some amunision from Kirk, I hope among the movers-and-shakers,
> maybesome sort of fix or even better a real U S B driver can be created.
> I realize, I am only a user-and-not a programmer, but if I were to guess,
> most Speakup users are programmers. Anyway, thanks in advance, whatever any
> of you can do. I had even considered sending Kirk an audio file
> demonstrating these issues, but I haven't yet patched out of an ear-phone
> jack to a recorder.
> Chime
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@linux-speakup.org
> http://linux-speakup.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> 

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Re: DecTalk Settings from Within Speakup?

[Chime Hart]

Thanks Greg: Next time these values drop, I will try that. Most times I don't 
run that alias, usually just hit insert+1 which brings volume back to 85, but I 
also do that for each of these settings which get knocked down.
Just tried your load command, which knocked out my extra inflection, and moved 
the pitch from 113 to 122. To enjoy more inflection, I must type
sudo echo "[:dv pr 250]" >> /sys/accessibility/speakup/synth_direct
Thats in an alias which calls a script.
Chime

Re: DecTalk Settings from Within Speakup?

[Gregory Nowak]

OK, sounds like you might not be taking full advantage of what the
speakupconf tool can do. Let's start with your pitch. Set it to 113
which seems to be what you would like it to be at. Then run:

speakupconf save

as root. Now, when you run speakupconf load, your pitch should be at
113.

Keep in mind that when you set speech parameters through synth_direct,
they aren't guaranteed to be in effect, since speakup can reset your
dectalk to speakup's values. I don't know what your inflection setting
corresponds to in speakup, but I'm guessing it would be either freq, or
tone. I doubt the values speakup takes for those settings go up to
250, but you can maybe figure that out by looking at the
speakup_dectlk.c driver like you did for the rate, or you can set them
with:

echo 5 >/sys/accessibility/speakup/dectlk/freq

and

echo 5 >/sys/accessibility/speakup/tone

where 5 should be replaced with the number you want. Try experimenting
with those to see how high they go for you. You can read them back
with:

cat /sys/accessibility/speakup/dectlk/freq

and

cat /sys/accessibility/speakup/tone

If one of those gets your inflection to where you want, then just run:

speakup save

and your problems will hopefully go away. If this doesn't bring your
inflection to where you want, then someone would have to figure out
which speakup parameter corresponds to inflection, and see if the
driver can be modified to set inflection to the value you need from
speakup itself. I believe that Oakash has a dectalk to work with, and
he is familiar with speakup's code. If that's correct, then maybe this
is something Oakash would be able to look into, and fix.

Greg


On Tue, Apr 14, 2020 at 09:04:02PM -0700, Chime Hart wrote:
> Thanks Greg: Next time these values drop, I will try that. Most times I
> don't run that alias, usually just hit insert+1 which brings volume back to
> 85, but I also do that for each of these settings which get knocked down.
> Just tried your load command, which knocked out my extra inflection, and
> moved the pitch from 113 to 122. To enjoy more inflection, I must type
> sudo echo "[:dv pr 250]" >> /sys/accessibility/speakup/synth_direct
> Thats in an alias which calls a script.
> Chime
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@linux-speakup.org
> http://linux-speakup.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> 

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Re: DecTalk Settings from Within Speakup?

[Chime Hart]

Thanks Greg. Running sudo speakupconf save  didn't ruin my settings, however, 
once I ran it with load, the pitch still went to 122 and my inflection setting 
was knocked out. By the way that is a command sent to the dectalk, has little or 
nothing to do with Speakup. So that command
echo "[:dv pr 250]" >> /sys/accessibility/speakup/synth_direct
sets a parameter in the DecTalk which provides more inflection. Sure I know I 
can increase the pitch all the way to 350 in Speakup.
And lastly, we modified the charactors file, so when I type the number 9  it 
would say niner. And other similar changes, but running that load command knocks 
that out-and-resets to the defalts. By running my "rd" alias, it coppies the 
charactors file back in to use. Thanks for your guidance.
Chime

Re: DecTalk Settings from Within Speakup?

[Gregory Nowak]

On Wed, Apr 15, 2020 at 01:57:52AM -0700, Chime Hart wrote:
> Thanks Greg. Running sudo speakupconf save  didn't ruin my settings,
> however, once I ran it with load, the pitch still went to 122 and my
> inflection setting was knocked out. By the way that is a command sent to the
> dectalk, has little or nothing to do with Speakup.

Right, which is most likely why you're having the issues you mentioned.

> And lastly, we modified the charactors file, so when I type the number 9  it
> would say niner. And other similar changes, but running that load command
> knocks that out-and-resets to the defalts. By running my "rd" alias, it
> coppies the charactors file back in to use. Thanks for your guidance.

The speakupconf save should also copy the characters file. If you want
to be really sure that your custom characters file is the one that
gets loaded by speakupconf load, you can delete the one in
/etc/speakup/i18n/characters, and copy your own by hand into
/etc/speakup/i18n.

I would also strongly recommend opening an issue about the problems
you're experiencing at:

<https://github.com/bytefire/speakup/issues>

so that it is documented, and has a bigger chance of being looked
into. If that's something you're unable to do, I can open it for you,
and point to this discussion.

Greg


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Re: DecTalk Settings from Within Speakup?

[Chime Hart]

Well Greg, my charactors file is in dot speakup slash i18n   so I did what you 
suggested.
As far as your offer, I will take you up on it, as github is somewhat a mess in 
Lynx. Although I am more concerned with the DecTalk issues, but certainly both 
are inconsistancies. Thanks so much in advance
Chime

Re: DecTalk Settings from Within Speakup?

[Gregory Nowak]

I've opened an issue about this. It can be found at:

<https://github.com/bytefire/speakup/issues/11>

As far as speakupconf, you will have configuration settings in either
/etc/speakup, or in $HOME/.speakup. It depends on if speakupconf is
run as root, or as a normal user. Since you seem to be the only user
of your system, it makes sense to store the settings system wide in
/etc/speakup, which is done when you run speakupconf as root. If
you're already running speakup as a normal user, and saving your
settings in $HOME/.speakup, that's fine. Just keep in mind that
speakupconf will save/load different sets of parameters, depending on
who you run it as.

Greg


On Wed, Apr 15, 2020 at 02:59:35PM -0700, Gregory Nowak wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 15, 2020 at 01:57:52AM -0700, Chime Hart wrote:
> > Thanks Greg. Running sudo speakupconf save  didn't ruin my settings,
> > however, once I ran it with load, the pitch still went to 122 and my
> > inflection setting was knocked out. By the way that is a command sent to the
> > dectalk, has little or nothing to do with Speakup.
> 
> Right, which is most likely why you're having the issues you mentioned.
> 
> > And lastly, we modified the charactors file, so when I type the number 9  it
> > would say niner. And other similar changes, but running that load command
> > knocks that out-and-resets to the defalts. By running my "rd" alias, it
> > coppies the charactors file back in to use. Thanks for your guidance.
> 
> The speakupconf save should also copy the characters file. If you want
> to be really sure that your custom characters file is the one that
> gets loaded by speakupconf load, you can delete the one in
> /etc/speakup/i18n/characters, and copy your own by hand into
> /etc/speakup/i18n.
> 
> I would also strongly recommend opening an issue about the problems
> you're experiencing at:
> 
> <https://github.com/bytefire/speakup/issues>
> 
> so that it is documented, and has a bigger chance of being looked
> into. If that's something you're unable to do, I can open it for you,
> and point to this discussion.
> 
> Greg
> 
> 
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Re: DecTalk Settings from Within Speakup?

[Samuel Thibault]

Hello,

Chime Hart, le mer. 15 avril 2020 01:57:52 -0700, a ecrit:
> So that command
> echo "[:dv pr 250]" >> /sys/accessibility/speakup/synth_direct
> sets a parameter in the DecTalk which provides more inflection.

Well, yes, but that'll work only until speakup wants to change the pitch
for whatever screen-reader-related reason such as expressing caps etc.

It seems to me that there is a misunderstanding here: this is really
*not* the way you are supposed to configure your hardware synthesis,
that's deemed to be overwritten whenever the core wants to change the
pitch etc.

The *proper* way to configure pitch, volume etc. is to 

echo 250 > /sys/accessibility/speakup/dectlk/pitch

So that it's *speakup* which knows the desired parameter and tell the
hardware as well, and not only let the hardware know about it. Same for
volume etc.

Of course such live configuration gets lost at reboot. That's why there
is speakupconf, which allows to save your preferred parameters, and you
can get it called at boot to restore your parameters.


I thought this was documented and well-known, but apparently not. Can
somebody work on getting this properly known, to make sure people don't
fall in that trap?

Samuel

Re: DecTalk Settings from Within Speakup?

[Samuel Thibault]

Gregory Nowak, le mar. 14 avril 2020 21:42:39 -0700, a ecrit:
> I doubt the values speakup takes for those settings go up to 250,

Speakup takes values as much as the hardware takes it. At least, as much
as is documented in the specific driver. For the pitch in the dectlk
driver, one can read in the driver

{ PITCH, .u.n = {"[:dv ap %d] ", 122, 50, 350, 0, 0, NULL } },

So it's indeed 122 by default, and values ranging from 50 to 350. I just
tried it, and I did indeed saw [:dv ap 350] get output on the serial
port, so it is definitely behaving as expected.

Samuel

Re: DecTalk Settings from Within Speakup?

[Chime Hart]

Thanks Sam, I tried your exact echo suggestion but even with sudo  I get a 
permission denied. I tried
sudo echo 250 > /sys/accessibility/speakup/dectlk/pitch=113
In addition, since you seemingly have a DecTalk, I need to explain, its more of 
a sing/Song delivery as words are spoken. I think I could manually change pitch 
to 480, but as long as that enflection is set the way we explained, then I am 
happy with 113, but would also like the rate to `stay at 229 and volume to 
remain at 86 whether I reboot  or are arrowing through lines of text. But for an 
unknown reason these values drop suddenly until I go to the insert pannel. 
Unfortunately no1 has figured out a way to track or log what Speakup or this U S 
B DecTalk are receiving when these drops occur. I hope short of my talking with 
you live, that I am explaining these challenges. Thanks so much in advance
Chime

Re: DecTalk Settings from Within Speakup?

[Samuel Thibault]

Chime Hart, le jeu. 16 avril 2020 17:02:45 -0700, a ecrit:
> I tried
> sudo echo 250 > /sys/accessibility/speakup/dectlk/pitch=113

You need to know something: '>' is interpreted by your shell *before*
sudo takes effet. So that is indeed expected to fail, since you are
actually trying to open the file before switching to root. You have to
switch to root with sudo *before* using '>'

> In addition, since you seemingly have a DecTalk,

I don't, but I can look at what getting emitted to what would be a
dectalk.

> Unfortunately no1 has figured out a way to track or log what
> Speakup or this U S B DecTalk are receiving when these drops occur.

Very probably simply exactly the commands that tell the dectalk to reset
the default values. Simply because it's speakup which happens to set
them when it needs to change them temporarily to render caps etc.

Samuel

Re: DecTalk Settings from Within Speakup?

[Gregory Nowak]

On Fri, Apr 17, 2020 at 01:28:13AM +0200, Samuel Thibault wrote:
> Well, yes, but that'll work only until speakup wants to change the pitch
> for whatever screen-reader-related reason such as expressing caps etc.

I don't understand what Chime means by inflection, but from the thread
so far, I'm 90% sure he doesn't mean pitch. That would leave either
freq or tone, but I'm not sure which of those that would be.

> I thought this was documented and well-known, but apparently not. Can
> somebody work on getting this properly known, to make sure people don't
> fall in that trap?

As far as I know, it is properly documented and explained in the
speakup user guide. If someone wants to use advanced methods like
synth_direct, that's fine, but that person should be prepared to deal
with the consequences of doing so.

On Fri, Apr 17, 2020 at 01:36:36AM +0200, Samuel Thibault wrote:
> Speakup takes values as much as the hardware takes it. At least, as much
> as is documented in the specific driver. For the pitch in the dectlk
> driver, one can read in the driver
> 
> { PITCH, .u.n = {"[:dv ap %d] ", 122, 50, 350, 0, 0, NULL } },
> 
> So it's indeed 122 by default, and values ranging from 50 to 350. I just
> tried it, and I did indeed saw [:dv ap 350] get output on the serial
> port, so it is definitely behaving as expected.

So Chime should be able to set pitch to 113 like he wants, and be able
to save and load it with speakupconf without issues. However, Chime
said in a previous post to this thread that he set the pitch to 113,
and saved it with speakupconf. When he used speakupconf load though,
Chime said his pitch was restored to 122. My guess is there could be a
miscommunication here some where, maybe saving in /etc/speakup and
loading from $HOME/.speakup? Without seeing an exact script of a load
and restore session, and a cat of values in
/sys/accessibility/speakup/, it's difficult, if not impossible to
determine exactly what is going on.

On Thu, Apr 16, 2020 at 05:02:45PM -0700, Chime Hart wrote:
> Thanks Sam, I tried your exact echo suggestion but even with sudo  I get a
> permission denied. I tried
> sudo echo 250 > /sys/accessibility/speakup/dectlk/pitch=113

No, do it like:

sudo echo 113 >/sys/accessibility/speakup/pitch

This will set your pitch to 113. Like I said, I think we're talking
about two different things here, pitch and inflection, whatever that means.

Greg


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Re: DecTalk Settings from Within Speakup?

[Samuel Thibault]

Gregory Nowak, le jeu. 16 avril 2020 17:40:33 -0700, a ecrit:
> On Fri, Apr 17, 2020 at 01:28:13AM +0200, Samuel Thibault wrote:
> > Well, yes, but that'll work only until speakup wants to change the pitch
> > for whatever screen-reader-related reason such as expressing caps etc.
> 
> I don't understand what Chime means by inflection, but from the thread
> so far, I'm 90% sure he doesn't mean pitch.

Ok, reading more closely:

Chime wrote:
> To enjoy more inflection, I must type
> sudo echo "[:dv pr 250]" >> /sys/accessibility/speakup/synth_direct

The driver reads:
> { PITCH, .u.n = {"[:dv ap %d] ", 122, 50, 350, 0, 0, NULL } },

My bad, notice "pr" vs "ap" which I didn't spot initially. The rest of
the driver doesn't talk about "dv pr".  I don't have the programming
manual for the dectalk, so I don't know what relation the hardware
makes between "dv pr" and "dv ap". Ideally they would be independent,
and thus using synth_direct would indeed be a proper way to set it up,
since speakup itself won't set "dv pr". But since Chime reports it to be
overwritten, it looks like there is a relation with something else,
possibly the pitch, possibly not. I don't know either what inflexion
means, but if it's something different from pitch and rate, we can
probably just add it as another variable like those two, so it can be
set just the same way. One would just need to know the range of values
that can be used.

Samuel

Re: DecTalk Settings from Within Speakup?

[Samuel Thibault]

Samuel Thibault, le ven. 17 avril 2020 03:12:11 +0200, a ecrit:
> I don't have the programming manual for the dectalk, so I don't know
> what relation the hardware makes between "dv pr" and "dv ap".

With a quick search I found it on
https://manualzz.com/doc/7326177/dectalk-5.01-e1-user-guide
and it says:

ap Average pitch, in H
pr Pitch range, in %

So it's indeed a different thing: ap is the average, and pr is how much
it should vary (defaults to 100% with the Paul voice). I'd still be
surprised that setting dv ap would change dv pr as well, they are
supposed to be independent.

Maybe experimenting with synth_direct would allow to know more, e.g.

echo "[:dv ap 112 pr 100] First test [:dv ap 112 pr 250] Second test [:dv ap 113] Third test" >> /sys/accessibility/speakup/synth_direct

I would expect the second test to have more inflection, and the third
test to have the same inflection, only a very little bit higher pitch.

Samuel

Re: DecTalk Settings from Within Speakup?

[Chime Hart]

Well, Sam, thanks for grabbing the manual. I have been searching somewhere to 
find you an audio sample of what I am looking for, but short of my patching out 
of an earphone jack  to a VR-Stream recorder. Also, to run these tests, how 
would I send commands directly to this unit? Thanks so much in advance
Chime

Re: DecTalk Settings from Within Speakup?

[Gregory Nowak]

On Thu, Apr 16, 2020 at 07:04:18PM -0700, Chime Hart wrote:
> Also, to run
> these tests, how would I send commands directly to this unit? Thanks so much
> in advance

You'd send them the same you've been doing through
synth_direct. Samuel pretty much gave the syntax in his post to which
you replied. In your case, you'd probably use sudo as you have been
doing. Since you'd need to issue multiple echo commands, it's probably
easier to just become root outright, either through sudo, or by
logging in as root, or through su.

Greg


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Re: DecTalk Settings from Within Speakup?

[Chime Hart]

Hi Greg: Samuel listed some tests, but it didn't seem obvious how to type them.
I went looking through my DecTalk mp3s for an example of an affect I am looking 
for. I certainly didn't create this, but in the following audio, please pay 
attention to the phrase "in the good old dos days"
http://www.hubert-humphrey.com/dt43sample.mp3
Alot of the other files were skits-and-lots of DecTalk songs. Thanks for 
listening
Chime

Re: DecTalk Settings from Within Speakup?

[Karen Lewellen]

  Hi folks,


On Fri, 17 Apr 2020, Samuel Thibault wrote:

>> I don't understand what Chime means by inflection, but from the thread
>> so far, I'm 90% sure he doesn't mean pitch.

Gentlemen,
Inserting an explanation about inflection, at least as applied to the 
dectalk.
Inflection is what provides a more human expression when text is read. 
For example
  the decktalk will still use a voice reflecting that a question has been 
asked even if punctuation is turned off.  will shout at the presence of an 
exclamation mark etc.

Granted Speaking personally this entire exchange supports chime's stance 
that speakup must be used by programmers, but there*must* be something 
uniform that allows rate, pitch, inflection, presence or absence of spoken 
caps, presence or absence of curtain punctuation marks, etc., available for 
*the user* to set and have those remain  constant, not to change at the 
whims of speakup. if that is not happening, you have problems.
as for people falling  into chime's configuration trap, keep in mind that 
even Linux has little  solid consistent guides.  To assume that someone is 
not going to have to experiment.
Such is why  speaking personally, there should be guides both for Linux 
itself and speakup outside of  the operating system, not the howtos that 
load from within the system.
Inflection is what makes a synthesizer sound human and clear and 
understandable.

Think Stephen Hawking  as an example.
Likewise consider that someone new to speech *must* be able to understand 
what is spoken, based on human interaction, which includes inflection.
If speakup lacks the option  after being around  for so long, no wonder 
few testing for accessibility even bother with Linux at all.


Karen

Re: DecTalk Settings from Within Speakup?

[Samuel Thibault]

Hello,

Karen Lewellen wrote:
> there*must* be something uniform that allows caps [...] etc., available for
> *the user* to set and have those remain  constant, not to change at the
> whims of speakup.

That is *exactly* what I am talking about. Using speakupconf to
configure things nicely, and not having to do obscure echo to an obscure
/sys file.

Karen Lewellen wrote:
> If speakup lacks the option  after being around  for so long,

It doesn't lack it, it lets the synthesizer manage it. What is discussed
here is about tuning it, which I haven't heared being asked for before.

Karen Lewellen wrote:
> if that is not happening, you have problems.

Please avoid directing such kind of sentence at people who are actually
trying to find time to work on stuff, I don't see how that can be
helping in any way.

Karen Lewellen wrote:
> there should be guides both for Linux itself and speakup outside of
> the operating system,

There is a speakup guide on http://linux-speakup.org/spkguide.txt
of course it should be getting updated etc. somebody has to do it.
It just can not be me, since I'm not even remotely a user of speakup,
it'd be way simpler if it was real users who would work on it.

Samuel

Re: DecTalk Settings from Within Speakup?

[Karen Lewellen]

Samuel,
Since you removed the explanation about inflection, I hope you realize its 
importance to the function of any   quality screen reader...it is after 
all what helps humans sound more human in the first place.
The idea of leaving  important aspects like  rate pitch and inflection 
configuration   specifics to  the 
synthesizer, translates  into  inconsistent speakup performance.  From what 
you  say, the quality will depend on the synthesizer not the  screen reader 
program.  That, speaking personally, is a mistake.  End users should 
expect the same quality of critical aspects, and yes the ability to fine tune 
how fast how clear  and how human   what your using is, sits firmly in the 
critical dictionary,  from  their screen reader, regardless of 
synthesizers.  Of course individuals are 
going to fine tune those factors, why ever would they not? Such 
preferences  vary from person to person, its part of why there are so many hardware 
synthesizers in the first place, and why software speech is  considered of 
such poor 
quality  for many, when both compared to those tools and the human voice.
As for users of speekup   updating the files, that would require a uniform 
experience, which as you seem to illustrate here is beyond  what a user 
should   expect to fine.
My comments may seem  harsh to you, but  the ability to use Linux  in a 
fluid fashion for some is only as good as the screen reader,  and those 
doing  the work, even if  volunteers, must respect as much.
Its apart  of quality control.

Just my opinion ,
Karen



On Fri, 17 Apr 2020, Samuel Thibault wrote:

> Hello,
>
> Karen Lewellen wrote:
>> there*must* be something uniform that allows caps [...] etc., available for
>> *the user* to set and have those remain  constant, not to change at the
>> whims of speakup.
>
> That is *exactly* what I am talking about. Using speakupconf to
> configure things nicely, and not having to do obscure echo to an obscure
> /sys file.
>
> Karen Lewellen wrote:
>> If speakup lacks the option  after being around  for so long,
>
> It doesn't lack it, it lets the synthesizer manage it. What is discussed
> here is about tuning it, which I haven't heared being asked for before.
>
> Karen Lewellen wrote:
>> if that is not happening, you have problems.
>
> Please avoid directing such kind of sentence at people who are actually
> trying to find time to work on stuff, I don't see how that can be
> helping in any way.
>
> Karen Lewellen wrote:
>> there should be guides both for Linux itself and speakup outside of
>> the operating system,
>
> There is a speakup guide on http://linux-speakup.org/spkguide.txt
> of course it should be getting updated etc. somebody has to do it.
> It just can not be me, since I'm not even remotely a user of speakup,
> it'd be way simpler if it was real users who would work on it.
>
> Samuel
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@linux-speakup.org
> http://linux-speakup.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>
>

Re: DecTalk Settings from Within Speakup?

[Samuel Thibault]

Karen Lewellen wrote:
> I hope you realize its importance to the function of any quality
> screen reader.

Sure, I was just commenting on the rest. See my mail date Fri, 17 Apr
2020 03:12:11 +0200 about including it as a parameter.

Karen Lewellen wrote:
> From what you say, the quality will depend on the synthesizer not the
> screen reader program.

Yes: the screen reader can't do much if the synthesizer doesn't support
good inflection. It can not make the synthesizer magically change its
behavior if the synthesizer itself doesn't support it.

Karen Lewellen wrote:
> Of course individuals are going to fine tune those factors, why ever
> would they not?

The question was not whether they would tune it or not, but about
knowing it was existing at all. I simply had no idea this notion
was existing at all in synthesizers, since I have basically zero
actual practice of speech synthesizer. Why am I working on speakup
then? Frankly, when I read messages like yours, I do wonder. I just
happened to go by and see that speakup needed help. If it's not welcome
I can just merely leave out speakup as it is. But I don't think that's
what you hoped for? Then like I said, avoid sending the kind of harsh
message you did, I don't see how they can help in any way.

Karen Lewellen wrote:
> As for users of speekup updating the files, that would require a
> uniform experience, which as you seem to illustrate here is beyond
> what a user should expect to fine.

???? ON THE CONTRARY.

I was precisely exactly saying that we should just put the parameter
just along the others, instead of tinkering with synth_direct.

Samuel

Re: DecTalk Settings from Within Speakup?

[Gregory Nowak]

On Sat, Apr 18, 2020 at 03:14:11AM +0200, Samuel Thibault wrote:
> Why am I working on speakup
> then? Frankly, when I read messages like yours, I do wonder. I just
> happened to go by and see that speakup needed help. If it's not welcome
> I can just merely leave out speakup as it is. But I don't think that's
> what you hoped for? Then like I said, avoid sending the kind of harsh
> message you did, I don't see how they can help in any way.

Thank you Samuel very much for what you've done for the speakup
project over the years. It is do to your help and Oakash's that
speakup is about to be moved from staging into mainline, and I believe
it is in big part due to Samuel that speakup got into staging to start
with. What you've done for the speakup project and debian accessibility
so far is greatly
appreciated by myself, and I hope by others too.

Greg


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Re: DecTalk Settings from Within Speakup?

[Al Sten-Clanton]

I second Greg's sentiment.


Al


On 4/18/20 10:27 PM, Gregory Nowak wrote:
> On Sat, Apr 18, 2020 at 03:14:11AM +0200, Samuel Thibault wrote:
>> Why am I working on speakup
>> then? Frankly, when I read messages like yours, I do wonder. I just
>> happened to go by and see that speakup needed help. If it's not welcome
>> I can just merely leave out speakup as it is. But I don't think that's
>> what you hoped for? Then like I said, avoid sending the kind of harsh
>> message you did, I don't see how they can help in any way.
> Thank you Samuel very much for what you've done for the speakup
> project over the years. It is do to your help and Oakash's that
> speakup is about to be moved from staging into mainline, and I believe
> it is in big part due to Samuel that speakup got into staging to start
> with. What you've done for the speakup project and debian accessibility
> so far is greatly
> appreciated by myself, and I hope by others too.
>
> Greg
>
>

Re: DecTalk Settings from Within Speakup?

[Tom Fowle]

I strongly second Greg's appreciations below.
I dread the thought of having to use anything except speakup so much
appreciate
that it looks to become an up to date stable part of Debian

Tom Fowle

> 
> Thank you Samuel very much for what you've done for the speakup
> project over the years. It is do to your help and Oakash's that
> speakup is about to be moved from staging into mainline, and I believe
> it is in big part due to Samuel that speakup got into staging to start
> with. What you've done for the speakup project and debian accessibility
> so far is greatly
> appreciated by myself, and I hope by others too.
> 
> Greg
> 
> 
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> http://linux-speakup.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/speakup

Re: DecTalk Settings from Within Speakup?

[Karen Lewellen]

Well, I certainly  said nothing  negatived regarding Samuel's devotion. 
frankly i find his feeling my words judged what he provides  so harshly a 
surprise.
Still,   that it took more than 16  years for Debian to declare speakup 
stable, that something as  important as inflection is only now even 
noticed, and that many involved with testing accessibility  from a w3c-wai 
standpoint do not even consider Linux, let alone Speakup as  worthy of 
inclusion in their testing says a great deal.
Karen

Re: DecTalk Settings from Within Speakup?

[Samuel Thibault]

Karen Lewellen, le dim. 19 avril 2020 20:05:51 -0400, a ecrit:
> that it took more than 16 years for Debian to declare speakup stable,

It took 16 years for some people to find volunteer time on revamping
the configuration, plumbering access to the console, access to keyboard
shortcuts, plumbering USB support, fixing all the bogus speakup code
etc. Kernel development is hard, and none of these were a simple task,
even by kernel standards. Doing it when not even having the hardware is
even harder. There is no company behind this, just a couple volunteers.

> that something as  important as inflection is only now even noticed,

That is rather a user-reporting problem. I don't remember the question
being raised on this list. I'm thus not surprised at all that it's not
implemented since AFAICT nobody asked for it. Don't blame the engineers
if the users didn't ask for something.

> and that many involved with testing accessibility from a w3c-wai
> standpoint do not even consider Linux,

That's the 90% market rule playing again. No big surprise here either.

> let alone Speakup as worthy of inclusion in their testing says a great
> deal.

Please actually express instead of just waving hands.

Do you mean Linux accessibility is not seriously taken care of? I can
only agree: there's no big company behind any more, after Oracle bought
Sun and basically shut down the accessibility department that was making
Gnome accessible.

Spreading oil on the fire at the face of people who are trying to do
what they can with the situation won't help with the matter, at any
rate.

Samuel

Re: DecTalk Settings from Within Speakup?

[Chime Hart]

Hi Samuel-and-All: And yes, even though I have some frustrations in Speakup, as 
a user, I am quite thankful there are folks such as you-and-others still working 
on it. You indirectly aluded to something I've been thinking over the years. I 
don't think there are any commercial screen-readers in Linux. After enjoying 
Vocal-Eyes for maybe 12years, because it was commercial it was feature rich, as 
well, you could either trade individual mail with the same people who would 
gladly answer the phone-and-walk you through an opperation.
Back then whether you called Arkenstone about OpenBook or another vender, they 
all understood these DecTalks. Many years ago we tried getting YASR working with 
this unit, but no luck.
So, yes, other than e-macs-speak which I don't understand, if there were another 
similar option like Vocal-Eyes, I would jump at it.
On another point, I probably mentioned an inflection 
option while asking for 
guidance. However, for 16years or more since I've been useing Speakup, I have 
constantly mentioned trouble with these DecTalk drivers, but since I am not a 
programmer I know nothing about writing code. Unlike other opperating systems, 
you know I have never once had another knowlegable Speakup user here working on 
my system. Many years ago when the latest kernel which would work with a DecTalk 
was 2.6.32, I did have a very good sighted Linux expert here who was on I R C 
with Speakup folks. Unfortunately he eventually figured out that nobody cared. 
In addition I've gotten alot of value from others creating helpful tools which 
either edited audio which was sorely needed or wrote a much more robust usenet 
news client. Thanks so much for listening-and-I hope I adequately explained my 
position.
Chime

Re: DecTalk Settings from Within Speakup?

[Gregory Nowak]

On Sun, Apr 19, 2020 at 06:10:16PM -0700, Chime Hart wrote:
> On another point, I probably mentioned an inflection option while asking for
> guidance. However, for 16years or more since I've been useing Speakup, I
> have constantly mentioned trouble with these DecTalk drivers, but since I am
> not a programmer I know nothing about writing code.

Yes, I do recall seeing you mention dectalk problems for a number of
years now. Without looking back at the list archives, and going from
memory, you seem to always state that your issues were due to speakup not
having support for a dectalk connected through USB. As far as I
recall, this is the first time you mentioned your dectalk and speakup
have an issue with inflection, which is why I tried to help this time
around.

Greg


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Re: DecTalk Settings from Within Speakup?

[Chime Hart]

Hi Greg-and-All: Other than the U S B support, many times I mentioned about the 
rate, pitch, and volume constantly dropping, to where I had to alter each of 
those options up-and-down so it was back to my liking. And yes, running a script 
to add more inflection would get knocked out once these other settings dropped.
Your willingness to help in the way you did was quite a bit appreciated as it 
probably took us in to a valuable dialogue.
Chime

Re: DecTalk Settings from Within Speakup?

[Kelly Prescott]

I also wanted to publically thank Samuel, Oakash, and all the others that 
have worked on speakup to make it what it is.
I use it every day and I appreciate everyone who has made that possible.




On Sat, 18 Apr 2020, Gregory Nowak wrote:

> On Sat, Apr 18, 2020 at 03:14:11AM +0200, Samuel Thibault wrote:
>> Why am I working on speakup
>> then? Frankly, when I read messages like yours, I do wonder. I just
>> happened to go by and see that speakup needed help. If it's not welcome
>> I can just merely leave out speakup as it is. But I don't think that's
>> what you hoped for? Then like I said, avoid sending the kind of harsh
>> message you did, I don't see how they can help in any way.
>
> Thank you Samuel very much for what you've done for the speakup
> project over the years. It is do to your help and Oakash's that
> speakup is about to be moved from staging into mainline, and I believe
> it is in big part due to Samuel that speakup got into staging to start
> with. What you've done for the speakup project and debian accessibility
> so far is greatly
> appreciated by myself, and I hope by others too.
>
> Greg
>
>
> -- 
> web site: http://www.gregn.net
> gpg public key: http://www.gregn.net/pubkey.asc
> skype: gregn1
> (authorization required, add me to your contacts list first)
> If we haven't been in touch before, e-mail me before adding me to your contacts.
>
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>