how to use Speech / Parole feature on osX Lion ?

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fpierron
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how to use Speech / Parole feature on osX Lion ?

Post by fpierron » Tue Aug 16, 2011 4:12 pm

Hi,
As you may have seen, osx Lion offers now speech in many languages (not only english but fr, de, sp, etc...).

How to use it in LiveCode ?

1/ Enable new voices if the user didn't do that : you have to donwload them.
2/ Select the right voice
3/ modify the speed
4/ send strings to voices

I can't find function related to that.

Best,

Frédéric

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Re: how to use Speech / Parole feature on osX Lion ?

Post by Klaus » Tue Aug 16, 2011 4:29 pm

Bonjour Frédéric,
1/ Enable new voices if the user didn't do that : you have to donwload them.
Since this is a feature built into the OS, I doubt that you can do this via LiveCode.
2/ Select the right voice
3/ modify the speed
Check "revSpeech" in the dictionary!
But I am not sure if they work correct with the new voices in Lion!

EDIT!
Just checked, they do work!
4/ send strings to voices
See above but can also us SHELL to do so:
...
put "Bonjour Frédéric, ça va bien?" into tString
get shell("say" && tString)
...
Works great with the new german voices! :D


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Klaus

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Re: how to use Speech / Parole feature on osX Lion ?

Post by jmburnod » Tue Aug 16, 2011 4:38 pm

Bonjour Frédéric,
Check also "revstopSpeech" in the dictionary

Klaus said :
See above but can also us SHELL to do so:
put "Bonjour Frédéric, ça va bien?" into tString
get shell("say" && tString)
Is there an equivalent of "revstopSpeech" with the shell command ?

Best

Jean-Marc
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Re: how to use Speech / Parole feature on osX Lion ?

Post by Klaus » Tue Aug 16, 2011 4:50 pm

Hi Jean-Marc,

sorry, no idea.

You can check the man pages for SAY, enter this into the TERMINAL:
man say


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Klaus

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Re: how to use Speech / Parole feature on osX Lion ?

Post by Klaus » Tue Aug 16, 2011 4:55 pm

Hm, since SHELL calls are blocking in LiveCode, this doesn't matter at all :(
But REVSPEAK should work!

fpierron
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Re: how to use Speech / Parole feature on osX Lion ?

Post by fpierron » Tue Aug 16, 2011 7:45 pm

Tanks a lot.
I Will mâle some try.
Do you think it possible to record The VoiceOver generated by The synthetiser ?

Best,

Frédéric

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Re: how to use Speech / Parole feature on osX Lion ?

Post by Mark » Tue Aug 16, 2011 9:38 pm

Hi Frédéric,

eSpeak isn't as beautiful as Lion's speech feaures, but it is cross-platform (inlcuding Mac) and available in quite a few languages. It can also be used to create sound files.

Regarding Lion's speech, you can use the revSetSpeechVoice command to change voices. I'd expect to be able to select a voice in a different language. Use the revSpeechVoices function to see a list of all voices available to LiveCode.

Kind regards,

Mark
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fpierron
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Re: how to use Speech / Parole feature on osX Lion ?

Post by fpierron » Wed Aug 17, 2011 10:08 am

Thanks for the information but I need something that do not need to be downloaded apart from my app.

Frédéric

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Re: how to use Speech / Parole feature on osX Lion ?

Post by bn » Wed Aug 17, 2011 11:19 am

Hi Frédéric,

here is a little stack that lets you type/paste text into a field. This text is then put into an AppleScript and send off. It will create a sound file (.aif) on the desktop with the text spoken with the current voice.

Works only on a Mac due to Applescript.

I did not test on Lion but it works on Snow Leopard. Should work on Lion also.

Kind regards

Bernd
Attachments
textToSpeechToRecording.livecode.zip
(1.84 KiB) Downloaded 342 times

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Re: how to use Speech / Parole feature on osX Lion ?

Post by Klaus » Wed Aug 17, 2011 1:39 pm

Bonjour Frédéric,
fpierron wrote:Do you think it possible to record The VoiceOver generated by The synthetiser ?
yes, check the example of Bernd that uses AppleScript, but this can also be done via SHELL, if you like this better :D

Open the terminal and type:
man say
Hit enter and see all possible options for this shell command.


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Klaus

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Re: how to use Speech / Parole feature on osX Lion ?

Post by jmburnod » Thu Mar 22, 2012 7:32 pm

Hi Bernd,
Should work on Lion also.
Yes. I tested it

Best from Geneva

Jean-Marc
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Re: how to use Speech / Parole feature on osX Lion ?

Post by bn » Thu Mar 22, 2012 11:08 pm

Hi Jean-Marc,

thanks for testing. I am still not on Lion yet.

I gather that you are into compiling externals. Wow. Xcode / C, objective C scare me to death.

Kind regards

Bernd

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Re: how to use Speech / Parole feature on osX Lion ?

Post by jmburnod » Thu Mar 22, 2012 11:27 pm

Hi Bernd,
Wow. Xcode / C, objective C scare me to death.
Me too.
I'm not the author, i just have found a way to use it for iPad

Kind regards

Jean-marc
https://alternatic.ch

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Re: how to use Speech / Parole feature on osX Lion ?

Post by jmburnod » Mon Mar 26, 2012 10:12 pm

Hi All,

It seem Applescript is the only one way to speak a language with diacritical chars and apostrophe

• RevSpeak don't speak a string with diacritical chars
• Shell don't speak a string with an apostrophe

The best way should be LiveCode fix the revspeak.
Someone know something about this in LC 5.5 ?

Best regards

Jean-Marc
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Re: how to use Speech / Parole feature on osX Lion ?

Post by Mark » Tue Mar 27, 2012 12:47 pm

Hi Jean-Marc,

You can use apostrophs in the shell if you put the entire string inside quotes or if you escape the apostrophe with a preceding backslash.

The shell understands UTF8, which means you can use any character if you convert it to UTF8 first. I'm not sure that you can call the shell using UTF8 from LiveCode, but you can write a simple shell script to disk, change the permissions and use the shell to run it:
put "say" && quote & "Je suis à l'école" & quote into url "binfile:talk.sh"
get shell("chmod 755 talk.sh")
get shell("talk.sh")
Kind regards,

Mark
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