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[Emacspeak] Re: a couple of possibly basic questions about emacspeak on the mac



John Covici <covici(a)ccs.covici.com> writes:

> On Sun, 24 Apr 2022 01:17:24 -0400,
> Tim Cross wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> John Covici <covici(a)ccs.covici.com> writes:
>> 
>> > On Sat, 23 Apr 2022 01:59:37 -0400,
>> > Tim Cross wrote:
>> >> 
>> >> 
>> >> John Covici <covici(a)ccs.covici.com> writes:
>> >> 
>> >> > On Thu, 21 Apr 2022 19:57:44 -0400,
>> >> > Tim Cross via Emacspeak wrote:
>> >> >> 
>> >> >> 
>> >> >> John Covici via Emacspeak <emacspeak(a)emacspeak.org> writes:
>> >> >> 
>> >> >> > Hi.  I have some questions about emacspeak, I am running a Macbook pro
>> >> >> > 2016 with 16G of ram and Monterey 12.3.1.  Now when running emacs 28.1
>> >> >> > and emacspeak, if the speech server on the mac has to say a single
>> >> >> > character, either when I type it myself, or using the right arrow key,
>> >> >> > it says it at a high rate of speed, much higher than when it reads
>> >> >> > lines or words, etc.  I have my rate set to 320, so I would like to
>> >> >> > hear single characters at the same speed.
>> >> >> >
>> >> >> > I have installed emacs macport from macports, any way to silence vo
>> >> >> > when I am in that application?  I saw a post a while ago to install
>> >> >> > something from homebrew, but I am using macports and am not sure I can
>> >> >> > have both at the same time.
>> >> >> >
>> >> >> 
>> >> >> Just replying to basically let you know your message hasn't been
>> >> >> ignored!!
>> >> >> 
>> >> >> I've never used macports and my mac book is too old to install the
>> >> >> latest macOS, so I cannot help. Curious though, how do you know a single
>> >> >> character is being spoken at a high rate of speed? (I'm not even sure
>> >> >> what 'speed' means in that context - it is a single character, so speed
>> >> >> relative to what?)
>> >> >> 
>> >> >> With regards to silencing VO while in Emacs, there is an option
>> >> >> available in the railwaycat/emacsmacport cask for homebrew, but it is
>> >> >> specific to that port (i.e. not part of vanilla emacs), so I suspect if
>> >> >> your using macports your out of luck and need to be using homebrew.
>> >> >
>> >> > Thanks for your quick response.
>> >> >
>> >> > So, I did install homebrew and installed the casc, where is the option
>> >> > to silence vo?
>> >> >
>> >> 
>> >> I don't have my mac book with me right now, but from memory, you have to
>> >> set the variable mac-ignore-accessibility to t in your emacs init file. 
>> > Thanks, that worked, but I saw another error which I would like to
>> > correct:
>> >
>> > Warning (comp): /Users/covici/emacspeak/lisp/emacspeak-preamble.el:
>> > Error: Symbol's value as variable is void emacspeak-sounds-directory
>> >
>> 
>> How did you install emacspeak?
>> 
>> I don't see that error.
>> 
>> Note that warnings are just warnings and you will sometimes see those.
>> Errors are of course errors and you should not see them. I don't see
>> this error building from head of current repository.
>> 
>> It is VERY critical that if you are building form git, after doing a git
>> pull, you must first do make clean and then make. Forgetting to do make
>> clean can result in an inconsistent result.
>
> I am not sure, I did make config and then make.  I might have done a
> make clean before the git pull.  What is more strange is that if I do
> control-h v for that variable, I do get a correct value, so I am not
> sure why the error occurrs at all.

it is critically important to do the make clean. If your not sure, do
make clean, make config make again.

What that error is telling you is that at the point of compiling one of
the Emacspeak files, in a particular place in that file, the variable
was not defined.  It is likely that the variable is defined, but in some
later code which had not yet been loaded when the error occured. This is
a common transitory error that can occur when code is being refactored
and may well have been fixed mere minutes after you pulled your version
from git. 

Emacspeak evolves rapidly. This gives users two
choices. Either they just install the main release or they run from git
and get the latest updates/changes. The advantage of running just the
release is that it will typically be more stable and with no errors. The
disadvantage is that you don't get the most recent updtes/changes until
the next release. The advantage of git is that you get the updates and
changes immediately. The downside is that at times, the code base may be
unstable as new features or changes are implemented. The good news is
that with git, it is trivial to roll back to a previous working version.

This means that when running from the latest git repository, you will,
from time to time, encounter errors. Often, these errors will be unique
to your environment or perhaps only become evident in some environments
(platform, Linux distribution, emacs version etc). I adopt the following
approach to errors in Emacspeak 

1. When I encounter an error, I look at how recent my version of
Emacspeak is. If it isn't very recent, I will try updating and doing a
make clean, make config and make. 

2. If the code base is recent, I might just try a make clean, make
config and make (just in case I forgot to do clean/config last time). 

3. If error still persists, I consider what to do based on the impact of
the error. If the error does not seem to be having any direct impact or
only minor impact, I might just ignore it for a week or so. Often it
will be resolved by Raman witout further intervention given time. 

4. If the error is having impact, I might investigate. I might turn on
debug-on-error and see if I can identify the reason/cause of the error.
If I find it, I will usually contact the list, explain the error, what
I've discovered and possibly provide a patch. 

5. If I cannot debug the error or I don't have time to spend trying to
debug the error and the impact is affecting my ability to work, I will
revert the git repository to a knowen working earlier version, do a make
clean, make config and make and send a note to the list explaining the
error as best I can, providing a minimal recipe to reproduce it if
possible. 

Emacspeak is very much a self help situation. It is not uncommon to
encounter errors which nobody else has encountered. It is different from
many other software packages in that it isn't something Raman has
written for the community. Instead, it is something Raman has developed
to support his research efforts and which he has made available to the
community as something which might be useful. 


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