emacspeak config questions

[tcross@xxxxxxxxxxx]

I have a couple of questions about configuring emacspeak and wanted
some advice/feedback. I'm currently installing emacspeak on a Mandrake
8 based system running a 2.4.x kernel. rather than just copy over my
old configuration I thought I'd check through the emacspeak 14.0
sources and look at a few of the new features I've not really had time
to look at before. 

During my skimming of the sources I noticed there is an
emacspeak-startup-hook variable which I hadn't noticed before. In the
past, I have done my configuration with a block in my .emacs file like
-

(when (featurep 'emacspeak)
  (setq emacspeak-realaudio-player "/usr/bin/X11/realplay")
  (setq dtk-default-speech-rate 410)
  (setq outloud-default-speech-rate 90))

I thought I might try instead something like

(add-hook 'emacspeak-startup-hook (function lambda ()
  (setq emacspeak-realaudio-player "/usr/bin/X11/realplay")
  (setq dtk-default-speech-rate 410)
  (setq outloud-default-speech-rate 90)))

However, this has no effect. Can someone tell me what I'm doing wrong
here?

The new system I have also has a sound blaster live sound card and I'm
running the IBM ViaVoice speech synthesis. One thing I would like to
do is get audio icons back again - my old system only has a sound card
which does not support midi and only allows a single open on the sound
channel at a time. Apparently the sound blaster live will allow 32
simultaneous opens. My thinking is I should now be able to run
ViaVoice and have audio icons (the card does not support
midi). However, I can't seem to get this to work. I have noticed the
variable emacspeak-use-midi-icons is set to t, but the docs say not to
set this directly, but instead to use
emacspeak-toggle-auditory-icons. However, if I tr to use this
function, it produces an error saying the system does not support
midi. I believe by default, emacspeak sets itself to use midi icons
when you select the outloud speech server. How do I (or more
precisely, can I) change this? I've also noticed on this system I no
longer get the customize options relating to aumixer settings etc. I
do get this option on my old Redhat 6.2 system. Is this due to the
diffeences in sound cards or differences in platforms? If its a
difference in platforms, where is the code which determines if these
customize groups/options should be included so that I can check it and
maybe work out how to get it to work on a Mandrake system? 

Finally, a question about sound drivers. It seems there are 3 drivers
which can be used with the sound blaster live card - emu10k1 from
Creative, sb from OSS and one from Alsa. Has anyone got any opinions
on which is the best driver to use with this card? 
	  
Well, that should be enough for now. I think there may be a few people
who will be trying out the Mandrake distribution because of RedHats
use of beta glibc libraries and C compilers - Mandrake seems the best
alternative if you want an rpm based system running a 2.4 kernel. It
might be useful to gather info on things which may be problematic or
any idiosyncrasies with this distribution. I've already noticed some
minor differences which may pose difficulties for the new user -
anything I find of any consequence will be reported to the list so
that it goes into the archives of course. 

Thanks 

Tim
-- 
Tim Cross
NorthNet Internet Services
mailto: tcross@xxxxxxxxxxx
phone: +61 2 6772 5973
mobile: 0412 969193
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