Re: emacspeak speech server

[tcross@xxxxxxxxxxx]

Hi,

I think the easiest way to conceptualize emacs, emacspeak and the
speech servers is to think of them as different layers. At the top
layer you have emacs, the do everything, do anything editor. The layer
below that is emacspeak which works a bit like an interpreter of the
text and actions performed within the editor. Emacspeak produces
sounds (audio icons) and does some text mark-up to provide audio cues
about the text, such as using different voices for different textual
elements such as headings in w3 and passes this text to the next
layer, the speech server. This is the main difference between
emacspeak and 'dumb' screen readers such as jaws or window-eyes for
the MS environment. 

It is the speech servers role to drive
either a hardware speech synthesizer like the dectalk express or a
software synthesizer like IBM's Via Voice. The advantage of having the
speech server layer is that emacspeak does not need to be modified for
every possible speech system available - if you want to use emacspeak
with a new piece of hardware or new software synthesizer, you only
need to write a new speech server. Conversely, if someone wants to add
to emacspeaks functionality, they don't need to know about all the
different speech synthesizers available. 

I hope that clarifies the relationships a bit,

Tim

M. Eng writes:
> Hello
> 
> I have still not really understand the fact that for using a TTS synthesiser
> with Emacspeak I need a speech server.
> Can somebody explain me what is call a speech server and how it
> interact between Emacs, Emacspeak, and the TTS synthesiser (eg Festival or
> DECTalk)
>  Thanks in advance
> ---
> Latyr Jean-Luc FAYE
> http://faye.cjb.net                         #L'AfroCelte
> http://eaccess.rince.ie/_latyr/      #Research  on Web Accessibility
> 
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-- 
Tim Cross
mailto: tcross@xxxxxxxxxxx
phone: +61 2 6772 5973
mobile: 0412 969193
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