Emacspeak discussion list

[Parham Doustdar <parham90 AT gmail.com>]

Hi Tim,
Very good point, thanks for the explanation.
This issue started on Helm version 20240912.613. However, I’m currently on 
Helm version 20251225.613. Upgrading did not break the fix.
Best,
Parham
> On 27 Dec 2025, at 02:09, Tim Cross <theophilusx AT gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Hi Parham,
> 
> as this can be a moving target, can you indicate which version of helm
> and emacs you fixed this bug on? I don't use helm, but want to make sure
> anyone else seing this post can check to see what version of emacs and
> helm they are running as I know that we often have a very wide range of
> versions being used on this list, including quite a lot of people
> running old versions of everything as 'if it ain't broke' philosophy.
> 
> I'm assuming yur running the last commit of emacspeak as wsell (and not
> the last 'official' release)
> 
> Tim
> 
> "Parham Doustdar" (via emacspeak Mailing List) <emacspeak AT emacspeak.net> 
> writes:
> 
>> Hi all,
>> I have been facing a couple of issues with helm help that I finally got 
>> around to identifying and fixing, patch is at the end of the email. 
>> Basically, there are two issues:
>> The first is that as you try to navigate around in helm help, Emacspeak 
>> keeps reading the helm help default prompt. So, you hear the main text at 
>> the same time as the notification stream is reading the prompt.
>> Second issue is that, because Helm has its own command dispatcher in the 
>> helm help mode, the Emacspeak prefix key doesn’t work.
>> The fix:
>> 1. Emacspeak is advising helm help mode, but the helm help 
>> mode-before-hook is actually being called on a different buffer than the 
>> *helm help* buffer. As a result, when Emacspeak tries to turn off 
>> emacspeak-speak-messages, nothing happens. The right way to do this seems 
>> to be to advise the helm-help-event-loop directly.
>> 2. The read-key advice doesn’t actually take the emacspeak-speak-messages 
>> variable into account when speaking the prompt. As a result, after fixing 
>> the issue above, the prompt still keeps getting spoken when you navigate. 
>> To fix that, I added a simple check to the read-key advice to check for 
>> emacspeak-speak-messages before it speaks.
>> 3. Finally, since this help loop is a custom thing, the Emacspeak prefix 
>> key doesn’t work. So I added our own dispatcher to the helm help keymap.
>> ---
>> lisp/emacspeak-advice.el | 24 +++++++++++++-----------
>> lisp/emacspeak-helm.el   | 27 +++++++++++++++++++++------
>> 2 files changed, 34 insertions(+), 17 deletions(-)
>> 
>> diff --git a/lisp/emacspeak-advice.el b/lisp/emacspeak-advice.el
>> index 0a72e7859..a052c6bc5 100644
>> --- a/lisp/emacspeak-advice.el
>> +++ b/lisp/emacspeak-advice.el
>> @@ -936,23 +936,25 @@
>>  (eval
>>   `(defadvice ,f (before emacspeak pre act comp)
>>      "Speak prompt"
>> +     (when emacspeak-speak-messages
>>       (let ((prompt (ad-get-arg 0)))
>>         (emacspeak-icon 'char)
>>         (setq emacspeak-last-message prompt)
>>         (setq emacspeak-read-char-prompt-cache prompt)
>> -        (tts-with-punctuations 'all (dtk-notify (or prompt "key")))))))
>> +        (tts-with-punctuations 'all (dtk-notify (or prompt "key"))))))))
>> 
>> (defadvice read-char-choice (before emacspeak pre act comp)
>>   "Speak the prompt. "
>> -  (let* ((prompt (ad-get-arg 0))
>> -         (chars (ad-get-arg 1))
>> -         (m
>> -          (format
>> -           "%s: %s"
>> -           prompt
>> -           (mapconcat #'(lambda (c) (format "%c" c)) chars ", "))))
>> -    (ems--log-message m)
>> -    (tts-with-punctuations 'all (dtk-speak m))))
>> +  (when emacspeak-speak-messages
>> +    (let* ((prompt (ad-get-arg 0))
>> +           (chars (ad-get-arg 1))
>> +           (m
>> +            (format
>> +             "%s: %s"
>> +             prompt
>> +             (mapconcat #'(lambda (c) (format "%c" c)) chars ", "))))
>> +      (ems--log-message m)
>> +      (tts-with-punctuations 'all (dtk-speak m)))))
>> 
>> 
>> ;;;  advice completion functions to speak:
>> diff --git a/lisp/emacspeak-helm.el b/lisp/emacspeak-helm.el
>> index bd9f3274f..f721fe849 100644
>> --- a/lisp/emacspeak-helm.el
>> +++ b/lisp/emacspeak-helm.el
>> @@ -122,19 +122,26 @@
>>     (emacspeak-speak-line)))
>> 
>> ;;;  Support helm-help
>> -(add-hook
>> - 'helm-help-mode-before-hook
>> - #'(lambda()
>> -     "Turn off speaking read-key prompts"
>> -     (setq emacspeak-speak-messages nil)
>> -     (emacspeak-icon 'open-object)))
>> -
>> -(add-hook
>> - 'helm-help-mode-after-hook
>> - #'(lambda()
>> -     "restore speaking messages."
>> -     (setq emacspeak-speak-messages t)
>> -     (emacspeak-icon 'close-object)))
>> +
>> +(defadvice helm-help-event-loop (around emacspeak pre act comp)
>> +  "Silence messages during helm help loop."
>> +  (setq emacspeak-speak-messages nil)
>> +  (emacspeak-icon 'open-object)
>> +  (unwind-protect
>> +      ad-do-it
>> +    (setq emacspeak-speak-messages t)
>> +    (emacspeak-icon 'close-object)))
>> +
>> +(defun emacspeak-helm-help-dispatch-prefix ()
>> +  "Dispatch C-e prefix commands in helm help."
>> +  (interactive)
>> +  (let* ((key (read-key-sequence-vector (format "%s " (key-description 
>> emacspeak-prefix))))
>> +         (cmd (lookup-key emacspeak-keymap key)))
>> +    (when (commandp cmd)
>> +      (call-interactively cmd))))
>> +
>> +(with-eval-after-load 'helm-lib
>> +  (helm-help-define-key (key-description emacspeak-prefix) 
>> #'emacspeak-helm-help-dispatch-prefix))
>> 
>> (provide 'emacspeak-helm)
>> ;;;  end of file
>> 
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