Configuration Files

[Mirabella, Mathew J]

hi Luke.

I too would be interested in knowing what tinytalk is and where it can be run.
and i would also be interested in ways of customising speakup. I am very new to linux and very new to speakup... 

for those interested, yasr is another screen reader for linux, the yasr means yet another screen reader.  I don't know much about it, just that it exists.

there is ASAP, vocal eyes and jaws freeware for MSDOS and other DOS systems.  i have heard that asap is one of the best DOS screen readers, similar to speakup in some ways.

there is the artic transports business vision and winvision, for DOS and Windows 3x systems.
there is of course the jaws for windows and window eyes screen readers, and i have also seen a system called HAL, made by Dolphin.  this works on Windows 9x/Nt/2000 systems.
Zoomtext, mainly an enlarger, for windows, also has a speech component.
and lastly, microsofts own weak narrater and magnifier packages that come with the os.  They are not really good, but they exist.

also there are speech interfaces for particular applications in windows like ibm home page reader (a talking browser) and some other adaptive software people have written which uses the microsoft SAPI speech tts engine and voices.


-----Original Message-----
From: Luke Davis [mailto:ldavis at shellworld.net]
Sent: Saturday, 1 March 2003 7:26 AM
To: Speakup at braille.uwo.ca
Subject: Configuration Files


I am going to start work on modifying some aspects of Speakup.

The first thing I want to make possible, is some standardized interface
for a configuration file.  After which, I will try to start work on some
options that I need for my own work.

As yet, I have found no way in Speakup to control spoken punctuation,
among other things, in standard reading mode.  For example, in pine, I
normally note messages sent directly to me, by running quickly through the
index, and looking for plus signs at the beginning of the line.  In
Speakup, however, I have to park the curser, then go down, and read
current character, go down and read current character, etc., since it will
not automaticly say the plus sign during normal reading.

Also, being a programmer, and something of a linguist, I like to know of
all punctuation that is not understood from context.  In other words, I
have my normal screen reader (Tinytalk, which, btw, seems to oddly have a
lot in common with Speakup, to my surprise and delight), say all
punctuation other than period, question mark, comma, and exclamation
point (all of which can be understood from context, whereas
;()[]{}"':`~@#$%^&*/<>, etc., can not).

As such, making this customizable, will be my first effort, unless (1)
someone else is already working on it; (2) it is far harder than I
think it will be; or (3) it is already possible, and I am not well read
enough to know it (very possible).

Are any of those true--am I barking up the wrong binary tree; or should I
do this?

I am going to reread all of the docs before I start, but I am not booted
to Linux right now, and thought I would post this while still in my normal
environment, so I didn't have to bother with minicom.

Apologies if I'm stepping on anybody's toes.  I have to say, that despite
my critical comments (said opinions having not changed, re the kernel, and
so on), I am *highly* impressed with Speakup, and wish to commend those
who have been developing it.

There are some bugs, which I will address later, and I think the changes
file is a bit out of date.

 Thanks

Luke

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