how to tell which synthesizer is active

[William Hubbs]

On Tue, Sep 08, 2009 at 12:36:20AM -0400, covici at ccs.covici.com wrote:
> I want to do this only at boot time, but this sounds like it could have
> a lot of false hits.  I still think the synth could be set to none when
> this happens -- any reason why not?
 
 Hi John,

When we deactivate speakup because of too many timeouts, we don't
actually release the synthesizer.  What we do is similar to what happens
when print screen is pressed.

The code does not set the synth parameter to none in this case because
the synthesizer driver is still active in the system, it is just waiting
for you to press print screen before it starts sending data to the
synthesizer.

I could change the code so that it actually releases the synthesizer
when it deactivates, but, if I do that, you would have to use talkwith
or some other method to activate your synthesizer if speakup deactivates
because of timeouts, which is probably not what you want.

The other change I might be able to make would lead to the synth parameter being
none whenever the synth is deactivated or released including when print
screen is pressed.  What do you think?

William