Speech-friendly alsa mixer (sam) released, testers needed

Wed Apr 10 16:41:36 EDT 2019

Howdy Willem,

I tried SAM. It works and is amazingly small, but the voice is horrible.

So and although the binary be named sam, I do not object that you
call sam this Simple Alsa Mixer. I am not entitled to object anyway <smile>

Also it is highly unlikely that you be sued for using the same name
as is is supposed to be Abandonware.

I also found a forked GitHub with some more recent commits for SAM:
https://github.com/vidarh/SAM but am too lazy to try it.

Sorry for the digression, back to the topic.

I have tried sam in qemu with 3 sound cards

It first lets me choose which one to set up, as expected.

However my tests are otherwise inconclusive, as increasing
or decreasing the volume had no effect; even if I change the
card in use by espeaup typing ALSA_CARD=<somecard> espeakup.

@Janina: it would be interesting to know your findings with
real hardware.

Other than that:  if I increase the volume to 100% and
press Enter again the volume stays @ 100% but I hear nothing.

That's not an issue for me (I am sighted) but could confuse
a blind user, I assume. Maybe play a sound or say a warning
in this case like "already 100%" in this case?

Best,

Didier

PS I just read Chime an Jude's answers before posting. 

On 10/04/2019 15:22, Willem van der Walt wrote:
> Hi Didier,
> I am glad to here it works with Slint.
> About the name:
> I just had to call it something, I am open to suggestions for a better name.
> First it was console_mixer_alsa, but that was long and not too descriptive.
> Hopefully, most people would not need to install using the tar file, but perhaps I were too precise.
> https://pypi.org/project/pyalsaaudio/#files is likely enough.
> I am used to python2, but I suppose I should look into changing the code so that it can work on both.
> If there is enough interest in the program I will make time to do it.
> 
> I will see what the feedback is and let you know, but you are welcome to package whenever you want.
> Kind regards, Willem
> 
> 
> On Wed, 10 Apr 2019, Didier Spaier wrote:
> 
>> [The e-mail server of the sender could not be verified (SPF Record)]
>>
>> Hello Willem,
>>
>> sam works on Slint64-14.2.1.2 using any console screen reader. Well, at
>> least with espeakup, speechd-up and fenrir <smile>.
>>
>> I still have to test with several sound cards, will do in a qemu VM.
>>
>> Congrats!
>>
>> I will package it for Slint as soon as you tell it's ready for release.
>>
>> Some minor remarks:
>> 1. There is a software called SAM (mind the capital letters):
>> https://github.com/s-macke/SAM
>> Isn't there a risk of confusion?
>> 2. in README.md you wrote:
>>> 3. Alternatively, grab the tar.gz from https://files.pythonhosted.org/packages/52/b6/44871791929d9d7e11325af0b7be711388dfeeab17147988f044a41a6d83/pyalsaaudio-0.8.4.tar.gz
>> But there is a SHA256SUM on this page that the reader could miss:
>> https://pypi.org/project/pyalsaaudio/#files
>> Maybe it's not accessible though as it's not an hyperlink, the html code for it is the 4 following line:
>> <a class="-js-copy-hash table__sha256-link tooltipped tooltipped-s" aria-label="Copy to clipboard" data-original-label="Copy to clipboard" data-clipboard-text="84e8f8da544d7f4bd96479ce4a237600077984d9be1d7f16c1d9a492ecf50085">
>>                      <i class="fa fa-copy" aria-hidden="true"></i>
>>                      <span class="sr-only">Copy SHA256 hash</span>
>>                      SHA256
>>                    </a>
>> not sure what to do here...
>> 3. Maybe you could consider porting sam to python3? pyalsaudio can be
>> built for python3, but TBH that's all I know, I didn't try to use it so.
>>
>> Best,
>>
>> Didier
>>
>> On 10/04/2019 12:14, Willem van der Walt wrote:
>>> OK, I made the change to use python2 and uploaded again.
>>> HTH, Willem
>>>
>>>
>>> On Wed, 10 Apr 2019, Samuel Thibault wrote:
>>>
>>>> [The e-mail server of the sender could not be verified (SPF Record)]
>>>>
>>>> Chuck Hallenbeck, le mer. 10 avril 2019 05:52:15 -0400, a ecrit:
>>>>> On Wed, 10 Apr 2019, Samuel Thibault wrote:
>>>>>> Chuck Hallenbeck, le mer. 10 avril 2019 05:33:10 -0400, a ecrit:
>>>>>>> I am using arch, and had to use pyalsaaudio from the AUR to satisfy the
>>>>>>> requirements for sam, but on first executing it, I get this:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> [groucho at workshop ~]$ sam
>>>>>>>   File "/usr/local/bin/sam", line 152
>>>>>>>     print ''
>>>>>>>            ^
>>>>>>> SyntaxError: Missing parentheses in call to 'print'. Did you mean
>>>>>>> print('')?
>>>>>>> [groucho at workshop ~]$
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Any suggestions? Looks like an interesting idea.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> This is a python2 vs python3 issue.
>>>>>>
>>>>> Okay, that's helpful. Arch names the different pythons python2 and
>>>>> python.  Not sure if debian does it that way, or calls them python and
>>>>> python3. .
>>>>
>>>> It's python (for python2) and python3 for now.
>>>> sam should use python2 explicitly until being compatible with python3
>>>> (which should probably not be very hard)
>>>>
>>>> Samuel
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>>>>
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>>