Make X apps speak text too! fokSyf Eye R (Puppy and Ubuntu)

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mcewanw
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Make X apps speak text too! fokSyf Eye R (Puppy and Ubuntu)

#1 Post by mcewanw »

EDIT 15 Oct 2013: I've now uploaded some of my old project work including wiak and fokSy Eye R to website page: http://arkitektia.heliohost.org/softwaredesigns.html (currently down sorry)

Current Version: 1.0.0-1

Please uninstall any old version before installing the latest.

The program needs to be setup once the dotpet is installed. To do this, in a console enter the command:

Code: Select all

foksy setup
[Remember the space between foksy and setup].

You then need to reboot the machine once to have the set up changes take effect.


Please read installREADME.txt in detail before installing.


For Puppy 4.x.x series (and probably most Puppy versions higher than that) read the following post for altered installation instructions:

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 717#364717



***NOTE WELL: For successful installation it is essential that you do not
miss out any of the following installation steps:

1. Prior to installing this latest fokSyf Eye R system you should
uninstall any previous version.
[***IMPORTANT: NOTE that I accidentally left in /usr/lib/libespeak.a in
an earlier dotpet upload. It is not required.
You SHOULD delete it manually if it remains after this new installation,
since it is from a prior version of espeak.
However, uninstalling the previous version using PETget
probably removes it anyway...]

2. Install the new dotpet in the usual way. Ignore the three or four
warnings concerning missing dependencies. The next steps sorts that out.

3. Once you have installed this new version,
you need to open a console and execute the following to set up foksy:

foksy setup

[***NOTE WELL: the space between foksy and setup]

4. Then you should reboot your system before using foksy for the first time.


Running fokSyf Eye R:

1. After rebooting, you should then open a commandline window such as
an xterm or an rxvt console,
or you can simply press ctrl alt f2 to leave X windows for a virtual terminal.
In the case of the latter,
you will be asked for a login username and password.
By default the username is root, and there is no password,
so in that case simply press enter when asked for the password.
Note that you can return to the X G U I at any time,
from the virtual console, by simply pressing ctrl alt f3.

2. Once you are ready, to start the speech system simply enter the command:

ifoksy

If you wish, you can then start a fokSyf Eye R User Interface menu program,
by entering the command:

foksy

[*NOTE WELL that you can normally only initialise the
speech system once with the command ifoksy.
If you open a different commandline console later,
and want speech activated in that too,
you will need to enter the command yasr in that new console
before running foksy in there.
However, should speech fail to initialise at any stage,
simply enter the command, foksy --kill, and then you can try ifoksy again].

A help system is provided in foksy.

You can also use one of foksy's options.
For a list of foksy's options enter: foksy -? or foksy --help

Should speech fail to initialise at any stage,
simply enter the command, foksy --kill, and then try ifoksy again.


-----

The fokSyf Eye R, Screen Environment Reader: foxyf eye r mainfeatures.txt
Author: mcewanw Dated: 2008Mar06


Some Details on the Contents of foksyf eye r CORE-x.x.x

1. The main speech interface comprises three separate applications:

Yasr, speech-dispatcher and espeak.

Yasr does the job of reading whatever data is output by the user
programs being run (e.g. edbrowse), and sending that data via a
speech system management programme called "speech-dispatcher" to the
software synthesiser "espeak" that does the actual "speaking". In
practice, speech-dispatcher allows the speech synthesiser to be
replaced by alternative software or hardware synthesisers and/or
braille capable interfaces (using, for example, the program Brltty).
I haven't yet provided a dotpet for Brltty, since I don't have any
hardware to test it on; however, it is easy enough to compile and it
is likely to be included shortly in foksyf eye r CORE.


The currently provided user applications currently include:

2. Edbrowse

This program is created by Karl Dahlke, who is himself blind from a
very early age. Karl has consequently written edbrowse in such a way
that it is specially tailored for the needs of the visually impaired.
It combines the functions of a text editor, web browser (with secure
certificates ssl support and limited javascript), email (both smtp
send and pop3 receive), ftp, and file management. Edbrowse has a
steep learning curve, but it a great program to use once you have
mastered it. Note that, whilst browsing, edbrowse (version >= 3.3.3)
is now able to read and view many pdf files directly by automatically
converting them to html with the installed pdftohtml converter
utility.

2. Lynx.

This is a more conventional, albeit limited, screen-oriented web
browser. It also includes ssl support, but no javascript. Lynx is
easy to learn though, and it is well-known and respected in the
visually impaired community. Some users may prefer this to edbrowse,
despite its limitations.

3. The vi text editor

This is the classic ex/vi text editor. Unlike edbrowse, which is a
single-line oriented editor partly based on the classic UNIX text
editor ed, vi is a very powerful full-screen editor. However, its
"mode-oriented" nature, makes it difficult for some users to learn.
Nevertheless, there are many good reasons to learn the use of vi: not
only is it available by default on most UNIX/Linux systems, and
extremely flexible, many other applications can also be configured to
use vi keybindings.

4. The sc spreadsheet

This text-console spreadsheet uses vi keybindings for many of its
tasks. Though it is screen-based, the method it uses to write data to
the screen appears to be reasonably compatible with the "speaking
interface" provided by yasr, speech-dispatcher and espeak. It uses
much the same syntax as Excel for its functions, and appears to be
quite fully functioned.

5. krecspk

Krecspk is a hotkey-driven, console-oriented, audio recording program
for producing audio clips or podcasts in a variety of audio formats
such as Ogg Vorbis, mp3, and wav. It relies on the underlying "sox"
commandline utility for its audio recording and playback
functionality. Krecspk has also been specially written with the
visually impaired in mind, and to make it work seamlessly with the
yasr/speech-dispatcher/espeak combination. A "speaking" GUI frontend
for krecspk (called wrecspk) is also available.

6. foksy

This is a simple console-oriented menu system, which can be used to
provide convenient access to the foksyf eye r applications and help files. It
is not particularly sophisticated in its present form, but is
nevertheless quite functional. It also provides a simple help system,
allowing the user immediate access, both spoken and in text form, to
all the help files, tutorials, and readme files associated with the
above applications.

7. Commandline file converter utilities

These include

catdoc, for converting Microsoft doc and rtf files to txt format;
rtf2html, for converting Rich Text Format files to html format;
xls3csv, for converting Excel (TM) spreadsheets to csv format;
catppt, for extracting data from MS-Powerpoints;
pdftohtml, for converting Adobe pdf files to html format;
pdftotxt, for converting Adobe pdf files to txt format.

8. xsel

This utility allows foksy to almost seamlessly paste from text
highlighted selections in X, and from the X clipboard. fokSyf Eye R can thus
provide a truly hybrid screen reader experience when used alongside
X applications such as Opera, Seamonkey or Firefox, and X screen magnifiers.

Summary:

One of the major advantages of the fokSyfy Eye R, Screen Environment Reader
is that it is easy to install on various Linux distributions. For
example, it has been tested as working well on Puppy Linux
2.14R, 2.15.1, 3.01and 4.3.1 distributions. It is also extremely resource
efficient and small, being only a few Mbytes in download size.

Once foksyf eye r CORE has been installed, the system is immediately
available from any commandline window on execution of the startup
command: initsp

The user can then either simply use applications directly from the
commandline, or start up the menu/help system environment by
executing: menusp

[Note that the help system files are far from perfect in their
current form, since much of their content is simply rehashed forum
posts].

In summary, I wish to state my appreciation of the help I have been
receiving from Karl Dahlke, with regard to edbrowse usage and
functionality. Karl is in regular email touch with me and has gone
out of his way to patch edbrowse in such a way that it is more
functional for the Puppy Linux community in general.

mcewanw
Last edited by mcewanw on Mon 20 Mar 2017, 10:21, edited 114 times in total.

mcewanw
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help on yasr keybindings: its readme file attached

#2 Post by mcewanw »

Note on yasr documentation:If you install yasr, from the dotpet I've created, you will find a man page, readable in a text editor at this location:

/usr/local/share/man/man1/yasr.1

I imagine the same can be found on the SpeakPup iso (http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=24571).

The thing of most interest are the commands available in yasr, and the default keybindings.

However, it's probably easier to read the readme file that came originally in the yasr source files. I've attached a copy with this post. The forum doesn't allow no extension or dottxt extension files so I compressed it as a tar.gz which you'll have to decompress somewhere to read it. It shows commands such as alt-r for toggle review mode, and alt-w for read whole screen, and alt-l (alt-ell) for read line.
Attachments
yasrREADME.txt.tar.gz
(1.97 KiB) Downloaded 1199 times

mcewanw
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dotpet for yasr

#3 Post by mcewanw »

dotpet for yasr

See top message of thread.

mcewanw
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new edbrowse dotpet pre-configured

#4 Post by mcewanw »

***A very powerful pre-configured for murga forum dotpet of edbrowse now uploaded***

Sorry, to the large numbers who downloaded the previous dotpet, since you will need to now download this new one if you wish to experience the new murga forum macro functions. Add your name to this thread once you have managed to send your first post to murga forum using edbrowse :-) You'll need to consult the supplied READMEs and also the edbrowse documentation which the dotpet installs at /usr/local/share/doc/edbrowse/edbdoc.html

edbrowse is a commandline combined line-oriented text editor, email, and web browser program with javascript and ssl support.

I've uploaded a new dotpet which is more fully configured for use with Puppy linux. It comes with specially written macro functions scripts for easy web-browsing of murga puppy linux forum (including making reply posts).

I've temporarily attached the new dotpets and associated readme files to the top post of this thread until such time as they find their permanent home.

Compiled on Puppy version 2.17.1 but tested on both 2.17.1 and 3.01.

This works well with yasr/speech-dispatcher and espeak.
Refer to this thread for more details about edbrowse:

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 227#174227

Once you have installed it, you will find documentation (usage/commands etc) in /usr/local/share/doc/edbrowse/edbdoc.html

mcewanw
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IMPORTANT: md5sum failure on last speechdispatcher upload

#5 Post by mcewanw »

Something went wrong on my upload of speechdispatcher-0.6.5.pet and its md5sum turned out to be wrong. I'm in process of re-uploading and have asked Eric (Caneri) to refetch the file. My slow dialup is slowing my checking/re-uploading down though, so please be patient and come back to re-download that one file later (I'll post a message once it is ready).

mcewanw
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Okay, I've re-uploaded a good (checked) speechdispatcher

#6 Post by mcewanw »

Uploaded a good (md5sum checked) speechdispatcher to this thread (get it on the first post above).
All going well, it's md5sum should be:

f92148623df8fab5bcd12b96d1a7480e speechdispatcher-0.6.5.pet

edbrowse:
2670bce1dfad66b397a565736e1e760e edbrowse-3.3.2.pup2171ssl.pet

yasr:
57b43d832284af5ac288c9944a9bb472 yasr-0.6.9.pet

espeak:
1587a8ce615f9962186e4333038bec85 espeak-1.30-i486.pet

portaudio:
2d694e54fd1b715ddcc83e2156bc2fb2 portaudio-v19-i486.pet

dotconf:
590787db147d7dc281a7e96a8ee80920 dotconf-1.0.13.pet

User avatar
Keef
Posts: 987
Joined: Thu 20 Dec 2007, 22:12
Location: Staffordshire

Speechdispatcher

#7 Post by Keef »

Downloaded all the pets this evening, and all seems to be running well on a Dell 610 laptop running 2.14R (phoenix remaster version). Now its a case of flagellating myself with the birch twig that is edbrowse!! No Pain, No Gain!!!
Actually I have got on to the internet with it, mainly with the help of your examples, but have to confess I'm on Seamonkey at the moment.
I'm fully sighted, but work in the VI field, so I've been following your work (and the others, Trobin etc) with interest. Only wish I had the skills to help out.....

mcewanw
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NEW dotpet of edbrowse in process of being uploaded...

#8 Post by mcewanw »

Thanks for that feedback Keef, and I hope you are not feeling too much pain from the birch.

You may be happy to know that I have at last found how to update the ssl certificate file in edbrowse and have modified its config script to work well with my change accordingly. I am thus at this second in the process of uploading a new dotpet of edbrowse which contains the config changes (to Caneri's ScreenReaderEnviro repository). I am uploading the ssl certificate file itself as a separate dotpet because certificates do need to be updated from time to time. I'll post another message to let everyone know when the upload is complete with its md5sums tested.

If you have been following the Speaking Pup for the Blind thread today at all you may already have noticed that I have provided some instructions there for logging into the likes of Yahoo and Google email.

Thanks again for your post and I hope some of the work proves useful to the visually impaired, since that would make it all the more worthwhile. Of course, the real thanks has to go to Karl Dahlke who wrote the wonderful edbrowse program. All I am doing is some configuration that hopefully works in Puppy Linux.

mcewanw
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edbrowse and a current ssl certificate dotpet now ready

#9 Post by mcewanw »

Okay, it is all go...! The new edbrowse dotpet is ready, along with its ssl certificates dotpet and modified readme's. Refer to top post of this thread for download details.

mcewanw
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edbrowse updated from cvs/ new krecspk now available too

#10 Post by mcewanw »

On its author's advice I have recompiled edbrowse from its cvs sources and uploaded a new dotpet accordingly. I've also uploaded a new version of krecspk, specially crafted for use with edbrowse and now fully compatible with yasr and speech-dispatcher out of the box.

mcewanw
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quickly fixed a krecspk use issue I had overlooked

#11 Post by mcewanw »

Sorry, I had no sooner upload krecspk and was using it, when I discovered I had overlooked something I could easily fix. So I "fixed it" and have re-uploaded the dotpet. Same version number. It is a small file. If in doubt, reinstall it!

mcewanw
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forget last post

#12 Post by mcewanw »

Forget that quick! I uploaded the wrong krecspk dotpet (same as the old one...sigh). I'll upload the correct one as soon as I'm sure I have the right one... My apologies, I'm having a bad hair day.

mcewanw
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okay, krecspk re-uploaded

#13 Post by mcewanw »

Okay done. I uploaded the correct krecspk this time. Installed it, checked it, fine. Feel free to fetch it now!

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ScreenReaderEnviro additions!: Lynx with ssl, vi text editor

#14 Post by mcewanw »

The screen reader environment now also includes the lynx webbrowser and vi. The menusp dotpet and sreREADMEmain.txt has been modified to reflect these additions. The ssl certificates file has now been moved to the standard openssl location, allowing the same cacert file to be shared by edbrowse and lynx. The edbrowse dotpet has thus been modified to point to the new ssl cert location.

Visit top post of this thread for any further details and download instructions:

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=26184

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tuned up Lynx a wee bit and re-uploaded the dotpet

#15 Post by mcewanw »

I noticed that Lynx didn't store cookies persistently by default, so I have now set it to store them. I also reduced some of the preset delays associated with message text - makes it a little faster to use and doesn't ask quite so many questions about cookies. I've re-uploaded the tuned up version to Caneri's site as before.

mcewanw
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report on vi text editor

#16 Post by mcewanw »

I've had one report, from another thread, of the vi text editor, as provided in my dotpet, not working. However, I've tested it on my Puppy 2.17.1 machine and it works perfectly for me.

I'd be grateful if any of you who have used the vi dotpet provided could let me know if it worked okay for you, and on what hardware and Puppy version. If others are having trouble with it, I'd endeavour to find a work around or fix for the problem, but I need more info to sort out what the issue is.

Also, if anyone knows of a modeless full screen commandline usable text editor that doesn't have any status line (which tends to keep being spoken out by yasr/espeak) I'd be happy to hear about it. Not everyone likes vi (!) but I've not been able to find a simple full screen editor which works with yasr/espeak (the ones I have tried don't speak out what is happening on screen or speak out too much junk - such as an ever-changing status line). If you do suggest one, I'd be particularly interested in any special configuration it needs to make it work well with the yasr/espeak screen reader environment (e.g. any option allowing the turning off of the editor's status line).

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Keef
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#17 Post by Keef »

I've installed Lynx and Vi on 2.14R and both seem to be running OK. I had my doubts about Vi until I found out that you need to press Esc to enter any text! It could appear to be broken if you expected to be able to enter text straight away, which was my first thought. It runs though, which is what you need to know :)


Dell Latitude 610
512mb RAM
1.7G Intel

mcewanw
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vi needs an initial escape key press to enter command mode

#18 Post by mcewanw »

Keef wrote:I've installed Lynx and Vi on 2.14R and both seem to be running OK. I had my doubts about Vi until I found out that you need to press Esc to enter any text!
Thanks, Keef. Yes, vi takes a bit of getting used to since it is not modeless (i.e. it isn't automatically in insert text mode).
The basic commands any user needs in order to use vi are:

1. Either start vi with a filename to edit or tell vi what filename to use later. For example, when writing the edited file to disc at the end you can use the special colon command :w filename
2. Once vi has started, press escape key in order to enter main command mode.
3. Press 'i' key in order to enter insert text mode, or
4. press 'a' key in order to enter append text mode.
5. Press escape key, once you have finished adding text, in order to return to main command mode.
6. Press the special colon command :w followed by pressing enter key in order to write (i.e. save) your file to disc. If you haven't already done so, you need to supply a filename here. For example :w myfile.txt
7. Press the special colon command :q followed by pressing enter key in order to quit vi
8. If you want to quit vi without saving what you have done you need to press the special forcing colon command :q! followed by pressing enter key in order to forcibly quit vi
(i.e. the exclamation mark here means "force").

Note that you can combine the write and quit commands by entering :wq filename

I've now uploaded these instructions to my current screen reader environment repository (at Caneri's site) as the file viREADME.txt, in order to help people get started with using vi:

http://www.puppylinux.ca/tpp/ScreenReaderEnviro/

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edbrowseUSAGEexamples.txt now uploaded

#19 Post by mcewanw »

In addition to viREADME.txt, I've now also uploaded a collection of slightly edited forum posts on edbrowse usage examples in the file edbrowseUSAGEexamples.txt

Hopefully, these will help you learn how to use edbrowse. Note, that I was only learning edbrowse usage myself at the time I wrote these, so you will almost certainly find better ways of doing things.

Remember, once you have installed all the ScreenReaderEnviro dotpets, on whatever Puppy Linux system you are using, you can start up the whole SRE environment under menu control by simply entering the following two commands, one after the other, in a console commandline window:

Code: Select all

initsp
menusp

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menusp updated to version 0.8.1

#20 Post by mcewanw »

As well as the readme's mentioned in the above few posts, menusp has also been upgraded (now to version 0.8.1)

It now, using the vi program, also provides a rudimentary help system in its menu choices. For that to work, however, you need to install the two new dotpets:

menusp-0.8.1.pet
(you should uninstall menusp-0.8.0.pet first, using PETget package manager)

and

sreHELPSYSTEM-0.8.1.pet

All the latter really does is store the various SRE readme files in /usr/local/share/doc/sreadenv/

Unfortunately, espeak doesn't make too good a job of reading some of the help readme texts in their present form.

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