[Sugar-devel] Speak Activity

[Walter Bender]

On Thu, Aug 13, 2015 at 6:31 AM, Tony Anderson <tony_anderson at usa.net> wrote:
> Hi, James
>
> The current help shows the 'traditional' Speak. I thought you wanted me to
> document the change with new screenshots, etc. Personally,
> I see no problem with the traditional technique. It makes the language
> selection more accessible and its what users know.

It is what some users know. In any case, the change was not just for
change sake: (1) in the old version, the main toolbar did not fit when
the screen was rotated into portrait mode, which led to the decision
to (2) move the language selection to the same submenu as the other
voice-related controls. IMHO, which as maintainer carries some weight,
the button is not used often enough to merit a spot on the main
toolbar. But if I get enough push back from users -- yours is the
first since I made the change more than 1 year ago -- I'd consider
moving it back when the laptop is in portrait mode.

>
> The 'Arabic' issue is quite other. A language is implemented in Speak by
> supplying a file of phonemes corresponding to the language as it is spoken
> in
> a particular area (e.g. Arabic may be pronounced differently in Egypt and
> Morrocco. The phonemes are coded using linguistics conventions. At one
> point, we tried to get a Nepali langauge by modifying the phonemes of Hindu
> - this turned out to be beyond the capacity of some very intelligent
> interns.
> We could perhaps find if the contributor of Speak has added languages to his
> version which we have not incorporated in Speak - but that would be a new
> version and some work. Volunteers are certainly welcome.

If you can find someone willing/able to do the work, I am happy to
lend whatever support I can.

-walter

>
> Tony
>
> On 08/13/2015 09:47 AM, James Cameron wrote:
>>
>> No, not really.
>>
>> The documentation still needs changing for the position of the
>> language selection, using the latest version of Speak, regardless of
>> your problem with Arabic missing.  That's what I thought you were
>> suggesting with:
>>
>>> Perhaps the Help description on Speak should be updated.
>>
>> Underneath Sugar, your problem of Arabic support is that "espeak
>> --voices" command doesn't list Arabic, because it is not supported in
>> eSpeak:
>>
>>         http://espeak.sourceforge.net/languages.html
>>
>> A quick search for espeak arabic yields Al-Mintiq and ar-espeak
>> projects.  Fedora doesn't have these packaged.
>>
>> So it looks like a challenge to add Arabic.  Let us know how you go
>> with that.
>>
>> On Thu, Aug 13, 2015 at 08:53:16AM +0200, Tony Anderson wrote:
>>>
>>> Wouldn't it be better to make Speak work as described in the
>>> documentation?
>>>
>>> Tony
>>> On 08/13/2015 12:48 AM, James Cameron wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Yes, please update it Tony.
>>>>
>>>> https://github.com/godiard/help-activity/blob/master/source/speak.rst
>>>> http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Help/Contribute
>>>>
>>>> On Wed, Aug 12, 2015 at 03:59:58PM +0200, Tony Anderson wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Hi, Walter
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks. Sadly, that shows we don't have Arabic support in Speak.
>>>>> Perhaps the
>>>>> Help description on Speak should be updated.
>>>>>
>>>>> Tony
>>>>>
>>>>> On 08/12/2015 03:40 PM, Walter Bender wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>      On Wed, Aug 12, 2015 at 9:22 AM, Tony Anderson
>>>>> [1]<tony_anderson at usa.net> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>          Hi, Gonzalo
>>>>>
>>>>>          I am getting involved in a new deployment  which needs Arabic
>>>>> support. So I
>>>>>          was trying to describe what is available and what may need
>>>>> some work. I
>>>>>          wanted
>>>>>          to point to the Speak activity but first wanted to check if
>>>>> Arabic is one of
>>>>>          the languages. I was a bit surprised to find that language
>>>>> selection is not
>>>>>          in
>>>>>          version 51 (13.2.5). The help activity still shows it in the
>>>>> screen-shot.
>>>>>
>>>>>      It is still there, just under the voice attributes toolbar instead
>>>>> of
>>>>>      on the main toolbar. See attached.
>>>>>
>>>>>      regards.
>>>>>
>>>>>      -walter
>>>>>
>>>>>          Tony
>>>>>          _______________________________________________
>>>>>          Sugar-devel mailing list
>>>>>          [2]Sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org
>>>>>          [3]http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
>>>>>
>>>>>      _______________________________________________
>>>>>      Sugar-devel mailing list
>>>>>      [4]Sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org
>>>>>      [5]http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
>>>>>
>>>>> References:
>>>>>
>>>>> [1] mailto:tony_anderson at usa.net
>>>>> [2] mailto:Sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org
>>>>> [3] http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
>>>>> [4] mailto:Sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org
>>>>> [5] http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
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-- 
Walter Bender
Sugar Labs
http://www.sugarlabs.org