speech-dispatcher: Current State
1.4 Current State
=================
In this version, most of the features of Speech Dispatcher are
implemented and we believe it is now useful for applications as a device
independent Text-to-Speech layer and an accessibility message
coordination layer.
Currently, one of the most advanced applications that works with
Speech Dispatcher is 'speechd-el'. This is a client for Emacs, targeted
primarily for blind people. It is similar to Emacspeak, however the two
take a bit different approach and serve different user needs. You can
find speechd-el on <http://www.freebsoft.org/speechd-el/>. speechd-el
provides speech output when using nearly any GNU/Linux text interface,
like editing text, reading email, browsing the web, etc.
Orca, the primary screen reader for the Gnome Desktop, supports
Speech Dispatcher directly since its version 2.19.0. See
<http://live.gnome.org/Orca/SpeechDispatcher> for more information.
We also provide a shared C library, a Python library, a Java, Guile
and a Common Lisp libraries that implement the SSIP functions of Speech
Dispatcher in higher level interfaces. A golang interface is also
available on <https://github.com/ilyapashuk/go-speechd>. Writing client
applications in these languages should be quite easy.
On the synthesis side, there is good support for Festival, eSpeak,
Flite, Cicero, IBM TTS, MBROLA, Epos, Dectalk software, Cepstral Swift
and others. See ⇒Supported Modules.
We decided not to interface the simple hardware speech devices as
they don't support synchronization and therefore cause serious problems
when handling multiple messages. Also they are not extensible, they are
usually expensive and often hard to support. Today's computers are fast
enough to perform software speech synthesis and Festival is a great
example.
Info Catalog
speech-dispatcher: Features Overview
speech-dispatcher: Introduction