Hi, Neophite wrote: Thanks for the tip about there being a version of Frotz with a screen reader built in.
My reply: Actually, that's not technically correct. Microsoft Windows comes with a technology called the Microsoft Speech API or Sapi for short. Sapi is an API that is used to create and control a number of Sapi compatibl voices. Unlike a screen reader, per say, Sapi is only there for speaking text sent to it by a program. It has no screen reader abilities etc in of itself. So just think of Sapi as the computers voice if you will. So what Winfrotz TTS does is it copies the text on the screen and sends it to Sapi to be spoken. Since neither of the programs allows you to review the screen, speak applications outside the Winfrotz TTS environment, etc therefore it is not in fact a screen reader. We call this kind of program self-voicing because it speaks the stuff related to Winfrotz via Sapi 5, but doesn't provide the same abilities as a screen reader. Neophite wrote: Does anyone use winfrotz TTS, or is it better to use a more recent version of frotz with your own screen reader software? My reply: Personally, I find Winfrotz TTS invaluable for playing inform style adventures because it automatically speaks the text on the screen as well as a few other things. Running Winfrotz by itself with a screen reader also means I have to do a fair amount of reviewing the screen and looking around for the last prompt etc. That gets old real quick. Winfrotz TTS is better because it takes a lot of effort out of playing text adventures. Neophite wrote: Some sections of text being read just jumble together. Is that a normal experience using a screen reader? Or, is it something in the winfrotz reader? My reply: That unfortunately is one of the problems with Winfrotz TTS. True screen readers like Jaws, Orca, Window-Eyes, NVDA, etc don't have this problem. Screen readers are more customizable allowing you to turn off things you don't want to be spoken such as punctuation marks as well as using acception dictionaries to change how certain things are spoken. Winfrotz TTS is very static were screen readers are very customizable. For example, a number of years ago I met a young laidy who was from the south. Naturally being from the south she had a very heavy southeren accent and used a lot of slang like y'all, you'ins, you get the picture. However, typically screen readers like Jaws, Window-eyes, etc are textbook perfect English. She didn't like it and used the Jaws acception dictionary to change you all to y'all and various other frazes to sound, well, more southeren. When I heard Jaws talking like that i couldn't help but laugh my butt off. It was great. However, the point is you can do that with Jaws, but with Winfrotz TTS because it just copies text and sends it to Sapi you have very little control over how it comes out punctuation marks, symbols, and all. Without using special speech rules etc Sapi will tend to run on and string things together robotically without pausing to sound more human/natural. Screen readers have special speech rules in place to pause between sentences etc to sound more natural and realistic. Make sense? Neophite wrote: I realise now how annoying extra symbols are. In the game, it came across a line made up of about forty underlines and it just went "under line under line under line under line". Is there something you can do to avoid those kind of situations, or is it something you just put up with, and hope that authors do it as little as possible? My reply: Well, this too is a problem with Winfrotz TTS. As long as you use Winfrotz TTS there isn't much you can do but to put up with it. if Winfrotz TTS had the features of a real screen reader you could set the punctuation level to full, most, some, or none, and disable the pspeaking of some symbols like the underline symbol. In this case you can't. the only alternative is to use Winfrotz with a real screen reader like NVDA or something. Now, you want to know something really annoying? Try a game that has a lot of text art. Now, that will drive you up the wall. Since we can't see it and we are hearing a mindless string of letters, numbers, and symbols it is beyond insane. Cheers! --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gam...@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
