1 KTTS -- KDE Text-to-Speech -- is a subsystem within the KDE desktop
2 for conversion of text to audible speech. KTTS is currently under
3 development and aims to become the standard subsystem for all KDE
4 applications to provide speech output. Currently, KTTS consists of
5 the following components:
8 The KDE Text-to-Speech Deamon, a non-gui application that runs in
9 the background, providing TTS support to KDE applications. Applications
10 initiate TTS by making DCOP calls to kttsd.
13 An application for configuring the KTTS System and for managing in-progress
14 speech jobs. kttsmgr provides an icon in the system tray for performing
15 these functions as needed.
18 A KPart for managing in-progress speech jobs.
21 A KControl module for configuring the KTTS System. kcmkttsd runs in the
22 KDE Control Center or start it with the command "kcmshell kcmkttsd".
25 A plugin for the KDE Advanced Text Editor that permits you to speak an entire
26 text file or any portion of a file.
29 A plugin for Konqueror that permits you to speak all or any portion of an
30 HTML web page. (Note: this component is in kdebase/konqueror/kttsplugin)
32 Original Author: José Pablo Ezequiel "Pupeno" Fernández <pupeno@kde.org>
33 Current Maintainer: Gary Cramblitt <garycramblitt@comcast.net>
35 Olaf Schmidt <ojschmidt@kde.org>
36 Gunnar Schmi Dt <gunnar@schmi-dt.de>
37 Paul Giannaros <ceruleanblaze@gmail.com>
38 Jorge Luis Arzola <arzolacub@hotmail.com>
39 David Powell <achiestdragon@gmail.com>
42 * Speak contents of a text file.
43 * Speak KDE notification events (KNotify).
44 * Speak all or part of the text of a web page in Konqueror.
45 * Speak all or part of the text in Kate text editor, including
46 instances where Kate is embedded in another KDE application.
47 * Long text is parsed into sentences. User may backup by sentence
48 or paragraph, replay, pause, and stop playing.
49 * Filter plugins for converting chat emoticons to speakable words,
50 fix mispronunciations, and convert xhtml to SSML.
51 * Audio output via aRts, ALSA, GStreamer (version 0.8.7 or later),
55 * Priority system for screen reader outputs, warnings and messages,
56 while still playing regular texts.
57 * Plugin-based architecture for support of a wide variety of speech
58 synthesis engines and drivers.
59 * Permit generation of speech from the command line (or via shell scripts)
60 using the KDE DCOP utilities.
61 * Provide a lightweight and easily usable interface for applications
62 to generate speech output.
63 * Applications need not be concerned about contention over the speech device.
64 * FUTURE: Provide support for speech markup languages, such as VoiceXML, Sable,
65 Java Speech Markup Language (JSML), and Speech Markup Meta-language (SMML).
66 * FUTURE: Provide limited support for embedded speech markers.
67 * Asynchronous to prevent system blocking.
71 KDE 3.2 or greater and a speech synthesis engine, such as Festival. Festival
72 can be obtained from http://www.cstr.ed.ac.uk/projects/festival/. Festival
73 is distributed with most Linux distros. Check your distro CDs. Also works
74 with Hadifix, Epos, Festival Lite (flite), FreeTTS, or any command that can
79 * The sox utility is needed for adjusting overall speech rate.
80 * The xsltproc utility is needed for SSML support.
81 * GStreamer 0.8.7 or greater.
85 (http://accessibility.kde.org/developer/kttsd/handbook/index.html)
87 for complete instructions on installing, compiling, configuring, and using
92 KTTS can be built with the following audio plugins. The "Default Configure
93 "Option" column shows the default option for the configure command.
94 The "Alternate" column gives the opposite configure option:
96 System Plugin Default Configure Option Alternate
97 ------ ------------ ------------------------- ------------------------
98 aRts artsplayer --with-arts --without-arts
99 ALSA alsaplayer --with-alsa=check --with-alsa=no
100 GStreamer gstplayer --with-gstreamer=no --with-gstreamer=check
101 aKode akodeplayer --with-akode=no --with-akode=check
103 You *must* have at least one of these plugins for KTTS to work.
105 The aKode and GStreamer players are not built by default because they have issues
106 with instant stopping and starting.
110 The following speech synthesizer plugins are all built by default.
111 Some of them are runtime only dependent upon non-free software.
112 (Non-free according to Debian Policy). The "Configure Option to
113 not build" column shows the configure command to not build the plugin:
115 Synth License Configure Option to not build
116 ------------- -------- -----------------------------
117 Festival free --disable-kttsd-festivalint
118 Festival Lite free --disable-kttsd-flite
119 Epos free --disable-kttsd-epos
120 Command free --disable-kttsd-command
121 Hadifix non-free --disable-kttsd-hadifix
122 FreeTTS non-free --disable-kttsd-freetts
124 IMPORTANT NOTE TO BINARY PACKAGERS:
125 Please do not distribute binary packages of kdeaccessibility with the
126 gstreamer plugin, as this creates unwanted dependencies. Instead,
127 distribute the gstreamer plugin in a separate package, e.g.
128 kde-accessibility-extras. The separate package should require
129 gstreamer >= 0.8.7. Thank you.
135 http://accessibility.kde.org/developer/kttsd
137 In addition to the KDE Bugzilla database (bugs.kde.org), discussions for KTTSD
138 currently take place in the kde-accessibility mailing list. Subscribe at
139 https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-accessibility. Developers
140 also hang out in IRC (irc.kde.org channel #kde-accessibility).
144 libktts Library for applications desiring to speak text. This must be built first.
145 libkttsd Library for KTTSD. Defines the interface for plugins for KTTSD. Must be built second.
146 players Audio plugins for KTTSD.
147 artsplayer aRts audio plugin for KTTSD.
148 gstplayer GStreamer audio plugin for KTTSD.
149 alsaplayer ALSA audio plugin for KTTSD.
150 akodeplayer aKode audio plugin for KTTSD.
151 plugins Plugins for KTTSD. You must have at least one plugin to use KTTSD.
152 festivalint Plugin for Festival using Festival Interactive mode (festival --interactive).
153 flite Plugin for Festival Lite.
154 hadifix Plugin for Hadifix.
155 freetts Plugin for FreeTTS.
156 epos Plugin for Epos.
157 command Generic command plugin.
158 kttsd KTTSD itself. Non-interactive deamon.
159 icons Icon for kttsmgr and KTTSD.
160 kttsjobmgr A KPart used by kcmkttsmgr for managing text jobs in KTTSD.
161 kcmkttsmgr A KControl module for managing KTTSD. Run using "kcmshell kcmkttsd".
162 kttsmgr Application for managing KTTSD. Wrapper for kcmkttsmgr plus a system tray icon.
163 app-plugins Plugins for other applications to speak text.
164 kate Embedded Kate plugin.
165 compat Copy of kdelibs/interfaces/kspeech. Used when compiling for KDE less than 3.4.
166 debian Debian packaging files. (possibly way out of date)