Features/Text To Speech In The Toolkit

Summary

Sugar have a global text to speech feature, you can select any text and do TTS with the device in the frame or with a keystroke.

But activities also do TTS for specific cases. Some activities doing it are Clock, Read, Memorize or Write.

There are a lot of code copied in every activity to implement it.

Owner

• Name: Gonzalo Odiard

• Email: godiard at sugarlabs.org

Current status

• Targeted release: 0.104
• Last updated: 2014-07-18
• Percentage of completion: 0%

Detailed Description

These are the functionalities needed by the activities

say(text,[voice], [pitch], [rate])

voice, pitch and rate are optionals, if not set use the default values configured.

Return a id to enable pause and stop

pause(id)

stop(id)

get_languages()

Return array of translated language names (to show in the UI),

and the voice name related in the backend.

get_voice(lang)

lang is a language code

Return the best voice name available for the language.

Activities using TTS

• Clock

say the time in the default voice

• Memorize

user can select the language and the game say text in the selected voice.

games based on Art4apps do TTS if a sound file is not available.

• Read

The user can select a languages from a list and make the activity do TTS on the text using that voice

The user can pause and stop

• Speak

The user can select a languages from a list, pitch and rate, and make the activity do TTS on the text using that voice

The user can pause and stop

• Story

• TurtleBlocks

• Write

The user can select a languages from a list and make the activity do TTS on the text using that voice

The user can pause and stop

Benefit to Sugar

Easier implementation of TTS in activities. Right now, there are a lot of code, usually implementing TTS with more than one backend, and with code copied from other activities.

Faster startup of activities. Initialize gstreamer takes a substantial time.

Scope

What work do the developers have to accomplish to complete the feature in time for release? Is it a large change affecting many parts of the distribution or is it a very isolated change? What are those changes?

UI Design

Does the feature have a direct impact on the work flow, or does it need a UI? Link here mockups, or add detailed descriptions.

How To Test

Features/Text To Speech In The Toolkit/Testing

User Experience

If this feature is noticeable by its target audience, how will their experiences change as a result? Describe what they will see or notice.

Dependencies

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Contingency Plan

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Documentation

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Release Notes

The Sugar Release Notes inform end-users about what is new in the release. An Example is 0.84/Notes. The release notes also help users know how to deal with platform changes such as ABIs/APIs, configuration or data file formats, or upgrade concerns. If there are any such changes involved in this feature, indicate them here. You can also link to upstream documentation if it satisfies this need. This information forms the basis of the release notes edited by the release team and shipped with the release.

Comments and Discussion

• Link to the discussion of this feature on lists.sugarlabs.org
• See discussion tab for this feature