Digital Workshop

Following on from a thread in the Lounge about using MSAgents, I've had a looking into passing a variable to a TTS application.

I couldn't find anything of use on the web, but did find some C# code that I hacked a little and managed to get work. As 'Hello World' is about my level of understanding for C#, credit goes to the original programmer.

This simple publication displays a text box. After entering your text and pressing return, the text is wrapped in speech makrs and passed to the C# application using the launch application action.

The text in the box is then read aloud. Please feel free to try this within your application or from a console. Simply call the PlethosSpeech.exe followed by the text to speak in quotation marks. You do need MS voices installed and the speech can be control from applet in the Control Panel.

As I only have the C# express edition, I think (???) this prohibits the application from being sold but if anybody wants the source, let me know.

I have created several applications using Opus and Text to Speech, one was a talking barcode scanner for visually impaired people for my MSc in I.T. I also developed a talking alarm clock for visually impaired people. I use Text Aloud which works very well with Opus. You need Text Aloud running in the background, then simply copy text to the clipboard and it is read out. I also use some enhanced voices from A.T &T the quality is excellent. I did look at using Java or C#, but using Text Aloud is so much easier. If you want a very quick and easy implementation of TTS using Opus, check out TextAloud from nextup.com. Their support is excellent. You can also use Text Aloud to create speech in MP3, which can be useful for some applications.

This might be a daft question, but the only copy function I could find was using an action. There doesn't seem to be away to do this using a script command. Maybe I missed something - as using clipboard reader was my first choice, but I need to pass it to the TTS via a script.

Unfortunately that is correct. I got round it by using scripting to put the text in a variable, then using the command to copy the variable to the clipboard. It worked very well. The secret is to concatenate everything in the script into one variable, then copy the variable to the clipboard. that way you get round having to wait for the TTS to finish. If you have to use scripting, then it may not be suitable. I haven't had the chance to look at your program, but will as soon as possible--it sounds interesting. The thing that I dislike about using the launch application is the DOS window you get. NextUP also produce a command line version of their TTS. It may be worth a look. I tried it, but I was put off by the window problem. It also is very expensive to licence compared to the standard application which is only $30. They do evaluation versions of both.

Hi Sandyn,

I can't see anyway around using scripts which means no copy command . I've even looked into using a non Opus javascript command, but for security reasons, java doesn't provide a simple copy to clipboard statement either. I then wondered whether it would be possible to copy the variable to an on-screen textbox and trigger the CTC action via a script, but not sure if that's possible.

As for the TTS, that the console window was the first thing that bugged me. However, the one included in the example doesn't produce a window.

In my application, I just had a script, followed by the Copy Variable to Clipboard command, then back into another script, but a copy variable script command would be a much more elegant solution.


How did you get round the DOS window??? or is it just in the background and can't be seen?? I've tried the 'hide DOS window' approach, but it always set alarm bells ringing with my virus checker.

I compiled the C# app as a win32 exe without a form. So technically, it's not a dos application but a windows one without the window

Yes, I think there are several script commands that would be extremely useful that can only be performed as actions.

That's very interesting. I create console applications in C# and compile to an EXE, but still get the console window (DOS window) appearing. To compile I use the command line compiler (csc.exe) CSC TheProgram.cs. Did you start with a console application and how did you compile??

MS C# Express Edition.

Cheated. Copied code from what should have been a console application and loaded into windows app. Then compiled.