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Release Kodi Screen Reader (Text to speech)
Information 
Added a new version to my repository and Kodi official repo: 1.0.4.

You can also get it or the repository from the Downloads Page.

Changes:
  • Add German translation - thanks to donkamillo
  • Fix keymapeditor speech
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(2015-09-28, 11:50)donkamillo Wrote: Just done! :-) I never used pastebin, so I don't know how to do that. I'll PM you a link so you can download it from my dropbox, if that is OK?

Regards!
Thanks for doing that, much appreciated. It's in the latest version.
(2015-10-01, 06:51)echospot Wrote: I attempted to email you @ruuk but it the website wouldn't let me. I just barely hopped on the addon development train so bear with my novice level.

Is there anyway to use you TTS addon from other addons? For example, I'm working on an alarm clock of sorts which involves using lirc to turn on my tv, a tts engine saying w/e morning greeting I'd like, etc etc. I'm looking into the xbmc.executebuiltin but I'm not sure if that's how I should access your engine from my plugin. If worse comes to worse, whats the best way about merging your engine into my addon? (under your discretion of course).

Thanks!
echospot

Here's a link to some code that will allow you to send speech to the addon: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ruuk/s...oSpeech.py

Save that to a .py file, import it and use it's method sayText(text,interrupt=False)

Will only work with the latest version. I realized I removed some of the code that allowed this to work, but fixed it for 1.0.4 Smile
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Hello,
I am a totally blind user and I'm really really appreciating your job, I'm friend and co-worker of Falcon03 (italian translator); kodi + screen reader add-on allow me to have access to audio and video services which are inaccessible otherwise; it's very encouraging, to have the ability to access many many media contents just via some simple keyboard commands! I'm using it on OSX, right now.
Unfortunately, there's currently a problem on OSX El Capitan, which affects all third-party apps, in association with airplay devices, Kodi screen reader included, the airplay problem has been discussed in another kodi community thread, but as I'm a screen reader user, I'd like to warn other people in same situation here.
As airplay devices are currently not supported on El Capitan by setting them from Kodi's settings - system - audio output, the only way to have Kodi working on airplay is to set the airplay as system default sound card from OSX's sound preferences.
Unfortunately, as far as I can understand, OSX does not provide a way to set system speech coming from internal soundcard while music and other audio coming from wherever else; this can be done from VoiceOver utilities, but this affects just VoiceOver, OSX's screen reader, but not other internal speech warnings, such as attention messages, time speaking and Kodi screen reader.
The consequence is that, setting airplay as default system device, will cause a big latency when performing commands through keyboard, because Kodi must pass the input through airplay which then speaks it to us; and also kodi sounds pass through airplay.
Till Yosemite, I was able to have my Kodi screen reader speaking from internal soundcard of my mac, as I just set built-in speakers as default system output, while airplay was set as default Kodi's output from player's settings.
I hope this will be fixed; or, as I read in screen reader's todos, RUUK will manage to set VoiceOver as Kodi screen reader output.
Thanks for the great job, and trusting it will grow up and become better and better.
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Information 
Added a new version to my repository and Kodi official repo: 1.0.5.

You can also get it or the repository from the Downloads Page.

Changes:
  • Add client=t to Google backend URL to fix 503 errors
Reply
Thank you Ruuk. BTW, I have been having issues with WMC and my server, so I started using the HDHomerun add-on. It is usable with speech, however, there are several things that are off about it with speech, Like it reading the user path some times and reading next airing before it reads what is currently on. It is a really nice add-on. I hope that you get a chance to take a look at these issues. With that said I would like to thank you and HD-homerun for the great add-on.
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Hello,
I love your add-on, enjoying it so much, but I found a big issue on OSX El Capitan with this screen reader.
To be able to use it properly, with no latency, OSX's default sound card must be set to built-in speakers, problem affects Airplay devices.
Till 10.10 version of OSX, I had no problems. From the OSX sound settings panel, I set the output device to be built-in speaker then from Kodi's user interface I set airplay as Kodi's output and the effect then was, screen reader was talking from the computer, while music and tv played through my airplay high-quality big speakers.
Now, with OSX 10.11, things change: setting Airplay from Kodi, no longer properly works - music comes from the airplay speaker only if I turn airplay on from OSX's system preferences, without touching Kodi; sound cards are no longer independent, this means the screen reader will talk from the airplay, together with music, and performing commands give a very bad latency making it more difficult to use.
Let me suggest you to take a look of a feature: from Kodi screen reader's configuration, have the ability to set which sound card must be used by the screen reader.
VoiceOver (OSX screen reader) allows me to establish which sound card it uses for speech, and of course it's the built-in speakers; it would be nice also if Kodi screen reader would have this possibility: choose which sound card must be used for the screen reader, overriding system's setting. Whatever you set on the operating system -Windows osx or whatever- as sound card preference, screen reader Always speaks from the one you set on its configuration, such as the computer's built-in speaker.
Just a suggestion, let me know. Otherwise, I suppose it's just a matter of time as you are planning to use applescript to allow VoiceOver to manage Kodi's screen reader (i did read it on changelog.txt file on the ToDo section)
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Dear Ruuk, is it possible to play MP3 (pre-recorded TTS) file using JSON during video playback?
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(2015-10-23, 16:13)Kvantos Wrote: Dear Ruuk, is it possible to play MP3 (pre-recorded TTS) file using JSON during video playback?

Not via Kodi, but the Google TTS uses available system players to play the MP3 audio that is returned. Not sure what you mean by using JSON. What are you trying to do?
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2ruuk
I cant use the Google TTS because use the RPi (openelec).
My goal to play short mp3/wav (pre rendered TTS) while playing a video on RPi.
I can not use TTS speech server (php / python) because it does not work correctly with the Cyrillic alphabet.
I try using JSON like: JSONRPC.NotifyAll {"message":"SAY", "data" :{ "interrupt" : "true", "text": "utf-8 text2hex"}, "sender":"service.xbmc.tts"} for speech init, but it not correctly work with russian cyrillic alphabet & russian TTS on remote PC
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Hello there
I have a raspberry pi that I use it to run a web server. I want to try and install an operating system on it that has kody, So i could listen to youtube on my tv with it. The problem is that I'm a newb and I don't know what OS to install and what to do.
I googled and I found open elec, xbian, OSMC and more. Which of these can have kody screen reader and are easy to install?
Do i need a sighted person beside me to install kody screen reader on my raspberry pi?
Edit: I just booted open elec with my raspberry pi. It seems as if it's not connected to my network via lan. Does this have an initial boot wizard?
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Hi!

I hate to rehash this over and over again, as I am sure it has been, but on OS X the only way to install the add-on seems to be manually copying the files into ~/Library/Application Support/Kodi/Addons
and it is then supposed to work after that.

However, it doesn't seem to do so reliably. I had a working version, but I had to reproduce the installation steps to make sure I was doing it right on someone else's behalf, so I removed Kodi entirely and started from scratch. First, I installed Kodi and launched it. Quitting Kodi and ensuring the folders were present, I installed the screen reader add-on from
http://ruuk.github.io/service.xbmc.tts/
by copying the service.xbmc.tts folder to ~/Library/Application Support/Kodi/Addons
As far as I recall, that is all I did last time I got it to work, although it didn't seem to be consistent that time either.

Looking at kodi.log, I get this:

16:18:49 T:123145312116736 ERROR: EXCEPTION Thrown (PythonToCppException) : -->Python callback/script returned the following error<--
- NOTE: IGNORING THIS CAN LEAD TO MEMORY LEAKS!
Error Type: <type 'exceptions.ImportError'>
Error Contents: cannot import name backends
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/Users/ImaginaryUser/Library/Application Support/Kodi/addons/service.xbmc.tts/main.py", line 30, in <module>
from service import TTSService
File "/Users/ImaginaryUser/Library/Application Support/Kodi/addons/service.xbmc.tts/service.py", line 10, in <module>
from lib import backends
ImportError: cannot import name backends
-->End of Python script error report<--

Any ideas? Running OS X 10.11.1.

Thanks!
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You need to install from the zip on the downloads page. Installing from git won't work.
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I managed to install osmc and get screen reader add on working. but there's a problem I don't know how to fix. If i keep the pi on and leave it idling, the screen reader stops talking.
So like i've left kodi for 1 hour, when i get back at it, I can hear the navigation sound, but no screen reader
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(2015-11-09, 12:33)Darien Wrote: I managed to install osmc and get screen reader add on working. but there's a problem I don't know how to fix. If i keep the pi on and leave it idling, the screen reader stops talking.
So like i've left kodi for 1 hour, when i get back at it, I can hear the navigation sound, but no screen reader

If this the Pi 1, I don't really recommend it for use with the screen reader (or for Kodi in general for that matter). In any case, you should have the screen reader use an external player or have the speech program output directly, rather that have it use the default Kodi PlaySFX method. That seems to have helped this sort of thing in the past.
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(2015-11-09, 17:43)ruuk Wrote:
(2015-11-09, 12:33)Darien Wrote: I managed to install osmc and get screen reader add on working. but there's a problem I don't know how to fix. If i keep the pi on and leave it idling, the screen reader stops talking.
So like i've left kodi for 1 hour, when i get back at it, I can hear the navigation sound, but no screen reader

If this the Pi 1, I don't really recommend it for use with the screen reader (or for Kodi in general for that matter). In any case, you should have the screen reader use an external player or have the speech program output directly, rather that have it use the default Kodi PlaySFX method. That seems to have helped this sort of thing in the past.

Hello,
This is a pi 2 actually. I'm new to this so I have no idea, what do you mean by the screen reader being used on an external player?
Currently i hear espeak from my tv speakers, as same as kodi's output.
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