[sword-devel] One of those weird ideas....

[peter]

I am at the moment trying to set up a laptop for a blind member of our
church.

One of the wonderful things here is obviously the festival support which
comes with gnomesword - Karl, thank you! - which gave me an idea for a
new feature - would it be possible for a module to contain sound files -
just as some now contain images?

I could imagine a commentary where each sound file is associated to
passage coming in really useful for a) for general use associating
already recorded sermons, lectures etc to biblical text and b)
specifically as a help for the blind.

I would think that it should be relatively straight forward (not being a
programmer makes all things appear straight forward :-) ) to have a link
launch e.g. totem or whatever other pre-existing media player is
associated with a particular filetype.

The advantages over the existing festival support is the natural voice
of a recording, the ability to make use of music etc and the
possibility to import existing taped sermon collections etc. The
disadvantage is obviously the loss of granularity and generality -
Festival can read each individual verse and could be used to read every
type of module, irrespective of whether it is recorded or not.

Festival is obviously not available for many languages.

Peter

[Anja Hofmann]

Hello!
Your suggestion sounds really great, not just for blind users, but also
for those learning English or other languages.

Post by peter
I would think that it should be relatively straight forward (not being a
programmer makes all things appear straight forward :-) ) to have a link
launch e.g. totem or whatever other pre-existing media player is
associated with a particular filetype.

Personally, I would add an XML tag to each text passage referring to the
respective audio file.

Post by peter
The advantages over the existing festival support is the natural voice
of a recording, the ability to make use of music etc and the
possibility to import existing taped sermon collections etc. The
disadvantage is obviously the loss of granularity and generality -
Festival can read each individual verse and could be used to read every
type of module, irrespective of whether it is recorded or not.
Festival is obviously not available for many languages.

How about mbrola http://tcts.fpms.ac.be/synthesis/mbrola.html ?
It's available for many operating systems and they also offer audio
samples on their web site, so you can decide whether the quality is good
enough for you.
The best results in text to speech synthesis could be reached by using
preformatted xml input (VoiceXML,Sable) where you can add changes in
pitch, speed, different voices etc. , but that would be another issue.
Best regards,
Anja Hofmann

[ransom82]

I have always thought something like the Blue Letter Bible
http://www.blueletterbible.org/cgi-bin/images.pl?book=1Cr&chapter=13&verse=2&version=KJV#2
would be nice. Their interface is a little strange, at least to me,
but having access to hymns and audio recordings for each verse is
really nice.

Post by Anja Hofmann
Hello!
Your suggestion sounds really great, not just for blind users, but also
for those learning English or other languages.

Post by peter
I would think that it should be relatively straight forward (not being a
programmer makes all things appear straight forward :-) ) to have a link
launch e.g. totem or whatever other pre-existing media player is
associated with a particular filetype.

Personally, I would add an XML tag to each text passage referring to the
respective audio file.

Post by peter
The advantages over the existing festival support is the natural voice
of a recording, the ability to make use of music etc and the
possibility to import existing taped sermon collections etc. The
disadvantage is obviously the loss of granularity and generality -
Festival can read each individual verse and could be used to read every
type of module, irrespective of whether it is recorded or not.
Festival is obviously not available for many languages.

How about mbrola http://tcts.fpms.ac.be/synthesis/mbrola.html ?
It's available for many operating systems and they also offer audio
samples on their web site, so you can decide whether the quality is good
enough for you.
The best results in text to speech synthesis could be reached by using
preformatted xml input (VoiceXML,Sable) where you can add changes in
pitch, speed, different voices etc. , but that would be another issue.
Best regards,
Anja Hofmann
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[DM Smith]

Another weird idea, allow for transliteration into braille. Probably
won't give the proper tactile response unless printed to a braille
printer.

Post by peter
I am at the moment trying to set up a laptop for a blind member of our
church.
One of the wonderful things here is obviously the festival support which
comes with gnomesword - Karl, thank you! - which gave me an idea for a
new feature - would it be possible for a module to contain sound files -
just as some now contain images?
I could imagine a commentary where each sound file is associated to
passage coming in really useful for a) for general use associating
already recorded sermons, lectures etc to biblical text and b)
specifically as a help for the blind.
I would think that it should be relatively straight forward (not being a
programmer makes all things appear straight forward :-) ) to have a link
launch e.g. totem or whatever other pre-existing media player is
associated with a particular filetype.
The advantages over the existing festival support is the natural voice
of a recording, the ability to make use of music etc and the
possibility to import existing taped sermon collections etc. The
disadvantage is obviously the loss of granularity and generality -
Festival can read each individual verse and could be used to read every
type of module, irrespective of whether it is recorded or not.
Festival is obviously not available for many languages.
Peter
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[peter]

Braille is good - but it relies on presence of a braille terminal - I
understand they are very expensive and not overly comfortable - so many
people rely on screen readers - which in turn will make it hard for us
to find anyone actually testing the programmes.

But I am totally new to this, so I have no clue. I will ask around what
is the most suitable way forward and will come back.

Peter

Post by DM Smith
Another weird idea, allow for transliteration into braille. Probably
won't give the proper tactile response unless printed to a braille
printer.

Post by peter
I am at the moment trying to set up a laptop for a blind member of our
church.
One of the wonderful things here is obviously the festival support which
comes with gnomesword - Karl, thank you! - which gave me an idea for a
new feature - would it be possible for a module to contain sound files -
just as some now contain images?
I could imagine a commentary where each sound file is associated to
passage coming in really useful for a) for general use associating
already recorded sermons, lectures etc to biblical text and b)
specifically as a help for the blind.
I would think that it should be relatively straight forward (not being a
programmer makes all things appear straight forward :-) ) to have a link
launch e.g. totem or whatever other pre-existing media player is
associated with a particular filetype.
The advantages over the existing festival support is the natural voice
of a recording, the ability to make use of music etc and the
possibility to import existing taped sermon collections etc. The
disadvantage is obviously the loss of granularity and generality -
Festival can read each individual verse and could be used to read every
type of module, irrespective of whether it is recorded or not.
Festival is obviously not available for many languages.
Peter
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[jonathon]

Post by peter
Braille is good - but it relies on presence of a braille terminal - I

Braille printer, not a Braille terminal.

Post by peter
understand they are very expensive and not overly comfortable - so many
people rely on screen readers

There are two major reasons why Braille Displays are not in common use:
* A very low percentage of people who are blind can read Braille;
* Braille monitors are very expensive. (Budget US$5K for the cheap models

They are comfortable to use. (Speaking both from personal experience,
and talking to people who are blind.)

Post by peter
- which in turn will make it hard for us to find anyone actually testing the programmes.

If a program works with a regular display monitor, it will work with a
Braille display unit.

Post by peter
is the most suitable way forward and will come back.

I think DM Smith was asking for something that would convert the text
to Braille, so it could be printed out. If that isn't what was being
requested, then a clarification is needed.

Along those lines, a tool to transliterate Greek, Hebrew, etc in the
Latin writing system might be a useful addition.

xan

jonathon

[Josh Gould]

If you have a certian limited number of devices (the BrailleLite M20
by Freedom Scientific comes to mind) will act as a refreshable braille
display for the standard output. the windows front end *is*
accessible, My fiancee tried it and we were able to work with it.

Josh

Post by jonathon

Post by peter
Braille is good - but it relies on presence of a braille terminal - I

Braille printer, not a Braille terminal.

Post by peter
understand they are very expensive and not overly comfortable - so many
people rely on screen readers

* A very low percentage of people who are blind can read Braille;
* Braille monitors are very expensive. (Budget US$5K for the cheap models
They are comfortable to use. (Speaking both from personal experience,
and talking to people who are blind.)

Post by peter
- which in turn will make it hard for us to find anyone actually testing the programmes.

If a program works with a regular display monitor, it will work with a
Braille display unit.

Post by peter
is the most suitable way forward and will come back.

I think DM Smith was asking for something that would convert the text
to Braille, so it could be printed out. If that isn't what was being
requested, then a clarification is needed.
Along those lines, a tool to transliterate Greek, Hebrew, etc in the
Latin writing system might be a useful addition.
xan
jonathon
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[peter]

Post by jonathon

Post by peter
Braille is good - but it relies on presence of a braille terminal - I

Braille printer, not a Braille terminal.

Is this really a function of te programme and not one of the printer driver?

Post by jonathon

Post by peter
understand they are very expensive and not overly comfortable - so many
people rely on screen readers

* A very low percentage of people who are blind can read Braille;
* Braille monitors are very expensive. (Budget US$5K for the cheap models

The prices I found were similar.

Post by jonathon
They are comfortable to use. (Speaking both from personal experience,
and talking to people who are blind.)

Good to know.

Post by jonathon

Post by peter
- which in turn will make it hard for us to find anyone actually testing the programmes.

If a program works with a regular display monitor, it will work with a
Braille display unit.

Good to know.

Post by jonathon

Post by peter
is the most suitable way forward and will come back.

I think DM Smith was asking for something that would convert the text
to Braille, so it could be printed out. If that isn't what was being
requested, then a clarification is needed.

Again, I would think that this is the function of the printer driver -
you simply print out your passages and that should be it.

Post by jonathon
Along those lines, a tool to transliterate Greek, Hebrew, etc in the
Latin writing system might be a useful addition.

This tool exists. I am just now searching for it. I had saw in Ubuntu
repositories. There is also toCyrillic a frirefox addon which does the
same job.

Post by jonathon
xan
jonathon
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[peter]

Post by peter

Post by jonathon
Along those lines, a tool to transliterate Greek, Hebrew, etc in the
Latin writing system might be a useful addition.

This tool exists. I am just now searching for it. I had saw in Ubuntu
repositories. There is also toCyrillic a frirefox addon which does the
same job.

The tool is called uconv. It was in the Ubuntu repositories, but is not
any more for reasons I do not know.

The code though appears to be here:

http://source.icu-project.org/repos/icu/icu/trunk/source/extra/uconv/

Hope that helps.

If that code is the same what I had a while back on my last laptop or
what tocyrillic does on Firefox, then it is exactly what you want.

Peter

[DM Smith]

Post by peter

Post by peter

Post by jonathon
Along those lines, a tool to transliterate Greek, Hebrew, etc in the
Latin writing system might be a useful addition.

This tool exists. I am just now searching for it. I had saw in Ubuntu
repositories. There is also toCyrillic a frirefox addon which does the
same job.

The tool is called uconv. It was in the Ubuntu repositories, but is not
any more for reasons I do not know.
http://source.icu-project.org/repos/icu/icu/trunk/source/extra/uconv/
Hope that helps.
If that code is the same what I had a while back on my last laptop or
what tocyrillic does on Firefox, then it is exactly what you want.

Transliteration is also built into the sword library if icu is enabled.
I think that Chris keeps it current with each major release of ICU. It's
use is a feature in BibleCS.

[Troy A. Griffitts]

Yes, DM is correct. Chris added ICU transliteration to SWORD years back.
To let your users enable it in your frontend you can make a simple call,
e.g.

mgr.setGlobalOption("Transliteration", "Latin");

"Latin" can be replaced with any of the following:

"Off",
"Latin",
"IPA",
"Basic Latin",
"SBL",
"TC",
"Beta",
"BGreek",
"SERA",
"Hugoye",
"UNGEGN",
"ISO",
"ALA-LC",
"BGN-PCGN",
"Greek",
"Hebrew",
"Cyrillic",
"Arabic",
"Syriac",
"Katakana",
"Hiragana",
"Hangul",
"Devanagari",
"Tamil",
"Bengali",
"Gurmukhi",
"Gujarati",
"Oriya",
"Telugu",
"Kannada",
"Malayalam",
"Thai",
"Georgian",
"Armenian",
"Ethiopic",
"Gothic",
"Ugaritic",
"Coptic",
"Meroitic",
"Linear B",
"Cypriot",
"Runic",
"Ogham",
"Thaana",
"Glagolitic",
"Tengwar",
"Cirth"

Post by DM Smith

Post by peter

Post by peter

Post by jonathon
Along those lines, a tool to transliterate Greek, Hebrew, etc in the
Latin writing system might be a useful addition.

This tool exists. I am just now searching for it. I had saw in Ubuntu
repositories. There is also toCyrillic a frirefox addon which does the
same job.

The tool is called uconv. It was in the Ubuntu repositories, but is not
any more for reasons I do not know.
http://source.icu-project.org/repos/icu/icu/trunk/source/extra/uconv/
Hope that helps.
If that code is the same what I had a while back on my last laptop or
what tocyrillic does on Firefox, then it is exactly what you want.

Transliteration is also built into the sword library if icu is enabled.
I think that Chris keeps it current with each major release of ICU. It's
use is a feature in BibleCS.
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[peter]

So back then to the sound files - would this be a possibility?

[Troy A. Griffitts]

Peter,

It would certainly be possible with the current engine software. It would
be dependent on the frontend to handle the new data in a module.

We just need to decide the best way to include information about audio and
what it means. We've heard some good suggestions.

If audio is present, we'll need a Feature=Audio in the .conf
and then a normal way. For images we use <img
src="relative/path/to/resourced"/>. For audio we could use <seg
type="x-audio">relative/path/to/resource</seg>

A simple filter to pull these into an entry attribute for frontends to
easily grab would be straight-forward. Likely under:
["Audio"]["001"]["src"] = relative/path/to/resource

Are we all in agreement that the usage we are talking about is an audio
resource which is EQUIVOLENT to the body of the entry?

We could conceivably talk about somethink IN the body like:

"To hear this greek word pronounced, <seg type="x-audio"
subtype="x-inline">relative/path/to/resource</seg>"

Thoughts?

-Troy.

Post by peter
So back then to the sound files - would this be a possibility?
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[peter]

Post by Troy A. Griffitts
Peter,
It would certainly be possible with the current engine software. It would
be dependent on the frontend to handle the new data in a module.
We just need to decide the best way to include information about audio and
what it means. We've heard some good suggestions.
If audio is present, we'll need a Feature=Audio in the .conf
and then a normal way. For images we use <img
src="relative/path/to/resourced"/>. For audio we could use <seg
type="x-audio">relative/path/to/resource</seg>
A simple filter to pull these into an entry attribute for frontends to
["Audio"]["001"]["src"] = relative/path/to/resource
Are we all in agreement that the usage we are talking about is an audio
resource which is EQUIVOLENT to the body of the entry?

That is what I meant, yes. I have for example 150 psalm readings in
Farsi and would simply set them as

$$$Psalm1:1-6
<seg> type="x-audio">audio/psalm1.mp3</seg>

etc

Post by Troy A. Griffitts
"To hear this greek word pronounced, <seg type="x-audio"
subtype="x-inline">relative/path/to/resource</seg>"
Thoughts?

That in turn is yet another interesting way to make use of the feature.

Essentially once the feature is enabled I presume it would function
exactly the same way as the images currently - which can be delivered
with explanatory text etc. The weighting of text vs audio vs image would
be largely a matter for the module designer.

Post by Troy A. Griffitts
-Troy.

Post by peter
So back then to the sound files - would this be a possibility?
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