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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-GB link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>There are some very good free text-to-speech tools. A couple of portable solutions that run directly from a memory stick without Admin rights include Balabolka and DSpeech. The issue with both of these is that they will simply take your default system voices which tend to be golden oldies like Microsoft's Sam or Microsoft Mary. If you are lucky enough to live in Scotland and are part of the Scottish education system there is free voice Heather licenced to educational institutions. JISC TechDis has been given the go-ahead to develop a similar high-quality English voice but this is at an early stage so won’t be ready for a while. Zamzar.com does a good web-based conversion to MP3 as does RoboBraille.org. The free version of naturalreaders.com also does a reasonable voice but to save as an MP3 you need to upgrade to the commercial version.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Paralink is very good though – thanks for the link – I’d not seen it before.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Alistair<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div style='border:none;border-top:solid #B5C4DF 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0cm 0cm 0cm'><p class=MsoNormal><b><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>From:</span></b><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'> xerte-bounces@lists.nottingham.ac.uk [mailto:xerte-bounces@lists.nottingham.ac.uk] <b>On Behalf Of </b>Kemp Johnathan<br><b>Sent:</b> 03 May 2011 14:00<br><b>To:</b> Xerte discussion list<br><b>Subject:</b> [Xerte] Re: Xerte 2: MVC approach to displayed text<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal>I have looked at TTS software quite recently, but with a view to finding a free solution.<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>There are a number of offerings that provide some kind of free download, but in general the quality of the voices is poor. The software available is able to provide high quality TTS but only if you buy the better voices. This was why I was impressed with <a href="http://paralink.com">paralink.com</a>'s offering. It was free to use and delivered a good quality speech rendering, particularly the male voice.<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>I would prefer something that I could install locally as it is unlikely to be significantly affected by a change in business model, but for the time being paralink's offering is the best free offering I have come across, particularly so once you realise that despite the web site not offering the option to download an audio file of the reading, you can still make your own recording directly to Audacity without the need for a microphone by tinkering with your audio mixer settings.<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>I am afraid we have both wondered somewhat of the original topic of this posting :-)<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>Kind regards<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>Johnathan<o:p></o:p></p></div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal>On 3 May 2011 13:27, Julian Tenney <<a href="mailto:Julian.Tenney@nottingham.ac.uk">Julian.Tenney@nottingham.ac.uk</a>> wrote:<o:p></o:p></p><div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D'>Have you looked for some windows applications for generating TTS sound files from text? I haven’t for a while, but the more recent voices are really good. There was an application – I forget what it was called now – that allowed you to generate the mp3s directly on windows, using the SAPI stuff on your system, so you could install whatever voices you wanted. Must be something out there.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D'> </span><o:p></o:p></p><div style='border:none;border-top:solid #B5C4DF 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0cm 0cm 0cm'><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;margin-left:36.0pt'><b><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:10.0pt'>From:</span></b><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:10.0pt'> <a href="mailto:xerte-bounces@lists.nottingham.ac.uk" target="_blank">xerte-bounces@lists.nottingham.ac.uk</a> [mailto:<a href="mailto:xerte-bounces@lists.nottingham.ac.uk" target="_blank">xerte-bounces@lists.nottingham.ac.uk</a>] <b>On Behalf Of </b>Kemp Johnathan<br><b>Sent:</b> 03 May 2011 13:02<br><b>To:</b> Xerte discussion list<br><b>Subject:</b> [Xerte] Xerte 2: MVC approach to displayed text</span><o:p></o:p></p></div><div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;margin-left:36.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;margin-left:36.0pt'>Recently someone posted for help in locating where some text strings were contained in pages as they wanted to convert the page for use in a language other than English.<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;margin-left:36.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;margin-left:36.0pt'>Would it be a good idea to establish a standard by which all displayed text in a Xerte Page model was entered via the page's wizard?<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;margin-left:36.0pt'>Currently pages like the quiz page have embedded in the code in the .rlm file statements like <o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;margin-left:36.0pt'>fb = 'The quiz is complete.<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;margin-left:36.0pt'>tooltip="Next Question"<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;margin-left:36.0pt'>fb += '<br><br>You scored '<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;margin-left:36.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;margin-left:36.0pt'>If all such text was replaced with data calls to an external xml source then these strings could be readily modified using an xwd defined form. This could open up Xerte more readily for use internationally.<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;margin-left:36.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;margin-left:36.0pt'>I have been doing some testing recently with Page Wizards and have found that I can add a language block to the xwd and xml files e.g.<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;margin-left:36.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;margin-left:36.0pt'><b>xwd content</b><o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;margin-left:36.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;margin-left:36.0pt'><wizard><br><br><!--DIALOG INTERACTION-------------------------------------------------------------------><br><dialog hint="An interaction comprising a sequence of text-entry interactions forming a short dialog."><br><br><text type="TextArea" height="100" label="Text"/><br><attempts type="ComboBox" width="100" options="1,2,3,4" label="Attempts before hint"/><br><br><narration type="media" label="Narration" optional="true"/><br><br><newNodes><br><dialogStep><![CDATA[<dialogStep name="question" question="Write your question here." answer="Enter Answer" hint="Enter a hint"/>]]></dialogStep><br></newNodes><br><br></dialog><br><span style='color:#3366FF'><dialogLang><br><tryAgain type="TextInput" label="Try Again Prompt"/><br><continue type="TextInput" label="Continue Prompt"/><br><showAnswer type="TextInput" label="Reveal Prompt"/> <br></dialogLang></span><br><br><dialogStep menuItem="Question" icon="icComment" remove="true" max="12"><br><br><question type="TextArea" height="100" label="Question"/> <br><answer type="TextInput" label="Answer"/> <br><commentary type="TextArea" height="100" label="Commentary"/> <br><hint type="TextInput" label="Hint"/> <br><br></dialogStep><br><br></wizard><o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;margin-left:36.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;margin-left:36.0pt'><b>XML content</b><o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;margin-left:36.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;margin-left:36.0pt'><learningObject><br><span style='color:#3366FF'><dialogLang tryAgain="Try Again" continue="Press Enter to continue" showAnswer="The correct answer has been revealed" /></span><br><dialog linkID="" text="Enter text for the page here" attempts="2"><br><dialogStep name="question" question="Write your question here. 1" answer="Enter Answer 1" hint="Enter a hint 1" /><br><dialogStep name="question" question="Write your question here. 2" answer="Enter Answer 2" hint="Enter a hint 2" /><br></dialog><br></learningObject><o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;margin-left:36.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;margin-left:36.0pt'><b>Rlm examples</b><o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;margin-left:36.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;margin-left:36.0pt'>The model file can then access the language strings defined in the wizard by calls to the xml data <o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;margin-left:36.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;margin-left:36.0pt'>pageIcon.templateData.learningObject[0].<span style='color:#3366FF'>dialogLang[0].showAnswe</span>r<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;margin-left:36.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;margin-left:36.0pt'>(With forthcoming changes to the Page Wizards this will soon be reduced to pageIcon.templateData.dialogLang[0].showAnswer )<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;margin-left:36.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;margin-left:36.0pt'>I have tested this and it works.<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;margin-left:36.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;margin-left:36.0pt'>This approach has the distinct advantage of providing a separate page in the wizard form, for the language strings, thus avoiding having forms that are significantly longer than the window in which they are displayed. It also separates the display related text from the content related text. <o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;margin-left:36.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></p></div><div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;margin-left:36.0pt'>However it requires separate blocks outside of the <dialog></dialog> tags which may not prove compatible with pageTemplates. <o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;margin-left:36.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;margin-left:36.0pt'><b>Can anyone more aufait with pageTemplates or On-line toolkits see any problems with this approach in terms of it being transferred to pageTemplates / On-line toolkits, or can you think of a better way that would be more compatible with the way the xml and xwd data is organised in the pageTemplates environment?</b><o:p></o:p></p></div></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;margin-left:36.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;margin-left:36.0pt'>As a result of other recent development work I have carried out on the Page Wizards I believe a single .rlm file that could be used both within Page Wizards and pageTemplates (and presumably therefore On-line toolkits) is now achievable. I would like therefore to consider the implementation of better support for language support in a context that considers both Page Wizards and pageTemplates based pages.<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;margin-left:36.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;margin-left:36.0pt'>Kind regards<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;margin-left:36.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;margin-left:36.0pt'>Johnathan<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;margin-left:36.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;margin-left:36.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;margin-left:36.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;margin-left:36.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;margin-left:36.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></p></div></div></div></div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p>This message and any attachment are intended solely for the addressee and may contain confidential information. If you have received this message in error, please send it back to me, and immediately delete it. Please do not use, copy or disclose the information contained in this message or in any attachment. Any views or opinions expressed by the author of this email do not necessarily reflect the views of the University of Nottingham. <o:p></o:p></p><p>This message has been checked for viruses but the contents of an attachment may still contain software viruses which could damage your computer system: you are advised to perform your own checks. Email communications with the University of Nottingham may be monitored as permitted by UK legislation. <o:p></o:p></p></div><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><br>_______________________________________________<br>Xerte mailing list<br><a href="mailto:Xerte@lists.nottingham.ac.uk">Xerte@lists.nottingham.ac.uk</a><br><a href="http://lists.nottingham.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/xerte" target="_blank">http://lists.nottingham.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/xerte</a><br><br>This message and any attachment are intended solely for the addressee and may contain confidential information. If you have received this message in error, please send it back to me, and immediately delete it. Please do not use, copy or disclose the information contained in this message or in any attachment. Any views or opinions expressed by the author of this email do not necessarily reflect the views of the University of Nottingham.<br><br>This message has been checked for viruses but the contents of an attachment<br>may still contain software viruses which could damage your computer system:<br>you are advised to perform your own checks. Email communications with the<br>University of Nottingham may be monitored as permitted by UK legislation.<br><br><o:p></o:p></p></div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></body></html>