[Xerte] Re: Xerte 2: MVC approach to displayed text

[Kemp Johnathan]

I have looked at TTS software quite recently, but with a view to finding a
free solution.

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 paralink.com's offering. It was free to use and
delivered a good quality speech rendering, particularly the male voice.

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.

I am afraid we have both wondered somewhat of the original topic of this
posting :-)

Kind regards

Johnathan

On 3 May 2011 13:27, Julian Tenney <Julian.Tenney at nottingham.ac.uk> wrote:

> 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.
>
>
>
> *From:* xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk [mailto:
> xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] *On Behalf Of *Kemp Johnathan
> *Sent:* 03 May 2011 13:02
> *To:* Xerte discussion list
> *Subject:* [Xerte] Xerte 2: MVC approach to displayed text
>
>
>
> 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.
>
>
>
> 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?
>
> Currently pages like the quiz page have embedded in the code in the .rlm
> file statements like
>
> fb = 'The quiz is complete.
>
> tooltip="Next Question"
>
> fb += '<br><br>You scored '
>
>
>
> 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.
>
>
>
> 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.
>
>
>
> *xwd content*
>
>
>
> <wizard>
>
> <!--DIALOG
> INTERACTION------------------------------------------------------------------->
> <dialog hint="An interaction comprising a sequence of text-entry
> interactions forming a short dialog.">
>
> <text type="TextArea" height="100" label="Text"/>
> <attempts type="ComboBox" width="100" options="1,2,3,4" label="Attempts
> before hint"/>
>
> <narration type="media" label="Narration" optional="true"/>
>
> <newNodes>
> <dialogStep><![CDATA[<dialogStep name="question" question="Write your
> question here." answer="Enter Answer" hint="Enter a hint"/>]]></dialogStep>
> </newNodes>
>
> </dialog>
> <dialogLang>
> <tryAgain type="TextInput" label="Try Again Prompt"/>
> <continue type="TextInput" label="Continue Prompt"/>
> <showAnswer type="TextInput" label="Reveal Prompt"/>
> </dialogLang>
>
> <dialogStep menuItem="Question" icon="icComment" remove="true" max="12">
>
> <question type="TextArea" height="100" label="Question"/>
> <answer type="TextInput" label="Answer"/>
> <commentary type="TextArea" height="100" label="Commentary"/>
> <hint type="TextInput" label="Hint"/>
>
> </dialogStep>
>
> </wizard>
>
>
>
> *XML content*
>
>
>
> <learningObject>
> <dialogLang tryAgain="Try Again" continue="Press Enter to continue"
> showAnswer="The correct answer has been revealed" />
> <dialog linkID="" text="Enter text for the page here" attempts="2">
> <dialogStep name="question" question="Write your question here. 1"
> answer="Enter Answer 1" hint="Enter a hint 1" />
> <dialogStep name="question" question="Write your question here. 2"
> answer="Enter Answer 2" hint="Enter a hint 2" />
> </dialog>
> </learningObject>
>
>
>
> *Rlm examples*
>
>
>
> The model file can then access the language strings defined in the wizard
> by calls to the xml data
>
>
>
> pageIcon.templateData.learningObject[0].dialogLang[0].showAnswer
>
>
>
> (With forthcoming changes to the Page Wizards this will soon be reduced
> to   pageIcon.templateData.dialogLang[0].showAnswer  )
>
>
>
> I have tested this and it works.
>
>
>
> 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.
>
>
>
> However it requires separate blocks outside of the <dialog></dialog> tags
> which may not prove compatible with pageTemplates.
>
>
>
> *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?*
>
>
>
> 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.
>
>
>
> Kind regards
>
>
>
> Johnathan
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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