[Xerte] TTS Engines

Tue May 3 14:03:00 BST 2011

Probably need to roll our own then. Its been a  while since I went down this road. IE can (obviously) quite easily output TTS, using the system's hardware, right? Isn't there some easy way to set the sound input to record from the sound output, then just use IE to generate the sounds? A bit quick and dirty, but I don't see why not...?

Then you can get hold of whatever voices you can find and install them into windows. There are some really good ones now.

So, can you record to a file the system's sound output, anyone?

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 14:00
To: Xerte discussion list
Subject: [Xerte] Re: Xerte 2: MVC approach to displayed text

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<http://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<mailto: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> [mailto: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

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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