$Id: NOTES,v 1.7 1999/11/24 14:09:06 raman Exp $
Notes On Using IBM ViaVoice Outloud with Emacspeak:

* Pre-requisites:

You need to download and install the IBM ViaVoice Outloud
engine.
The Outloud engine itself is not distributed as part of this
package --you can obtain it from 
http://www.ibm.com/software/speech/dev/downloads.html

The Outloud speech server uses midi for producing auditory
icons.  You need to obtain and install package stdiosynth
from http://www.leb.net/pub/blinux/emacspeak/blinux/stdiom.tar.gz


 * Installation:

** Is Outloud Working?

Once you have successfully obtained and install IBM ViaVoice
Outloud for Linux, first verify that the synthesis engine
works by running the sample programs that come with that
package.  Only after verifying that they work and that you
hear the speech output should you proceed to installing the
Emacspeak Outloud support.

**  Have You Installed Emacspeak?

Before attempting to build and install ViaVoice Outloud
support for Emacspeak you should first install Emacspeak the
normal way.  See the Emacspeak Makefile for instructions.

** Compiling Outloud Support For Emacspeak:

Change to the linux-outloud subdirectory 
of the Emacspeak source distribution.
   make 
This should compile the Emacspeak Outloud TCL library to
produce a file called tcleci.so.


** Installing Outloud Support:

In the linux/outloud directory type
make install

This should copy over the relevant files to where you've
already installed emacspeak.

* Testing:

Next, test that your installation of the Emacspeak Outloud
support works.  The ViaVoice Outloud speech server is called
outloud and is installed in the emacspeak directory along
with other speech servers.

To test this server, do:
   tcl <full path to outloud>
This should speak a welcome message and display a tcl>
   prompt
if all is well.
   
* Using Outloud With Emacspeak:

Proceed to this step *only*
after successfully completing all of the previous steps.
You can either make the Outloud engine your default
synthesizer by setting environment variable 
DTK_PROGRAM as follows befoer launching Emacs:
export DTK_PROGRAM=outloud

Alternatively,  you can switch to the Outloud engine while
emacspeak is running by 
invoking command dtk-select-server --type
C-e d d ret outloud ret 


* Using outloud as the default synthesizer:

Once you've confirmed that everything is working with the
Outloud engine and Emacspeak, you can make outloud your
default synthesizer by:

** If you start emacspeak by typing emacspeak:

   Supply the -o command-line option i.e. 
start emacspeak as 
emacspeak -o

** If you have emacspeak launched from inside your .emacs:

set variable dtk-program to "outloud" 
before you load emacspeak-setup.el


* Missing Features:

The following standard emacspeak features are not yet supported:

*** All caps beep 

*** Capitalization beep

*** Pause and Resume

* Known Problems:

**  Outloud server dies sporadically:


*** Avoid Character echo if possible

There is a known problem with the ViaVoice Outloud engine on
Linux when stopping and starting speech in rapid succession.
When using Emacspeak, this bug manifests itself as the speech
server sporadically dying.

In my own use, I've found the Outloud server to be mostly
usable with character echo turned off.  However, expect to
have to restart the server at times by hitting C-e C-s until
this bug in the Outloud engine goes away.

*** Sound Device Should be Free:
If you have other programs using the sound device, the
Outloud engine will not work.
If you use the Outloud engine for your primary TTS,
you will not get any speech feedback if you play realaudio
or use other programs that open and hold the wave device.

This problem will eventually go away when the Enlightenment
Sound Daemon (ESD)
becomes robust enough to be used by both Outloud and
Realaudio.





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