Tech: online text to speech APIs -experience??

Subject: Tech: online text to speech APIs -experience??
From: Mr Red
Date: 23 Oct 19 - 03:26 PM

I am trying to make a website user-friendly to blind people and would like to investigate the possibility of using something like Google's   text to speech service. There are two main questions

technology and how to use it (in simple terms)
financial and how that works

Basically the free service probably starts with your credit card and over 4 million characters (a month) of use you don't know how open is open-ended!

There may be much I can do with playing my own audio. the site is all about audio tracks - Stroud Voices

Any idea anyone?

Subject: RE: Tech: online text to speech APIs -experience??
From: Jack Campin
Date: 23 Oct 19 - 04:02 PM

Blind people I know all use JAWS. They're paying for it so there's no incentive for them to experiment with free alternatives.

Subject: RE: Tech: online text to speech APIs -experience??
From: Mr Red
Date: 24 Oct 19 - 04:29 AM

JAWS is an app. A browser layer. To give blind people a chance there is a lot of HTML that can (and should ) be done that sighted people don't see. But it is a fudge, the best you can do,
I want options to make the experience "responsive", as the jargon has it these days.

My idea is to tell people what they can do to use the my site, and the core search engine is 150K of JavaScript (and growing) - I am not going to change that. Whatever I do has to be a layer on top of that.

Telling blind people is easier in speech. Asking them to find, is a bind. Telling them where it is in audio, is far better. They are not deaf!

They are not being asked to experiment - it will be handed them on a plate, I don't want them to stick their fingers in the mashed potato as they fumble around aiming for the ceramic bit.

And whatever I do, will still be accessed via JAWS, (Job Access With Speech).

Subject: RE: Tech: online text to speech APIs -experience??
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 24 Oct 19 - 12:48 PM

Windows has some ability to read text and take dictation, but I've never used it. I'm seeing it in Windows 10 and in the newest Microsoft Office software (Word, in particular).

Subject: RE: Tech: online text to speech APIs -experience??
From: Mr Red
Date: 25 Oct 19 - 05:15 AM

Win 10 might be interesting, but I am trying to be universal, work on any normal browser, any OS. The audio help is now done. But can be re-done.
the page for the visually impaired - although I have tinkered with the basic software, it will be the same for both pages (ie sighted). And there is a layer to add things for the V I page. A work in progress, it has to be said. If any 'Catters know of V I peeps who want to try it and provide feedback, it would be much appreciated.

Subject: RE: Tech: online text to speech APIs -experience??
From: Mr Red
Date: 28 Oct 19 - 03:11 AM

Being a website with loads of audio and a few audio players, the obvious choice has been to use what has already been mostly done.

There is one limitation - that of playing an audio as soon as the page loads. Modern browsers basically expressly inhibit that.

My solution, for those familiar with JavaScript and HTML, was to trigger an event on the first key press, that then looks like the user has triggered the event, which is allowed. Not sure how functional this is as JAWS is a layer on browsers and may not pass on key presses. Mouse moves, which might have been an option, yet ineffective because JAWS obviates mouse use (that is somewhat visual after all).

Subject: RE: Tech: online text to speech APIs -experience??
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 29 Oct 19 - 10:55 AM

There are sites that have popup windows with "are you leaving?" messages as soon as you start mousing toward the X in the corner, or start any large movement at all. I hate those. Not necessarily a good choice, if others have the same reaction (to close the offending popup as quickly as possible).

Subject: RE: Tech: online text to speech APIs -experience??
From: Mrrzy
Date: 29 Oct 19 - 12:33 PM

Are we talking about talk-to-text, which I need, or text to audio?