Getting Started
by Richard Wells
Hello: My name is Richard wells. I have been hearing about this
environment for many years but have never investigated it for myself.
For someone like me who has no idea at all where to go to get started,
how would you suggest I begin learning? My experience with computers has
been diverse with some Linux, but mostly Microsoft Windows and Apple
Macintosh. Please be gentle with a user with absolutely no idea of what
emacspeak is and how to get productive using it.
3 months, 1 week
Emacspeak and Mac OS
by Tim Cross
OK, tonight I just booted up my Mac Book Pro after several months of not
using it. I need to go somewhere and now need a laptop.
I updated to the latest version of Emacspeak and I have Emacs 28.1
installed (railwaycat's macports version).
Problem is, I cannot get the mac speech server to work. I recall posts
to the list with people having issues due to newer versions of python
being used on latest macOS. However, I am running an old mac book pro
which cannot be upgraded to macOS 12.x. It is running Big Sur
11.6.8. The python version is 2.7
When I try to run the server, I get an error telling me it cannot find
the foundation module. If I try to use pip to install the foundation
module I get other problems (likely due to the old 2.7 version of
python).
I then tried updating python to 3.10 and was able to install founation
module using pip. However, then the mac server tells me it cannot load
the PyObjCTools module. When I try to install that module, pip tells me
there is no version available for python 3.10.
This is the sort of frustration I always run into with python and the
very reason I absolutely hate it as being one of the worst language
environments I've ever had the misfortune to deal with. I'd rather
battle c#, visual basic and .NET!
CAn someone tell me what would be the easiest way to get a working mac
speech server on a mac book pro running big sur. Which python version
should I be using? Do I need to use an older version of Emacspeak to get
a version of the mac server which works with a pre pyton3 environment?
If I have to install a python3 environment, which one 3.6, 3.7, 3.8, 3.9
or 3.10? (I initially had 3.9 installed, but the mac server could not
find the foundation module despite pip telling me it was installed - and
yes, I was very careful to ensure the python interpreter, pip and
pyton-conf were all consistent 3.9 versions, even running just the
interpreter and trying to load the foundation module manually
failed). Can I use pip to install all necessary modules and which of
these will I need to install. If not, what/how should I install them?
I've not gone down the rabbit hole of python virtual environments and
would like to avoid that route if possible - it should not be necessary
just to get the mac server working.
If I had more time, I would chase all this down myself, but I need to
get this system working quickly and have not got time to chase down all
the issues. I need a basic recipe which will work for Big Sur.
8 months
emacspeak with other languages
by Александар Средојевић
Hi all, I have a problems when trying to use emacspeak with languages
other than english, or at least all of those that use any letter outside
of the english alphabet.
When I change the language using C-w d S, and make it read text in that
language, any letters that aren't a part of the english alphabet would
be read by their english name, or at least the tts engine would try to read them.
For example, change the tts server to espeak, set the language to czech
(cs) and make it read this:
Já jsem Matěj
Towards the end, when it reached the letter ě, it would read it as
something like "eh vit karon" instead of the "ye" sound it's actually
suppose to be pronounced.
This works for my own language to, which uses the cyrillic alphabet, but
it however doesn't seem to happen in languages like German or French
when I tried them, they read their letters just fine.
I was experimenting and came upon a variable called
dtk-unicode-process-utf8, which seemed to improve the situation a
little, character's would be read correctly if the entire buffer was
read, but in the latest version of emacspeak that variable seems to be
gone.
Something that sems to be related to this is the fact that non-english
languages, even french and german, read various punctuation like colon,
less than, etc as they're written in english, or at least they do when
it's read character by character. When that character is a part of a
longer text they're read just fine.
While I doubt this has much to do with it, I'm running mac OS 11.6,
emacs 28.1 and I'm using the latest development build of emacspeak,
however this issue was present in most versions I've tried since 53.0.
Anyone had an issue like this?
--
Видимо Се,
Александар
8 months, 1 week
OFF TOPIC - Locked Out of Gmail Account
by D.J.J. Ring, Jr.
Hello List,
I am trying to help emacspeak list member, Jim Green get back into his
gmail account.
Jim is blind and he uses alpine and emacspeak to communicate with the
Internet.
Recently he cannot use his gmail password to log in with Alpine, because
Google has changed access with external applications like alpine and mutt.
It has to do with Google's rolling out two factor authentication. (2fa).
The good news is that gmx.com provides pop and imap access and a huge
mailbox. It will work with alpine, mutt, and emacspeak. Even better news
is that gmx.com provides a web application called a "mail collector" which
when it is provided with your email address and password, it will log into
that account and retrieve all the mail from that account. After verifying
that all the mail has been transferred, you can delete the email in the
original email account. Unfortunately, it also requires a "application
specific password" for google gmail.
Unfortunately, when Google.com asked him for his phone number, he gave them
the only phone number he has, a landline. At the time, Google didn't say it
must be a cell phone number and if Google validated the number, they had to
call the number because that's the only thing the number does, it rings and
must be answered. No texts!
The only recovery option for his 2greensinva@@gmail.com account is for
Google to send him a text message to his landline.
Obviously, this won't work.
Is there some way he can change his phone number with Google without being
able to log into his account?
The ONLY option I can think of is going to the Verizon store near him, have
him buy a cellphone, have the house landline number transferred to the
cellphone, then get the recovery code over the new cellphone.
Use the validation recovery code, recover the gmail account, then generate
an "application specific password" as described on this page:
https://www.lifewire.com/get-a-password-to-access-gmail-by-pop-imap-2-117...
Best regards,
David
8 months, 1 week
Odd Error when Trying to Enter Passwords
by Hunter Jozwiak
Hello,
Whenever I get a password prompt in Emacs, I get this error that shows
up in my messages:
Invalid function: ems-with-environment
Here is a backtrace from a session I was working in earlier today:
Debugger entered--Lisp error: (invalid-function ems-with-environment)
ems-with-environment((("PULSE_SINK")) nil)
emacspeak-prompt("pwd")
ad-Advice-read-passwd(#<subr read-passwd> "Password: ")
apply(ad-Advice-read-passwd #<subr read-passwd> "Password: ")
read-passwd("Password: ")
byte-code("\10\203\16\0\302\303\304!\305\306\307!F\207\11\204*\0\3101\37\0\311
\211\0210\210\202*\0\312\313\314\315\316\5!\"\"\266\2\11G\211\317\267\202B\0..."
[current-prefix-arg ement-sessions :user-id read-string "User ID: "
:password read-passwd "Password: " (error) ement--read-sessions
display-warning ement format "Unable to read session data from disk
(%s). Promp..." error-message-string #<hash-table eq 2/2
0x155ab25baa07> :session ement-complete-session] 7)
command-execute(ement-connect record)
execute-extended-command(nil "ement-connect" "ement-con")
#<subr funcall-interactively>(execute-extended-command nil
"ement-connect" "ement-con")
apply(#<subr funcall-interactively> execute-extended-command (nil
"ement-connect" "ement-con"))
ad-Advice-funcall-interactively(#<subr funcall-interactively>
execute-extended-command nil "ement-connect" "ement-con")
apply(ad-Advice-funcall-interactively #<subr funcall-interactively>
(execute-extended-command nil "ement-connect" "ement-con"))
funcall-interactively(execute-extended-command nil "ement-connect"
"ement-con")
command-execute(execute-extended-command)
I guess this might have to do with Pulseaudio somehow, so here are some details.
pactl info:
Server String: /run/user/1000/pulse/native
Library Protocol Version: 35
Server Protocol Version: 35
Is Local: yes
Client Index: 9661
Tile Size: 65472
User Name: sektor
Host Name: tekunen
Server Name: PulseAudio (on PipeWire 0.3.53)
Server Version: 15.0.0
Default Sample Specification: float32le 2ch 48000Hz
Default Channel Map: front-left,front-right
Default Sink: alsa_output.usb-Blue_Microphones_Yeti_X_2023SG00D6W8_888-000313110306-00.analog-stereo
Default Source:
alsa_input.usb-Blue_Microphones_Yeti_X_2023SG00D6W8_888-000313110306-00.iec958-stereo
Cookie: ae91:41e8
~/.config/pulseaudio/default.pa:
# default.pa --- -*- mode: conf; -*-
.include /etc/pulse/default.pa
# Use per app volume
# A bs2b (binaural for headphones) sink:
load-module module-ladspa-sink sink_name=binaural
master=@DEFAULT_SINK@ plugin=bs2b label=bs2b control=725,6.5
# Use binaural as the default sink:
#set-default-sink binaural
# A tts_right device
load-module module-remap-sink sink_name=tts_right master=binaural
channels=2 master_channel_map=front-right,front-right,
channel_map=front-left,front-right remix=no
load-module module-remap-sink sink_name=tts_left master=binaural
channels=2 master_channel_map=front-left,front-left,
channel_map=front-left,front-right remix=no
# X11 Bell:
load-module module-x11-bell
load-sample bell-window-system /usr/share/sounds/freedesktop/stereo/bell.oga
load-sample-dir-lazy /home/sektor/.emacs.d/emacspeak/sounds/ogg-chimes
Have I done something wrong with the current configuration that is
causing this issue?
Thanks,
Hunter
8 months, 3 weeks
Unexpected outage, all back up now
by Greg Priest-Dorman
Hi Folks,
The ownership of emacspeak.org expired a few days ago. So while the system
was running along it could not be reached by the names mail.emacspeak.org
or www.emacspeak.org. As such mail could not reach the system over this
time.
It is all fixed now.
While the owner was rectifying things, I took advantage of the time do some
machine maintenance. So this unplanned outage has saved us from a planned
outage later this month.
If you had tried to send any list messages over the last few days they
should now go through.
Again, sorry for the unplanned outage.
Greg
-
Greg Priest-Dorman
8 months, 4 weeks
