FreeTTS / speech.. only rendering Numbers??

[SM2010]

Is render the right word? do you render speech??

anyway.. got a weird issue when trying out FreeTTS. Using a simple class I ripped from the web (code below), I eventually got this up and running (took a while to realise I needed to dump all the jars in my jre/lib folder), but it only seems to 'speak' when I put just numbers in the string (ie. "112245"). If I try "Hello", or any 'words', it doesn't error but doesn't say anything either!!

Any ideas what I've done wrong??

Also, if I try "1234567890", it actually says (in synth male voice)...

"one two fourfivesixeight nine zero".

Has anyone else run into these issues?

thanks.

import javax.speech.*;
import javax.speech.synthesis.*;
import java.util.*;

public class TellTime {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
	try {
		String sayTime = "1234567890";
		
                         Synthesizer synth = Central.createSynthesizer(null);
		synth.allocate();
		synth.resume();
			
		synth.speakPlainText(sayTime,null);
		
		synth.waitEngineState(Synthesizer.QUEUE_EMPTY);
		synth.deallocate();
			
	} catch (Exception e) {
		e.printStackTrace();
	}
    }
}

[Tolls]

...I eventually got this up and running (took a while to realise I needed to dump all the jars in my jre/lib folder)...

That's not the way you do it.
Dependencies (outside of the core JRE libraries) are referenced using the -cp switch for javac and java commands, or by setting the classpath in a batch file for running them. You don't dump jars into the jre lib, or set the system paths.

As for your problem, have you tried running any of their demos locally? Like the Hello World one?

[SM2010]

ahh I see, bad practice. thanks for the pointer.

No I haven't tried the demo's, good idea maybe the answers in there.

Otherwise I'm pretty much restricted to writing a talking calculator.

[JosAH]

Which voice are you using? The "kevin" or "kevin16" voices should be capable to speak (more or less) random text ...

kind regards,

Jos

[Tolls]

I might have to give this thing a try at some point...getting the PC to say random nonsense appeals to me.

[JosAH]

I might have to give this thing a try at some point...getting the PC to say random nonsense appeals to me.

Yes it's fun, as soon as it works; FreeTTS is a burden to install, especially because all those .jar files depend on each other; also the 'umbrola' (or whatever) voices don't seem to work on my installation ...

kind regards,

Jos

[Tolls]

I might attempt it then, only to give up in frustration...a bit like most of my attempts at networking.

[SM2010]

JosAH - are you able to try my TellTime class I posted above, to see if yours will say anything apart from numbers?

Tolls - if this is half as much fun as the speech tool on my old amiga 500 (25 years ago!), then all the pain of jars and classpaths and null pointers will almost be worth it!

[JosAH]

JosAH - are you able to try my TellTime class I posted above, to see if yours will say anything apart from numbers?

Yep, using the "kevin16" void I can make it say all sort of nonsense but I don't use that top level interface (API); I use the FreeTTS interface directy, i.e. instantiate a Voice and make it speak( ... )

kind regards,

Jos