.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0 OR GFDL-1.2-no-invariants-or-later ======================== The Speakup User's Guide ======================== | For Speakup 3.1.2 and Later | By Gene Collins | Updated by others | Last modified on Mon Jun 3 17:08:21 2021 | Document version 1.3 .. contents:: :local: Copyright ========= :Authors: Copyright (c) 2005 Gene Collins Copyright (c) 2008 Samuel Thibault Copyright (c) 2009, 2010 the Speakup Team Preface ======= The purpose of this document is to familiarize users with the user interface to Speakup, a Linux Screen Reader. If you need instructions for installing or obtaining Speakup, visit the web site at http://linux-speakup.org/. Speakup is a set of patches to the standard Linux kernel source tree. It can be built as a series of modules, or as a part of a monolithic kernel. These details are beyond the scope of this manual, but the user may need to be aware of the module capabilities, depending on how your system administrator has installed Speakup. If Speakup is built as a part of a monolithic kernel, and the user is using a hardware synthesizer, then Speakup will be able to provide speech access from the time the kernel is loaded, until the time the system is shutdown. This means that if you have obtained Linux installation media for a distribution which includes Speakup as a part of its kernel, you will be able, as a blind person, to install Linux with speech access unaided by a sighted person. Again, these details are beyond the scope of this manual, but the user should be aware of them. See the web site mentioned above for further details. 1. Starting Speakup ==================== If your system administrator has installed Speakup to work with your specific synthesizer by default, then all you need to do to use Speakup is to boot your system, and Speakup should come up talking. This assumes of course that your synthesizer is a supported hardware synthesizer, and that it is either installed in or connected to your system, and is if necessary powered on. It is possible, however, that Speakup may have been compiled into the kernel with no default synthesizer. It is even possible that your kernel has been compiled with support for some of the supported synthesizers and not others. If you find that this is the case, and your synthesizer is supported but not available, complain to the person who compiled and installed your kernel. Or better yet, go to the web site, and learn how to patch Speakup into your own kernel source, and build and install your own kernel. If your kernel has been compiled with Speakup, and has no default synthesizer set, or you would like to use a different synthesizer than the default one, then you may issue the following command at the boot prompt of your boot loader.:: linux speakup.synth=ltlk This command would tell Speakup to look for and use a LiteTalk or DoubleTalk LT at boot up. You may replace the ltlk synthesizer keyword with the keyword for whatever synthesizer you wish to use. The ``speakup.synth`` parameter will accept the following keywords, provided that support for the related synthesizers has been built into the kernel. acntsa -- Accent SA acntpc -- Accent PC apollo -- Apollo audptr -- Audapter bns -- Braille 'n Speak dectlk -- DecTalk Express (old and new, db9 serial only) decext -- DecTalk (old) External dtlk -- DoubleTalk PC keypc -- Keynote Gold PC ltlk -- DoubleTalk LT, LiteTalk, or external Tripletalk (db9 serial only) spkout -- Speak Out txprt -- Transport dummy -- Plain text terminal .. note:: Speakup also does **NOT** support the internal Tripletalk! Speakup does support two other synthesizers, but because they work in conjunction with other software, they must be loaded as modules after their related software is loaded, and so are not available at boot up. These are as follows: decpc -- DecTalk PC (not available at boot up) soft -- One of several software synthesizers (not available at boot up) See the sections on loading modules and software synthesizers later in this manual for further details. It should be noted here that the speakup.synth boot parameter will have no effect if Speakup has been compiled as modules. In order for Speakup modules to be loaded during the boot process, such action must be configured by your system administrator. This will mean that you will hear some, but not all, of the bootup messages. 2. Basic operation =================== Once you have booted the system, and if necessary, have supplied the proper bootup parameter for your synthesizer, Speakup will begin talking as soon as the kernel is loaded. In fact, it will talk a lot! It will speak all the boot up messages that the kernel prints on the screen during the boot process. This is because Speakup is not a separate screen reader, but is actually built into the operating system. Since almost all console applications must print text on the screen using the kernel, and must get their keyboard input through the kernel, they are automatically handled properly by Speakup. There are a few exceptions, but we'll come to those later. .. note:: In this guide I will refer to the numeric keypad as the keypad. This is done because the speakupmap.map file referred to later in this manual uses the term keypad instead of numeric keypad. Also I'm lazy and would rather only type one word. So keypad it is. Got it? Good. Most of the Speakup review keys are located on the keypad at the far right of the keyboard. The numlock key should be off, in order for these to work. If you toggle the numlock on, the keypad will produce numbers, which is exactly what you want for spreadsheets and such. For the purposes of this guide, you should have the numlock turned off, which is its default state at bootup. You probably won't want to listen to all the bootup messages every time you start your system, though it's a good idea to listen to them at least once, just so you'll know what kind of information is available to you during the boot process. You can always review these messages after bootup with the command:: dmesg | more In order to speed the boot process, and to silence the speaking of the bootup messages, just press the keypad enter key. This key is located in the bottom right corner of the keypad. Speakup will shut up and stay that way, until you press another key. You can check to see if the boot process has completed by pressing the 8 key on the keypad, which reads the current line. This also has the effect of starting Speakup talking again, so you can press keypad enter to silence it again if the boot process has not completed. When the boot process is complete, you will arrive at a "login" prompt. At this point, you'll need to type in your user id and password, as provided by your system administrator. You will hear Speakup speak the letters of your user id as you type it, but not the password. This is because the password is not displayed on the screen for security reasons. This has nothing to do with Speakup, it's a Linux security feature. Once you've logged in, you can run any Linux command or program which is allowed by your user id. Normal users will not be able to run programs which require root privileges. When you are running a program or command, Speakup will automatically speak new text as it arrives on the screen. You can at any time silence the speech with keypad enter, or use any of the Speakup review keys. Here are some basic Speakup review keys, and a short description of what they do. keypad 1 -- read previous character keypad 2 -- read current character (pressing keypad 2 twice rapidly will speak the current character phonetically) keypad 3 -- read next character keypad 4 -- read previous word keypad 5 -- read current word (press twice rapidly to spell the current word) keypad 6 -- read next word keypad 7 -- read previous line keypad 8 -- read current line (press twice rapidly to hear how much the text on the current line is indented) keypad 9 -- read next line keypad period -- speak current cursor position and announce current virtual console It's also worth noting that the insert key on the keypad is mapped as the speakup key. Instead of pressing and releasing this key, as you do under DOS or Windows, you hold it like a shift key, and press other keys in combination with it. For example, repeatedly holding keypad insert, from now on called speakup, and keypad enter will toggle the speaking of new text on the screen on and off. This is not the same as just pressing keypad enter by itself, which just silences the speech until you hit another key. When you hit speakup plus keypad enter, Speakup will say, "You turned me off.", or "Hey, that's better." When Speakup is turned off, no new text on the screen will be spoken. You can still use the reading controls to review the screen however. 3. Using the Speakup Help System ================================= In order to enter the Speakup help system, press and hold the speakup key (remember that this is the keypad insert key), and press the `f1` key. You will hear the message: "Press space to leave help, cursor up or down to scroll, or a letter to go to commands in list." When you press the `spacebar` to leave the help system, you will hear: "Leaving help." While you are in the Speakup help system, you can scroll up or down through the list of available commands using the cursor keys. The list of commands is arranged in alphabetical order. If you wish to jump to commands in a specific part of the alphabet, you may press the letter of the alphabet you wish to jump to. You can also just explore by typing keyboard keys. Pressing keys will cause Speakup to speak the command associated with that key. For example, if you press the keypad 8 key, you will hear: "Keypad 8 is line, say current." You'll notice that some commands do not have keys assigned to them. This is because they are very infrequently used commands, and are also accessible through the sys system. We'll discuss the sys system later in this manual. You'll also notice that some commands have two keys assigned to them. This is because Speakup has a built in set of alternative key bindings for laptop users. The alternate speakup key is the `caps lock` key. You can press and hold the `caps lock` key, while pressing an alternate speakup command key to activate the command. On most laptops, the numeric keypad is defined as the keys in the `j k l` area of the keyboard. There is usually a function key which turns this keypad function on and off, and some other key which controls the numlock state. Toggling the keypad functionality on and off can become a royal pain. So, Speakup gives you a simple way to get at an alternative set of key mappings for your laptop. These are also available by default on desktop systems, because Speakup does not know whether it is running on a desktop or laptop. So you may choose which set of Speakup keys to use. Some system administrators may have chosen to compile Speakup for a desktop system without this set of alternate key bindings, but these details are beyond the scope of this manual. To use the `caps lock` for its normal purpose, hold the shift key while toggling the `caps lock` on and off. .. note:: Holding the `caps lock` key and pressing the `z` key will toggle the alternate `j k l` keypad on and off. 4. Keys and Their Assigned Commands ==================================== In this section, we'll go through a list of all the speakup keys and commands. You can also get a list of commands and assigned keys from the help system. The following list was taken from the ``speakupmap.map`` file. Key assignments are on the left of the equal sign, and the associated Speakup commands are on the right. The designation "spk" means to press and hold the speakup key, a.k.a. keypad insert, a.k.a. `caps lock`, while pressing the other specified key. spk key_f9 = punc_level_dec spk key_f10 = punc_level_inc spk key_f11 = reading_punc_dec spk key_f12 = reading_punc_inc spk key_1 = vol_dec spk key_2 = vol_inc spk key_3 = pitch_dec spk key_4 = pitch_inc spk key_5 = rate_dec spk key_6 = rate_inc key_kpasterisk = toggle_cursoring spk key_kpasterisk = speakup_goto spk key_f1 = speakup_help spk key_f2 = set_win spk key_f3 = clear_win spk key_f4 = enable_win spk key_f5 = edit_some spk key_f6 = edit_most spk key_f7 = edit_delim spk key_f8 = edit_repeat shift spk key_f9 = edit_exnum key_kp7 = say_prev_line spk key_kp7 = left_edge key_kp8 = say_line double key_kp8 = say_line_indent spk key_kp8 = say_from_top key_kp9 = say_next_line spk key_kp9 = top_edge key_kpminus = speakup_parked spk key_kpminus = say_char_num key_kp4 = say_prev_word spk key_kp4 = say_from_left key_kp5 = say_word double key_kp5 = spell_word spk key_kp5 = spell_phonetic key_kp6 = say_next_word spk key_kp6 = say_to_right key_kpplus = say_screen spk key_kpplus = say_win key_kp1 = say_prev_char spk key_kp1 = right_edge key_kp2 = say_char spk key_kp2 = say_to_bottom double key_kp2 = say_phonetic_char key_kp3 = say_next_char spk key_kp3 = bottom_edge key_kp0 = spk_key key_kpdot = say_position spk key_kpdot = say_attributes key_kpenter = speakup_quiet spk key_kpenter = speakup_off key_sysrq = speech_kill key_kpslash = speakup_cut spk key_kpslash = speakup_paste spk key_pageup = say_first_char spk key_pagedown = say_last_char key_capslock = spk_key spk key_z = spk_lock key_leftmeta = spk_key ctrl spk key_0 = speakup_goto spk key_u = say_prev_line spk key_i = say_line double spk key_i = say_line_indent spk key_o = say_next_line spk key_minus = speakup_parked shift spk key_minus = say_char_num spk key_j = say_prev_word spk key_k = say_word double spk key_k = spell_word spk key_l = say_next_word spk key_m = say_prev_char spk key_comma = say_char double spk key_comma = say_phonetic_char spk key_dot = say_next_char spk key_n = say_position ctrl spk key_m = left_edge ctrl spk key_y = top_edge ctrl spk key_dot = right_edge ctrl spk key_p = bottom_edge spk key_apostrophe = say_screen spk key_h = say_from_left spk key_y = say_from_top spk key_semicolon = say_to_right spk key_p = say_to_bottom spk key_slash = say_attributes spk key_enter = speakup_quiet ctrl spk key_enter = speakup_off spk key_9 = speakup_cut spk key_8 = speakup_paste shift spk key_m = say_first_char ctrl spk key_semicolon = say_last_char spk key_r = read_all_doc 5. The Speakup Sys System ========================== The Speakup screen reader also creates a speakup subdirectory as a part of the sys system. As a convenience, run as root:: ln -s /sys/accessibility/speakup /speakup to directly access speakup parameters from /speakup. You can see these entries by typing the command:: ls -1 /speakup/* If you issue the above ls command, you will get back something like this:: /speakup/attrib_bleep /speakup/bell_pos /speakup/bleep_time /speakup/bleeps /speakup/cursor_time /speakup/delimiters /speakup/ex_num /speakup/key_echo /speakup/keymap /speakup/no_interrupt /speakup/punc_all /speakup/punc_level /speakup/punc_most /speakup/punc_some /speakup/reading_punc /speakup/repeats /speakup/say_control /speakup/say_word_ctl /speakup/silent /speakup/spell_delay /speakup/synth /speakup/synth_direct /speakup/version /speakup/i18n: announcements characters chartab colors ctl_keys formatted function_names key_names states /speakup/soft: caps_start caps_stop delay_time direct freq full_time jiffy_delta pitch inflection punct rate tone trigger_time voice vol Notice the two subdirectories of ``/speakup``: ``/speakup/i18n`` and ``/speakup/soft``. The `i18n` subdirectory is described in a later section. The files under ``/speakup/soft`` represent settings that are specific to the driver for the software synthesizer. If you use the LiteTalk, your synthesizer-specific settings would be found in ``/speakup/ltlk``. In other words, a subdirectory named ``/speakup/KWD`` is created to hold parameters specific to the device whose keyword is KWD. These parameters include volume, rate, pitch, and others. In addition to using the Speakup hot keys to change such things as volume, pitch, and rate, you can also echo values to the appropriate entry in the ``/speakup`` directory. This is very useful, since it lets you control Speakup parameters from within a script. How you would write such scripts is somewhat beyond the scope of this manual, but I will include a couple of simple examples here to give you a general idea of what such scripts can do. Suppose for example, that you wanted to control both the punctuation level and the reading punctuation level at the same time. For simplicity, we'll call them punc0, punc1, punc2, and punc3. The scripts might look something like this: .. code-block:: shell #!/bin/bash # punc0 # set punc and reading punc levels to 0 echo 0 >/speakup/punc_level echo 0 >/speakup/reading_punc echo Punctuation level set to 0. #!/bin/bash # punc1 # set punc and reading punc levels to 1 echo 1 >/speakup/punc_level echo 1 >/speakup/reading_punc echo Punctuation level set to 1. #!/bin/bash # punc2 # set punc and reading punc levels to 2 echo 2 >/speakup/punc_level echo 2 >/speakup/reading_punc echo Punctuation level set to 2. #!/bin/bash # punc3 # set punc and reading punc levels to 3 echo 3 >/speakup/punc_level echo 3 >/speakup/reading_punc echo Punctuation level set to 3. If you were to store these four small scripts in a directory in your path, perhaps ``/usr/local/bin``, and set the permissions to 755 with the ``chmod`` command, then you could change the default reading punc and punctuation levels at the same time by issuing just one command. For example, if you were to execute the punc3 command at your shell prompt, then the reading punc and punc level would both get set to 3. .. note:: The above scripts were written to work with bash, but regardless of which shell you use, you should be able to do something similar. The Speakup sys system also has another interesting use. You can echo Speakup parameters into the sys system in a script during system startup, and speakup will return to your preferred parameters every time the system is rebooted. Most of the Speakup sys parameters can be manipulated by a regular user on the system. However, there are a few parameters that are dangerous enough that they should only be manipulated by the root user on your system. There are even some parameters that are read only, and cannot be written to at all. For example, the version entry in the Speakup sys system is read only. This is because there is no reason for a user to tamper with the version number which is reported by Speakup. Doing an ``ls -l`` on ``/speakup/version`` will return this:: -r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 Mar 21 13:46 /speakup/version As you can see, the version entry in the Speakup sys system is read only, is owned by root, and belongs to the root group. Doing a cat of ``/speakup/version`` will display the Speakup version number, like this:: cat /speakup/version Speakup v-2.00 CVS: Thu Oct 21 10:38:21 EDT 2004 synth dtlk version 1.1 The display shows the Speakup version number, along with the version number of the driver for the current synthesizer. Looking at entries in the Speakup sys system can be useful in many ways. For example, you might wish to know what level your volume is set at. You could type:: cat /speakup/KWD/vol # Replace KWD with the keyword for your synthesizer, E.G., ltlk for LiteTalk. 5 The number five which comes back is the level at which the synthesizer volume is set at. All the entries in the Speakup sys system are readable, some are writable by root only, and some are writable by everyone. Unless you know what you are doing, you should probably leave the ones that are writable by root only alone. Most of the names are self explanatory. Vol for controlling volume, pitch for pitch, inflection for pitch range, rate for controlling speaking rate, etc. If you find one you aren't sure about, you can post a query on the Speakup list. 6. Changing Synthesizers ========================= It is possible to change to a different synthesizer while speakup is running. In other words, it is not necessary to reboot the system in order to use a different synthesizer. You can simply echo the synthesizer keyword to the ``/speakup/synth`` sys entry. Depending on your situation, you may wish to echo none to the synth sys entry, to disable speech while one synthesizer is disconnected and a second one is connected in its place. Then echo the keyword for the new synthesizer into the synth sys entry in order to start speech with the newly connected synthesizer. See the list of synthesizer keywords in section 1 to find the keyword which matches your synth. 7. Loading modules =================== As mentioned earlier, Speakup can either be completely compiled into the kernel, with the exception of the help module, or it can be compiled as a series of modules. When compiled as modules, Speakup will only be able to speak some of the bootup messages if your system administrator has configured the system to load the modules at boo time. The modules can be loaded after the file systems have been checked and mounted, or from an initrd. There is a third possibility. Speakup can be compiled with some components built into the kernel, and others as modules. As we'll see in the next section, this is particularly useful when you are working with software synthesizers. If Speakup is completely compiled as modules, then you must use the modprobe command to load Speakup. You do this by loading the module for the synthesizer driver you wish to use. The driver modules are all named speakup_, where is the keyword for the synthesizer you want. So, in order to load the driver for the DecTalk Express, you would type the following command:: modprobe speakup_dectlk Issuing this command would load the DecTalk Express driver and all other related Speakup modules necessary to get Speakup up and running. To completely unload Speakup, again presuming that it is entirely built as modules, you would give the command:: modprobe -r speakup_dectlk The above command assumes you were running a DecTalk Express. If you were using a different synth, then you would substitute its keyword in place of `dectlk`. If you have multiple drivers loaded, you need to unload all of them, in order to completely unload Speakup. For example, if you have loaded both the dectlk and ltlk drivers, use the command:: modprobe -r speakup_dectlk speakup_ltlk You cannot unload the driver for software synthesizers when a user-space daemon is using ``/dev/softsynth``. First, kill the daemon. Next, remove the driver with the command:: modprobe -r speakup_soft Now, suppose we have a situation where the main Speakup component is built into the kernel, and some or all of the drivers are built as modules. Since the main part of Speakup is compiled into the kernel, a partial Speakup sys system has been created which we can take advantage of by simply echoing the synthesizer keyword into the ``/speakup/synth`` sys entry. This will cause the kernel to automatically load the appropriate driver module, and start Speakup talking. To switch to another synth, just echo a new keyword to the synth sys entry. For example, to load the DoubleTalk LT driver, you would type:: echo ltlk >/speakup/synth You can use the ``modprobe -r`` command to unload driver modules, regardless of whether the main part of Speakup has been built into the kernel or not. 8. Using Software Synthesizers =============================== Using a software synthesizer requires that some other software be installed and running on your system. For this reason, software synthesizers are not available for use at bootup, or during a system installation process. There are two freely-available solutions for software speech: Espeakup and Speech Dispatcher. These are described in subsections `8.1. Espeakup`_ and `8.2. Speech Dispatcher`_, respectively. During the rest of this section, we assume that `speakup_soft` is either built in to your kernel, or loaded as a module. If your system does not have udev installed , before you can use a software synthesizer, you must have created the ``/dev/softsynth`` device. If you have not already done so, issue the following commands as root:: cd /dev mknod softsynth c 10 26 While we are at it, we might just as well create the ``/dev/synth`` device, which can be used to let user space programs send information to your synthesizer. To create ``/dev/synth``, change to the ``/dev`` directory, and issue the following command as root:: mknod synth c 10 25 of both. 8.1. Espeakup ------------- Espeakup is a connector between Speakup and the eSpeak software synthesizer. Espeakup may already be available as a package for your distribution of Linux. If it is not packaged, you need to install it manually. You can find it in the ``contrib/`` subdirectory of the Speakup sources. The filename is ``espeakup-$VERSION.tar.bz2``, where ``$VERSION`` depends on the current release of Espeakup. The Speakup 3.1.2 source ships with version 0.71 of Espeakup. The README file included with the Espeakup sources describes the process of manual installation. Assuming that Espeakup is installed, either by the user or by the distributor, follow these steps to use it. Tell Speakup to use the "soft driver:: echo soft > /speakup/synth Finally, start the espeakup program. There are two ways to do it. Both require root privileges. If Espeakup was installed as a package for your Linux distribution, you probably have a distribution-specific script that controls the operation of the daemon. Look for a file named espeakup under ``/etc/init.d`` or ``/etc/rc.d``. Execute the following command with root privileges:: /etc/init.d/espeakup start Replace ``init.d`` with ``rc.d``, if your distribution uses scripts located under ``/etc/rc.d``. Your distribution will also have a procedure for starting daemons at boot-time, so it is possible to have software speech as soon as user-space daemons are started by the bootup scripts. These procedures are not described in this document. If you built Espeakup manually, the ``make install`` step placed the binary under ``/usr/bin``. Run the following command as root:: /usr/bin/espeakup Espeakup should start speaking. 8.2. Speech Dispatcher ---------------------- For this option, you must have a package called Speech Dispatcher running on your system, and it must be configured to work with one of its supported software synthesizers. Two open source synthesizers you might use are Flite and Festival. You might also choose to purchase the Software DecTalk from Fonix Sales Inc. If you run a google search for Fonix, you'll find their web site. You can obtain a copy of Speech Dispatcher from free(b)soft at http://www.freebsoft.org/. Follow the installation instructions that come with Speech Dispatcher in order to install and configure Speech Dispatcher. You can check out the web site for your Linux distribution in order to get a copy of either Flite or Festival. Your Linux distribution may also have a precompiled Speech Dispatcher package. Once you've installed, configured, and tested Speech Dispatcher with your chosen software synthesizer, you still need one more piece of software in order to make things work. You need a package called speechd-up. You get it from the free(b)soft web site mentioned above. After you've compiled and installed speechd-up, you are almost ready to begin using your software synthesizer. Now you can begin using your software synthesizer. In order to do so, echo the soft keyword to the synth sys entry like this:: echo soft >/speakup/synth Next run the speechd_up command like this:: speechd_up & Your synth should now start talking, and you should be able to adjust the pitch, rate, etc. 9. Using The DecTalk PC Card ============================= The DecTalk PC card is an ISA card that is inserted into one of the ISA slots in your computer. It requires that the DecTalk PC software be installed on your computer, and that the software be loaded onto the Dectalk PC card before it can be used. You can get the ``dec_pc.tgz`` file from the linux-speakup.org site. The ``dec_pc.tgz`` file is in the ``~ftp/pub/linux/speakup`` directory. After you have downloaded the ``dec_pc.tgz`` file, untar it in your home directory, and read the Readme file in the newly created ``dec_pc`` directory. The easiest way to get the software working is to copy the entire ``dec_pc`` directory into ``/user/local/lib``. To do this, su to root in your home directory, and issue the command:: cp dec_pc /usr/local/lib You will need to copy the dtload command from the dec_pc directory to a directory in your path. Either ``/usr/bin`` or ``/usr/local/bin`` is a good choice. You can now run the dtload command in order to load the DecTalk PC software onto the card. After you have done this, ``echo`` the decpc keyword to the synth entry in the sys system like this:: echo decpc >/speakup/synth Your DecTalk PC should start talking, and then you can adjust the pitch, rate, volume, voice, etc. The voice entry in the Speakup sys system will accept a number from 0 through 7 for the DecTalk PC synthesizer, which will give you access to some of the DecTalk voices. 10. Using Cursor Tracking ========================== In Speakup version 2.0 and later, cursor tracking is turned on by default. This means that when you are using an editor, Speakup will automatically speak characters as you move left and right with the cursor keys, and lines as you move up and down with the cursor keys. This is the traditional sort of cursor tracking. Recent versions of Speakup provide two additional ways to control the text that is spoken when the cursor is moved: "highlight tracking" and "read window." They are described later in this section. Sometimes, these modes get in your way, so you can disable cursor tracking altogether. You may select among the various forms of cursor tracking using the keypad asterisk key. Each time you press this key, a new mode is selected, and Speakup speaks the name of the new mode. The names for the four possible states of cursor tracking are: "cursoring on", "highlight tracking", "read window", and "cursoring off." The keypad asterisk key moves through the list of modes in a circular fashion. If highlight tracking is enabled, Speakup tracks highlighted text, rather than the cursor itself. When you move the cursor with the arrow keys, Speakup speaks the currently highlighted information. This is useful when moving through various menus and dialog boxes. If cursor tracking isn't helping you while navigating a menu, try highlight tracking. With the "read window" variety of cursor tracking, you can limit the text that Speakup speaks by specifying a window of interest on the screen. See section 15 for a description of the process of defining windows. When you move the cursor via the arrow keys, Speakup only speaks the contents of the window. This is especially helpful when you are hearing superfluous speech. Consider the following example. Suppose that you are at a shell prompt. You use bash, and you want to explore your command history using the up and down arrow keys. If you have enabled cursor tracking, you will hear two pieces of information. Speakup speaks both your shell prompt and the current entry from the command history. You may not want to hear the prompt repeated each time you move, so you can silence it by specifying a window. Find the last line of text on the screen. Clear the current window by pressing the key combination speakup `f3`. Use the review cursor to find the first character that follows your shell prompt. Press speakup + `f2` twice, to define a one-line window. The boundaries of the window are the character following the shell prompt and the end of the line. Now, cycle through the cursor tracking modes using keypad asterisk, until Speakup says "read window." Move through your history using your arrow keys. You will notice that Speakup no longer speaks the redundant prompt. Some folks like to turn cursor tracking off while they are using the lynx web browser. You definitely want to turn cursor tracking off when you are using the alsamixer application. Otherwise, you won't be able to hear your mixer settings while you are using the arrow keys. 11. Cut and Paste ================== One of Speakup's more useful features is the ability to cut and paste text on the screen. This means that you can capture information from a program, and paste that captured text into a different place in the program, or into an entirely different program, which may even be running on a different console. For example, in this manual, we have made references to several web sites. It would be nice if you could cut and paste these urls into your web browser. Speakup does this quite nicely. Suppose you wanted to past the following url into your browser: http://linux-speakup.org/ Use the speakup review keys to position the reading cursor on the first character of the above url. When the reading cursor is in position, press the keypad slash key once. Speakup will say, "mark". Next, position the reading cursor on the rightmost character of the above url. Press the keypad slash key once again to actually cut the text from the screen. Speakup will say, "cut". Although we call this cutting, Speakup does not actually delete the cut text from the screen. It makes a copy of the text in a special buffer for later pasting. Now that you have the url cut from the screen, you can paste it into your browser, or even paste the url on a command line as an argument to your browser. Suppose you want to start lynx and go to the Speakup site. You can switch to a different console with the alt left and right arrows, or you can switch to a specific console by typing alt and a function key. These are not Speakup commands, just standard Linux console capabilities. Once you've changed to an appropriate console, and are at a shell prompt, type the word lynx, followed by a space. Now press and hold the speakup key, while you type the keypad slash character. The url will be pasted onto the command line, just as though you had typed it in. Press the enter key to execute the command. The paste buffer will continue to hold the cut information, until a new mark and cut operation is carried out. This means you can paste the cut information as many times as you like before doing another cut operation. You are not limited to cutting and pasting only one line on the screen. You can also cut and paste rectangular regions of the screen. Just position the reading cursor at the top left corner of the text to be cut, mark it with the keypad slash key, then position the reading cursor at the bottom right corner of the region to be cut, and cut it with the keypad slash key. 12. Changing the Pronunciation of Characters ============================================= Through the ``/speakup/i18n/characters`` sys entry, Speakup gives you the ability to change how Speakup pronounces a given character. You could, for example, change how some punctuation characters are spoken. You can even change how Speakup will pronounce certain letters. You may, for example, wish to change how Speakup pronounces the z character. The author of Speakup, Kirk Reiser, is Canadian, and thus believes that the z should be pronounced zed. If you are an American, you might wish to use the zee pronunciation instead of zed. You can change the pronunciation of both the upper and lower case z with the following two commands:: echo 90 zee >/speakup/characters echo 122 zee >/speakup/characters Let's examine the parts of the two previous commands. They are issued at the shell prompt, and could be placed in a startup script. The word echo tells the shell that you want to have it display the string of characters that follow the word echo. If you were to just type:: echo hello. You would get the word hello printed on your screen as soon as you pressed the enter key. In this case, we are echoing strings that we want to be redirected into the sys system. The numbers 90 and 122 in the above echo commands are the ascii numeric values for the upper and lower case z, the characters we wish to change. The string zee is the pronunciation that we want Speakup to use for the upper and lower case z. The ``>`` symbol redirects the output of the echo command to a file, just like in DOS, or at the Windows command prompt. And finally, ``/speakup/i18n/characters`` is the file entry in the sys system where we want the output to be directed. Speakup looks at the numeric value of the character we want to change, and inserts the pronunciation string into an internal table. You can look at the whole table with the following command:: cat /speakup/i18n/characters Speakup will then print out the entire character pronunciation table. I won't display it here, but leave you to look at it at your convenience. 13. Mapping Keys ================= Speakup has the capability of allowing you to assign or "map" keys to internal Speakup commands. This section necessarily assumes you have a Linux kernel source tree installed, and that it has been patched and configured with Speakup. How you do this is beyond the scope of this manual. For this information, visit the Speakup web site at http://linux-speakup.org/. The reason you'll need the kernel source tree patched with Speakup is that the genmap utility you'll need for processing keymaps is in the ``/usr/src/linux-/drivers/char/speakup`` directory. The ```` in the above directory path is the version number of the Linux source tree you are working with. So ok, you've gone off and gotten your kernel source tree, and patched and configured it. Now you can start manipulating keymaps. You can either use the ``/usr/src/linux-/drivers/char/speakup/speakupmap.map`` file included with the Speakup source, or you can cut and paste the copy in section 4 into a separate file. If you use the one in the Speakup source tree, make sure you make a backup of it before you start making changes. You have been warned! Suppose that you want to swap the key assignments for the Speakup say_last_char and the Speakup say_first_char commands. The speakupmap.map lists the key mappings for these two commands as follows:: spk key_pageup = say_first_char spk key_pagedown = say_last_char You can edit your copy of the speakupmap.map file and swap the command names on the right side of the ``=`` (equals) sign. You did make a backup, right? The new keymap lines would look like this:: spk key_pageup = say_last_char spk key_pagedown = say_first_char After you edit your copy of the speakupmap.map file, save it under a new file name, perhaps newmap.map. Then exit your editor and return to the shell prompt. You are now ready to load your keymap with your swapped key assignments. Assuming that you saved your new keymap as the file newmap.map, you would load your keymap into the sys system like this:: /usr/src/linux-/drivers/char/speakup/genmap newmap.map >/speakup/keymap .. note:: Remember to substitute your kernel version number for the ```` in the above command. Your say first and say last characters should now be swapped. Pressing speakup pagedown should read you the first non-whitespace character on the line your reading cursor is in, and pressing speakup pageup should read you the last character on the line your reading cursor is in. .. note:: These new mappings will only stay in effect until you reboot, or until you load another keymap. One final warning. If you try to load a partial map, you will quickly find that all the mappings you didn't include in your file got deleted from the working map. Be extremely careful, and always make a backup! You have been warned! 14. Internationalizing Speakup =============================== Speakup indicates various conditions to the user by speaking messages. For instance, when you move to the left edge of the screen with the review keys, Speakup says, "left." Prior to version 3.1.0 of Speakup, all of these messages were in English, and they could not be changed. If you used a non-English synthesizer, you still heard English messages, such as "left" and "cursoring on." In version 3.1.0 or higher, one may load translations for the various messages via the ``/sys`` filesystem. The directory ``/speakup/i18n`` contains several collections of messages. Each group of messages is stored in its own file. The following section lists all of these files, along with a brief description of each. 14.1. Files Under the i18n Subdirectory ---------------------------------------- announcements This file contains various general announcements, most of which cannot be categorized. You will find messages such as "You killed Speakup", "I'm alive", "leaving help", "parked", "unparked", and others. You will also find the names of the screen edges and cursor tracking modes here. characters See `12. Changing the Pronunciation of Characters`_ for a description of this file. chartab See `12. Changing the Pronunciation of Characters`_. Unlike the rest of the files in the i18n subdirectory, this one does not contain messages to be spoken. colors When you use the "say attributes" function, Speakup says the name of the foreground and background colors. These names come from the i18n/colors file. ctl_keys Here, you will find names of control keys. These are used with Speakup's say_control feature. formatted This group of messages contains embedded formatting codes, to specify the type and width of displayed data. If you change these, you must preserve all of the formatting codes, and they must appear in the order used by the default messages. function_names Here, you will find a list of names for Speakup functions. These are used by the help system. For example, suppose that you have activated help mode, and you pressed keypad 3. Speakup says: "keypad 3 is character, say next." The message "character, say next" names a Speakup function, and it comes from this function_names file. key_names Again, key_names is used by Speakup's help system. In the previous example, Speakup said that you pressed "keypad 3." This name came from the key_names file. states This file contains names for key states. Again, these are part of the help system. For instance, if you had pressed speakup + keypad 3, you would hear: "speakup keypad 3 is go to bottom edge." The speakup key is depressed, so the name of the key state is speakup. This part of the message comes from the states collection. 14.2.1. Loading Your Own Messages ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The files under the i18n subdirectory all follow the same format. They consist of lines, with one message per line. Each message is represented by a number, followed by the text of the message. The number is the position of the message in the given collection. For example, if you view the file ``/speakup/i18n/colors``, you will see the following list:: 0 - black 1 - blue 2 - green 3 - cyan 4 - red 5 - magenta 6 - yellow 7 - white 8 - grey You can change one message, or you can change a whole group. To load a whole collection of messages from a new source, simply use the cp command:: cp ~/my_colors /speakup/i18n/colors You can change an individual message with the echo command, as shown in the following example. The Spanish name for the color blue is azul. Looking at the colors file, we see that the name "blue" is at position 1 within the colors group. Let's change blue to azul:: echo '1 azul' > /speakup/i18n/colors The next time that Speakup says message 1 from the colors group, it will say "azul", rather than "blue." 14.2.2. Choose a language ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In the future, translations into various languages will be made available, and most users will just load the files necessary for their language. So far, only French language is available beyond native Canadian English language. French is only available after you are logged in. Canadian English is the default language. To toggle another language, download the source of Speakup and untar it in your home directory. The following command should let you do this:: tar xvjf speakup-.tar.bz2 where ```` is the version number of the application. Next, change to the newly created directory, then into the tools/ directory, and run the script speakup_setlocale. You are asked the language that you want to use. Type the number associated to your language (e.g. fr for French) then press Enter. Needed files are copied in the i18n directory. Note: the speakupconf must be installed on your system so that settings are saved. Otherwise, you will have an error: your language will be loaded but you will have to run the script again every time Speakup restarts. See section 16.1. for information about speakupconf. You will have to repeat these steps for any change of locale, i.e. if you wish change the speakup's language or charset (iso-8859-15 ou UTF-8). If you wish store the settings, note that at your next login, you will need to do:: speakup load Alternatively, you can add the above line to your file ``~/.bashrc`` or ``~/.bash_profile``. If your system administrator ran himself the script, all the users will be able to change from English to the language choosed by root and do directly speakupconf load (or add this to the ``~/.bashrc`` or ``~/.bash_profile`` file). If there are several languages to handle, the administrator (or every user) will have to run the first steps until speakupconf save, choosing the appropriate language, in every user's home directory. Every user will then be able to do speakupconf load, Speakup will load his own settings. 14.3. No Support for Non-Western-European Languages ---------------------------------------------------- As of the current release, Speakup only supports Western European languages. Support for the extended characters used by languages outside of the Western European family of languages is a work in progress. 15. Using Speakup's Windowing Capability ========================================= Speakup has the capability of defining and manipulating windows on the screen. Speakup uses the term "Window", to mean a user defined area of the screen. The key strokes for defining and manipulating Speakup windows are as follows:: speakup + f2 -- Set the bounds of the window. Speakup + f3 -- clear the current window definition. speakup + f4 -- Toggle window silence on and off. speakup + keypad plus -- Say the currently defined window. These capabilities are useful for tracking a certain part of the screen without rereading the whole screen, or for silencing a part of the screen that is constantly changing, such as a clock or status line. There is no way to save these window settings, and you can only have one window defined for each virtual console. There is also no way to have windows automatically defined for specific applications. In order to define a window, use the review keys to move your reading cursor to the beginning of the area you want to define. Then press speakup + `f2`. Speakup will tell you that the window starts at the indicated row and column position. Then move the reading cursor to the end of the area to be defined as a window, and press speakup + `f2` again. If there is more than one line in the window, Speakup will tell you that the window ends at the indicated row and column position. If there is only one line in the window, then Speakup will tell you that the window is the specified line on the screen. If you are only defining a one line window, you can just press speakup + `f2` twice after placing the reading cursor on the line you want to define as a window. It is not necessary to position the reading cursor at the end of the line in order to define the whole line as a window. 16. Tools for Controlling Speakup ================================== The speakup distribution includes extra tools (in the tools directory) which were written to make speakup easier to use. This section will briefly describe the use of these tools. 16.1. Speakupconf ------------------ speakupconf began life as a contribution from Steve Holmes, a member of the speakup community. We would like to thank him for his work on the early versions of this project. This script may be installed as part of your linux distribution, but if it isn't, the recommended places to put it are ``/usr/local/bin`` or ``/usr/bin``. This script can be run by any user, so it does not require root privileges. Speakupconf allows you to save and load your Speakup settings. It works by reading and writing the ``/sys`` files described above. The directory that speakupconf uses to store your settings depends on whether it is run from the root account. If you execute speakupconf as root, it uses the directory ``/etc/speakup``. Otherwise, it uses the directory ``~/.speakup``, where ``~`` is your home directory. Anyone who needs to use Speakup from your console can load his own custom settings with this script. speakupconf takes one required argument: load or save. Use the command:: speakupconf save to save your Speakup settings, and:: speakupconf load to load them into Speakup. A second argument may be specified to use an alternate directory to load or save the speakup parameters. 16.2. Talkwith --------------- Charles Hallenbeck, another member of the speakup community, wrote the initial versions of this script, and we would also like to thank him for his work on it. This script needs root privileges to run, so if it is not installed as part of your linux distribution, the recommended places to install it are ``/usr/local/sbin`` or ``/usr/sbin``. Talkwith allows you to switch synthesizers on the fly. It takes a synthesizer name as an argument. For instance, talkwith dectlk causes Speakup to use the DecTalk Express. If you wish to switch to a software synthesizer, you must also indicate which daemon you wish to use. There are two possible choices: spd and espeakup. spd is an abbreviation for speechd-up. If you wish to use espeakup for software synthesis, give the command talkwith soft espeakup To use speechd-up, type:: talkwith soft spd Any arguments that follow the name of the daemon are passed to the daemon when it is invoked. For instance:: talkwith espeakup --default-voice=fr causes espeakup to use the French voice. .. note:: Talkwith must always be executed with root privileges. Talkwith does not attempt to load your settings after the new synthesizer is activated. You can use speakupconf to load your settings if desired.