IBMTTS driver, Add-on for NVDA

This add-on implements NVDA compatibility with the IBMTTS synthesizer. We can not distribute the IBMTTS libraries. So it is just the driver. If you want to improve this driver, feel free to send your pull requests!

Features:

• Voice, variant, rate, pitch, inflection and volume setting support.
• Extra head size, Roughness, Breathiness parameters settings support. Create your own voice!
• Enable or disable backquote voice tags. Disable it to protect yourself from malisious codes from jokers, enable it to do many fun things with the synthesizer. Safe fun guaranteed!
• Rate boost. If the synthesizer does not speak very fast to you, then enable it and get the maximum voice speech!
• auto language changes. Let the synthesizer to read texts in the correct language.
• Indexing support. The cursor will never be lost when using read all feature.
• anti crashing filter expressions. The driver filters known crashing expressions.

Requirements.

NVDA.

You need NVDA 2018.4 or later. This driver is compatible with python 3, So you can use it with future NVDA versions. Once NVDA with python 3 is released, this driver will no longer be compatible with python 2.7. Please use the latest NVDA versions. Its free!

IBMTTS synthesizer libraries.

This is just the driver, you must get the libraries from somewhere else.

Installation.

Just install it as a NVDA add-on. Then open NVDA dialog settings, and set the IBMTTS folder files in the IBMTTS category. Also in this category you can copy the external IBMTTS files into an Add-on to use it locally.

Packaging it for distribution.

Open a command line, change to the Add-on root folder and run the scons command. The created add-on, if there were no errors, is placed in the root directory.

Notes:

• if the synthesizer is inside the add-on or in "eciLibraries" add-on, the driver will update the ini library paths automatically. So you can use it on portable NVDA versions.
• when you use the "Copy IBMTTS files in an add-on" button, it will create a new add-on. So, if you want to uninstall IBMTTS, you'll need to uninstall two add-ons: "IBMTTS driver" and "Eci libraries".
• scons and gettext tools on this project are compatible with python 3 only. Doesn't work with python 2.7.
• You can put the extra IBMTTS required files in the add-on (for personal use only). Just copy them in "addon\synthDrivers\ibmtts" folder. Adjust the default library name in "settingsDB.py" if necessary.