Zabaware Text-to-Speech Reader Beta

[cload]

Hi Robert,

just to let you know that the box that states you have chosen to minimize the text-to-speech reader continues to appear even though I have checked the box that says do not show this again.

C load.

[Medeksza]

Cload and Art, I believe I have fixed every bug you two mentioned. I posted an updated beta at http://b27d8f6586ad009ded6f-8e71e26de9dcc976c118d235118a125a.r10.cf2.rackcdn.com/ReaderSetupBeta3.exe if you would like to test it out again and confirm. I also sent you PM with a link to the one with the CereProc Katherine voice if you would like to test that as well. Thanks again for your help.

[sybershot]

System info:
os = windows 8.1 pro 64bit
cpu = i7-3770k
gpu  = NVidia GeForce 670 ftw (4gb)
ram = 16 gb corsair
ssd = ocz vertex4
virus and firewall software: Microsoft Windows defender

I downloaded beta program from the link within your last post

first notification after clicking install:

"windows Smartscreen prevented an unrecognized app from starting. Running this app might put your pc at risk"
publisher: unknown Publisher
app ReaderSetupBeta.exe

I clicked run anyway.

I chose run program and install desktop icon. program started up and I got this error as soon as the program opened.

Error 9:
Subscript out of range
Occurred at line 5
in Zabaware Text-To-Speech: frmRightClick.LoadSynthesis

3 options where presented within error crome window: About ,retry, and close. I chose "about" and error crome window closed with no further pop up.

I selected text from a website, right clicked and chose copy. Program automatically read selected text in a males voice.

I looked for a way to change voice and saw no option.

I then started/opened Ultra Hal from system tray.  and I herd same males voice state

syntax Query

I typed hello in Ultra Hals window and Hals female voice (Microsoft Zira) was still being used by Ultra Hal

note: at this time I do not have my Ivona voice installed yet, but would love to test Ivona voice out for ya once installed if there is a way to change voices.

I'll try out other features of the beta program later tonight and try to report back tonight if it does not get too late. If not I will report back tomorrow.

edit: small update
still stock settings
I pasted text within text area and clicked "read all"
I clicked stop/pause half way though article then clicked continue. Program started reading out load from the beginning, not where I paused it.

I then tried having Beta program read from copied text and clicked stop/pause waited a second or two then clicked continue and I got nothing. program did not stat reading from where it left off nor from the beginning.

[sybershot]

I did not realize you was on Mr. Medeksza till now, I corrected misspellings and added a small update. Sorry if it caused any inconvenience for ya.

[sybershot]

every feature I tested so far worked except which I stated in first post. I'll play with it some more over the next couple of days.

However I would mention that the program intertwines with "ease of access" verbal prompts.
examples:
When I click close on internet explorer and I have more than one tab open, the male voice from the beta programs voice states "do you want to close all tabs or the current tab". Also if I go to close the program via system tray it ask "are you sure you want to close this program".

once the program is shut down, ease of access verbal prompts go away.

[Medeksza]

I chose run program and install desktop icon. program started up and I got this error as soon as the program opened.

Error 9:
Subscript out of range
Occurred at line 5
in Zabaware Text-To-Speech: frmRightClick.LoadSynthesis

3 options where presented within error crome window: About ,retry, and close. I chose "about" and error crome window closed with no further pop up.

Thanks, I found the cause of this and fixed it. I posted an update at http://b27d8f6586ad009ded6f-8e71e26de9dcc976c118d235118a125a.r10.cf2.rackcdn.com/ReaderSetupBeta3.exe

Would you like to test it with a CereProc voice? I can send you a PM with a license key for it if you would like.

[cload]

Hi Robert,

after installing the voice I looked around and I did not see it appear in any of my other programs that uses voice.
The only place it appeared was where it was supposed to appear in your text to speech reader, good job.

Test one: I copied text and your voice read the taxt, I pushed on the stop/pause button and it stopped reading the text that was in the clipboard.
But you can not get it to continue reading the text that is in the clipboard. Major drawback.

Test two: I put text into the box and clicked on the read all the, but there is still problems with the stop/pause and continue buttons,
they are sluggish and slow usually I have to click on the buttons several times before I would get a reaction.

Test three: I tried to make a wave file out of the text that I put in the box. These are the things that I have discovered.
If you have all of the text run together even though they are separated by a period all of the text will be read into the wav file.
But if you separate the attacks with a period and a hard return it will only read the last line.
For example:
See the cat run. See the dog run. See the cat and the dog run together.
See Jane run after the dog and the cat.

If you try to make a way file with the text above you will see that it will only record:
see Jane run after the dog and the cat.

That is because the tax is separated by a hard return.

Test four: I have restarted my computer, to check things out:
your text-to-speech program will no longer read text from the clipboard. Then your text-to-speech reader shut itself down. I don't know why.
I restarted the computer and the text-to-speech reader was able to read text from the clipboard again, I will try to reboot the computer to see what it does.
Okay, I figured out what is going on, it's not that it was not reading the taxt after the reboot, what happens is if you right mouse click anywhere on the screen the text-to-speech reader stops reading the text that is in the clipboard.
It only seems to do this one time, directly after rebooting, after that it seems to be okay. I wonder if that might have to do with I have a touchscreen monitor.
I think it has something to do with right mouse clicking on the taskbar. I also think that Dragon NaturallySpeaking might be interfering with your text-to-speech reader.
It seems after I start Dragon naturally speaking your program will no longer read text from the clipboard. After I tell Dragon to go to sleep.
It seems that the only way I can get your text-to-speech reader to start reading again after I start Dragon naturally speaking is to reboot the computer.
Maybe there is a memory conflict, beyond that I don't have a clue.


C load.

[Medeksza]

Test one: I copied text and your voice read the taxt, I pushed on the stop/pause button and it stopped reading the text that was in the clipboard.
But you can not get it to continue reading the text that is in the clipboard. Major drawback.

I understand the drawback and you had a really good suggestion with making the program have multiple tabs with one of the tabs being the clipboard. This would definitely be better and would let the clipboard have pause capability among other improvements. Unfortunately, that would be a major change to the program and a big delay, so at this point so I think I'll leave this feature for a future version.

Test two: I put text into the box and clicked on the read all the, but there is still problems with the stop/pause and continue buttons,
they are sluggish and slow usually I have to click on the buttons several times before I would get a reaction.

Unfortunately, the language this program is written in is old and does not support multi-threading. The only way I can really improve the responsiveness of the buttons is to rewrite the program from scratch in a language that supports multi-threading.

Test three: I tried to make a wave file out of the text that I put in the box. These are the things that I have discovered.
If you have all of the text run together even though they are separated by a period all of the text will be read into the wav file.
But if you separate the attacks with a period and a hard return it will only read the last line.
For example:
See the cat run. See the dog run. See the cat and the dog run together.
See Jane run after the dog and the cat.

Thanks, I fixed the bug and will post an update shortly.

Test four: I have restarted my computer, to check things out:
your text-to-speech program will no longer read text from the clipboard. Then your text-to-speech reader shut itself down. I don't know why.
I restarted the computer and the text-to-speech reader was able to read text from the clipboard again, I will try to reboot the computer to see what it does.
Okay, I figured out what is going on, it's not that it was not reading the taxt after the reboot, what happens is if you right mouse click anywhere on the screen the text-to-speech reader stops reading the text that is in the clipboard.
It only seems to do this one time, directly after rebooting, after that it seems to be okay. I wonder if that might have to do with I have a touchscreen monitor.
I think it has something to do with right mouse clicking on the taskbar. I also think that Dragon NaturallySpeaking might be interfering with your text-to-speech reader.
It seems after I start Dragon naturally speaking your program will no longer read text from the clipboard. After I tell Dragon to go to sleep.
It seems that the only way I can get your text-to-speech reader to start reading again after I start Dragon naturally speaking is to reboot the computer.
Maybe there is a memory conflict, beyond that I don't have a clue.

You may be right that it is conflicting with another program. Unfortunately I can't seem to reproduce the behavior which I would need to do in order to try to fix it.

[sybershot]

Would you like to test it with a CereProc voice? I can send you a PM with a license key for it if you would like.

sure I could do that for you, Is there anything in particular your looking for me to test with the voice? also are you looking for some opinions/suggestions on the beta program itself?

[sybershot]

Thanks, I found the cause of this and fixed it. I posted an update at

confirmed, no errors here.

1. pasted text in text field and clicked pause/stop and there was no way to resume, "read selection" and "read all" are greyed out. unless I selected text which un-greys out "read Selection"

2. pasted text in text field and clicked pause/stop (no way to resume) copied new text to clipboard, and program did not start reading out load. So I pasted that text within the clipboard and both buttons still remain greyed out (until I select the text in text field). However after pressing "read selection" it will not read it, program frozen perhaps.

edit 1: 3. I closed out of the program and exited the progam from system tray, now it will not start back up for I get this system message

An instance of Zabaware TTs Reader is already running, a second instance cannot be started. an attempt to communicate with the original instance has failed. If the previous instance is unresponsive you may have to end the Zabaware.exe process manually using the Windows task manager (ctr - alt - del).

double checked system tray and program was not showing it was running. opened task manager and ended the task ZabaReader (32 bit) , and was then able to re-open beta program

4. I close out of program and exit from tray, opened program without no issues of instance running already.

5. copy text to clipboard, program starts reading, I click "stop/pause" no way to resume.
6. I paste text in text field and play text, then click "play/pause" w8 a few seconds and click continue and it starts reading where it left off 

end edit 1

I do like now being able to choose a voice and new text display and progress bar feature. 2x [thumbs up]
I will try to get my Ivona voice downloaded and installed tonight and edit this post to let you know how that went.

edit 2:
downloaded and installed Ivona, ran across no issues using Emma's voice from Ivona
end edit 2

[Medeksza]

downloaded and installed Ivona, ran across no issues using Emma's voice from Ivona

Did the problems you mention only occur if you used a different voice? May I ask what voice you used that caused issues?

I sent you a PM with a link to the CereProc voice along with a licence key.

[sybershot]

downloaded and installed Ivona, ran across no issues using Emma's voice from Ivona

Did the problems you mention only occur if you used a different voice? May I ask what voice you used that caused issues?

note: ran across ~no~ issues using Emma's voice from Ivona
however:
the issue within 1, 2 and 3 in my previous post was immediately after install, and was during fist test of the program ~before~ installing Ivona voice or Appling any settings.
After I was able to restart the TTS program issue 1, 2, and 3 went away.

for info on Ivona voice http://www.ivona.com/us/products/voice-emma/

I sent you a PM with a link to the CereProc voice along with a licence key

Thanks I will check it out, and report in a lil bit.
note: I have not tried saving to a sound file yet, I'll get to that as well.

[sybershot]

 CereProc voice install went flawless, it also detected that I already had Zabaware TTS Reader installed and installed the voice as an add-on.

voices ~do not~ show up in Ultra Hal 6.2, Balabolka TTS, Ivona Reader, nor Ivona miniReader

todays findings:
1. Display text and progress bar at times especially with larger amount of text can get out of synch.
2. ~I think~ I found a bug while saving to a sound file, Let me explain below.

I pasted text into text field and had the TTS read it to me, then I deleted the text. I then copied new text to the clipboard this time and had TTS read it to me. I then clicked
File / Convert text into Wave audio file
I played the saved audio file and it was not audio of clipboards text, but of previous text that was within text field.

3. Cloads finding still ongoing

If you try to make a way file with the text above you will see that it will only record:
see Jane run after the dog and the cat.

That is because the tax is separated by a hard return.

also note: if only a portion of text is selected (say 2nd paragraph only out of 3 paragraphs total) and read then saved to an audio file, none of the selected 2nd paragraphs text gets recorded just the last/3rd paragraph.

Program feature suggestion:
allow reading and recording  to start from courser placement. after I place text within text field I might have already had time to read first sentence or paragraph and might only want reading or recording to start from second paragraph or sentnce.

[sybershot]

I tested on a windows vista 64bit laptop, install went smooth.
been testing on both systems and have not came across any issues other than previously stated.

[ridgerunner]

thankfully this worked for my daughters vista pro laptop
she needed something better than plain texting to communicate with her teachers in class because it left others feeling left out
btw my daughter is deaf
she takes classes with all students and most are 2 years her senior
i have recommended this software to the district as a paid idea and they will weigh it in the next budget meeting

i wanted to say thank you for allowing at least 1 child to feel "normal" again