eSpeak - RISCOS Version,   v3.50 (20 Mar 2016)
========================

This version has been released by Martin Avison to try and resolve some
problems with the last version released by Jonathan for RISC OS in 2013. 

If any problems are found, I will try to help at pluto@avisoft.f9.co.uk, 
but note there is no guarantee of support at all!
 
The changes made since v1.47 are listed in the file ChangeRO in this zip.
The file ChangeLog contains all previous changes by Jonathan.


Requirements
============

RISC OS 3.6 or later with 16 bit sound system enabled.

On a 200MHz StrongArm, it takes 51 sec to process 6m 3s of speech output,
so it should probably run OK on an ARM7 processor or later. 



Installation and Use
====================

1.  Open your machine Configuration dialogue (Double-click on your harddrive
    !Boot, or Menu over Tasks icon at the right of your Iconbar).
    Click on Boot configuration, then click Install to open Boot Merge.
    Drag the !Boot directory from the zip file to the Boot Merge window.
    This will install !eSpeak in your !Boot.Resources directory.

2.  After a re-boot, !eSpeak.!Boot will have been run which sets the 
    <eSpeak$Dir> system variable. The Speak module can then be loaded using
        *RMEnsure speak 3.49  Run <eSpeak$Dir>.speakmod
    
    A double-click on !eSpeak will also set the variable and load the 
    Speak module.
    
    Note, the <eSpeak$Dir> system variable refers to the directory
    that contains the espeak-dat directory, which contains the
    speech data. It must be set before the module is loaded.
       
3.  Additional languages.

    This RISC OS distribution of eSpeak only includes a few languages.
    You can install additional languages by copying files from the
    espeak-data directory in the eSpeak Linux or Windows downloads.
    
    For example, to include the Romanian language ("ro"):
    
    a.  Copy the "ro" voice file into the directory "espeak-data.voices".
    
    b.  Copy the compiled dictionary file "ro_dict" into the directory
        "espeak-data".

    
3.  Example commands:

    *help speak
      should show the current version number.

    *speak -h
      shows the available commands
      
    *speak "this is some text"
      speaks the string "this is some text"
      
    *speak -v en+f2 "this is some text"
      speaks with a language "en" and voice variant "f2"
      
    *speak --voices
      shows the available voices
      
    *speak --voices=variant
      shows the voice variants
      
    *speak -f textfile
      speaks the text from file "textfile"
      
    *speak -a30 "this is some text"
      speaks more quietly.  The default value is 100.
      
    *speak -s250 "this is some text"
      speaks more quickly (approx. 250 words per minute)
    
    The improvement in speech quality over Speak v.2 are most clearly
    heard when listening through a good sound system (eg. domestic
    stereo system) rather than small computer speakers.
    
    
4.  Adding words to the pronunciation dictionary

    The directory !eSpeak.dictsource contains pronunciation rules and 
    exception lists.  To add words, add the word and its pronunciation
    phonemes to en_extra and then do the speak command
   
      speak --compile=en
      
    from within the dictsource directory.  This will recompile the files
    "en_rules" and "en_list" and also any "ex_extra" file to
    produce a new version of  "en_dict"  in the espeak_dat directory.
       
    Details of the phoneme codes are given in docs.phonemes/html
    
    You can see the translated phoneme codes for a word by
       speak -x "word"

    
    
Use with Pluto
==============

    !Pluto will automatically use the new module if !eSpeak has already
    been booted.  Pluto's Speak dialog should show the new voices.
    If you wish, you can give them more meaningful names by
    renaming the files in espeak-dat.voices.
    
    If using with Pluto, please check the allocation of voices with
    Preferences->Speech after installing.
    
    Note that the system variable <eSpeak$dir> must be set before
    speakmod is loaded.  This can be done by making sure that 
    !eSpeak is seen by the RISC OS filer before Pluto is run.
          

To Re-Compile the Speak Module
==============================

    See instructions in the !!ReadMe!! file in the zip source directory.
    

Problems
========

1.  It uses the sound system directly rather than through the
    SharedSound module, would allow the system volume control apply
    to speech.
    
2.  There is no session management implemented, so changes to speed,
    amplitude etc by one user of the module will affect the others.
    