How can I integrate eSpeak into the Speech Manager on OS X?

By Parham Doustdar, 21 December, 2013

Forum
App Development and Programming
Hi all, This is Mac OS X related, but I didn’t see any Mac development forums here, so I thought I’d try my luck on this forum. I’m looking for a solution to integrate eSpeak (a third-party synthesizer) into the Mac Speech Manager so that it can be used by Voiceover. Is there a way to do this? Thanks.

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By mehgcap on Thursday, January 9, 2014 - 03:00

The only way to do this is to convert it. You'd probably need to wrap the Espeak header in a Cocoa header that converts Espeak's functions to those that OS10 requires. Google "morse synthesizer code" to find Apple's sample on writing a custom synthesizer, and that should get you started. I've wanted to do this, but I simply don't know enough about speech synthesizers to properly convert everything over to Cocoa/Objective-C. Best of luck, and let us know if you get it working.

By Parham Doustdar on Thursday, January 9, 2014 - 03:00

Thanks a lot for the prompt and informative answer, @mehgcap. I don’t know much about synthesizers and Objective-C both. However, I’m planning on asking for help from the Objective-C coders and eSpeak’s developer to try and bridge the gap. Are you interested in a joined effort, or do you know someone who is? I’m guessing a joined effort with someone who at least knows Objective-C will both help my learning progress faster and help this project to be finished sooner. Thanks!

By mehgcap on Thursday, January 9, 2014 - 03:00

The Espeak developers might not be able to do much. I've asked on the Espeak discussion list, and no one has been able to offer anything past an iOS example that uses Espak to speak, but in the app, not as a system voice.