Feature request: Integrate eSpeak NG as internal TTS for Bookworm

[DraganRatkovich]

Several SAPI5 voices can currently be installed, both x86/x64-bit versions, to be used by Bookworm for reading books aloud.

As suggested today by one of the users of the Bookworm Telegram group, it would be much better to integrate eSpeak NG as an internal TTS in Bookworm, which can be useful for reading books without TTS installation and even for reading multilingual books.

An eSpeak NG voice and variant selection, and a download button can be added to the Voice section of the Bookworm settings screen, from where you can first install eSpeak NG, such as the Teseract OCR engine, and then, once installed, a combo box or checkboxes. will allow the user to select the eSpeak language and voices to be installed for use.

After downloading, installing and selecting the appropriate language and voices, when the user chooses to read books aloud, eSpeak should automatically change the language depending on the book.

@mush42 eSpeak NG should work on both x86 and x64-bit versions of Bookworm.

[mush42]

Hello @DraganRatkovich

Currently investigating the best way to implement this feature.

Best
Musharraf

[cary-rowen]

If there is a better option, I definitely don't want to hear the eSpeak pronunciation, it's really not clear enough for Mandarin.

[mush42]

Hello @cary-rowen

eSpeak support, if implemented, will be an optional component, just Like Tesseract or the newly landed Pandoc.

Best
Musharraf

[pauliyobo]

I am fairly sure eSpeak has been implemented so I'll be closing this for now. If there are more specific issues related to it, feel free to open new issues.
Thank you!

[DraganRatkovich]

@pauliyobo This issue needs to be left open as currently only one eSpeak voice can be used. There is no option to select the desired voice, such as Max, or any other available voice from the list of eSpeak voices. If you can fix this and add the ability to select the desired voice, well, close this issue after making the appropriate changes. Until this change, this issue should not be closed.

[DraganRatkovich]

@cary-rowen @pauliyobo and others,

Another thing to take into account is that when reading with the SAPI voice, in this case with eSpeak voice, the punctuation are also spoken. Not sure if there is a way to control this so that punctuation can be turned off or adjusted to a minimal level, but if there is an option to add it to Bookworm that would be nice.

I'm not going to open a separate issue for this, I'll leave it as a comment here. And, of course, my previous comment about adding the ability to select the desired voice, not just the language, must be taken into account.