Text To Speech library (desktop only)

[Louis]

Hi. I am trying to wrap the Microsoft SAPI so it will work with Basic4ppc. The DLL builds fine and I see all methods, but when I run it on the desktop I get an error saying that the speech.dll wrapper is trying to read from protected memory, but if I use native C++ the Speech.dll lib works fine. Please help! All source code is attached below for the desktop only. Thanks.

[Cableguy]

Sorry...
I cannot help, but is this dll device compatible?

I was looking for something like this for a while...

[agraham]

Louis - I am afraid that your source is a bit screwed up and I don't know that dll does so I can't help with that.

However try the following. As with all my stuff it needs .NET 2.0 and I can't be sure that it will work on your machines but it works on my laptop under XP and my desktop under Vista.

Technical note : The source code needs an interop library to access the COM object "Microsoft Speech Object Library". The Interop library included is automatically generated by VS2005 when you add the COM reference to the project. I have included the source in case anyone wants to make a stab at a .NET 1.1 version but I don't know if this is possible.

EDIT: - I've just found out that the voice selection is broken - I only have one voice installed on my main machine so I could't test it there. I have fixed it but I'll wait for some feedback to see if this library is of any use to people before posting it.

[Erel]

Attached is the .Net 1.1 version of this library (desktop only).
Speak1 - Asynchronous speaking.
Speak2 - Synchronous speaking (blocking).

You should add SAPI.dll to your project.
Interop.SpeechLib.dll should be in the same folder of your code.

A small example is also included.

[agraham]

Final (?) version 1.1 of SpeechLibDesktop compiled under .NET 2.0

Source code and help file included. Sync and Async speaking with voice selection and some useful events. Sample app included.

@Erel & dzt et al. I guess this source won't compile directly under .NET 1.1 as I use the later C# 2 syntax to add events - I guess you can figure out how to fix that yourselves!


Edited by Erel: The attached file is compiled with .Net 1.1. Thank you agraham for this great library

[colin9876]

Hey, this is great but can it not run on the PocketPC? Is there a hardware barrier to speach on a PDA?

Im new to this forum but it seems a shame to be developing things 'for desktop only' because the whole beauty of this Basic4ppc product is that one can develop and run on the PocketPC without going near a desktop?

[agraham]

Originally Posted by colin9876

Hey, this is great but can it not run on the PocketPC? Is there a hardware barrier to speach on a PDA?

It's not hardware but software limitations. Microsoft didn't put the speech API into Windows Mobile because of memory and processor power limitations. As far as I know there is only one speech library for Pocket PC. It is called FLite and I haven't made it work properly. Even when it does the speech quality apparently is c**p because of said limitations.

[bparent]

Whenever I try to run this I get the following error using the included example:

"Cannot load file or assembly Interop.SpeechLib or one of its dependencies. Cannot locate file"

I have the Interop.SpeechLib.dll in the Windows directory, Basic4ppc/librarires directory, with the speechtext.sbp file.

What am I doing wrong?

[Louis]

Hi. The Interop.Speech.dll that you moved to your Windows folder should be in the same folder as the rest of the Basic4ppc Libraries. When you decide you want to distribute your applications, all dlls should be distributed in the same folder as your source code or compiled application. This includes the Interop.Speech.dll. HTH.

[bparent]

That did it. Thanks. Thought the dll needed to be in the windows directory per earlier comment in thread. Actually, also thought I had put all the dll's with the source code in trying different things, but had not included the Interop.Speech.dll.

Originally Posted by Louis

Hi. The Interop.Speech.dll that you moved to your Windows folder should be in the same folder as the rest of the Basic4ppc Libraries. When you decide you want to distribute your applications, all dlls should be distributed in the same folder as your source code or compiled application. This includes the Interop.Speech.dll. HTH.