espeakup connector
=======================

espeakup is a program which makes it possible for speakup to use
the espeak software synthesizer.  It does this by reading speakup's
softsynth device and passing the text to espeak which actually speaks.

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

This program works with the speakup screen reader, which can be obtained
from http://linux-speakup.org, and the espeak software speech
synthesizer which can be obtained from http://espeak.sourceforge.net.
You must have both of these installed and operational.  Setting them up
is beyond the scope of this document.

Installation
============

The preferred way to install espeakup is using your distribution's
packaging system, but if your distribution does not have a package for
espeakup yet, here are some basic instructions.

Espeakup uses an autotools build system, so installation should be very
straight forward.

If you are installing from git, you must have at least automake 1.11.1
and autoconf 2.65 installed.  Then, change to the repository directory
and type:

autoreconf -i

If this runs successfully, you will have a configure script, so run it
then run make.  If that completes successfully, run make install.

ALSA SUPPORT
============

Chris Brannon contributed the alsa support to this project, and I would
like to thank him for his work on it.

To build with alsa support, add --with-alsa to the command line when you
run the configure script.

Starting Up
===========

This program should be run after speakup is set up to communicate with a
software synthesizer and after /dev/softsynth exists.  The way this is
done is distribution specific, so it is beyond the scope of this
documentation.

Command Line Options
====================

Espeakup currently accepts the following command line options:

  --default-voice=voice, -V voice	Set default voice.
  --debug, -d				Debug mode (stay in the foreground).
  --help, -h				Show this help.
  --version, -v				Display the software version.

Getting the Latest Version
==========================

It is possible to download a tarball from github of any released version
as follows:

wget http://www.github.com/williamh/espeakup/tarball/vx.y

If you need a tarball for packaging purposes, one is available from
ftp://ftp.linux-speakup.org/pub/linux/goodies/espeakup-x.y.tar.bz2.

The url for the git repository is git://github.com/williamh/espeakup.git.

Acknowledgements
================

I would like to thank Marc Mulcahy, the author of the speakup to
TTSynth connector, on which this work is based.  Also, I would like
to thank Kirk Reiser and Jonathan Duddington, the
authors of Speakup and Espeak, respectively, for their work.

Questions
=========

You can contact me with questions, bugs, patches, etc, at
w.d.hubbs@gmail.com or on the speakup mailing list.  I hope you find
this software to be useful.