New to the group;And a few questions regarding accessibility in Android-x86ee

[thomas geczy]

Respected Android x86 developers and users,

I'm new to this group and hope to contribute something to the
android-x86 project :) I see so much potential in this and wish to
thank all of you who actually got the ball rolling and worked hours on
compiling and getting the platform to work well on the x86
architecture.

I am someone with a visual impairment-I have no vision. So I use
screen reading software, such as System access (
www.satogo.com
), to read the screen.

Android includes talkback, kickback and other accessibility features,
which are, essentially, a screen reader for the OS. I've used them on
my friend's phones and they work welll! A bit of an irritating voice,
but hey... It's ok.

Recently I gave android 1.6-r2 a try, with the help of a few of my
sighted friends. I installed it on my sd card.
I have a toshiba nb205 netbook and just want to let everyone know, it
runs fine on it. Wifi works, so does sound-two major problems with
Ubuntu linux. (I used headphones with sound, not sure if the speakers
work though and if Android can even sense headphone jacks).

When attempting to install the speech files, the OS crashed. I was a
bit surprised by this-basically, when you go to settings>speech
synthesis, it asks you to download the files but later force-quits
the app.
So it appears that speech is not included in Android-x86. Under
Accessibility, talkback and the other functions are also not present.

Is there any way to get these working under the x86 platform? If we
could get the spech voices to run, I'm sure that there would be a
possibility of downloading talkback as a separate app.
I know that it might seem worthless to try and get android-x86 blind
friendly from a developer standpoint, but as I've said, I see lots of
potential in this project and would love to use Android on my netbook,
even as a secondary OS.

With all the best,
Tomi

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[Chih-Wei Huang]

Hi Tomi,
It's amazing to hear a visual impairment like you
can use android-x86. Great!

For the speech synthesis (TTS) question,
I haven't tested it, but some of my colleague had done.
It does work, provided you install the voice data manually.

Go to the eyes-free project, download and install
Pico TTS data files (com.svox.langpack.installer_1.0.1.apk)
Url: http://code.google.com/p/eyes-free/downloads/list
You have to check Unknown sources in the Settings first.
Then go to Speech synthesis, now the
"Listen to an example" should be enabled,
and you can hear it.

And with this installed voice data, you can try the
TextToSpeechActivity of ApiDemo in the Android SDK.
(refer: http://developer.android.com/intl/zh-TW/resources/samples/ApiDemos/src/com/example/android/apis/app/TextToSpeechActivity.html
)


Best Regards,
--
Chih-Wei
Android-x86 project
http://www.android-x86.org

2010/5/13 thomas geczy <gt1...@gmail.com>:

[thomas geczy]

Respected Chih-Wei,

wow, thanks for your post! I still have Android on the sd card here
and will try this with my sighted buddies at school.
Do you know how or where the files should be pasted? Is there a way to
mount the android image's file system and paste the speech data that
way?

Thanks so much for your response :)

All the best,
Tomi

[Chih-Wei Huang]

Hi Tomi,
You don't have to worry about where to paste the files.
Just download the install the apk I said in the previous post,
it will install the voice data for you.
But you must have a sdcard or usb stick
mouted at /sdcard. The voice data will be installed to it.

Just insert a sdcard or usb stick to your android-x86 netbook,
it should be mounted automatically.
Then, search "eyes-free"
(just type eyes-free and enter on the Home screen)
It will direct you to the Google code eyes-free project.
Click the Downloads tab, then click
com.svox.langpack.installer_1.0.1.apk.
It will be downloaded to the sdcard
(don't worry which dir to dowload, it's handled by the browser)
After downloading, click it to install.
The voice data will be installed as well as the apk.
(no need to open the apk, it will crash, but doesn't matter)
Then Speech synthesis works.

2010/5/19 thomas geczy <gt1...@gmail.com>:

> Respected Chih-Wei,
>
> wow, thanks for your post! I still have Android on the sd card here
> and will try this with my sighted buddies at school.
> Do you know how or where the files should be pasted? Is there a way to
> mount the android image's file system and paste the speech data that
> way?
>

--
Chih-Wei
Android-x86 project
http://www.android-x86.org