KTTS -- KDE Text-to-Speech -- is a subsystem within the KDE desktop
for conversion of text to audible speech. KTTS is currently under
development and aims to become the standard subsystem for all KDE
applications to provide speech output. Currently, KTTS consists of
the following components:

KTTSD
  The KDE Text-to-Speech Deamon, a non-gui application that runs in
the background, providing TTS support to KDE applications. Applications
initiate TTS by making DCOP calls to kttsd.

KTTSMGR
  An application for configuring the KTTS System and for managing in-progress
speech jobs. kttsmgr provides an icon in the system tray for performing
these functions as needed.

kttsjobmgr
  A KPart for managing in-progress speech jobs.

kcmkttsd
  A KControl module for configuring the KTTS System. kcmkttsd runs in the
KDE Control Center or start it with the command "kcmshell kcmkttsd".

kate-plugin
  A plugin for the KDE Advanced Text Editor that permits you to speak an entire
text file or any portion of a file.

katepart-plugin
  Similar to kate-plugin but used when Kate is running embedded in Konqueror.

khmtl-plugin
  A plugin for Konqueror that permits you to speak all or any portion of an
HTML web page.

Original Author: Jos Pablo Ezequiel "Pupeno" Fernndez <pupeno@kde.org>
Current Maintainer: Gary Cramblitt <garycramblitt@comcast.net>
Contributors:
  Olaf Schmidt <ojschmidt@kde.org>
  Gunnar Schmi Dt <gunnar@schmi-dt.de>
  Paul Giannaros <ceruleanblaze@gmail.com>
  Jorge Luis Arzola <arzolacub@hotmail.com>

User features:
  * Speak contents of a text file.
  * Speak KDE notification events (KNotify).
  * Speak all or part of the text of a web page in Konqueror.
  * Speak all or part of the text in Kate text editor, including
    instances where Kate is embedded in another KDE application.
  * Long text is parsed into sentences. User may backup by sentence
    or paragraph, replay, pause, and stop playing.
  * Audio output via aRts or GStreamer (version 0.8.7 or later)

Programmer features:
  * Priority system for screen reader outputs, warnings and messages,
    while still playing regular texts.
  * Plugin-based architecture for support of a wide variety of speech
    synthesis engines and drivers.
  * Permit generation of speech from the command line (or via shell scripts)
    using the KDE DCOP utilities.
  * Provide a lightweight and easily usable interface for applications
    to generate speech output.
  * Applications need not be concerned about contention over the speech device.
  * FUTURE: Provide support for speech markup languages, such as VoiceXML, Sable,
    Java Speech Markup Language (JSML), and Speech Markup Meta-language (SMML).
  * FUTURE: Provide limited support for embedded speech markers.
  * Asynchronous to prevent system blocking.

Requirements
------------
KDE 3.2 or greater and a speech synthesis engine, such as Festival.  Festival
can be obtained from http://www.cstr.ed.ac.uk/projects/festival/.  Festival
is distributed with most Linux distros.  Check your distro CDs.  Also works
with Hadifix, Epos, Festival Lite (flite), FreeTTS, or any command that can
speak text.

Optional Components
-------------------
  * The sox utility is needed for adjusting overall speech rate.
  * The xsltproc utility is needed for SSML support.
  * GStreamer 0.8.7 or greater.

See the KTTS Handbook

  (http://accessibility.kde.org/developer/kttsd/handbook/index.html)

for complete instructions on installing, compiling, configuring, and using
KTTS.

Support
-------
The KTTS website is

  http://accessibility.kde.org/developer/kttsd

In addition to the KDE Bugzilla database (bugs.kde.org), discussions for KTTSD
currently take place in the kde-accessibility mailing list.  Subscribe at
https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-accessibility.  Developers
also hang out in IRC (irc.kde.org channel #kde-accessibility).

Directories
-----------
libktts            Library for applications desiring to speak text.  This must be built first.
libkttsd           Library for KTTSD.  Defines the interface for plugins for KTTSD.  Must be built second.
players            Audio plugins for KTTSD.
  artsplayer         aRts audio plugin for KTTSD.
  gstplayer          GStreamer audio plugin for KTTSD.
plugins            Plugins for KTTSD.  You must have at least one plugin to use KTTSD.
  festival           Plugin for Festival using statically-linked Festival library.  May not work.
  festivalint        Plugin for Festival using Festival Interactive mode (festival --interactive).
  flite              Plugin for Festival Lite.
  festivalcs         Plugin for Festival using Festival Client/Server mode.  Under development.
  hadifix            Plugin for Hadifix.
  freetts            Plugin for FreeTTS.
  epos               Plugin for Epos.
  command            Generic command plugin.
kttsd              KTTSD itself.  Non-interactive deamon.
icons              Icon for kttsmgr and KTTSD.
kttsjobmgr         A KPart used by kcmkttsmgr for managing text jobs in KTTSD.
kcmkttsmgr         A KControl module for managing KTTSD.  Run using "kcmshell kcmkttsd".
kttsmgr            Application for managing KTTSD.  Wrapper for kcmkttsmgr plus a system tray icon.
app-plugins        Plugins for other applications to speak text.
  kate-plugin
  katepart-plugin
  khtml-plugin        While viewing an HTML page in Konqueror, highlight some text and choose "Read Out Page"
                      in Tools menu.  Or with nothing highlighted, speaks entire page.
debian             Debian packaging files.
