Hello out there,
since there are so many knowledgable people around here I figured it
would be worth a try.
The context: My mother (93 years old) suffers from 'age-related
degeneration of the macula' (Altersbedingt Makula-Degeneration, AMD).
This is pretty horrible since her near-field vision (that is the
region from 0 to 50 or 60 cm) is practically completely gone. Which
means she can neither read, write, knit nor solve puzzles like she
loved to do in the past.
Lately she developed some interest in audio books and so we bought a
handy and configured an app and the speech control so that she could
hear an audio book.
This was somewhat successful but now the handy kind of dissolved
itself and I had the following idea:
- Pick a media player which offers an interface to basic functions:
play, play one episode, stop, rewind one episod and rewind <N>
episodes.
- Write a Tcl program to this interface.
- Figure out a way to get htis whole setup speech-controlled. A
possibility would be a 'speech to text' conversion (which was recently
mentioned in the group) and its interpretation by Tcl, or maybe a
direct interface to Windows' speech engine, or ...

This would be on Windows - but since she can't use her laptop anymore
I could install Linux there as well (if that helps).

Thanks for reading so far. Any idea, hint or link will be highly
appreciated.

A nice weekend to all of you
Helmut

Helmut Giese <hgiese@ratiosoft.com> wrote:
> - Pick a media player which offers an interface to basic functions:
> play, play one episode, stop, rewind one episod and rewind <N>
> episodes.
> - Write a Tcl program to this interface.

Mplayer offers a "remote control" mode
(http://www.mplayerhq.hu/DOCS/tech/slave.txt).

My pvr (custom Tcl code) uses mplayer's remote control mode to
interface an IR remote to mplayer to handle standard playback functions
(pause, jump forward, jump backward, etc.).

mpg123 also has a 'remote control' mode. Never written anything to
worrk against it, but I know it exists.

Both are Linux.

> - Figure out a way to get htis whole setup speech-controlled. A
> possibility would be a 'speech to text' conversion (which was recently
> mentioned in the group) and its interpretation by Tcl, or maybe a
> direct interface to Windows' speech engine, or ...

I can't offer any advice here.

On 08/09/2023 20:21, Helmut Giese wrote:
> Hello out there,
> since there are so many knowledgable people around here I figured it
> would be worth a try.
> The context: My mother (93 years old) suffers from 'age-related
> degeneration of the macula' (Altersbedingt Makula-Degeneration, AMD).
> This is pretty horrible since her near-field vision (that is the
> region from 0 to 50 or 60 cm) is practically completely gone. Which
> means she can neither read, write, knit nor solve puzzles like she
> loved to do in the past.
> Lately she developed some interest in audio books and so we bought a
> handy and configured an app and the speech control so that she could
> hear an audio book.
> This was somewhat successful but now the handy kind of dissolved
> itself and I had the following idea:
> - Pick a media player which offers an interface to basic functions:
> play, play one episode, stop, rewind one episod and rewind <N>
> episodes.
> - Write a Tcl program to this interface.
> - Figure out a way to get htis whole setup speech-controlled. A
> possibility would be a 'speech to text' conversion (which was recently
> mentioned in the group) and its interpretation by Tcl, or maybe a
> direct interface to Windows' speech engine, or ...
>
> This would be on Windows - but since she can't use her laptop anymore
> I could install Linux there as well (if that helps).
>
> Thanks for reading so far. Any idea, hint or link will be highly
> appreciated.
>
> A nice weekend to all of you
> Helmut

Just a thought - how about a full-screen Tk interface with 5 huge
buttons in contrasting colours - or single colour with a contrasting
border that changes colour when the mouse is over them?

All the best to your mother,
Alan

On 09/09/2023 07:48 AM, Alan Grunwald wrote:
> On 08/09/2023 20:21, Helmut Giese wrote:
>> Hello out there,
>> since there are so many knowledgable people around here I figured it
>> would be worth a try.
>> The context: My mother (93 years old) suffers from 'age-related
>> degeneration of the macula' (Altersbedingt Makula-Degeneration, AMD).
>> This is pretty horrible since her near-field vision (that is the
>> region from 0 to 50 or 60 cm) is practically completely gone. Which
>> means she can neither read, write, knit nor solve puzzles like she
>> loved to do in the past.
>> Lately she developed some interest in audio books and so we bought a
>> handy and configured an app and the speech control so that she could
>> hear an audio book.
>> This was somewhat successful but now the handy kind of dissolved
>> itself and I had the following idea:
>> - Pick a media player which offers an interface to basic functions:
>> play, play one episode, stop, rewind one episod and rewind <N>
>> episodes.
>> - Write a Tcl program to this interface.
>> - Figure out a way to get htis whole setup speech-controlled. A
>> possibility would be a 'speech to text' conversion (which was recently
>> mentioned in the group) and its interpretation by Tcl, or maybe a
>> direct interface to Windows' speech engine, or ...
>>
>> This would be on Windows - but since she can't use her laptop anymore
>> I could install Linux there as well (if that helps).
>>
>> Thanks for reading so far. Any idea, hint or link will be highly
>> appreciated.
>>
>> A nice weekend to all of you
>> Helmut
>
> Just a thought - how about a full-screen Tk interface with 5 huge
> buttons in contrasting colours - or single colour with a contrasting
> border that changes colour when the mouse is over them?
>
> All the best to your mother,
> Alan

Some possible information sources:
https://www.debian.org/devel/debian-accessibility/
https://lists.debian.org/debian-accessibility/
https://html.duckduckgo.com/html?q=%2Bdebian%20%2B%22speech%20recognition%22%20%2Bcontrol

HTH

Rich <rich@example.invalid> schrieb:

>Helmut Giese <hgiese@ratiosoft.com> wrote:
>> - Pick a media player which offers an interface to basic functions:
>> play, play one episode, stop, rewind one episod and rewind <N>
>> episodes.
>> - Write a Tcl program to this interface.
>
>Mplayer offers a "remote control" mode
>(http://www.mplayerhq.hu/DOCS/tech/slave.txt).
>
>My pvr (custom Tcl code) uses mplayer's remote control mode to
>interface an IR remote to mplayer to handle standard playback functions
>(pause, jump forward, jump backward, etc.).
>
>mpg123 also has a 'remote control' mode. Never written anything to
>worrk against it, but I know it exists.
>
>Both are Linux.
>
Thank you, Rich, I will have a look.
Helmut

>Just a thought - how about a full-screen Tk interface with 5 huge
>buttons in contrasting colours - or single colour with a contrasting
>border that changes colour when the mouse is over them?
>
>All the best to your mother,
Hi Alan,
that's an interesting idea - and very fast to try out.
Thanks
Helmut

Richard Owlett <rowlett@cloud85.net> schrieb:
Hi Richard,

>Some possible information sources:
> https://www.debian.org/devel/debian-accessibility/
> https://lists.debian.org/debian-accessibility/
>
>https://html.duckduckgo.com/html?q=%2Bdebian%20%2B%22speech%20recognition%22%20%2Bcontrol
>
>HTH
>
thanks, this looks interesting.
Helmut

On Friday, September 8, 2023 at 12:21:09 PM UTC-7, Helmut Giese wrote:
> Hello out there,
> since there are so many knowledgable people around here I figured it
> would be worth a try.
> The context: My mother (93 years old) suffers from 'age-related
> degeneration of the macula' (Altersbedingt Makula-Degeneration, AMD).
> This is pretty horrible since her near-field vision (that is the
> region from 0 to 50 or 60 cm) is practically completely gone. Which
> means she can neither read, write, knit nor solve puzzles like she
> loved to do in the past.
> Lately she developed some interest in audio books and so we bought a
> handy and configured an app and the speech control so that she could
> hear an audio book.
> This was somewhat successful but now the handy kind of dissolved
> itself and I had the following idea:
> - Pick a media player which offers an interface to basic functions:
> play, play one episode, stop, rewind one episod and rewind <N>
> episodes.
> - Write a Tcl program to this interface.
> - Figure out a way to get htis whole setup speech-controlled. A
> possibility would be a 'speech to text' conversion (which was recently
> mentioned in the group) and its interpretation by Tcl, or maybe a
> direct interface to Windows' speech engine, or ...
>
> This would be on Windows - but since she can't use her laptop anymore
> I could install Linux there as well (if that helps).
>
> Thanks for reading so far. Any idea, hint or link will be highly
> appreciated.
>
> A nice weekend to all of you
> Helmut
We have a solution that integrates speech control with mplayer. Speech is managed with SAPI, media with mplayer from the mplayer project. i can give you the tcl code for the shared recognizer; we use a customized inproc version. Will give you some examples. However, too much to show here. Would be happy to share the code if you would like. email me at wheeldog99@yahoo.com..

On 08/09/2023 21:21, Helmut Giese wrote:
> This was somewhat successful but now the handy kind of dissolved
> itself and I had the following idea:
> - Pick a media player which offers an interface to basic functions:
> play, play one episode, stop, rewind one episod and rewind <N>
> episodes.
> - Write a Tcl program to this interface.

Many media players on linux support the MPRIS API:
https://specifications.freedesktop.org/mpris-spec/2.2/
Communication happens through D-Bus, for which there is Tcl binding:
https://chiselapp.com/user/schelte/repository/dbus

Schelte.

P.S.: While "handy" may sound English, a native English speaker will
probably not understand that you mean a mobile phone.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfeMGVCX-Gk&t=312s

Hi Schelte,

>On 08/09/2023 21:21, Helmut Giese wrote:
>> This was somewhat successful but now the handy kind of dissolved
>> itself and I had the following idea:
>> - Pick a media player which offers an interface to basic functions:
>> play, play one episode, stop, rewind one episod and rewind <N>
>> episodes.
>> - Write a Tcl program to this interface.
>
>Many media players on linux support the MPRIS API:
>https://specifications.freedesktop.org/mpris-spec/2.2/
>Communication happens through D-Bus, for which there is Tcl binding:
>https://chiselapp.com/user/schelte/repository/dbus
>
sounde interesting. Thanks for the info.

>P.S.: While "handy" may sound English, a native English speaker will
>probably not understand that you mean a mobile phone.
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfeMGVCX-Gk&t=312s
Good catch! Now that you mention it, it is obvious. My only "excuse":
I learned my English when mobile phones weren't even thought of. You
never stop learning ...
Thanks again
Helmut

Hi,
>We have a solution that integrates speech control with mplayer. Speech is managed with SAPI, media with mplayer from the mplayer project. i can give you the tcl code for the shared recognizer; we use a customized inproc version. Will give you some examples. However, too much to show here. Would be happy to share the code if you would like. email me at wheeldog99@yahoo.com.
This sounds wonderful. Email is under way.
Many thanks
Helmut
PS: This is the 2nd attempt to answer you - don't know what happened
to the 1st.