[BRLTTY] introduction

[kendell clark]

hi
When referring to logging in, I am referring to a console. I do intend
to test braille from an x session, but I don't own a display, so will
need to be sent one to test by someone, if I can find someone in the
blind community to do so. I didn't know  about the keypad driver, I'll
add this to our brltty config file.  I start brltty using it's systemd
service, and it's set to start on system bootup. As for
speech-dispatcher, yes, it errors out when trying to load it at runtime.
Same for the auto module. The config line for the speech driver is as
follows in our brltty.conf file. speech-driver=auto,sd,es. The braille
line is: braille-driver=auto. I'm wondering if maybe pulse audio is
playing havvoc with brltty, as it does with speakup? I'm hoping not. Can
you specify the log level and the log path in the config file? If so,
I'll temporarily enable this so I can get a debug log for someone hear
to look at.
Thanks
Kendell Clark


Dave Mielke wrote:
> [quoted lines by kendell clark on 2016/03/19 at 10:13 -0500]
>
>> It's pretty easy to get brltty to speak on startup, but upon logging in, all 
>> speech stops.
> Are you referring to logging in via a text console or via an X session?
>
> You might try capturing a debug log so that you can gain more insight into 
> what's going on. In this regard, there are two options that you should 
> familiarize yourself with. One is -L (uppercase) which lets you specify the log 
> file, and the other is -l (lowercase) which lets you specify what you want in 
> the log. So, for example:
>
>    -L/path/to/logfile -ldebug,speech,spkdrv
>
> The "speech" log category logs core events related to speech, and the "spkdrv" 
> log category logs events within the speech driver itself.
>
>> Does anyone know how to review the screen using the keyboard? I don't own a 
>> braille display, so I'm hoping screen review via the keyboard is possible.
> Brltty supports keyboard tables. These bind keyboard key combinations to brltty 
> navigation functions. There are a few of them - the one named keypad supports 
> the most functions. For a full description of what you can do with it:
>
>    Go to: brltty.com
>    Click on: Documentation
>    Click on: Key Binding Lists
>    Click on: Computer Keyboard Bindings
>    Click on: Bindings for Keypad-based Navigation
>
> You can enable a keyboard key table in a couple of ways. One is to use the -k 
> command line option (e.g. -kkeypad). Anotehr is to specify it within 
> brltty.conf, for example:
>
>    keyboard-table keypad
>
>> I've been trying to enable the speech-dispatcher brltty speech module. Brltty 
>> errors out, saying it can't load the shared library. According to the readme 
>> in the source code, brltty will build it's speech-dispatcher module if 
>> speech-dispatcher is found when it's built, but I can't seem to get this to 
>> work.
> When does it say that it can't load the shared library? From what you've 
> written, it seems that it's saying this at run-time. If so, this implies very 
> strongly that it did build the driver, but that the needed shared library can't 
> be found at run-time.
>
> Is it possible, for example, that you're starting brltty from an initrd that 
> doesn't contain all of the neded shared libraries?
>
>> Espeak was recently forked into a project called espeak ng. Would it be 
>> possible to add support for this fork? Normally you wouldn't need to modify 
>> the plugin but for some reason the espeak plugin doesn't work with the fork.
> Again, we'd need to see a debug log in order to try to gain some insight as to 
> what's going wrong. I trust you can appreciate that I'd rather not guess.
>
>> I'd also like espeak varients and voices (languages) to be selectable in 
>> brltty. Is this possible? 
> Yes. The eSpeak speech driver already has a voice= parameter. More could easily 
> be added.
>