Emacsvox

Table of Contents

1. Emacsvox
2. Description
3. Quick Installation Instructions
4. Blog and Portfolio
5. Additional Info

Description

Emacsvox is a modernized fork of Emacspeak - a speech interface that helps visually impaired users work with the Emacs editor. Emacsvox turns Emacs into a complete audio desktop, giving audio feedback allowing full access to all of its features.

Modernization Status: Fully updated for Emacs 31+ with modern elisp patterns and advice-add throughout.

Quick Installation Instructions

For a more detailed installation guide, and further instructions on usage, see the documentation. For a quick installation guide, see below.

1. Obtain the Source Code:
   • Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/robertmeta/emacsvox
       

2. Change to the Emacsvox Directory:

   cd emacsvox
       

3. Configure the Sources:

   make config
       

4. Compile the Files:

   make
       

5. Install a Text-to-Speech Engine:
   • Open Source ESpeak on Linux:
     1. Install the ESpeak packages for your system.
     2. Compile the Emacsvox ESpeak server:

        cd servers/native-espeak
        make
                    

   • ViaVoice Outloud (AKA Eloquent):
     • Purchase this engine from the Voxin site. See Voxin Packages for the latest packages and Voxin Main Site for more information.
   • Mac:
     • You can use the built-in Mac TTS engine. Emacsvox includes a speech server for this purpose.
6. Set Up the TTS Engine: After installing TTS engine, set up Emacsvox by adding the following line to your shell’s configuration file:
   • For Bash (default on Linux or macOS before Catalina): Add the following line to your `.bash_profile`:

     export DTK_PROGRAM=<engine-name>
             

   • For Zsh (default on macOS Catalina and later): Add the following line to your `.zshrc` file:

     export DTK_PROGRAM=<engine-name>
             

   For example, to use ESpeak, add:

   export DTK_PROGRAM=espeak
       

7. Load Emacsvox in Your Emacs Configuration: Add the following line to the top of your .emacs file:

   (load-file "<emacsvox-dir>/lisp/emacsvox-setup.el")
       

   Replace <emacsvox-dir> with the directory where you unpacked the sources.

Requirements

Emacsvox requires Emacs 31 or later.

Blog and Portfolio

• Original Emacspeak blog
• T. V. Raman

Additional Info

Emacsvox is a fork of Emacspeak, modernized for Emacs 31+ with:

• All deprecated defadvice converted to advice-add
• Modern elisp patterns throughout
• Consistent code formatting
• Full Emacs 31+ compliance