matrix_tts_bot

This is a super-simple text-to-speech bot for Matrix using espeak. It is useful as an example of a simple Matrix bot and as a source of amusement.

When the bot is told to "say" a phrase, it generates a temporary WAV file and uploads it to the Matrix room to be played (in Matrix clients that show the audio inline) or downloaded as a file.

Configuring and Running the Bot

1. Create a Matrix account for your bot
2. Enter the account's credentials into config.yaml (see config.yaml.example)
3. Check if your machine has espeak installed with which espeak. If it is missing (e.g. you are a macOS heathen), either install it from your package manager (or, in the case of macOS, one of your package managers) or replace the call to espeak in matrix_tts_bot.py with a call to another text-to-speech command, like macOS' say.
4. Install dependencies with pip3 install -r requirements.txt
5. Run your TTS bot with ./matrix_tts_bot
6. Wait for the bot to initialize and log in.
7. In a room with the bot, give it a spin by sending "!BOT_NAME say Hello, world!", where "BOT_NAME" is "name" in your config.yaml

Known Issues and Limitations

• The bot is not compatible with E2E-encrypted rooms. It can't read commands in E2E encrypted rooms, uploads unencrypted audio files, and sends the events unencrypted.
• Bridged IRC users don't see a link to the file, but the filename as a string. It works for images posted via Riot web/android. I don't yet know enough to say whether the bot's file-posting events are missing data required to fall back properly, or if the IRC bridge doesn't give audio files the same linkification treatment as images.