espeakup connector
=======================

espeakup is a program which makes it possible for speakup to use
the espeak software synthesizer.  It does this by reading speakup's
softsynth device and passing the text to espeak which actually speaks.

Requirements
============

This program works with the speakup screen reader, which can be obtained
from http://linux-speakup.org, and the espeak software speech
synthesizer which can be obtained from http://espeak.sourceforge.net.
You must have both of these installed and operational.  Setting them up
is beyond the scope of this document.

Installation
============

The preferred way to install espeakup is using your distribution's
packaging system, but if your distribution does not have a package for
espeakup yet, espeakup just uses a Makefile, so you should be able to
change to the source directory, then type make, then as root, make
install.

Starting Up
===========

This program should be run after speakup is set up to communicate with a
software synthesizer and after /dev/softsynth exists.  The way this is
done is distribution specific, so it is beyond the scope of this
documentation.

Command Line Options
====================

Espeakup currently accepts the following command line options:

  --default-voice=voice, -V voice	Set default voice.
  --debug, -d				Debug mode (stay in the foreground).
  --help, -h				Show this help.
  --version, -v				Display the software version.

Getting the Latest Version
==========================

It is possible to download a tarball from github of any released version
as follows:

wget http://www.github.com/williamh/espeakup/tarball/vx.y

If you need a tarball for packaging purposes, one is available from
ftp://ftp.linux-speakup.org/pub/linux/goodies/espeakup-x.y.tar.bz2.

The url for the git repository is git://github.com/williamh/espeakup.git.

Acknowledgements
================

I would like to thank Marc Mulcahy, the author of the speakup to
TTSynth connector, on which this work is based.  Also, I would like
to thank Kirk Reiser and Jonathan Duddington, the
authors of Speakup and Espeak, respectively, for their work.

Questions
=========

You can contact me with questions, bugs, patches, etc, at
w.d.hubbs@gmail.com or on the speakup mailing list.  I hope you find
this software to be useful.