Gespeaker

Gespeaker is an open source and totally free graphical software implemented in Python around the GTK+ toolkit as a graphical user interface front-end for the eSpeak speech synthesizer software.

Lets users to playback text in multiple languages

The application has been designed from the offset to allow users to easily playback a text in multiple languages. It features settings for volume, voice, speed and pitch. In addition, users will be able to record the read text to a WAV file, which can be listen at a later time.

The interface is quite intuitive and easy-to-use. It comes with a toolbar that lets you to quickly create a new project, open an existing one, save the current project, revert previous modifications made to a project or start the recording process.

Under the toolbar, there’s a text area where you can insert the text to play. Simply click on the the “Play” button to listen to the text inserted in the text box. Both the basic and advanced settings of the application are provided in the same window.

Users will be able to change the language (English is default), change the voice (male or female), as well as to change the pitch, volume, speed and delay of the playback.

Supported operating systems and requirements

It’s fully compatible with various open source desktop environments/window managers, including GNOME, Xfce, MATE, Cinnamon and LXDE, on either Ubuntu, Debian, Arch Linux, Red Hat Enterprise Linux or any other GNU/Linux distribution, supporting both 32-bit and 64-bit architectures.

Runtime requirements include Python 2.x, eSpeak for the speaking system implementation, the librsvg library for loading SVG files, PyGTK for the graphical user interface, ALSA for the playback functionality, as well as the python-dbus-common and python2-xdg Python modules for the DBus interface and to store the application’s configuration.

What is new in this release:

• Switch to the new mbrola and espeak versions
• Removed the plugins amsn, emesene, kopete, pidgin, telepathy. They were moved to another source repository for separated maintenance and versioning
• New german translation by Heinrich Schwietering
• New faroese translation by Gunleif Joensen
• Fixed handling of broken symlinks for amsn and emesene plugins

What is new in version 0.7:

• New handlepaths module to reflect the changed directory structure.
• New setup.py for distutils installation.
• New packaging following the Debian policy.

What is new in version 0.6:

• This version introduces support for mbrola voices for a more realistic experience
• New Spanish translation
• Minor GUI reorganization to split settings in base and advanced

What is new in version 0.5:

• Added WAV recording
• Added voice variants
• Added user preferences dialog with load/save voice settings and window sizes
• Added choice for audio player to use (aplay, paplay or customized player command)

What is new in version 0.4:

• This new version supports both male and female voice as well the previous settings for pitch, volume and so on.
• The speech can ben played, paused, resumed or stopped if needed.
• Italian, English and French translations available.

What is new in version 0.2:

• Major UI redesign.

Requirements:

• eSpeak
• gtk+
• Python
• ALSA driver
• python-gtk2
• python-glade2
• espeak-data