Re: [gnuspeech-contact] GNUstep & gnuspeech

[David Hill]

Hi Paul,

You wrote (see below):
> I found that by resetting the minimum height of the Synthesizer window
> to 750, I was able to resize it to fit on my 15-inch screen at 1280x800
> resolution.  Please consider making this change in the gnustep source.

Good suggestion. Next update we'll do that.

> When I tried to uncompress and untar
> nextstep/TextToSpeechKit/Release2.01/Dev/TextToSpeech.pkg/TextToSpeech.tar.Z, 
> it said "This does not look like a tar archive".  The "file" command simply 
> says it is "data".  Does anyone else have this problem?


Now that is interesting. I checked it, and also checked the original source 
from which the repository was loaded. There's a checksum error on the .tar 
file, even on the NeXT (yes, I keep a loaded cube for reference). The 
TextToSpeech.tar.Z file is, of course, part of the install package for the 
NeXT. I have successfully installed the same package on several NeXT computers 
over the years with no problem. It is possible that there is a trick programmed 
into the NeXT Install program. If you want to install on a NeXT computer, you 
can simply grab the package and "Install" it (there are passwords in the 
"private" file in the same trunk -- you'd need a developer password which 
occurs in the second half of the file). If you want the sources for the various 
Apps, then you don't need to access the 2.01 package at all because the sources 
are all there in the SVN repository and you can check them all out.

> Does anyone have some tips & tricks for porting these apps to GNUstep? 

Because gnuspeech was originally developed on the NeXT (as Trillium's 
"TextToSpeech" kits -- User, Developer and Experimenter versions) prior to the 
OpenStep definition, certain things changed by the time we needed to port it 
(e.g. the use of ps-wraps, archiving, ...) but Greg Casamento went through a 
lot of the original code and modified it to make it easier to compile on 
GNUstep. You'd have to check specific code files to see what has been done. 
When I ported "Synthesizer", I simply started from scratch, consulting the 
original NeXT code in parallel -- you'll see a lot of the original code is 
still lying around unused in the current "Synthesizer" source -- and using what 
I could where I could. But I recreated most of the Interface Builder stuff, 
including things like the tube slider widgets (I was rather pleased with 
those). I found Aaron Hillegass's book ("Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X") was a 
wonderful help in getting started on xcode/Interface Builder. The "Synthesizer" 
source needs cleaning up and finishing.Needless to say, it is on my "ToDo" list 
along with a bunch of other things. I don't really want to clean it up too much 
until I've added the missing graphs and such.

All good wishes.

david

On Mar 16, 2011, at 7:58 PM, Paul Tyson wrote:

> On Sat, 2011-03-12 at 21:43 -0800, David Hill wrote:
> 
>> 
>> One can resize the Monet "Synthesis Window" with the command buttons
>> at the top right, or (when not maximized) by grabbing one of the
>> corners and dragging. If the window is maximised, you can also grab
>> the title bar and drag and this has much the same effect as hitting
>> the maximize button to toggle to the non-maximized state.
>> 
>> 
>> However, I can see that on a 15 inch screen none of these options may
>> be accessible unless the window happens to display at near minimum
>> size, in which case you can hardly make it much smaller!
>> 
>> 
>> In "Synthesizer" there is no resize possibility. When I designed the
>> interface, I found it hard to fit everything in and still have things
>> legible and operational. It just barely fits on a 15 inch screen, I
>> admit. The other tool windows are smaller in both "Monet" and
>> "Synthesizer" Apps.
> 
> I found that by resetting the minimum height of the Synthesizer window
> to 750, I was able to resize it to fit on my 15-inch screen at 1280x800
> resolution.  Please consider making this change in the gnustep source.
> 
>> I would be very grateful for any help you can offer, if only
>> criticism! :-) But one thing you could do is to port the "BigMouth"
>> App, the code for which you will find in the NeXTStep trunk. Also
>> there is the code for the pronouncing dictionary App "PrEditor".
> 
> When I tried to uncompress and untar
> nextstep/TextToSpeechKit/Release2.01/Dev/TextToSpeech.pkg/TextToSpeech.tar.Z, 
> it said "This does not look like a tar archive".  The "file" command simply 
> says it is "data".  Does anyone else have this problem?
> 
>> You could have a shot at that too, though you wouldn't be able to
>> check either out thoroughly until you could connect to a working
>> SpeechServer. You can use your system as a sandbox to avoid making
>> mistakes which might clutter the repository and send me anything you
>> think I could try. You could also have a shot at the SpeechServer
>> daemon itself. It would be a great learning experience whatever the
>> outcome.
> 
> Does anyone have some tips & tricks for porting these apps to GNUstep? 
> 
> Regards,
> --Paul
> 
>