I am looking for a text to speech component that i can use with as3/flex .
Thanks
I ported a HMM based TTS engine to Flash using the Alchemy compiler. Demos, explanation and code are here:
http://www.edobashira.com/2010/01/flitehts-engine-for-flash-hmm-speech_22.html
http://www.furui.cs.titech.ac.jp/~dixonp/hts/
I have an example of how to do this on my blog:
http://www.jamesward.com/2009/10/01/text-to-speech-in-flex/
I'm not sure if you mean to do it on the web or on the desktop. In fact, I didn't even know you could do it on the web until I saw James' reply up above.
I had done a TTS desktop application in Flash embedding the Flash ActiveX inside a C# application. The Flash movie sent a message to the shell using the ExternalInterface API, which in turn passed it on to a TTS ActiveX. I can't recall the name of the ActiveX we used, but there are several decent options to choose from. Turned out quite sweet.
Related
I was surfing through various article related to Webservice in Qt , but unfortunatly didn't got what i was looking for. I am using .Net webservice with SOAP, and want to parse this service. Gone through various related article, but the basic problem that i am facing is to get the Soap libraries? Where to download from? And how to integrate? And this will really work for me?
Thank You.
Your best bet is probably integrating gSOAP into your Qt application. (Make sure it's Licensing terms are ok for you.)
A good run-down of how to do the integration is GSoap: SAOP and XML Web services for Qt apps (includes a sample .zip file). That doesn't require a specific version of Qt (since gSOAP is doing all the work essentially), so anything modern-ish should do.
Although it's a very late suggestion, Apache Axis is a free/open source software SOAP stack that appears to fit your needs.
I would like to do some japanese text to speech on my dedicated windows 2003 x64 server with .net framework, using c#
I found something on google, but requires to install a lot of files on the server... i don't like, for stability issues: there is another option, like a linked dll or something?
You can use Microsoft Speech SDK. It's a set of COM APIs containing TTS and SR engines. I'm not sure if it contains Japanese TTS though.
What you most likely want is the Microsoft Speech Server especially if your webite is going to encounter any decent load or volume.
From the site:
"A speech platform, MSS contains all
the server components for deploying
telephony (voice-only) and multimodal
(voice/visual) applications. MSS
combines Web technologies,
speech-processing services, and
telephony capabilities into a single
system. "
There is also a dedicated Microsft Speech community which will likely help you get started in this realm. Also, I'm not sure what the latest version is...2004 R2?
This article has a decent diagram outlining the various components. Looks like a good fit for integration with an ASP Web Application.
using SAPI in an ASP.NET website, is impossible: the sound will be reproduced on the server :S
It seems that there is the need of Microsoft Speech Server
...
Or not? With asp.net is possible to run a commandline exe on the server to save an mp3, then stream that mp3, right? (how to do that? i will try to figure it)
I will go this way, i let you know the result :)
edit: this is how i solved:
How to save text-to-speech as a wav with Microsoft SAPI?
I save the generated voice in a wav file, then i embed it on the page, playing it in a flash player
COOL!!
Use Microsoft Speech Library and see this article Text to Speech with the Microsoft Speech Library and SDK version 5.1 in CodeProject. Also see Giving Computers a Voice in Coding4Fun
The System.Speech.Synthesis namespace has been part of the framework since .NET 3.0. However, it has internal dependencies on the Speech SDK COM libraries (it chooses the correct version depending on the host OS), so I would recommend prototyping the work before you jump in.
The class you should probably look at first is System.Speech.Synthesis.SpeechSynthesizer (whitepaper and example code)
Warning: I have personally experienced issues using the speech APIs in an ASP.NET environment whereby the request that returned the audio data never returned. Despite heavy debugging I was never able to resolve the issue and the feature was dropped. I have had an unresolved support case with Microsoft for 12 months now.
Is there some kind of light-weight (non-Adobe) control I could use to view and print PDF documents on a web form?
I use Foxit. Lightweight - loads faster than Adobe.
ABCPdf is a free PDF generator for ASP.NET; all you have to do is link back to their site if you use it.
http://www.websupergoo.com/abcpdf-1.htm
Flashpaper, it is platform independant.
The reason I suggest this is that you can embed PDF viewing right in any web-browser via this Flash Plugin (and print), but never have to have PDF viewing software installed or configured to work with the web browser.
Edit: As per the comment, new Flashpaper versions have been discontinued. Flashpaper will continue to be available for sale though. (see link in comment). I have used it for several years and haven't found much of a need for new features, but your case may differ. Try it out.
Foxit Reader is more lightweight than the Adobe Reader.
For displaying a PDF, you could use PDF Me Not.
I'm not sure if you mean generating a PDF of a form submission, though. If this is what you meant, there are PDF libraries for just about every language (such as FPDF for PHP).
For the first case, there's also AlivePDF which is open source.
Aspose.com can do some pretty nifty stuff for .NET and Java
phpLiveDocx and LiveDocx are completely free and can be used to merge data (for example, from a web form) with a template from MS Word or Open Office on the server.
phpLiveDocx runs on Linux, Windows and Mac.
LiveDocx runs on Windows.
Learn more at:
http://www.phplivedocx.org/articles/brief-introduction-to-phplivedocx/
http://www.livedocx.com
What's all this business about Flash, Flex, Adobe Air, Java FX and Silverlight? Why would I choose one over the other? and what happened to Java Applets and ActiveX controls?
Oh, and where does AJAX fit in to all this? and is Laszlo relevant?
Afteredit (in response to some "d'uh" type answers): the question is a bit tongue-in-cheek. I know about the various RIA technologies. I am, however, interested in the StackOverflow community's opinion about each - particularly why you would use one over the other
Big topic and it would take pages to provide a full answer so here is the "short" version...
Adobe Flex/AIR is by far the most mature RIA platform out there and it runs in FlashPlayer. You write apps using ActionScript (similar to Javascript) and MXML (markup used primarily for layout/view code). You can also deploy Flex applications easily to the desktop if the user has the AIR runtime installed.
Silverlight is Microsoft's offering which is still quite a bit behind Flex but is rapidly gaining ground. The SL runtime is new and slowly gaining a larger install base. You can use C#, VB.NET or other languages supported by the .NET runtime. It runs on Windows and Mac but doesn't run on the desktop.
JavaFX is a platform, API and scripting language for building RIA on the Java platform. It's the newest entry and just recently had its 1.0 release. It can run in the browser or the desktop and can leverage any and all Java code. Given how much open source Java code exists this can be pretty compelling.
AJAX / DHTML is primarily an alternative to these technologies, although since FP, SL and Java all have two-way Javascript APIs, you can write applications that use both and allow them to interoperate.
Flash/Flex, JavaFX, and Silverlight are tools for developing rich internet applications (RIA). You're probably very familiar with Flash applications, which are frequently full of animation and other effects. JavaFX and Silverlight let you develop similar applications. Laszlo fits into the same picture.
Silverlight is Microsoft's entry, and it is designed to work in the .NET stack. JavaFX is Sun's new offering, and it is designed to work with the Java Virtual Machine. To oversimplify Adobe AIR, it is an attempt to get RIA content to run seamlessly on the desktop (JavaFX provides this as well).
Applets haven't gone away, they just suffered from a bad implementation of the JVM in web browsers. JavaFX is the new heir to applets.
AJAX is very different; AJAX is a way to use a browser's existing capabilities, without plugins, to provide seemingly rich and interactive webpages. It uses JavaScript and XML. While some AJAX applications are undeniably cool, it is not as easy or as natural to develop Flash-style RIAs.
I know nothing about flex and air, but Flash, Java FX and Silverlight are all web technologies that essentially do the same thing vying for market share because none of these companies (Adobe, Sun, and Microsoft, respectively) wants to give the other an edge and/or not control the major content delivery platform on the web. That's it in a nutshell. Market speak would probably include something like "rich internet applications" or something like that.
ActiveX was, unless I am mistake, a huge festering security hole, that is largely abandoned even by Microsoft and Java applets never took off in the way sun wanted them to. I am not quite sure why, but I think they lacked the simplicity that attracted people to flash.
Ajax has nothing to do with all this. Ajax is just a way to keep an entire page from refreshing by dividing it up into subsections that refresh independently. Again, this is me trying to explain this all as non-technically as possible.
EDIT: It seems I approached this answer the wrong way. To get alittle more technical; Flash is the most mature of the bunch. Silverlight and JavaFX are essentially babies, and while both Microsoft and Sun are trying to woo developers from their existing base (.net and java), I don't know if anyone can say anything definitive about either technology. It is going to take alittle while to see what technologies take off.
Sounds like you need to fire up Google and do a little research and reading. Start with "rich Internet application" or "RIA", or simply enter those terms and enjoy.
Consider the first three to be synonyms; JavaFX is the Sun offering; Silverlight is Microsoft's entry.
Nothing "happened" to applets or ActiveX controls, they're both still with us. They're a bit dated and fallen out of favor. Applets had their heyday when teapots first danced on the Web; ActiveX controls have some security issues.
Laszlo appears to be the inspiration for Flex, according to this.
What tools, preferably open source, are recommended for driving an automated test suite on a FLEX based web application? The same tool also having built in capabilities to drive Web Services would be nice.
Adobe distributes a test framework themselves: FlexUnit.
I heard of people using selenium as a free/open source testing tool. A quick google revealed a FLEX API for it. Not sure if it works or is still in development, but it may be worth a look.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/seleniumflexapi/
Are you looking to script code-level unit tests? If so, dpuint is the bomb: http://code.google.com/p/dpuint/ . This library makes it really easy to do automated testing on all sorts of asynchronous events, on either non-visual ActionScript objects or visual components. They also have a nice multi-page tutorial on the Google Code project page.
If you are looking for functional testing tools along the lines of automated record-and-playback simulating an end user using a Flex app, HP's QuickTest Pro is the Adobe-endorsed solution. It works great, but costs about $4,000 - $6,000 per seat.
Check out FlexMonkey. It does automated testing via FlexUnit tests.
Try looking at Melomel. It has Cucumber support baked right in and comes packaged with steps for most Halo and Spark components.
http://melomel.info
There's an automated test tool called RIATest that might fit the bill for you.
Unfortunately only for Windows, and not open source, but if it does the job it might be well worth the price ($399 at time of writing).
FunFX is an option for automating UI testing. I haven't used it extensively, but I've heard of some having success with it. Here is the article where I first learned about it.
I've been extensively using FunFX for several months now on a Flex 3 + Rails project. Not only is it open source, it's also written in Ruby, so integration with web services should be fairly easy. There are a few screencasts out there covering the basics.
The Flex code that your Flex app needs is contained in the SeleniumFlexAPI distribution .swc file, SeleniumFlexAPI.swc. Just include this file as a library when you compile your Flex app.
Sikuli is good tool which can be used to test flex/flash based web applications.
-It can automate anything on graphical user interface.
-It works on Windows, MAC OSX and Linux as well as iPhone and Android.
-Here is the Sikuli link
My preferred tool is Selenium Remote Control. There is a plug-in I discovered a few months ago:
http://code.google.com/p/flash-selenium/
This required 'hooks' to be written on the server side (ActionScript/Flex). Once they were added, I was able to do some browser testing using Selenium RC.
FunFX is great. We've used it extensively and have been very happy with it. The community is also active and very responsive, so that is a big plus for me.
The new version of the Selenium-Flex API (0.2.5) works great.