[Speechd] Speechd-el questions

[Nolan Darilek]

Hey, I hope this is the list to which I can post speechd-el questions.


I haven't used Emacs in a couple decades and am trying to get back into 
it with speechd-el. I'm reading and absorbing lots, but have some questions:


1. How do I set default speech parameters? I see I'm supposed to set the 
speechd-voices variable for the nil voice, but I just can't get the 
syntax right. I'd like to set the default rate to 100 and the language 
to "en-US". What should I set?


2. It's a bit odd/inconsistent that I can use speechd-set-rate and set a 
default rate for everything, but speechd-set-language seems to only set 
the language in some circumstances. Text I type seems to be spoken in my 
chosen language, but some messages from Emacs are still spoken in the 
language that was used when Emacs launched. In my case, typed/read text 
is spoken with en-US while Emacs messages are British English. Is this a 
bug?


3. I've got some odd issue where, when editing my .emacs file, the 
documentation for a function/variable under point is spoken while the 
characters themselves aren't. So for instance if I type `(setq ` in a 
Lisp buffer and arrow over that, I hear the setq docs, not the 
characters themselves. Is there a fix for this? As of now I'm editing my 
.emacs elsewhere or using fundamental-mode because it's impossible to 
edit in lisp-mode.


4. I'd like to use Emacs for development, and as such, spoken 
indentation levels are important. Is this something supported by faces, 
or is it possible to get Speechd-el to present indentation levels 
somehow? I know Emacspeak used to do this and may still, just wondering 
if I can make Speechd-el do it too.


Thanks for any help.