Installing speechd-el with word echo: here's how I managed it

[Veli-Pekka Tätilä]

Hi list,
I've finally gotten the latest tarball working on my system. The word echo 
really helps, big thanks for the feature. Since this was not exactly easy as 
a Linux newbie, I'm posting some instructions on how to do this, in case 
someone might find it in the archives later on.

1. I got the latest release on this page:

http://www.freebsoft.org/speechd-el

by activating the link cvs snapshot.

2. I uninstalled my current version of speechd-el using synaptic. I did not 
touch my ~/.emacs file and the Lisp library it depends on eieio was not 
uninstalled either.

3. As root in the gnome-terminal, I had to figure out where my Emacs load 
path is. It is something like:
/usr/local/share/emacs/... (cannot check while posting this)

I found a post about it here:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=120614

You should find your equivalent easily by tabbing for auto complete when 
cd:ing around as root.

4. Next there was unpacking the tar.gz archive. I could normally use the 
extract here context menu entry in Nautilus but I don't know how to become 
root in Gnome, so that was no good. In stead, I ended up extracting it in 
the root of my Emacs loadpath using tar as documented here:

http://galigio.wordpress.com/2006/10/21/how-to-unzip-and-install-a-targz-file-in-linux/

5. Of course it created a subdir which proved problematic. I learned the 
hardway subdirs of the loadpath are not scanned, just the root unless you 
tell otherwise. I don't know enough Lisp linked list syntax to append to a 
list, which would be
push @path, 'something'; # for a Perl array.
So I just copied the files back to the root, of the load path then.
Then I rm -r:ed the original dir, though could have used mv in stead.

6. Next, the rights were wrong. Since root is doing the file copying, the 
*.el files are not by default readable by anyone else. Again I don't know 
the groups I belong in as a user, since I haven't found that info in Gnome. 
As many shell scripts, at least Perl scripts do, do need the execute flag to 
work right, I issued experimentally:
chmod 755 *.el
At least nobody else can write to those files.

7. The last step was compiling. There was already a file called makefile in 
there so make would use that. Rather than install, I said:
make compile
and it did the right thing.

8. Now rerunning Emacs got my shiny speechd-el babbling jus fine.

9. The final thing was changing the word echo to words. That involved:
alt+f2, gedit ~/.emacs, ctrl+end and adding:
(setq speechd-speak-echo 'word)

All this took about 2 hours for me to figure out and I almost gave up at 
some point. Well, it will be 5 minutes the next time I need to do this, I 
hope.

10. I've now associated Emacs with speechd-el with .txt files 
experimentally. That, too, was hard to find. The default app is in the 
properties for a txt file, on one of the tabs, though surely file types are 
not particular to a single selected .txt file. I found the placing illogical 
since it was not in system/prefs. Anyway, I made txt files open with the x11 
version of Emacs and am relatively happy now as far as speechd-el goes. I 
might have questions on setting the default rate to max, default eSpeak 
voice to US English and so on, but let's leave them to another time or 
off-list.

-- 
With kind regards Veli-Pekka T?til?
Accessibility, Apps and Coding plus Synths and Music:
http://vtatila.kapsi.fi