        @c $Id: tts-server.texi 4047 2006-08-11 19:11:17Z tv.raman.tv $
        @node TTS Servers
        @chapter Emacspeak TTS Servers

        Emacspeak produces spoken output by communicating with one of many
        speech servers. This section documents the communication protocol
        between the client application i.e. Emacspeak, and the TTS
        server. This section is primarily intended for developers wishing to:
        @itemize @bullet
        @item Create new speech servers that comply with this communication
        protocol 
        @item Developers of other client applications   who wish to use
        the various Emacspeak speech servers.
        @end itemize

        @subsection High-level Overview

        The TTS server reads commands from standard input, and  script
        @emph{speech-server} can be used  to cause a TTS server to communicate
        via a TCP socket. Speech server commands are used by the client
        application to make specific requests of the server; the server
        listens for these requests in a non-blocking read loop and executes
        requests as they become available. Requests can be classified
        as follows:
        @itemize @bullet
        @item Commands that send text to be spoken.
        @item Commands that set @emph{state} of the TTS server.
        @end itemize

        All commands are of the form 
        @example
        commandWord @{arguments@}
        @end example
        The braces are optional if the command argument contains no white
        space.  The speech server maintains a @emph{current state} that
        determines various characteristics of spoken output such as speech
        rate, punctuations mode etc. (see set of commands that manipulate
        speech state for complete list).  The client application @emph{queues} The
        text and non-speech audio output to be produced before asking the
        server to @emph{dispatch} the set of queued requests, i.e. start
        producing output.

        Once the server has been asked to produce output, it removes items
        from the front of the queue, sends the requisite commands to the
        underlying TTS engine, and waits for the engine to acknowledge that
        the request has been completely processed. This is a non-blocking
        operation, i.e., if the client application generates additional
        requests, these are processed @emph{immediately}.

        The above design allows the Emacspeak TTS server to be
        @emph{highly} responsive; Cleint applications can queue large
        amounts of text (typically queued a clause at a time to
        achieve the best prosody), ask the TTS server to start speaking,
        and interrupt the spoken output at any time.

        @subsection Commands That Queue Output.

        This section documents commands that either produce spoken
        output, or queue output to be produced on demand.
        Commands that place the request on the queue are clearly marked.

        @example
        version
        @end example

        Speaks the @emph{version} of the TTS engine. Produces output
        immediately.

        @example
        tts_say text 
        @end example

        Speaks the specified @emph{text} immediately. The text is not
        pre-processed in any way, contrast this with the primary way of
        speaking text which is to queue text before asking the server to
        process the queue.

        @example
        l c
        @end example

        Speak @emph{c} a single character, as a letter.  The character is
        spoken immediately. This command uses the TTS engine's capability to
        speak a single character with the ability to flush speech
        @emph{immediately}.  Client applications wishing to produce
        character-at-a-time output, e.g., when providing character echo during
        keyboard input should use this command.

        @example
        d
        @end example

        This command is used to @emph{dispatch} all queued requests.
        It was renamed to a single character command (like many of the
        commonly used TTS server commands) to work more effectively over
        slow (9600) dialup lines.
        The effect of calling this command is for the TTS server to start
        processing items that have been queued via earlier requests.

        @example
        tts_pause
        @end example

        This pauses speech @emph{immediately}.
        It does not affect queued requests; when command
        @emph{tts_resume} is called, the output resumes at the point
        where it was paused. Not all TTS engines provide this capability.

        @example
        tts_resume
        @end example

        Resume spoken output if it has been paused earlier.

        @example
        s
        @end example

        Stop speech @emph{immediately}.
        Spoken output is interrupted, and all pending requests are
        flushed from the queue.

        @example
        q text
        @end example

        Queues text to be spoken. No spoken output is produced until a
        @emph{dispatch} request is received via execution of command
        @emph{d}.

        @example
        a filename
        @end example

        Cues the audio file identified by filename for playing.

        @example
        t freq length
        @end example

        Queues a tone to be played at the specified frequency and having the
        specified length.  Frequency is specified in hertz and length is
        specified in milliseconds.

        @example
        sh duration
        @end example

        Queues the specified duration of silence. Silence is specified in
        milliseconds.

        @subsection Commands That Set State

        @example
        tts_reset
        @end example

        Reset TTS engine to  default settings.

        @example
        tts_set_punctuations mode
        @end example

        Sets TTS engine to the specified punctuation mode. Typicaly, TTS
        servers provide at least three modes:
        @itemize @bullet
        @item None: Do not speak punctuation characters.
        @item some: Speak some punctuation characters. Used for English
        prose.
        @item all: Speak out @emph{all} punctuation characters; useful in
        programming modes.
        @end itemize

        @example
        tts_set_speech_rate rate
        @end example

        Sets speech rate. The interpretation of this value is typically
        engine specific.

        @example
        tts_set_character_scale factor
        @end example

        Scale factor applied to speech rate when speaking individual
        characters.Thus, setting speech rate to 500 and character
        scale to 1.2 will cause command @emph{l} to use a speech rate
        of @emph{500 * 1.2 = 600}.

        @example    
        tts_split_caps flag
        @end example

        Set state of @emph{split caps} processing. Turn this on to
        speak mixed-case (AKA Camel Case) identifiers.

        @example
        tts_capitalize flag
        @end example

        Indicate capitalization via a beep tone or voice  pitch.

        @example
        tts_allcaps_beep flag
        @end example

        Setting this flag produces  a high-pitched beep when speaking words that are in
        all-caps, e.g. abbreviations.

