TestPilot

In Windows I used to select any text with mouse (usually in browser, but occasionally in text editors), press preferred mouse button (my mouse got 7 buttons) and computer read me text aloud.

I switched to Linux. Installed text-to-speech and it actually works. Now I highlight text, press Ctrl+C, switch to TTS application by double clicking icon in systray, press Ctrl+A, Ctrl+V, Ctrl+F3(last one is a hotkey for reading text aloud), then minimize TTS window to tray or activate original window by clicking on it icon in the taskbar.

That is freaking inconvenient!

Is there an easy way to accomplish my task? Simple script that let me copy currently highlighted text into clipboard and then activate TTS application, clear/paste text into it and select menu item or just send Ctrl+F3 into it? And I would be totally OK with keyboard hotkey to run that script. At start at least.

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peteh

Hi there.
You can probably do it with xbindkeys and xmacro.
Start with xbindkeys, then follow the link near the bottom of the screen which says 'How to Use The Buttons of Your Trackball in Linux.
It doesn't have to be any specific kind of mouse - it works with any.

__________________
Pete

i92guboj

There's a plugin for Openoffice:

SourceForge.net: OO-TTS

I can't write nor talk italian, but I can read the paragraph on that page, and an aproximate translation would be:

Haven't tested it, but you can try.

I am fairly sure that I have seen ways to do this in emacs, and probably vim. I don't use text to speech however and can't help with that. All in all, it depends on the editor or word processor that you use. It is the one that can integrate the functionality of text to speech, or any other speech engine by that means. If you could get that running, you wouldn't need to use more hackish ways like the macro thingie that you intended on first place.

Just an alternative idea in case you find it useful