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PowerTalk TODO list

PowerTalk is Open Source so it is possible to make changes or find some to do it for you. This page contains ideas for features that could make PowerTalk a better tool.

It is implemented using a little Python script that accesses the PowerPoint object model. The Object Model gives full programmatic access to PowerPoint and the presentation and is exposed through COM Automation. Mark Hammond's Win32 COM extensions (part of Win32All) do all the hard work, allowing simple script access that is similar to using any Microsoft Scripting Language.

In operation PowerTalk launches PowerPoint, opens a specified presentation file and instructs PowerPoint to run it. PowerTalk then simply responds to various events that PowerPoint generates as the user runs the presentation. An appropriate action is programmed in PowerTalk for each event e.g. passing text on to SAPI to be spoken.

The installation program is created using an Inno Setup configuration file. This uses the minimal set of deployable files created by the McMillan installer.

Things to do, In no particular order

• The start menu link to sapi.cpl is broken in some setups. For example on a swedish machine it is actually installed at C:\Program\Delade\filer\Microsoft Shared\Speech\sapi.cpl.
• Enhance the animation support. Multiple bullet points in a single text box can be animated separately but PowerTalk doesn't get the separate events. This will require a good understanding of the PowerPoint Object model (timeline) and changes to the way events are processed.
• Highlight words as they are spoken as in EBooks such as Microsoft Reader. This will require syncronising highlighting with the way the text is spoken; this may be tricky. The obvious way would get output events from SAPI which identify which part of the input text it is speaking. As this may not be possible an alternative approach could be to do the text parsing (rather than letting SAPI do it) in code and highlight and pass on tokens to SAPI to speak at the same time.
• Have an option to automatically narrate the entire presentation and save the audio to a file. This is easy with SAPI and requires a way to automatically advance to necxt slide (see below). Thanks to Chris Mairs for this idea.
• Add a setting to automatically advance to the next slide or force next animation effect on speech completion. Probably needs to simulate user click event. Could need events from SAPI or change to sync speechg option. May not be possible.
• Add a setting to not close PowerPoint on completion. Also if any other presentations are open when it closes there is no chance to save changes.
• Provide a way to mark a slide or text so as not to be narrated.
• More free voices especially UK English (both male and female). Very few decent free voices are avaiable for SAPI 5.0

  Options include:

  1. Create a good free UK English SAPI 5.0 voice with Festival or Flite etc. Even better create a end-user voice creation kit.
  2. Add support for more speech engines e.g. SAPI 4.0

  To my mind 1 is preferable but if many good free voices can be found for other engines 2 would be better.

• Support OpenOffice Impress. Last time I looked it did not provided COM events (or any other notification technology) so some development will be needed.
• Create a resource detailing good free voices that work (and possibly commercial voices too). Downloadable samples required.
• Add a way to launch PowerTalk from within PowerPoint. This would need an installer to add the UI and some VBA script (probably).
• Support SAPI's XML markup of text so that fine control spoken text is possible. Probably via Hidden text as don't want markup to appear on slides.
• Provide a user configurable dictionary of common pronunciations.
• Support Eric Meyer's S5 Slide Show System. S5 is a slide show format based entirely on XHTML, CSS, and JavaScript meaning a S5 presentation can be shown in a web browser. I expect any screen reader that works with Web browsers will work but the PowerPoint approach may give better integration. Not sure what is possible in terms of next page events etc.
• Create a light weight PowerPoint viewer that provides the COM events needed for PowerTalk. Perhaps base on OpenOffice by adding COM support.
• Better multi language support. Alow specification and passing on to SAPI of language to use either for entire presentation or text within with some form of mark-up.

19 Aug 2004