Text To Speech video and screenshots

[petrjahoda]

Hello to all, I have got Text To Speech technically working in a phase, where I am satisfied with how it works, behaves, the UX and UI.

The next version 4.0 is today entering for at least 10 days testing, but to give you more information about what is coming, here it is:

1. You can enable TTS functionality in the Settings
2. When enabled, every epub file will show an icon (waveform) in the bottom menu, and when this icon is pressed, the menu changes
3. The important menu is settings, when you can select voices and here start those three possibilites
4A. You can select standard Apple voice and then play the book using this voice
4B. You can download Neural voice engine and voice of your choice and then play the book using this voice, but ...
4C. Because Neural voice is running on GPU and because of iOS limitations, when you background the app, nothing can run on GPU, you have an option to convert the book for 'offline listening'
5. When you then set to offline listening, you can see the progress at the bottom of the book, while reading and a new icon appears in Home, offline listening
6. In this Offline listening sheet you can see what is done, what not, what is the progress, you can reorganize, pause, delete.
7. Book, that is converted to offline audio can be backgrounded and you can play the audio with device in backgrounded mode
8. When played while book opened, the sentence is marked and the spoken word underlined.

I added screenshots, maybe those will be better to explain.

[Loosheesh]

Will we get a sleep timer and speed controls? And 15/30 sec rewind and fast forward?

[petrjahoda]

1. Sleep timer, this can be done
2. Speed controls, this I already had here, but removed it, because it was pain to listen (0.75, 1.5x and 2x) like chipmunks, but technically this can be done
3. Rewind and fast forward is there, but skipping sentences, because there is no '15 second backwards' or '30 seconds forwards', because different voice speaks different speed.

[Loosheesh]

Originally Posted by petrjahoda

1. Sleep timer, this can be done

Yes, please—I need it

Originally Posted by petrjahoda

2. Speed controls, this I already had here, but removed it, because it was pain to listen (0.75, 1.5x and 2x) like chipmunks, but technically this can be done

Hmm, I've never had the 'chipmunk' issue at lower than 2x, but I'm assuming different apps probably handle this differently. In Logos app, I can't go above 1.25x, but I use 1.5x in Readwise Reader app, and I can go as high as 1.6x in Audible app. All these are comfortable speed levels for me; the only common thing is that, except for Bible audio in the Dwell app, I rarely listen to anything at regular speed.

Originally Posted by petrjahoda

3. Rewind and fast forward is there, but skipping sentences, because there is no '15 second backwards' or '30 seconds forwards', because different voice speaks different speed.

For TTS, by sentence is actually my preference; it helps me get oriented quicker when I'm in read+listen mode.

[petrjahoda]

OK, sleep timer it is :-). I will also add those speeds.

[petrjahoda]

Text to speech example: https://youtube.com/shorts/Og9ajjn1i...hPTAgnsZ88YYFN