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WinFrotzTTS Enhancements
Posted on Friday, September 17 @ 22:51:45 CDT by Svapne
First of all thank you for the great response to the initial release of
WinFrotzTTS 2002, there was a lot of feedback and suggestions for new
features.
Now on with news on the next version that is being beta tested.
Below is a list of enhancements that will be in the next version:
Game loading:
When the app is started it will search a directory for games, the
default is the directory where WinFrotzTTS is installed. You will
probably never have to change this so when the app starts just hit
return when it asks you to pick a directory to scan. After the app has
scanned the directories looking for games it will present you with a
list by telling you how many games it has found. At this point you can
use the up and down arrow keys to move through the list of games and it
will read the titles aloud. You can also hit the first letter of a title
and it will skip to that letter in the list, the list is sorted
alphabetically, so you would hit the letter z and it would skip ahead in
the list to Zork 1 most likely. The arrow keys work well for the short
list of Infocom games, but I have 326 games installed and it is easier
to jump ahead to a letter if I know the game I want to play.
After finding the game you want just hit return and it will load up.
You can hit 'escape' to dismiss this dialog. If you click cancel the
standard file dialog is presented. Games loaded using the standard
dialog are not guaranteed to work with the extra text to speech
functionality, so be warned.
Game saving:
When you type save the app will tell you to type some text. This text is
used to create a file name in the same directory that the current game
is running from. Text entered in the dialog is spoken aloud as well as
deleted characters. It also handles file overwriting. You can always hit
'escape' to dismiss the dialog.
Game restoring: When you type 'restore' the same kind of dialog for game
loading comes up. The app tells you it is going to search a certain
directory for saved games. You simply hit return and the app scans the
directory for saved games. It then presents you with a list of save game
titles and the name of the game that they were saved from, and you can
use the up and down arrow keys again to find the saved game you want and
hit enter to load it.
The app will tell you whether it was successful or not.
Command line speech:
Most speech in the game can be interrupted. For example when the app is
telling you which directory it wants to scan you can just hit return
instead of sitting through the whole speech. When the game list comes up
you can browse from game to game with the arrow keys, as soon as you
move to the next game in the list, the previous game title read aloud is
cut off. This is all done to save time and cut out a lot of repetitious
reading.
This also works on the command line in the game.. For instance when you
continue to move into the same room in the game and the app reads the
description over and over again. Simply hitting the space bar will clear
the speech. You can also use the up and down arrow keys on the command
line of the game to scroll through commands you have already entered and
it will read them aloud. Don't worry about extra spaces before and after
words, the game just ignores them so use spaces to verify what you have
typed even if it is just one word. When backspace is used the deleted
character is read aloud.
Read again:
Sometimes you want to hear a room description read again and not waste a
turn to hear it. This can be done by hitting CTRL R which will read the
last bit of text saved since the last command typed.
Word list spelling:
Many times, games use words that are not easy to spell or are not really
words at all. Some thing like Frobozz. You would not know how many 'z's
are in the word. To help with this you can hit CTRL Z after a room
description, and a word list will be presented to you. Using the up and
down arrow keys you can move from word to word or use a character to
skip to a word in the alphabetic list and the word will be spoken aloud.
If you hit 'space bar' the word is spelled out loud. If you hit 'enter'
while on a word, the dialog is closed and the word is added to the
command line so you don't have to type it. If you know you are going to
use the word a lot, you can hit 'insert' and the word will be added to a
scratch list that I will describe later. You can always hit escape to
dismiss the dialog.
Scratch list:
Sometimes you want to save typing or keep track of certain word. By
using the 'insert' key in the word list, words can be added to the
scratch list. hit CTRL X to bring up the list. This list can be
navigated just like the word list. Arrow keys move between entries (
spoken aloud ), characters move to words alphabetically, 'enter' adds
the word to the command line, and 'space bar' spells the entry. The only
difference is that 'delete' removes the entry from the list. The nice
thing about the scratch list is that it is saved between WinFrotzTTS
uses, so the next time you play it is still there.
Input processing:
Text entered on the interpreter command line is processed and words are
read aloud after a space is entered. Since the interpreter ignores
spaces, before and after words it can be used to verify input or stop
speech. This can be useful if you are in and out of the same room over
and over again and don't want to sit through the same boring
description; just hitting space will clear the speech buffer. Hitting
the 'delete' key will read the last deleted character out loud. Using
the up and down arrow keys will cycle though the command history and
read aloud the commands. Hitting enter on the command line will read the
whole entry aloud before the interpreter's response.
Options:
I have added an setting in the options dialog to disable speech is
application dialogs for people with screen readers. As well as fixed the
voice selection dropdown.
Code update:
I have updated the codebase to David Kinder's 'Windows Frotz 2002 1.05'.
Games support:
In order to be able to have the interpreter recognize games despite
their filenames, and since serial numbers don't seem to be a constant. I
devised a fingerprinting system that identifies games. These numbers are
read in from a simple XML file at interpreter startup and associates a
file fingerprint with a game title. This makes it easier to add new
games to the supported list and remove games that don't work and not
have to make a new release. I will probably be making the tool for
creating entries for this file available for people who want to add
games to the list. At this time I have 328 games in the supported list.
Well that's it. There are still requests on the wishlist to get to, but
that is what will be in the next release once it is deemed stable..
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