1003439 - (TTS_for_firefox) Implement Text to Speech on Desktop Firefox

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Core :: DOM: Core & HTML, defect)

Description

[Yash]

To add the Text to speech API in Firefox browser for the desktop OSes.

Current status is that, we have the speech synthesis service working with pico on gonk.So right now, only Firefox OS devices have the synthesis engine via the Pico Engine. Aim is to extend it to have speech synthesis supported on Firefox for desktop OSs as well.

In the process of speech generation on different platforms, instead of specific engines, the idea is to communicate with the platform speech services, so that we don’t have to care about the engines that are being used.

Comment 2

[Sebastian Zartner [:sebo]]

Is this report related to the Web Speech API Specification[1]? If so, the URL should probably be added to the 'URL' field.

Sebastian

[1] https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/speech-api/raw-file/tip/speechapi.html

Comment 3

[Marco Zehe (:MarcoZ)]

(In reply to Sebastian Zartner from comment #2)
> Is this report related to the Web Speech API Specification[1]? If so, the
> URL should probably be added to the 'URL' field.

WebSpeech has already been implemented in Gecko. This and dependent bugs are about mapping the platform-independent representation to platform-specific APIs such as Speech Platform on Windows, Speech Dispatcher on Linux, and the Mac equivalent, so stuff done through WebSpeech API in the browser would get a voice on those platforms.

Comment 4

[Ricardo Tomasi]

What is the status on this? The spec was written in 2012, both Chrome and Safari have supported it since mid-2013.

Comment 5

[David Bolter [:davidb] (NeedInfo me for attention)]

(In reply to Ricardo Tomasi from comment #4)
> What is the status on this? The spec was written in 2012, both Chrome and
> Safari have supported it since mid-2013.

Current activity is in dependent Windows bug 1003457. It'll be great to get this going on all platforms. Eitan (cc'ed) might provide more details.

Comment 6

[Dietrich Ayala (:dietrich)]

Given bug 1184142 blocks this, should we remove "desktop" from the summary?

Comment 7

[Eitan Isaacson [:eeejay]]

(In reply to Dietrich Ayala (:dietrich) from comment #6)
> Given bug 1184142 blocks this, should we remove "desktop" from the summary?

Just removed it as a blocker, so we could pref on synth in desktop and close this bug..

Comment 8

[Eitan Isaacson [:eeejay]]

Attachment: Enable speech synthesis in desktop by default.

Comment 9

[Eitan Isaacson [:eeejay]]

Oops

Comment 10

[Eitan Isaacson [:eeejay]]

Release Note Request (optional, but appreciated)
[Why is this notable]: New user/developer feature in Firefox
[Suggested wording]: Web Speech synthesis API.
[Links (documentation, blog post, etc)]:

Comment 11

[:Gijs (he/him)]

Comment on attachment 8681387 [details] [diff] [review]
Enable speech synthesis in desktop by default.

rs=me on code, but:

1) is there an intent-to-ship email for this enabling? What's the spec status etc.? If it's been preffed off so far then we should probably have the requisite m.d.platform discussion about stuff.

2) Is there a try run? If this exposes globals on DOM's Window object/proto, I bet it will change test assumptions and that will break if that hasn't been addressed already.

Comment 12

[Eitan Isaacson [:eeejay]]

(In reply to :Gijs Kruitbosch from comment #11)
> Comment on attachment 8681387 [details] [diff] [review]
> Enable speech synthesis in desktop by default.
> 
> rs=me on code, but:
> 
> 1) is there an intent-to-ship email for this enabling? What's the spec
> status etc.? If it's been preffed off so far then we should probably have
> the requisite m.d.platform discussion about stuff.
> 

I didn't know about that practice. I'll formalize a mail today.

> 2) Is there a try run? If this exposes globals on DOM's Window object/proto,
> I bet it will change test assumptions and that will break if that hasn't
> been addressed already.

Here is a try run:
https://treeherder.mozilla.org/#/jobs?repo=try&revision=141c7dac7a1c

Comment 13

[Eitan Isaacson [:eeejay]]

Attachment: Enable speech synthesis in desktop by default.

Asking smaug for review too since I touch the interfaces test, and you need a DOM peer for that :)

The try runs after this are not particularly green, but neither is m-c, so I don't think it is this patch.

Comment 14

[Olli Pettay [:smaug][[e-mail]]]

Have we got any fuzzing to the API? Could we please enable it first only on non-release builds
and once we have some more confidence about it (maybe even during this cycle), remove the non-release check?

Comment 15

[Olli Pettay [:smaug][[e-mail]]]

Comment on attachment 8683803 [details] [diff] [review]
Enable speech synthesis in desktop by default.

>+
>+// Enable speech synthesis
>+pref("media.webspeech.synth.enabled", true);

So I would feel more comfortable if this was inside
#ifdef NIGHTLY_BUILD
#endif
for now

>-    {name: "SpeechSynthesisErrorEvent", b2g: true},
>+    {name: "SpeechSynthesisErrorEvent", android: false},
> // IMPORTANT: Do not change this list without review from a DOM peer!
>-    {name: "SpeechSynthesisEvent", b2g: true},
>+    {name: "SpeechSynthesisEvent", android: false},
> // IMPORTANT: Do not change this list without review from a DOM peer!
>-    {name: "SpeechSynthesis", b2g: true},
>+    {name: "SpeechSynthesis", android: false},
> // IMPORTANT: Do not change this list without review from a DOM peer!
>-    {name: "SpeechSynthesisUtterance", b2g: true},
>+    {name: "SpeechSynthesisUtterance", android: false},
> // IMPORTANT: Do not change this list without review from a DOM peer!
>-    {name: "SpeechSynthesisVoice", b2g: true},
>+    {name: "SpeechSynthesisVoice", android: false},
> // IMPORTANT: Do not change this list without review from a DOM peer!
>     {name: "SpecialPowers", xbl: false},
> // IMPORTANT: Do not change this list without review from a DOM peer!


And then these Speech stuff here would have , nightly: true

Comment 16

[Olli Pettay [:smaug][[e-mail]]]

(and you could ask Jesse to fuzz test the API a bit ;) )

Comment 17

[Eitan Isaacson [:eeejay]]

Here is a try run with your suggested changes (nightly only now).
https://treeherder.mozilla.org/#/jobs?repo=try&revision=7e6f9a1673a3

Comment 18

[Eitan Isaacson [:eeejay]]

Attachment: Enable speech synthesis in desktop by default.

This version is only enabled in nightly.

Comment 19

[Pulsebot]

https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/mozilla-inbound/rev/c99a26fcff8f

Comment 20

[Carsten Book [:Tomcat]]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/c99a26fcff8f

Comment 21

[Carsten Book [:Tomcat]]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/c99a26fcff8f

Comment 22

[Chris Mills [:cmills]]

This has now been documented — see all the goodness at https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Web_Speech_API! A technical review would be really nice, although I appreciate that it is a fairly big API, so we might want to share the work between the different engineers involved.

Comment 23

[Sylvestre Ledru [:Sylvestre]]

Added to the release notes:
"Web Speech synthesis API " link to
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Web_Speech_API

Comment 24

[Chris Mills [:cmills]]

(In reply to Sylvestre Ledru [:sylvestre] from comment #23)
> Added to the release notes:
> "Web Speech synthesis API " link to
> https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Web_Speech_API

You could also consider using the direct link to the speech synthesis interfaces:

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Web_Speech_API#Speech_synthesis

Not sure if that would be better; just throwing it out there in case it helps.

Comment 25

[Andrei Vaida [:avaida]]

[Test Plan]:
https://wiki.mozilla.org/QA/Text_to_Speech