QTextToSpeech---setVoice

[Aqib]

Hi, I am new to QT and I am using QTextToSpeech for genearting voice in my desktop app. I tried setLocale and its working fine if I change it to any region. Now I am using setVoice to change the voice but its not working. Can someone suggest me how to acheive this.

myvoice->setLocale(QLocale("en_US"));
myvoice->setVoice(QVoice::Gender('Female'));

[SGaist]

Hi and welcome to devnet,

Which version of Qt are you using ?
On which platform ?

[Aqib]

I am using QT 5.15 & Ubuntu 20.04

[SGaist]

Can you provide a minimal compilable application that reproduces your issue so people can also test on their side.

On a side note, shouldn't that be myvoice->setVoice(QVoice::Female); ?
Second note, myvoice is a bit confusing as it makes it look like a QVoice object but is likely a QTextSpeech object, correct ?

[Aqib]

I tried it like you said setVoice(QVoice::Female);
and Yes myvoice or _tts is QTextToSpeech object as you said.
_tts = new QTextToSpeech(this);
_tts->setLocale(QLocale("en_US"));
_tts->setVoice(QVoice::Female);

Attached is the screenshot of the issue I am facing.

[JonB]

@Aqib
I know nothing about Qt voice/speech. But worrying as it is to have to question @SGaist's answer:

myvoice->setVoice(QVoice::Female)

As per the error message you are being shown, QTextToSpeech::setVoice(const QVoice &voice) requires a QVoice parameter, but QVoice::Female is a QVoice::Gender.

I note that QVoice does not even have/document a (public) constructor? Maybe you are supposed to use QVector<QVoice> QTextToSpeech::availableVoices() const to access QVoices for each available one, and pick one whose QVoice::Gender QVoice::gender() const == QVoice::Female?? Pure guesswork on my part though!

UPDATE
I have just gone try this, and that's exactly how it works: you must pick one of the availableVoices(), look at their gender() to pick one.

Under my Ubuntu 20.04 with the voice package installed I get 5 UK voices. Regional variations, but all are "Unknown Gender" "Other Age". They are all male, and adult. No female! So pretty sexist (and ageist) for 2022 ;-) probably better on Windows.

[SGaist]

@JonB good catch ! Regarding my answer, there's likely some automatic conversion going on somewhere.

As for the available voices on Linux, did you check what was installed with your backend ? There might simply be sound packs missing or something like that.

[JonB]

@SGaist
My backend is fine, thank you very much :) It's the default Ubuntu voice, using those apt -get install I posted in another question. I was only playing with it because of this question. But it would be nicer if it offered a female voice, let me know if you actually know what you'd need for Ubuntu.

[SGaist]

Which backend are you using ?

[JonB]

@SGaist
I did sudo apt-get install qtspeech5-speechd-plugin. I think it's called speechd. Is that the right answer to "which backend"?

Oh and per https://forum.qt.io/topic/75426/qt-speech-plug-in/20

And the speech engine can be installed with:
sudo apt-get install speech-dispatcher

It said that was already installed.

[Aqib]

Thank you guys @SGaist & @JonB

[JonB]

@Aqib said in QTextToSpeech---setVoice:

Thank you guys @JonB & @JonB

We are both happy :)

[SGaist]

@JonB that was the answer I was looking for.

It looks like speechd is an intermediate layer to other speech system so it might require a bit more research to find where you can get additional voices.