SRAL

Screen Reader Abstraction Library

Description

SRAL is a cross-platform library for output text using speech engines.

Platforms

SRAL is supported on Windows, MacOS and Linux platforms.

Header

See how to use SRAL in Include/SRAL.h

Compilation

SRAL can build using CMake into two libraries, static and dynamic. Run these commands

cmake . -B build
cmake --build build --config Release

You will also have an executable test to test the SRAL.

Warning

To build on Linux you need to install libspeechd-dev and libx11-dev

Usage

To use the SRAL API in a C/C++ project, you need a statically linked or dynamically imported SRAL library, as well as a SRAL.h file with function declarations. If you use SRAL as a static library for Windows, you need to define SRAL_STATIC in the SRAL.h before the include

#define SRAL_STATIC
#include <SRAL.h>

Bindings

SRAL also has Bindings, which is updated with new wrappers for programming languages.

Example

C

#include <stdbool.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#define SRAL_STATIC
#include <SRAL.h>
#include <stdint.h>
#ifdef _WIN32
#include <windows.h>
#else
#include <unistd.h>
#endif

void sleep_ms(int milliseconds) {
#ifdef _WIN32
	Sleep(milliseconds); // Windows-specific function
#else
	usleep(milliseconds * 1000); // usleep takes microseconds
#endif
}

int main(void) {
	char text[10000];
	// Initialize the SRAL library
	if (!SRAL_Initialize(ENGINE_UIA)) { // So Microsoft UIAutomation provider can't speak in the terminal or none current process windows
		printf("Failed to initialize SRAL library.\n");
		return 1;
	}
	SRAL_RegisterKeyboardHooks();
	// Speak some text
	if (SRAL_GetEngineFeatures(0) & SUPPORTS_SPEECH) {
		printf("Enter the text you want to be spoken:\n");
		scanf("%s", text);
		SRAL_Speak(text, false);
	}

	// Output text to a Braille display
	if (SRAL_GetEngineFeatures(0) & SUPPORTS_BRAILLE) {
		printf("Enter the text you want to be shown on braille display:\n");
		scanf("%s", text);
		SRAL_Braille(text);

	}

	// Delay example
	SRAL_Output("Delay example: Enter any text", false);
	SRAL_Delay(5000);
	SRAL_Output("Press enter to continue", false);
	scanf("%s", text);

	SRAL_StopSpeech(); // Stops the delay thread
	// Speech rate
	if (SRAL_GetEngineFeatures(0) & SUPPORTS_SPEECH_RATE) {

		uint64_t rate = SRAL_GetRate();
		const uint64_t max_rate = rate + 10;
		for (rate; rate < max_rate; rate++) {
			SRAL_SetRate(rate);
			SRAL_Speak(text, false);
			sleep_ms(500);
		}
	}
	// Uninitialize the SRAL library
	SRAL_Uninitialize();

	return 0;
}

Python

import time

import sral

def sleep_ms(milliseconds):
    time.sleep(milliseconds / 1000.0)  # Convert milliseconds to seconds

def main():
    text = ""
    # Initialize the SRAL library
    instance = sral.Sral(32)

    instance.register_keyboard_hooks()

    # Speak some text
    if instance.get_engine_features(0) & 128:
        text = input("Enter the text you want to be spoken:\n")
        instance.speak(text, False)

    # Output text to a Braille display
    if instance.get_engine_features(0) & 256:
        text = input("Enter the text you want to be shown on braille display:\n")
        instance.braille(text)

    # Delay example
    instance.output("Delay example: Enter any text", False)
    instance.delay(5000)
    instance.output("Press enter to continue", False)
    input()  # Wait for user to press enter

    instance.stop_speech()  # Stops the delay thread

    # Speech rate
    if instance.get_engine_features(0) & 512:
        rate = instance.get_rate()
        max_rate = rate + 10
        for rate in range(rate, max_rate):
            instance.set_rate(rate)
            instance.speak(text, False)
            sleep_ms(500)

    # Uninitialize the SRAL library
    instance = None
if __name__ == "__main__":
    main() # invoke_main()

Additional info

For NVDA screen reader, you need to download the Controller Client. We don't support old client V 1.