4.7 Lesson 6: preview and keep a voice experiment ¶
An installed physical voice is a voice an engine can produce. A palette’s
named voice, such as default for ordinary reading, chooses physical voices
and adjustments for a purpose. Browsing a physical voice does not replace
that named entry. We will first try a physical voice without selecting it for
ordinary reading or changing startup.
- From the practice buffer, press C-e H v b. Select an available engine
and press v to browse its voices. Expand a language group with RET
if needed, then choose an already usable voice.
- Press P to hear its sample and S to stop. An unavailable or inactive
downloaded voice is not suitable for this first exercise. Read its details
rather than enabling, installing, or applying packages as a workaround.
- Press t on the usable voice to open an experiment. If this resumes
someone else’s or your earlier unfinished draft, leave it with Keep and
choose another voice; do not overwrite or discard unrelated work.
- In your new editor draft, find Average Pitch and note its value. Use
RET to enter
6, or 5 if it is already six. Press P to preview and
B to compare the opening and edited versions with the same sample.
S stops. An automatic sample may also follow an adjustment in the full
editor; navigation stops it.
- Press u to undo that draft adjustment, compare again, then make the
small adjustment once more. This is editor undo, not text undo. If the
backend reports the adjustment unsupported, keep that limitation explicit
and continue with browsing; do not infer that saving will fix support.
- Press q in the editor and choose to keep the unfinished draft. Return
through the browser’s parent views with q until you reach its menu, then
close the menu sequence with C-q. Ordinary reading is unchanged.
- From the practice buffer, press C-e H p d and select your retained
experiment. Verify the value is still there. To finish without saving,
leave its editor with q and choose to discard this practice draft only.
Return through the remaining views and menus.
A retained draft lasts within the Emacs session. It is not a saved palette and
does not survive restart. Discarding it leaves ordinary reading untouched,
but discarding a draft would not undo a save that had already completed.
The editor’s status distinguishes unsaved work, successful saving, and failed
or pending application. Never treat a preview as proof of persistence.
4.7.1 Optional: save an inactive personal palette ¶
This exercise writes personal palette data. Skip it to keep the tutorial
entirely free of saved speech-configuration changes. It deliberately avoids
startup selection and does not require you to restart a working session.
- Open C-e H v p and note the active palette and whether selection follows
the standard baseline or is explicit. Press N to create a palette with an unused name such as
tutorial-reading, a short
description, and acss-default as parent. Creation saves the new palette
but does not activate it. Use another name if that one already exists.
- Enter your new palette with RET, select
default, and press e to
edit it. Change Average Pitch as above and compare with B. This entry
controls ordinary reading, not every named voice in the palette.
- Choose Save to collection without selecting. Wait for its result and
check the destination and saved status. Leave with q. The palette now
holds your entry, but it is still not selected for ordinary reading.
- To try live selection deliberately, return to the palette manager with
o, select your new palette, and press a. Return to the practice
document and read the notebook line. Other named voices retain their
own definitions. Rules or unsupported adjustments can make a contrast
subtle; Inspect Or Adjust A Voice In Context explains how to investigate.
- Reopen the palette manager. If you originally followed the standard
baseline, use f to follow it again. Otherwise select the original palette
you recorded and press a. Do not use U, the separate startup action,
during this tutorial. The inactive tutorial palette remains saved for
later use.
If saving or application fails, keep the reported status and follow
Recovering Unfinished Changes. Do not repeat Create, delete files, or restart
Emacs to hide the failure. After an accepted save, text undo and draft discard
are not rollback commands. Make a Personal Reading Palette gives the fuller
lifecycle, including inheritance and startup selection.
4.7.2 Try it ¶
6A. Create another small preview-only experiment, keep its draft, and
resume it without saving. Then discard that practice draft and establish
that your working document is still there.
6B. Explain the difference between Preview, Keep draft, Save to collection,
Activate, and Use at Startup. Which of them did the required exercise use?
Which additional operations belong to the optional exercise?
See Answers for lesson 6.