Hi, I’m currently building a website for people with learning problems, reading problems etc. The client wants the text on the pages also to be spoken when clicking on a speaker icon. Instead of trusting on the browsers or operating systems capabilities for disabled people I want to do this by using an audio file that can be played.
What kind of audioformat can I use the best to avoid cross-operating system problems and what kind of player is the best?
My client at Liberty Fund has been doing this for a while using a text-
to-speech app on his Mac to generate MP3 files (Quote of the Week on http://oll.libertyfund.org
to see the feature in action). We use a Flash player for Joomla to
play the audio – that gets you a simple cross-platform UI, but
ignores the iPad and other iDevices. I’m still searching for the best
way around that problem.
Walter
On Sep 8, 2010, at 9:28 AM, DTP2 wrote:
Hi, I’m currently building a website for people with learning
problems, reading problems etc. The client wants the text on the
pages also to be spoken when clicking on a speaker icon.
Thank you. I am aware of Joomla’s capability’s but I would like to do this using Freeway. Any more suggestions? Is MP3 itself a good audioformat for this purpose?
MP3 mono is what we use for these. Joomal just places the player, same
as you would do using Freeway. I’ve recommended a Flash player once or
twice in the past, it’s quite easy to use:
You would simply drag the player SWF onto your page, just like any
other Flash content. Then click once on the player on your page,
choose Item / Extended, and click on the Embed segment of the dialog.
Add a new property:
Name: FlashVars
Value: your_audio.mp3
Apply Upload Stuff to the page, and use it to add your_audio.mp3 to
the Resources folder.
Publish, and if it doesn’t work immediately, change the Value property
to Resources/your_audio.mp3
That’s really all there is to it.
You could also just drag the MP3 file to the page, and Freeway will
add a QuickTime controller for it. This has the benefit of working
perfectly with all iDevices, but the down-side that you’ll be limited
to all Mac users and only the PC users who own iPods (a frighteningly
large percentage or that sorry lot, but still not as many as have
Flash).
Walter
On Sep 8, 2010, at 12:09 PM, DTP2 wrote:
Thank you. I am aware of Joomla’s capability’s but I would like to
do this using Freeway. Any more suggestions? Is MP3 itself a good
audioformat for this purpose?