mastodon - Link to source

#AndroidAppRain at apt.izzysoft.de/fdroid/?radd=1… today brings you 21 updated and 1 added apps:

* Be nice: lets you launch apps in split-screen mode 🛡️

Enjoy your #free #Android #apps with the #IzzyOnDroid repository :awesome:


IzzyOnDroid F-Droid Repository

This is a repository of apps to be used with your F-Droid client. Applications in this repository are official binaries built by the original application developers, taken from their resp. repositories (mostly Github, GitLab, Codeberg).
IzzyOnDroid App Repo
#android #free #apps #AndroidAppRain #izzyondroid

mastodon - Link to source
Hi @Tamasg I'm trying NVSpeechPlayer 2026 v10, I'm not sure if this is the latest version, but the voice sounds a bit different, even when using Adam, than the original SpeechPlayer. Were there some changes that could change how the overall voice quality sounds? It's hard to pinpoint it, but the voice itself sounds less harsh and consonents like P sound very short now. I see several settings in the voice dialog but I have no idea what any of them do, but they did not seem to make much of a difference. Thank you very much for your time and I look forward to any input you may have. Thanks.
@Tamas G
in reply to Brandon Tyson

mastodon - Link to source

Tamas G

yeah, there were like 3 missing phoneme fields: preFormantGain. , GlottalOpenQuotient, ETC. these got added in the later pack and are now tunable per vowel, in the past they would just be set to the engine default and everything got the same treatment. So this allows more flexibility but some things could have shifted with the change. Every letter now needs to define these new 3, they are very important for shaping and leaving them out in the past until now has been a disaster.
in reply to Tamas G

mastodon - Link to source

Brandon Tyson

Awesome, I'll take a look. I also notice weird inconsistencies with phonemes in general with US English, not just in speech player, but in eSpeak in general. Are we stuck with eSpeak's limitations? Or can I make other changes in the phoneme editor? For instance, certain words with "ong" in them sound more like "onng" instead (with Eloquence, "onng" will produce more of an "ah" sound instead. It's like eSpeak has specific exceptions where "ong" sounds correct. Can I overwrite this for speech player? Or are we stuck with this weird inconsistency?
in reply to Brandon Tyson

mastodon - Link to source

Tamas G

This is a really good observation, and you’re not imagining it.
What you’re hearing isn’t specific to SpeechPlayer, it comes from how eSpeak phonemizes certain vowel + nasal combinations in English, especially around “ng”. Depending on the word, eSpeak may output slightly different vowels before /ŋ/, and that can make some “ong” words sound more like “onng” or overly nasal.
Eloquence handled this differently: it didn’t rely on a generic phonemizer, but used hand-tuned rules that deliberately adjusted vowel quality before nasals. That’s why those cases often sound more natural there.
The good news is that we’re not stuck with eSpeak’s output as-is. For SpeechPlayer, we can override or normalize specific IPA patterns in the language pack (for example, adjusting vowel quality before /ŋ/ or mapping those cases to dedicated internal vowel variants). We’ve already done similar overrides for other tricky cases like “fear/hear” and UK vs US differences.
So while eSpeak itself has limitations, SpeechPlayer isn’t limited to reproducing them exactly — it just means the fixes live in the language/phoneme rules rather than in the core engine. You can check out our other normalization rules to get an idea for this.
in reply to Brandon Tyson

mastodon - Link to source

Tamas G

ahaha darn it. Now I hear it too. On words like "beyond" - yeah, it might be really an ESpeak thing. We're not limited to it as our phonemizer, actively exploring others, but bundling any other one could drastically increase the size of SpeechPlayer as the add-on. Right now we kind of highjack Espeak from within NVDA itself, and that gives us a neat little advantage but does lock us in.
in reply to Tamas G

mastodon - Link to source

Brandon Tyson

Oh and we can't forget about the "hazz bean" bug that's in some earlier NVDA and eSpeak versions... I'm still on NVDA 2024 and I heard that with Speech Player and eSpeak. I need to see if it's fixed in 2025.3, I think it might be. I'll keep using it, but also the O phoneme in words like "box" sounds like it's way overdone. Book still sounds like it's in UK english too. Support has a wrong "or" sound, this one's again on eSpeak, eSpeak keeps breaking US english and making it way worse. This used to be handled correctly, but I think they broke it in 2024 and it still sounds like that today.

mastodon - Link to source
NVSpeech Player 2026 v10: Removes all pops/clicks from stream, 100% for sure now.
Spanish can now say "yo" properly. First attempt at "hear" and "dear" but it's not perfect yet. Other tweaks to voice quality.
Sample rate added. You can now choose from 4 of them if you don't like the default.
eurpod.com/synths/nvSpeechPlay…
This entry was edited (19 hours ago)
in reply to Cleverson

mastodon - Link to source

Tamas G

@clv1 You’re right, the schwa rule was present, but it didn’t trigger before "rã" in pt-br because we normalize ã into a Brazil-specific nasal vowel symbol Ã, and our PT_VOWELS class didn’t include Ã. I’ve added à to PT_VOWELS (and PT_NASAL_VOWELS) in pt.yaml, so consonant + ɾ + à now correctly becomes consonant + ᵊɾ + Ã. That should fix the missing schwa before rã / ram / ran-style sequences.
@Cleverson

mastodon - Link to source

It makes sense that people who have completely abandoned their humanity want to replace humanity with software. The people pushing AI have no idea what art and music are.

They have no idea how a story can make a soul shiver and bend and laugh and weep.

They have no idea what it means to be truly human in this world, knowing that you are connected with all life.

They only want to replace humans with sickly, unthinking toys.

in reply to Hisham

mastodon - Link to source

miki

And that's a good thing. The concept of "saving" (as well as the OK button) only exist as historical artifacts. Nobody ever wanted them, but in the age of slow CPUs, slow HDDs, slow floppies, and single-threaded everything, there was no choice but to have them.

It's pretty ridiculous that all the major desktop OSes are still based on 1980's-era Apple concepts... except Apple's.

mastodon - Link to source
Oh – look how many subscribers the #LibreOffice YouTube channel has! Check out our videos about the software and events, and be subscriber number 25,000: youtube.com/@libreoffice-tdfor…
Screenshot from YouTube analytics, showing 24,996 subscribers

LibreOffice - The Document Foundation

LibreOffice is a powerful, free and open source office suite, used by millions of people around the world, and compatible with Microsoft® Office. It respects your privacy and freedom to work as you wish.
YouTube
#libreoffice

mastodon - Link to source
I'm looking for a secure Messaging app replacement for #GrapheneOS but my web searches haven't turned up any clear answers. I use Signal and love it - I'm just looking for something for SMS/MMS that isn't as unsightly as the default Messaging app, with better use of the available screen real estate, and perhaps has some basic theme and/or layout options. Any recommendations from personal experience?
#grapheneos
in reply to DJ [REDACTED] 🇨🇦🇪🇺🇺🇦

mastodon - Link to source

ArcaneChat

I think people will get confused by the way you formulated the post "secure messaging app" that is why you will get recommendations for Delta Chat and other encrypted messengers, maybe better clarify you mean "secure SMS app" to avoid confusion, and btw I recommend you to give a try to #DeltaChat as replacement for Signal, no phone number or any data required, decentralized, good multi-device, etc.

for SMS I liked "QKSMS" but that was years ago, see successor:
f-droid.org/en/packages/dev.oc…


QUIK SMS | F-Droid - Free and Open Source Android App Repository

Open source replacement to the stock SMS app on Android. A revival of QKSMS.
f-droid.org
#deltachat
This entry was edited (1 day ago)
in reply to Catelli

mastodon - Link to source

ArcaneChat

actually, #email (#SMTP + #IMAP) can totally be used for #InstantMessaging it is not the protocols it is the specific email providers and "big fishes" like #gmail and #Outlook the ones that put extra limitations on top like graylisting etc. with #ArcaneChat and #DeltaChat you can have sub-second (#ENCRYPTED) email delivery
#email #GMail #encrypted #deltachat #outlook #imap #instantmessaging #arcanechat #smtp
in reply to categulario 🐍 🦀 🦎 🇵🇸

mastodon - Link to source

Federico Mena Quintero

@categulario sipi, la tarima tiene tapas y el zapatero sus puertitas corredizas. Bajo la tarima tengo las mochilas de viaje, estufa de acampar, cosas de costura, bolsas pa la bici, tripié y pendejadas de la cámara, el tapete de yoga...
En el zapatero, los zapatos y las mochilas más utilizadas.
@categulario 🐍 🦀 🦎 🇵🇸

mastodon - Link to source

Hello Mastodon!

I’m Avi Lewis and I’m running to be the next leader of the federal NDP. Very excited to be part of the Fediverse!

I’m running for NDP leader because it’s time for the NDP to return to its roots—fighting a system rigged for the rich that leaves the rest of us behind.

We can build a Canada based on care instead of greed, but only if we do it together. There are only 4 days left to join the NDP so you can vote in the leadership race, so get your membership before Jan 28th and let’s fight for a government that serves the many, not the money.

avilewis.link/join

youtu.be/IVy99oiYszY?si=TdW_Ul…

#cdnpoli #NDP


Join the NDP to support Avi Lewis for Leader

Join a party ready to fight for nation-building projects that put people before profit
avilewis.link
#cdnpoli #ndp
This entry was edited (1 day ago)

mastodon - Link to source

when you are trying to sleep at night and suddenly remember that #ArcaneChat / #DeltaChat are the only piece of software out there that makes it possible easily and for free to have a #decentralized #e2ee #mailinglist #newsletter (called "channels" inside the app) that is portable, doesn't depend on a specific/central #email server and can be easily migrated to a completely different server / address without any visible change or disturbance for your subscribers

all FREE and without limits 🤯

woman in bed with big opened eyes
#email #decentralized #newsletter #deltachat #e2ee #arcanechat #mailinglist

mastodon - Link to source
Wellp, I've had it with the Asus routers. I'm simply done with their absolutely useless JAVA Script-infested-and-100%-dependence to make anything in their web interface do anything. Clickable buttons that at least NVDA recognizes as such, but still majority remain useless, JFW only sees text, with no label or control state information communicated. Sometimes clicking these random clickables/words of text do things, such as the main navigation, but try to set up VLANs, more detailed WAN configurations, port forwarding, pretty much 99% of the router interface, and its useless with a screen reader. For the longest time, I was figuring out equivalent CLI commands, and writing scripts to do more advanced stuff, hacking its NVRAM settings, and BASH scripts, but I'm just done with the whole damn thing. Of course, the Netgear switch web interfaces are no better, and that makes two of my switches management useless. I was able to enable an unsupported telnet feature in one of the switches, and was able to configure VLANs there through trial and error, and reading manuals for other switches using a similar Broadcom FastPath OS stack. I managed to make that work, but yet again, another ridiculous workaround that has about as much chance of breaking in a future update, as shit has a chance to come out of the end of a biological organisms digestive system on a regular basis. So its time to find a whole new stack and rip out my entire network and rebuild it.

mastodon - Link to source
I’m seeing less blind people post on Masto as of late. And I can’t tell if it’s just because of the amount of cool people I’m following who aren’t blind or because people have left for other platforms. DOn’t get me wrong. I see posts from blind people all the time. It just feels like the number of blind people posting has dropped. Not that there are less posts from blind people in general. But maybe that’s just my field of view talking.
in reply to Bri🥰

iceshrimp.net - Link to source

🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦

@Bri@jdking92@Rosalyn Some can also just post HTML directly. Either way, when you strip the HTML, you get the link text, without the URL. Usually, the link text is the URL without https in front. But it doesn't have to be. GoToSocial, Akoma, Iceshrimp, Pleroma, Sharky, threads, Lemmy, PiFed, and literally anything other than Mastodon allow for text in the post that is a hyperlink, but does not contain the URL as the link text. Even though Mastodon doesn't allow posting like that, though, it can display that type of post. So because of the way FastSM strips HTML, it can only find links posted by another Mastodon server. Every other server type can post links that FastSM users can neither see 'nor interact with. Even Mastodon forks can do this. As someone effected daily by this issue, because it's completely and totally impossible for me to post links that tweesecake or FastSM users can interact with, no matter what I do, this is a huge priority for me. Only supporting logging into a Mastodon server account is one thing, and I get it. But the way FastSM is currently, you only support viewing posts by, and following, users who happen to also be on Mastodon. If you follow an account using literally anything else, links won't work. And it's impossible for a FastSM user to know they've followed an account on an unsupported server type. It's to the point where I avoid posting any links at all, because every single link I post gets multiple replies (sometimes as many as thirty or more) from blind users who do not understand that the client they use is at fault and in complete violation of the standards, not me. I'm one hundred percent following the standards as defined by the W3C and all of the Fediverse Enhancement Proposals. Clients that can't handle formatted links are broken. They need to be fixed. I've had to start just blocking Tweesecake users. I don't want to have to also do that with FastSM users.
@Joseph King @Rosalyn Anne @Bri🥰
in reply to 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦

iceshrimp.net - Link to source

🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦

@jdking92@Rosalyn@Bri To make all of this so, so much worse, every single fediverse server provides a plain text, non-html version of the post. Tweesecake and FastSM and others just refuse to use it. But if you look in the JSON, you'll find that while the content key contains HTML, _misskey_content and source.content both contain perfectly formatted, plain text versions of post content. FastSM and other clients just ignore them and strip HTML themselves, breaking posts and resulting in constant bitching from blind people. browser.pub/https://fed.interfree.ca/notes/ah4xrewupfr5jqja

fed.interfree.ca/notes/ah4xrewupfr5jqja · BrowserPub · A browser for exploring ActivityPub and the fediverse

Explore the open social web through the lens of ActivityPub and the fediverse.
browser.pub
@Joseph King @Rosalyn Anne @Bri🥰
in reply to 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦

mastodon - Link to source

Alex Hall

@fastfinge @jdking92 @Bri Is it the clients themselves, or the Python libraries they rely on to manage Mastodon? Not that it matters for the end user, but I'm curious if this is a conscious choice the devs made, or if they just trust the libraries to work and haven't worked around the problem yet.
@Joseph King @🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @Bri🥰
in reply to Alex Hall

iceshrimp.net - Link to source

🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦

@alexhall@jdking92@Rosalyn@Bri It's both. The libraries assume that the strings they return will be displayed in a web browser, or other HTML capable view. In fact, the content key by default contains spans and divs. However, all of the blind clients just stripped the html using a regular expression so it can be displayed in a text file, while making no attempt to account for anything that might be lost by that approach.
@Alex Hall @Joseph King @Rosalyn Anne @Bri🥰
in reply to Alex Hall

iceshrimp.net - Link to source

🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦

@alexhall@jdking92@Rosalyn@Bri And links are just the thing that blind users are noticing, because they read a post talking about a URL, try to interact with it, and it doesn't work. But I could happily post formatted lists, bold, italics, blockquotes, and both FastSM and Tweesecake would strip them out silently, and users would never know they missed anything to even complain about. I get that we don't want an HTML viewer for posts. But accessible clients need to do better than just assuming that HTML is completely unimportant and throwing it all away. They could convert the HTML to markdown. Or show the plain text version of the post that the server provides them. Or something else. But they don't. I'm sorry for ranting, but this has been making me crazy in Tweesecake for years now, and I hate that it's the same in FastSM.
@Alex Hall @Joseph King @Rosalyn Anne @Bri🥰
in reply to 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦

mastodon - Link to source

James Scholes

@fastfinge @alexhall @jdking92 @Bri This might be a rant, but it is a top tier, informative one. As someone who's pointed the link issue out to you at least once, I'm sorry you're getting so much repeated grief about it and hope it gets taken more seriously in new clients.
@Alex Hall @Joseph King @🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @Bri🥰
in reply to Alex Hall

mastodon - Link to source

Bri🥰

@alexhall @jscholes @fastfinge @jdking92 I will try to see if I can work this out, but past a certain point, there's only so much I can do. If this what you say is true, and this plaintext representation of posts is indeed available in status objects, I've yet to evger find it. I'll look into it some more, because I definitely understand where you're coming from here, never mind I think the take of outright blocking FastSM/TweeseCake users is a bit hostile, I would still like to find a solution if I can
@Alex Hall @Joseph King @James Scholes @🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦
in reply to Bri🥰

iceshrimp.net - Link to source

🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦

@Bri@alexhall@jscholes@jdking92@Rosalyn Blocking is the only thing I can do to stop the endless complaints. I’m following the standard. I can’t fix broken clients. But too many users won’t accept that. If it doesn’t work with their clients, it’s inaccessible and obviously my fault.I can point to thee activity pub standard until I’m blue in the face. I can point at the json notes all day. But in the minds of most users, if their client is broken because the developers flatly refuse to abide by the standards, it’s my fault.
@Alex Hall @Joseph King @James Scholes @Rosalyn Anne @Bri🥰
in reply to Alex Chapman

iceshrimp.net - Link to source

🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦

@alexchapman@Bri@alexhall@jscholes@jdking92@Rosalyn Sorry, but if you’re so untitled to think that the entire world needs to avoid making standards compliant HTML formatted posts, because your client is utterly and completely broken, and you complain about it constantly, a block is all you deserve.
@Alex Hall @Joseph King @James Scholes @Alex Chapman @Rosalyn Anne @Bri🥰
in reply to Bri🥰

iceshrimp.net - Link to source

🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦

@Bri@alexchapman@alexhall@jscholes@jdking92@Rosalyn I’m sorry, but it completely is. I am sick and tired of being told that dealing with other people’s broken clients is my problem. And that I need to go out of my way to bend over backwards for people who have been told that they’re using an incompatible and broken client. It’s a bad look for blind people, who demand that everyone else follow W3C and WCAG standards, but then use apps that don’t do so themselves. And when I point this out, it’s my fault anyway, because I just shouldn’t use completely allowed and supported features that work literally everywhere else.
@Alex Hall @Joseph King @James Scholes @Alex Chapman @Rosalyn Anne @Bri🥰
in reply to Alex Chapman

iceshrimp.net - Link to source

🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦

@alexchapman@Bri@alexhall@jscholes@jdking92@Rosalyn Right, but this is my point. “Want to” isn’t strong enough language. If you emailed someone, and they said, “Yeah, I want to follow the accessibility standards. I need to do that some day, if I can figure it out,” you would be furious, and rightly so. Thrive, and FastSM, and every other client using mastodon.py is not following the standards. In the same way that we as blind people will turn to a developer and say, “I’m sorry, that’s not my problem. You need to be accessible.” I can expect the same thing from my fellow blind developers.
@Alex Hall @Joseph King @James Scholes @Alex Chapman @Rosalyn Anne @Bri🥰
in reply to Alex Chapman

iceshrimp.net - Link to source

🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦

@alexchapman@jscholes@alexhall@Bri Fair enough. My issue was never with people needing to learn. That's something I do every day. And I, too, have giant bugs almost every day, in almost everything I do. But my response to not following a documented standard is not "Yeah, I'll see if I can fix it at some point. Not a priority. Anyone who's upset about this is a jerk, and they should really be bending over backwards to work around the issue, and blocking people who complain endlessly that they aren't doing nonstandard things to just make it work makes them a jerk."
@Alex Hall @James Scholes @Alex Chapman @Bri🥰
in reply to 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦

iceshrimp.net - Link to source

🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦

@jscholes@alexhall@alexchapman@Bri And before anyone says anything: I recognize we are all hobbyists. I recognize this is unpaid work on unpaid software. But I don't give sighted people a pass because of that if they develop inaccessible noncompliant software. Neither do I give blind people a pass if they develop accessible nonstandard software. For exactly the same reasons.
@Alex Hall @James Scholes @Alex Chapman @Bri🥰
in reply to Alex Chapman

iceshrimp.net - Link to source

🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦

@alexchapman@jscholes@alexhall@Bri And once again. I only became hostile when people started saying I was doing things that made me a dick and a jerk, rather than actually engage with the issue. Similar to how blind people become hostile when developers tell us expecting accessibility is just too much, and we should stay quiet and deal with it.
@Alex Hall @James Scholes @Alex Chapman @Bri🥰
in reply to Alex Chapman

iceshrimp.net - Link to source

🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦

@alexchapman@jscholes@alexhall@Bri Yup. And when things are inaccessible, blind people should also be policed about our tone, and never ever make frustrated statements about the issue. I hope we'll all remember this standard that we must all be held to the next time an app breaks accessibility and doesn't follow accessibility standards.
@Alex Hall @James Scholes @Alex Chapman @Bri🥰
in reply to Bri🥰

iceshrimp.net - Link to source

🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦

@Bri@alexchapman@alexhall@jscholes@jdking92@Rosalyn Never said you were. I was responding to Alex. But you did say fixing it isn’t a priority. And that if you can’t figure it out, you’re not going to fix it. Meaning you obviously believe that following the standards is an optional, nice to have. If you can’t figure it out, I’ll just have to deal with endless complaints from your users, and blocking them makes me the jerk.
@Alex Hall @Joseph King @James Scholes @Alex Chapman @Rosalyn Anne @Bri🥰
in reply to 🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦

mastodon - Link to source

Bri🥰

@fastfinge @alexchapman @alexhall @jscholes @jdking92 I mean, the app is open source. If what I've done doesn't fix it, and you're so bothered by it, you could take a crack at fixing it yourself, rather than going off on me and others for things that we may not even know about/know how to properly fix. I'm only human, after all, I don't know everything, I can only do so much.
@Alex Hall @Joseph King @James Scholes @Alex Chapman @🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦
in reply to Alex Chapman

mastodon - Link to source

Bri🥰

@alexchapman @fastfinge @alexhall @jscholes @jdking92 At the end of the day, it's his timeline, he has the right to block whomever he wishes. At the other end of the day, I've just added checks in the mastodon model to check for these plaintext copies of posts in the status object. You can try it if you like. I guarantee nothing.
@Alex Hall @Joseph King @James Scholes @Alex Chapman @🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦

mastodon - Link to source
Still sad, but I'm still workin on NV Speech. Did not abandon it. I've fixed all clicks in the driver, and the next version? It'll have a sample rate combo-box. I am thinking some people will like it at 11025 HZ but some might want 22050. This one will let you pick. It's important for sound quality and the default 16000 may sound too harsh on some ears who are used to Eloquence's 11025.
This entry was edited (1 day ago)
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