Remove the playsound library and just print spoken text to console (#1462)

* Remove the playsound library and just print spoken text to console

* Fix more tests

* More import removals

* A new exercise to implement a speech engine

* Language tweaks in the pyttsx exericse

* Remove playsound/gtts/os.remove shims

Author: pavpanchekha

book/accessibility.md

@@ -1769,6 +1769,12 @@ more clearly how screen readers interact with the accessibility tree, our
 discussion of screen reader support will instead include a minimal
 screen reader integrated directly into the browser.
 
+[^why-diff]: Screen readers need to help the user with operating
+    system actions such as logging in, starting applications, and
+    switching between them, so it makes sense for the screen reader to
+    be outside any application and to integrate with them through the
+    operating system.
+
 But should our built-in screen reader live in the `Browser` or each `Tab`?
 Modern browsers generally talk to screen readers from  something like the
 `Browser`, so we'll do that too.^[And therefore the browser thread in our
@@ -1813,54 +1819,22 @@ browser thread, much like with the display list, to avoid a data race.
 [ch12-commit]: scheduling.html#committing-a-display-list
 
 Now that the tree is in the browser thread, let's implement the screen
-reader. We'll use two Python libraries to actually read text out loud:
-[`gtts`][gtts] (which wraps the Google [text-to-speech service][tts])
-and [`playsound`][playsound]. You can install them using `pip`:
-
-[^why-diff]: Screen readers need to help the user with operating
-    system actions such as logging in, starting applications, and
-    switching between them, so it makes sense for the screen reader to
-    be outside any application and to integrate with them through the
-    operating system.
-
-[gtts]: https://pypi.org/project/gTTS/
-
-[tts]: https://cloud.google.com/text-to-speech/docs/apis
+reader. Normally screen readers read text aloud, often much faster
+than a normal speaking pace. Let's skip that---it'd add all sorts of
+complexities around audio mixing and playback---and just have the
+screen reader print the text it's going to say to the screen.[^playsound]
 
-[playsound]: https://pypi.org/project/playsound/
-
-``` {.sh}
-python3 -m pip install gtts
-python3 -m pip install playsound
-```
+[^playsound]: Older editions of this book implemented an actual speech
+    engine using the `playsound` and `gtts` libraries, but it was
+    perhaps too simple to be useful; see Exercise 14-11.
 
 You can use these libraries to convert text to an audio file, and then
 play it:
 
 ``` {.python}
-import os
-import gtts
-import playsound
-
-SPEECH_FILE = "/tmp/speech-fragment.mp3"
-
 def speak_text(text):
     print("SPEAK:", text)
-    tts = gtts.gTTS(text)
-    tts.save(SPEECH_FILE)
-    playsound.playsound(SPEECH_FILE)
-    os.remove(SPEECH_FILE)
-```
-
-::: {.quirk}
-You may need to adjust the `SPEECH_FILE` path to fit your system
-better. If you have trouble importing any of the libraries, you may
-need to consult the [`gtts`][gtts] or [`playsound`][playsound]
-documentation. If you can't get these libraries working, just delete
-everything in `speak_text` except the `print` statement. You won't
-hear things being spoken, but you can at least debug by watching the
-console output.
-:::
+```
 
 To start with, we'll want a key binding that turns the screen reader
 on and off. While real operating systems typically use more obscure
@@ -2724,3 +2698,13 @@ accessibility feature to web developers, plus it allows applying it only
 to designated HTML subtrees.
 
 [zoom-property]: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/zoom
+
+14-11 *Speaking out loud*. Add code to actually read web pages aloud.
+The [`pyttsx`][pyttsx] library can speak text in "non-blocking" mode,
+though it will require some integration with the browser event loop.
+Make sure to interrupt speech when the user hovers over nodes or tabs
+throughout the document. Implement the `aria-live` attribute so the
+author can create either `assertive` alerts that interrupt current
+speech or `polite` ones that don't.
+
+[pyttsx]: https://pypi.org/project/pyttsx3/

requirements.txt

@@ -11,23 +11,3 @@ pysdl2-dll==2.26.5
 
 # OpenGL is used in Chapters 13+ for GPU-accellerated Skia
 PyOpenGL==3.1.6
-
-# gTTS is used in Chapter 14+ for reading accessibility text
-gTTS==2.3.2
-charset-normalizer==3.1.0
-six==1.16.0
-click==8.1.3
-
-requests==2.32.4
-urllib3==2.5.0
-idna==3.7
-certifi==2024.7.4
-
-# PlaySound is used in Chapters 14+ for reading accessibility text
-# PyObjC is useful on macOS systems for accellerating playsound
-# And quieting an error message. Transitive dependencies of
-# PyObjC are not frozen because there are a lot and they may depend
-# on macOS version.
-playsound==1.3.0; sys_platform == "darwin"
-pyobjc==9.1.1; sys_platform == "darwin"
-pyobjc-core==9.1.1; sys_platform == "darwin"

src/lab14-tests.md

@@ -8,7 +8,6 @@ This file contains tests for Chapter 14 (Accessibility).
     >>> import test
     >>> _ = test.socket.patch().start()
     >>> _ = test.ssl.patch().start()
-    >>> _ = test.gtts.patch()
     >>> _ = test.MockLock.patch().start()
     >>> import lab14
     >>> import time

src/lab14.py

@@ -8,13 +8,7 @@
 import ctypes
 import dukpy
 import math
-import os
-import gtts
-try:
-    import playsound
-except:
-    playsound = None
-    
+
 import sdl2
 import skia
 import socket
@@ -494,15 +488,8 @@ def __repr__(self):
         return "AccessibilityNode(node={} role={} text={} bounds={}".format(
             str(self.node), self.role, self.text, self.bounds)
 
-SPEECH_FILE = "/tmp/speech-fragment.mp3"
-
 def speak_text(text):
     print("SPEAK:", text)
-    tts = gtts.gTTS(text)
-    tts.save(SPEECH_FILE)
-    if playsound:
-        playsound.playsound(SPEECH_FILE)
-    os.remove(SPEECH_FILE)
 
 class PseudoclassSelector:
     def __init__(self, pseudoclass, base):

src/lab15-tests.md

@@ -8,7 +8,6 @@ This file contains tests for Chapter 15 (Embedded Content).
     >>> import test
     >>> _ = test.socket.patch().start()
     >>> _ = test.ssl.patch().start()
-    >>> _ = test.gtts.patch()
     >>> _ = test.MockLock.patch().start()
     >>> import lab15
     >>> import time

src/lab15.py

@@ -7,7 +7,6 @@
 import sys
 import ctypes
 import dukpy
-import gtts
 import math
 import os
 import sdl2
@@ -44,7 +43,7 @@
     dpx, cascade_priority, style, \
     is_focusable, get_tabindex, speak_text, \
     CSSParser, mainloop, Browser, Chrome, Tab, \
-    AccessibilityNode, PseudoclassSelector, SPEECH_FILE
+    AccessibilityNode, PseudoclassSelector
 from lab14 import DocumentLayout, BlockLayout, LineLayout, TextLayout
 
 @wbetools.patch(URL)

src/lab16-tests.md

@@ -8,7 +8,6 @@ This file contains tests for Chapter 16 (Invalidation).
     >>> import test
     >>> _ = test.socket.patch().start()
     >>> _ = test.ssl.patch().start()
-    >>> _ = test.gtts.patch()
     >>> _ = test.MockLock.patch().start()
     >>> import lab16
     >>> import time

src/lab16.py

@@ -40,7 +40,7 @@
 from lab14 import parse_outline, style, \
     paint_outline, dpx, cascade_priority, \
     is_focusable, get_tabindex, speak_text, \
-    CSSParser, mainloop, Chrome, PseudoclassSelector, SPEECH_FILE
+    CSSParser, mainloop, Chrome, PseudoclassSelector
 from lab15 import URL, HTMLParser, AttributeParser, DrawImage, \
     DocumentLayout, BlockLayout, \
     EmbedLayout, InputLayout, LineLayout, TextLayout, ImageLayout, \

src/test.py

@@ -234,20 +234,6 @@ def __init__(self, x, y):
         self.x = x
         self.y = y
 
-class gtts:
-    class gTTS:
-        def __init__(self, text):
-            pass
-        def save(self, file):
-            pass
-
-    @classmethod
-    def patch(cls):
-        import sys
-        sys.modules["gtts"] = cls()
-
-
-
 def SDL_GetWindowSurfacePatched(window):
     return None
 

www/widgets/rt.js

@@ -6,7 +6,6 @@ export {
     truthy, comparator, pysplit, pyrsplit, asyncfilter,
     rt_constants, Widget, http_textarea, skia, sdl2, init_skia,
     init_window, threading, time, OpenGL, patch_class, patch_function, dict,
-    gtts, os, playsound
     };
 
 function patch_class(cls, patched_cls) {
@@ -898,22 +897,6 @@ class OpenGL {
     }
 }
 
-class gtts {
-    static gTTS(text) {
-        return { save: (file) => {} }
-    }
-}
-
-class playsound {
-    static playsound(file) {
-    }
-}
-
-class os {
-    static remove(file) {
-    }
-}
-
 class ctypes {
 }