spk / speak                   Uses a text-to-speech engine to read out a message
 
   Format:
      ;spk                    Reads out a test message using default settings
      ;spk <config>           Reads out a test message using TTS <configuration>

      ;spk <options>          Reads out a test message using specified settings
      ;spk <text>             Reads out <text> using default settings
      ;spk <text> <options>   Reads out <text> using specified settings

   Notes:
      If you have one or more of the text-to-speech engines installed on your
         system, Axmud can use them to convert text to speech.
      The engines currently supported on MS Windows are eSpeak, espeak-ng,
         Festival and Swift. The engines supported on Linux are eSpeak,
         espeak-ng, Flite, Festival and Swift.
      Axmud also uses a dummy engine, called 'none'. If Axmud tries to convert
         text to speech using the dummy engine, you'll hear nothing.
            
      Axmud stores a number of TTS configurations. Each configuration stores an 
         engine, voice, word speed, word rate, word pitch and volume setting, 
         among others. Text received from the world uses one configuration, 
         system messages use another, so it's easy to customise the 
         configurations so that they read aloud in different voices.
      You can use this command to see what each configuration sounds like, or to 
         test new combinations of settings. Since this command works even when
         text-to-speech is disabled, you can use it to test whether 
         text-to-speech is working is working at all on your system.

      If you don't specify some <text>, Axmud will read out a test message.
         Alternatively, you can use ';speak <configuration>' to test a 
         particular TTS configuration

      You can use <options> to test different configurations, engines, voices, 
         word speeds, word rates, word pitches and volumes. If you specify both  
         a configuration and one or more other <options>, the settings for that 
         configuration will be temporarily overridden.
      Unfortunately, some engines don't allow us to modify some <options> (for
         example, you can't use this command to change the word speed used with
         Flite; eSpeak uses a word speed, whereas Festival uses a word rate.)
      If you specify an invalid <option>, it is ignored (and text-to-speech
         conversion happens using default values).

      <text> and <options> can be specified in any order. <options> can be any 
         of the following:

         -n <configuration>   Specifies which text-to-speech <configuration>  
                                 name to use
         -e <engine>          Specifies which engine to use. <engine> must be 
                                 one of the following: 'espeak', 'esng',
                                 'flite', 'festival', 'swift' or 'none'
         -v <voice>           Specifies which voice to use (eSpeak, espeak-ng,
                                 Festival and Swift only). You can use any
                                 <voice> available on your system. See the
                                 documentation for your preferred text-to-speech
                                 engine to find out which voices are available
                                 on your system
         -s <speed>           Specifies the word speed (eSpeak and espeak-ng on
                                 all systems, and Swift on MS Windows only).
                                 For eSpeak and espeak-ng, must be in the range
                                 10 - 200, default is 150 words per minutes. For
                                 Swift on MS Windows, must be in the range 100 -
                                 400, default is 170
         -r <rate>            Specifies the word rate (Festival, and Swift on
                                 Linux only) Must be in the range 0.5 - 2,
                                 default is 1
         -p <pitch>           Specifies the word pitch (eSpeak, espeak-ng and
                                 Swift only). For eSpeak, must be in the range
                                 0 - 99, default is 50. For Swift, must be in
                                 the range 0.1 - 5, default is 1
         -l <volume>          Specifies the volume (espeak-ng, Festival and
                                 Swift only). For espeak-ng, must be in the
                                 range 0-200, default is 100. For Festival and
                                 Swift on Linux, must be in the range 0.33 - 6,
                                 default is 1. For Swift on MS Windows, must be
                                 in the range 0 - 100, default 100
 
       See also the help for ';speech'.
 
   User commands:
      spk / speak
