Changing default voice doesn't work with Infovox iVox (third party) voices

[roelvangils]

Hi, the CLI and the service work great when using macOS default voices. I also use the excellent iVox voices.

These voices don't have single word names like 'Alex' and 'Samantha', but have the suffix 'Infovox iVox HQ'.

I changed this line in .SwitchDefaultVoice-rc:

voices=(Ava Xander ‘Zoe Infovox iVox HQ’)

The first two are voices that come with macOS Sierra. Zoe is a Belgian Dutch voice I enjoy listening to when having text read aloud. I tried it with single and double quotes and without quotes, but it whenever the script tries to switch to Zoe, it speaks an error ('Failed to change the default font')

I have the suspicion that this can be easily fixed, but I don't know how. If you want to try this for yourself, you can download a free evaluation version of all Infovox iVox voices from their website.

[mklement0]

Thanks for letting me know - quite frankly, I wasn't even aware of third-party voice.

Unfortunately, the iVox voices are installed in nonstandard locations and use a nonstandard bundle structure (the problem is not the fact that the voice names contain spaces).

I took a quick look, but I cannot figure out how to obtain the necessary internal information about the voices that is needed to make them the default voice (the numerical voice creator and voice ID properties).

At this point I'm afraid I can only document the limitation (which I've just done, both in this repo's read-me and in speak.awf's).

If you know how to obtain the voice internals using command-line tools, do let me know.

[roelvangils]

Thanks a lot for investigating! I'm afraid I don't know how to obtain the iVox voice internals either. I think David Niemeijer from AssistiveWare might be able to help us out.

Of course I don't want to burden you with altering the script, but if you agree, I'd like to send him an e-mail and direct him to this conversation. Perhaps David knows the answer.

Thanks!

[mklement0]

Please do send that email. If it's not too hard, I'm happy to adapt my script

[roelvangils]

Thanks! I'm awaiting their reply ;)