Pluto and eSpeak for ARMv7, now open source

The Pluto email and newsgroup reader and the eSpeak speech synthesizer (formerly “!Speak”) are now available for ARMv7 processors (I’ve tested them on Raspberry Pi in ARMv7 mode). Both programs are now open source and cost-free.

They are available, including program source code, from:

Pluto 3.06: http://sourceforge.net/projects/plutoemail

eSpeak 1.47.06: http://espeak.sourceforge.net/

The Pluto download also includes a copy of the eSpeak module and data.

eSpeak now speaks correctly on systems which have 44100Hz but not 22050Hz audio (PandaBoard).
The RISC OS version of eSpeak includes a limited selection of languages. Further language voices can be used from the main eSpeak download.
eSpeak can be used with some other RISC OS software such as StrongEd.

eSpeak has been in continual development over the past few years. It’s used by screen-reader software for blind users on Windows (eg. “NVDA”) and Linux (“Orca”) where its fast response is important despite its artificial sounding speech.

I haven’t made changes to Pluto other than to update it to use the latest version of eSpeak.

People can include Pluto and eSpeak in software repositories, and can update lists of RISC OS software, as appropriate.

The Pluto email and newsgroup reader and the eSpeak speech synthesizer (formerly “!Speak”) are now available for ARMv7 processors (I’ve tested them on Raspberry Pi in ARMv7 mode). Both programs are now open source and cost-free.

Many thanks for the surprising open sourcing of Pluto. There were a fair few people that were asking about a recompiled version that would have paid a modest sum just for that work.

Looks like I can now migrate stuff from the rather elderly beast currently handling mail (never really took to the Messenger style of things)

The Pluto email and newsgroup reader and the eSpeak speech synthesizer (formerly “!Speak”) are now available for ARMv7 processors (I’ve tested them on Raspberry Pi in ARMv7 mode). Both programs are now open source and cost-free.

I’d just like to thank Jonathan for the work he’s put into Pluto over the years, and again recently. It’s been a pleasure to return to Pluto, having struggled with the learning curve of moving to other clients. It was lovely to switch back to a familiar, and intuitive (to me) way of doing things.

Again, many thanks for all the effort, and I hope someone can take up the reins.

This is excellent news! I’m really pleased. I’d like to add my thanks to Jonathan; I’m very much looking forward to using Pluto on my Raspberry Pi.

Brilliant news! Many thanks to Jonathan for this, and for writing and supporting Pluto for so many years. I would hate to be without it.

I also hope someone can do some work on the code to try and remove some little niggles – I will gladly update my StrongHelp manual, and provide the alternative Templates and Icons, but I am not a C coder.

Thank you Jonathan!

After Jonathan’s very welcome announcement in April, later in July/August Rob Sprowson (Sprow) made some minor amendments to Pluto, creating v3.07 and then v3.08 which were available from his website, but these are updates for v3.06, not a full release.

With my website hosting the StrongHelp manual and alternative Templates and Sprites, this meant that there is the confusing situation of three websites being involved in downloading a new version of Pluto, none of them Jonathan’s original sites at Argo.net or Clara.net which have disappeared.

As a first attempt at simplyfying this situation, I have changed my Pluto webpage to try and include all current Pluto resources in one place. Note that Sprow will be removing v3.07 and v3.08 from his site.

Note that this page may be temporary if a better solution emerges, but my new web page will be updated accordingly.

An update to Pluto v3.09 is now available from http://www.avisoft.f9.co.uk

This includes some changes made by Rob Sprowson, and my StrongHelp manual is now integrated.

For further details please see the website.

Random musings:,

Do you have write access to sourceforge? If not, is the version there 3.06? If so, will the updated sources also be on your site? (or are they part of the archive?)

Martin alludes to it in his Aug 22 post, but in another thread Martin and/or Sprow mentioned they hadn’t been able to get in contact with Jonathan to get the update put on sourceforge

Do you have write access to sourceforge? If not, is the version there 3.06? If so, will the updated sources also be on your site? (or are they part of the archive?)

1. From previous posts no one seems to have write access to the sourceforge pluto. Rob Sprowson has tried to contact Jonathan and had no response – hence the initial location of 3.08 being his site.

2. 3.06 is available only on sourceforge – Martin has a link to the sourceforge resource.

3. If you download 3.09 you will find a source directory in the download.

Less than random comment :)

An update to Pluto v3.10 is now available from http://www.avisoft.f9.co.uk

This includes some further changes made by Rob Sprowson and myself.

For further details please see the website.
 

An update to Pluto v3.11 is now available from http://www.avisoft.f9.co.uk

This includes some further changes made by Rob Sprowson and myself.

For further details please see the website.
 

An update to Pluto v3.14 is now available, which includes some further changes made by Rob Sprowson and myself.

For further details please see see http://www.avisoft.f9.co.uk

An update to Pluto v3.14 is now available, which includes some further changes made by Rob Sprowson and myself.

Might I ask is this a special Pi version?

You can ask! But what makes you think it is ‘a special Pi version’? What would make it so special?

Oh dear! The penny has just dropped. No, it is not a special Pi version!
That will be 3.14.15.92.65.35..

Oh dear! The penny has just dropped.

:) Glad you appreciated it.

Martin Avison will be giving us the latest news on Pluto developments at ROUGOL next Monday, 20th April.

http://www.rougol.jellybaby.net/

Meeting is free, all welcome!

Bryan.

If you use Pluto, I have created PlutoStat which is a small simple program to collect some settings and statistics from your Pluto system.

It is hoped that these will give a better idea of how Pluto is being used, in order to plan any future changes better.

- It only takes seconds to run.
- It collects no personal data from Pluto.
- You can see the data collected (<2K text file) before you send it.

It is available as a 7k download from here

If you have not already done so, it would be useful if you could try it and send me the results (and any comments), to my address in the Pluto Help.

Thanks,
Martin

Pluto v3.16 is now available, which includes some further changes made by Rob Sprowson and myself.

Also eSpeak v3.50 is now available, as it has been re-compiled and released separately from Pluto.

For further details please see see http://www.avisoft.f9.co.uk
which details how to download them from SourceForge. They are also both available from !Store.

Pluto v3.16 is now available,

Seems to be a small issue with a missing link for v316 (the page is there but no link to it)

Ooops! Now fixed. Thanks Steve.

Pluto v3.16 is now available

Every one makes mistakes “Dave” :)

Does Pluto have any Zero Page problems?