speak region, speak next paragraph

[wickedjargon]

i'm not interested in any of the automatic speaking features. I'd like to turn those off (the ones demonstrated in the video). I'd like to two features: 'speak region' and 'speak next paragraph'

[smythp]

Here's a function to speak the active region, assuming you have espeak installed and accessible from Emacs:

(defun speak-my-text () "Speaks text in buffer."
  (interactive)
(if (region-active-p)
  (progn
    (kill-ring-save (region-beginning) (region-end))
      (start-process-shell-command "speakbuffvar" nil
        "bash -c \"killall espeak;xsel --clipboard|espeak -s 290\""))
  (progn
    (kill-ring-save (point-min) (point-max))
      (start-process-shell-command "speakbuffvar" nil
        "bash -c \"killall espeak;xsel --clipboard|espeak -s 290\""))))

Tested on Ubuntu, but should work on OSX, possibly with a tweak or two. Let me know if you can't get it working and I'll try to help. Remember that espeak will need to be accessible from your shell in Emacs.

[smythp]

PS Just thinking this might not work on OSX because xsel doesn't work without running an x server. If you're on OSX, let me know and I'll try writing something that works for you. Also, if you're reading a text file, how do you define paragraph? I don't think Emacs has any functionality for moving between paragraphs. Go to next blank line?