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Voice packages

🚧 This article is incomplete

This article is incomplete & needs to be reviewed. You can help by creating a pull request.

OsmAnd supports two types of voice packages:

If you could not find the voice package you need, please follow the following examples and create your own voice package. Examples - https://github.com/osmandapp/OsmAnd-resources/tree/master/voice, German package de_0.voice.zip, English package en_0.voice.zip.

Difference between TTS and Recorded packages​

  • a Text-To-Speech engine supports Street Name, Refs, POI names pronouncation
  • all Text-To-Speech supported packages bundled and updated with an application
  • a Recorded Package needs to be installed and updated manually (although the configuration file could be updated with app update)
  • a Recorded Package may not support some correct forms, and support is limited
  • a Recorded Package does not require any proprietary TTS engine to be installed

Package Structure​

Voice package usually is distributed as .voice.zip, where the zip contains one folder with lang_tts.js (main configuration file), and sound files if they are present.

The configuration files are written in JavaScript language. All configuration files are by default TTS-packages, even if there is no TTS present yet to support the language. And later the configuration is extended by mapping 'dictionary phrases' to 'recorded file names'.

function populateDictionary(tts) {
    // ROUTE CALCULATED
    dictionary["route_is1"] = tts ? "Die berechnete Strecke ist" : "route_is1.ogg";
    dictionary["route_is2"] = tts ? "lang" : "route_is2.ogg";
    dictionary["route_calculate"] = tts ? "Route neu berechnet" : "route_calculate.ogg";
    dictionary["distance"] = tts ? "die Entfernung beträgt" : "distance.ogg";

    // LEFT/RIGHT
    dictionary["prepare"] = tts ? "Demnächst " : "prepare.ogg";  // Demnächst sounds better then Vorbereiten zum
    dictionary["after"] = tts ? "nach" : "after.ogg";
    
    dictionary["left"] = tts ? "links abbiegen" : "left.ogg";
  .....
}

function route_recalc(dist, seconds) {
    return dictionary["route_calculate"] + (tts ? ", " : " ") + distance(dist, "nominativ") + (tts ? ", " : " ") + dictionary["time"] + " " + time(seconds) + (tts ? ". " : " ");
}

Generation custom package​

Please check the project resources and use the same folder structure as the German package - simply make copy. Once it's done you can change, run the generation script and specify the required arguments. Help is inside the script.

Testing voice package (Android)​

For testing it is possible to use :

  • the Navigation
  • the Navigation simulation,
  • or the handy version of OsmAnd development plugin, which simulates different voice commands to be tested.