@Voice Aloud Reader
Current version number: 32.3.2
Contact:

@Voice Aloud Reader reads aloud the text displayed in an Android app, e.g. web pages, news articles, long emails, sms, PDF files and more.

IMPORTANT: You need Text-To-Speech engine and voices installed on your device to use this app. If you don't have it yet, pickup from Play Store. Examples: Speech Services by Google (pre-installed on most Android devices), Vocalizer TTS, Acapela TTS, Cereproc, RHVoice TTS and more. You may use more than one if you want.

Order @Voice Premium License
New! @Voice Auto Plugin available, to control @Voice from Android Auto screen.

@Voice Premium License removes all ads from the main @Voice Aloud Reader app and enables a few premium features. It can be purchased from Google Play Store. However if you need this license on a device where Play Store is not available, or for any other reasons prefer to order directly from us, click the above link. The Premium License is permanent and can be used on any Android device or emulator. After placing the order, your license key will arrive by email from sales@hyperionics.com - please make sure to unblock this address in your SPAM filters.

 Downloads and Manual:

NOTE:

@Voice Add to List desktop browser extensions no longer work, as Google changed their security policies and disabled our project that needs access the the same folder for several different apps (@Voice Sync Plugin app on Android and desktop browser extensions). I'm working on an alternative, synch through the user's Dropbox account, but it's too early to tell if I will be succesful.

@Voice features:

* Click "Share", "Send by Email" button or menu item in any app to send text you read to @Voice Aloud Reader for aloud reading over speakers or headset.
* If "Share" is not available, copy text in other apps and paste it into @Voice for aloud reading.
* Open text, PDF, DOC, EPUB/MOBI/FB2 or HTML files from Android file system for reading aloud.
* Save articles opened in @Voice to files for later listening. Construct listening lists of many articles for uninterrupted listening one after the other. Order the list as needed, e.g. more important articles first.
* Record spoken articles to sound files - WAV (uncompressed) or OGG (compressed) formats supported.
* Use Android local Text-to-speech voices, or if you want - cloud voices from Google (WaveNet), Amazon (Polly TTS) or Microsoft (Azure TTS). Note that the cloud voices are paid services by Google, Amazon or Microsoft, respectively, although each of them offers some free usage monthly.
* Switch voices or even languages with the special annotation in the text. Read more at: https://hyperionics.com/atVoice/VoiceChanges.html
* Easily add saved Pocket articles to @Voice reading list - in Read List screen, press Menu - Add articles from Pocket.
* Easily control speech generator volume, pitch and rate of speech.
* Pause/resume speech as needed with wired or Bluetooth headset buttons, plus click Next/Previous buttons to jump by sentence, long-click to switch to the next/previous article on a list.
* Can automatically recognize the language of an article and use appropriate TTS voice, if available, or set your preferred voices manually with "Select language" menu item.
* Options for additional pause between paragraph, start talking as soon as a new article is loaded or wait for a button press, start/stop talking when wired headset plug is inserted/removed.
* Optional sleep timer to stop speech after a given timeout.

ABOUT PERMISSIONS:

The full Internet access is needed because the “Share” function from web browsers and any news reading apps I tried, sends us only the URL address (http://something...). They do not send the full text of articles, so @Voice has to download the article from the Internet to be able to read it aloud or save for later reading. Only by using Copy text function in one app, and pasting it in @Voice, or by saving the full text in one app to storage and opening a file in @Voice, you could avoid Internet connection, but this is not very convenient.

PLEASE send me your suggestions for improvements and bug reports welcome - send them to the email address listed on "Contact" page. Thanks and have fun! And a BIG THANK YOU! to Ilia Prokator for sending me the idea for this app.

Our friends:

Greg at Hyperionics


 @Voice Change Log:

Ver. 32.3.2, Oct. 10, 2024

* Small change to correctly open chats exported from new versions of WhatsApp.

Ver. 32.3.1, Oct. 4, 2024

* Added ability to send a multiple file selection from file browser apps to @Voice Add to List
* Fixed "send Next (or Previous) button to set bookmark" function, it was not working well for some files.

Ver. 32.2.3, Oct. 3, 2024

* Stability and text appearance improvements. 

Ver. 32.2.1, Sept. 29, 2024

* In the "Edit speech" function for RegEx replacements, RegExp capture groups like $1, $2 could be used in the replacement string. Now the syntax is extended to also use notation like $?1, $?2 etc. If the group with the number given after $? was NOT captured, the replacement string will be cut off at that place. This offers better flexibility for constructing special purpose replacements, e.g. adding SSML code to pause after each word, but not after HTML tags or inside of them.
* Small improvement for foldable fonts, when 2 column layout is selected for "landscape only" orientation
* Better text extraction from some web novel sites.
* Small change to enable JSON filters to edit text of loaded files, e.g. remove unwanted content.

Ver. 32.1.5, Sept. 6, 2024

* Stability and performance improvements

Ver. 32.1.3, Aug. 19, 2024

* Updated some translations
* Stability and performance improvements

Ver. 32.1.2, Aug. 14, 2024

* Small fix to make easier entering the correct endpoing for Microsoft Azure TTS service

Ver. 32.1.1, Aug. 8, 2024

* Fix for Pocket sync problem, when user has thousands of archived articles on Pocket server.

Ver. 32.1.0, Aug. 3, 2024

* When dialog voice changes are enabled and you want to define the voices that will be used in dialogs, you may now define an arbitrary name of a group of voices. It will be saved, and later, e.g. for a different ebook, you may re-use the same voice group by selecting its name.
* Speech replacements, defined under Settings - Edit speech, can be now synchronized between devices too.

Ver. 32.0.1, July 28, 2024

* Added optional synchronization between devices of the speech replacements (defined under Settings menu - Edit speech). The replacements changes made on other devices are imported only when the app starts or when you enter the "Edit speech" screen.

Ver. 32.0.0, July 25, 2024

* "Add from Dropbox" function on the Reading List screen menu, together with a new "@Voice Add to List" Chrome browser plugin.  Read more and download here.
* Sync of reading progress and bookmarks via Dropbox is now available. Enable under the Settings menu - Sync between devices. If you don't have a Dropbox account, you may create a free one at dropbox.com.
* No extra plugin app is needed now for Sync to work, it's all handled in the main @Voice app.
* Fixed "Sync articles with Pocket" function on the reading list menu, it recently stopped working due to some changes on Pocket servers.

Ver. 31.0.2, July 18, 2024

* Beta test of sync of reading progress and bookmarks via Dropbox is now available. Enable under the Settings menu - Sync between devices. If you don't have a Dropbox account, you may create a free one at dropbox.com

Ver. 31.0.1, July 14, 2024

* Stability and performance improvements

Ver. 31.0.0, July 6, 2024

* Due to changes in Google Drive security policies, synchronization of reading between devices no longer works. I'm working on an alternative synch method, this version udates sync setup screens to display this info and disable sync, prompts to uninstall the defunct @Voice Sync Plugin app.
* Other important functionality and stability improvements

Ver. 30.2.7, June 12, 2024

* Stability and performance improvements

Ver. 30.2.5, May 22, 2024

* Fix: on Edit speech screen, after pressing "Export speech files", the button to select folder for exported files was not visible.

Ver. 30.2.4, May 20, 2024

* Long press on the Paste Text button or menu function will show a prompt, if the "plain text" or HTML code should be pasted, for rare cases when the original app, from which the text was copied, places both formats in the clipboard buffer.
* The "Encoding" menu item was removed from the "Reload or clear" menu (under the button with circular arrows button). It seems no longer needed and actually stopped working. Please let me know if you need it for something, and if you do, send me the original link or file on which the encoding choice was necessary.
* Other small stability and performance improvements.

Ver. 30.2.1, May 14, 2024

* Semi-automatic work-around for loading pages that want you to verify that "you are human" - use Chrome (or similar) browser's Save function, and @Voice will automatically add them to the reading list, or read aloud at once. Enable under the Settings menu.

Ver. 30.1.6, May 8, 2024

* Fix problems with text search on some long files.

Ver. 30.1.5, Apr. 28, 2024

* Fix some small problems when loading a next chapter of an ebook, when the current one was translated.
* Disable Translate function when font "Boldify" or dialog changes are turned on (it does not work correctly in these situations)

Ver. 30.1.4, Apr. 27, 2024 (currently in Google Play)

* Under the Settings menu - Share icons, text and reading lists, added option to either open links you press in @Voice app, or in your default web browser
* Other stability and performance improvements.

Ver. 30.1.2, Apr. 18, 2024

* Fix crash on "Dialog voice changes" screen, when "Use current" definition was chosen, and the definiton that was for current article only was to be applied to the current reading list.

Ver. 30.1.1, Apr. 17, 2024

* New feature - long press on a link in @Voice will select the whole link text and copy or share the link http address.
* Fix search to the next part of long text or ebook chapter world terminate search mode.
* Fix again the problem with the option to prefer horizontal reading mode in Japanese after the app restart.

Ver. 30.1.0, Apr. 16, 2024

* If while using automatic voice changes you want to switch voices (e.g. in a book dialog a man speaks with a female voice, and a woman with male) - just press the "Back" button on the screen or your headset.
* Fix block of Play/Pause button after some full screen ads
* Fix horizontal scrolling in Japanese vertical reading mode.
* Fix: copying Japanese text should not include ruby markup.
* Fix problem with the option to prefer horizontal reading mode in Japanese after the app restart.
* Fix problems with loading full page content when the Internet connection was down.

Ver. 30.0.3, Apr. 9, 2024

* New experimental feature - automatic voice changes when reading book or story dialogues. Enable and setup on the expanded bottom control panel.
* Added DeepL Translator to "Dictionaries" that can be set up after selecting some text.
* Stability and performance improvements.

Ver 29.3.4, Mar 9, 2024

* Added "Boldify" feature to show part of words in bold font, which helps read faster, at least to some people. Turn on/off under T+/- button on top - FONT tab
* Other stability and performance improvements.

Ver 29.2.3, Feb 28, 2024

* Fix: sometimes web articles's title was incorrect
* Fix: some web pages loaded incorrectly

Ver 29.2.0, Feb 22, 2024

* Stability and performance improvements

Ver 29.1.11, Feb 11, 2024

* Fix problem with right-to-left text displaying incorrectly for some websites
* Fix incorrect language recognition in some HTML and ebook texts
* Fix the problem with freshly set bookmarks not being saved in some situations.
* Other stability and performance improvements.

Ver 29.1.8, Feb 8, 2024

* Stability and performance improvements.

Ver 29.1.4, Feb 2, 2024

* Voice filter changes work also for HTML pages (e.g. web novels), not only ebooks.
* Stability and performance improvements.

Ver 29.1.3, Jan. 29, 2024

* Code changes make possible creation of filters for automatic voice changes for book dialogs. At this time it's a manual process of creating JSON files with RegEx expressions. Not sure if if creating user interface for it is possible. Email author if you'd like to try this.
* Stability and performance improvements.

Ver 29.0.25, Jan. 22, 2024

* Small change necessary for voice change filter for ebook dialogs to work.

Ver. 29.0.22, Jan. 18, 2024

* Fix: after switching from full screen mode to regular, part of the top toolbar was hidden behind the Android status bar.

Ver. 29.0.20, Jan. 17, 2024

* Corrections to Arabic text extraction from PDF files
* Fix saving translated ebook chapters.
* Other important quality improvements, better filtering of content for some sites.

Ver. 29.0.8, Jan. 5, 2024

* Fix speech test buttons not working on the Edit Speech screen.
* Prevent several crashes, mainly in C/C++ code, while reading damaged MHTML files and Word files.
* Updated Jsoup to 1.17.2-SNAPSHOT

Ver. 29.0.6, Jan. 3, 2024

* Translate menu under circular arrows button has a new option to show bi-lingual text, each sentence in original and translated language. The app will read it with correct voices. Useful when learning languages.
* Voice changes instructions now work in the free version too.
* Improved export of reading list to EPUB, original PDF view and more.

Ver. 28.2.4, Dec. 20, 2023

* Improved original PDF view, show/hide toolbars with short vertical swipes near the top or bottom of screen, auto-hides toolbars in landscape mode.

Ver. 28.2.2, Dec. 16, 2023

* Function List to EPUB on the reading list's menu has now an option to create an epub file from all the articles on the list, or only from the selected articles. This choice is shown when the reading list has visible check-boxes next to each article title to select/de-select articles.
* The List to EPUB function now creates better EPUB files, compatible with many other ebook readers, although the articles may not look so well, or occasionally break the readers, if the HTML code on the saved articles is not compatible with EPUB format specification, which is much more limited than the general HTML format for web pages.

Ver. 28.2.0, Dec. 13, 2023

* The Translate menu on the "Reload or clear" button (circular arrows on top) has a new option to load a bi-lingual text - each sentence is loaded in the original and translated languages. The order of original - translated can be reversed. Voice change annotations are added to read aloud each sentence with a correct voice for their respective languages, but the app will read with voice changes only if you have @Voice Premium License (paid license to remove ads and enable advanced features)
* Text editing filters are now applied also to ebook chapters.

Ver. 28.1.2, Dec. 1, 2023

* After swiping away the media style notification, it does not come back by itself. You must start speech in @Voice app with the Play button, or start it with a headset button, to get that notification again.

Ver. 28.1.1, Nov. 29, 2023

* Added "finish" command to voice change instructions.

Ver. 28.1.0, Nov. 24, 2023

* Fix multiple inconsistencies in text search mode.
* In Translate mode, Google Translation Widget was disappearing for some pages or books, when the "Preserve original styles" option was on.
* With android auto plugin, handles hardware media buttons Next and Previous on the car console. Requires also AvarAuto Plugin ver. 1.6 or newer.

Ver. 28.0.14, Nov. 19, 2023

* Fix: on the ebook details screen, in landscape orientation, the Read and Return buttons where not active.

Ver. 28.0.13, Nov. 16, 2023

* Added WorldWeb Audio dictionary to supported dictionaries.

Ver. 28.0.11, Nov. 12, 2023

* Relaxed network timeout for TTS, allowing to set it to as low as 1 second, or 0 to use default settings.
* Added retry count parameter for network voices. Now can be set to anything between 1 and 10, or 0 to use the default settings.
* Reading list screen has an option to show article titles truncated at the first vertical bar.
* Stability and performance improvements.

Ver. 28.0.6, Nov. 10, 2023

* Text search in case insensitive mode uses now the native search of WebView control/Google Chrome, which has relaxed rules to find e.g. some Arabic words written with or without extra diacritic marks.
* Enabled media style notifications on older versions of Android, down to 5.1. Change the style under the T+/- button on top - MODE tab.
* Export of edit speech files uses first the app file interface, press folder with cloud icon if system interface needed
* Stability improvements

Ver. 28.0.2, Nov. 7, 2023

* New media style notification on Android 13 and higher, stays on top of other notifications if app is playing, can be swiped away, prettier. Option to use old style notification is under T+/- button on top - MODE tab.
* Fix item duplication on the reading list problem, when batch-adding many files at once.
* Other important stability and performance improvements

For older change log entries click here.

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