The SpeechText function was removed from MT4 in January 2006. Codersguru at Forex-TSD wrote a couple of modules to restore this function. It works well. Better than the original function in MT4. It now utilizes the voice selected for Windows and the pitch, volume and rate are adjustable. He may have written an indicator with speech or know if someone has. The tools that he wrote are located at the following:
I tinkered with the speech function some but did not get around to writing anything useful. An indicator from the RickyD system on the StrategyBuilderFX forum was modified to speak. It worked well before MetaQuotes removed SpeechText. Unfortunately the syntax is a little different so one can not just replace the command. At least you can see how speech was implemented in this indicator. I believe that Shimodax wrote the original indicator and then modified it for speech. At least the code may give you some idea how speech can be implimented.
This indicator is located in the forum at StrategyBuilderFX > Trading Strategy Development Center > Trading Methods and Strategies > RickyD's Strategy/System > post #423
On the subject of text-to-speech in indicators/experts.
It may become a necessity particularly if a trader has one screen with multiple charts and instruments, and all indicators sound alert function in them produces incoherent bells and whistles. From multiple authors work, I have compiled a set of functions to speech-enable indicators or experts, so they produce human speech alerts, speaking a chart symbol - timeframe - alert what's going on or do what (you type in the code what you want it to say on event).
What's required on your Windows 7 and higher computer (sorry, I didn't have a chance to play with other platforms):
- a set of installed voices (male/female) for required language (you may leave the default microsoft synthesized speech but it doesn't sound human).
I have put a text file 'TTS download and problem solving' into the archive with links where you can download available language voices from. You find the first link is for English male voice there, download and run setup.exe in the downloaded .zip folder. Other languages/voices are in the blogpost article (link in the text file).
- configure a default voice for your language in control panel. In Win10, I had to run a 32bit control panel for voice configuration - this one is attached in the archive.
- speak_d6.dll in Libraries folder. It is imported into speech-enabled indicator/expert to provide interface with windows speech system.
- Symbols_.csv in Files folder. This contains names of symbols as provided by your broker, in one column, and corresponding spoken name for each in the second column. Maintain the list in Excel or text editor, but save it as .csv file.
Your indicator, if 'TTS enabled' flag set true, creates a string 'spoken symbol name - timeframe' , e.g. 'sAudio' in examples attached.
- add a line in alerts part of your indicator to call speech function
gSpeak(sAudio +" whatever you want it to say on the event",1,100);
Do not overdo with the speech, it is synchronous, that is, while computer speaks, the next line of code will not be executed! Windows queue the speech output from multiple instances/calls so the speech for one event may be delayed if the queue is long ;-)
