How to Disable Text to speech Using Javascript?

Question

I have created a Samsung smart-tv app using javascript and now I want to disable the TTS in this app but don't know how I can do this please help.

I have tried using window.speechSynthesis but it is not working don't know why. currently what i have done is when window load i call an init() function

function init(){
    if ('speechSynthesis' in window) {
              var synthesis = window.speechSynthesis;
              synthesis.cancel();

            } else {
              console.log('Text-to-speech not supported.');
            }

}

but it does not work and so finally i want to disable the feature of Text to speech from my application

Have you tried replacing the `window.speechSynthesis` member? I've seen `console.log` disabled in the same manner. I.e - https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1215392/how-to-quickly-and-conveniently-disable-all-console-log-statements-in-my-code — enhzflep, Feb 28 '20 at 07:57
you want your users to not be able to use TTS? why? synthesis.cancel() doesn't disable TTS, just stops any ongoing speech — tudor.gergely, Feb 28 '20 at 07:57
@tudor.gergely yes i dont want TTS on my app so can you please tell me what can disable TTS ? — Nitin tiwari, Feb 28 '20 at 08:18
@Nitintiwari - pardon? Can you re-phrase that in a complete sentence? It makes no sense to me whatsoever. — enhzflep, Feb 28 '20 at 12:20
Why would you want make your app less accessible to people with visual impairments? — Chris Wesseling, Mar 12 '20 at 21:24
'delete window.speechSynthesis' call it in top of js this will delete speech Synthesis from window. — Vivek Anand, Mar 12 '20 at 23:31
@SlimCoder is this even a method ?? I tried but nothing happened — Nitin tiwari, Mar 13 '20 at 05:51

Arkanoid · Answer 1 · 2021-05-19T22:11:52.590

2

Please have a good reason to do so, disabling voice over is never a good choice. You are basically removing access to people with visual impairments and even if you did a bad job at making your app accessible that will always be better than just disabling it.

Having said that, there's no way to disable voice over using javascript but you can disable it by adding the following tag inside <widget> in your config.xml file:

<tizen:metadata key="http://samsung.com/tv/metadata/use.voiceguide" value="false" />

edited May 19 '21 at 22:11

answered May 19 '21 at 22:03

Arkanoid

1,165
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Thank you for this reply, it really helped me out when developing an app that the Samsung TTS service doesn't support the UI language of the app – Sverrir Sigmundarson Mar 04 '23 at 20:59
here's the docs if anyone is looking https://developer.samsung.com/smarttv/develop/guides/fundamentals/configuring-tv-applications.html – Lizozom Apr 24 '23 at 19:54

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 28 '20 at 08:59

1

You can't disable that feature. The SpeechSynthesis api is if you want to add extra functionality, not for disabling the native feature (which can only be disabled by users of your app from the TV/browser settings).

As written here: https://developer.samsung.com/smarttv/develop/legacy-platform-library/tv-functionality/accessibility.html

If user turns on Accessibility option for TTS in menu, TTS will read contents of HTML elements automatically.

You can try 2 things (which might not work):

Run every 1s (or more often) speechSynthesis.cancel() in a setInterval (I'm not sure this will stop the native TTS of the TV though).

setInterval(() => window.speechSynthesis.cancel(), 1000)

Replace window.speechSynthesis.speak with an empty function at the beginning of your app (considering Samsung TV uses this for speaking).

window.speechSynthesis.speak = () => {}

answered Feb 28 '20 at 08:59

tudor.gergely

4,800
1
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i tried both things but none of these work so i have a question does it speak only about focused element? – Nitin tiwari Feb 28 '20 at 09:48
most likely yes, it reads the focused elements if TTS is enabled – tudor.gergely Feb 28 '20 at 10:46
@Nitintiwari how did you try the above methods? what did you expect to happen and what happened? – tudor.gergely Feb 28 '20 at 10:47
i called this methods in onload method – Nitin tiwari Feb 28 '20 at 11:14
var init = function () {window.setInterval(speak, 1000) } then init wil be called as and speak will look like this function speak(){ var msg = new SpeechSynthesisUtterance(''); window.speechSynthesis.speak(msg); } – Nitin tiwari Mar 06 '20 at 07:35

How to Disable Text to speech Using Javascript?

2 Answers2