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Phonetic Mode: Option to phonetically spell 1-letter words in Math blocks #48
Description
Mathematicians seem to enjoy notation overload. In particular, I encounter many Math problems where letters that sound far too similar are used together. I find myself needing to navigate Math blocks frequently just to tell the m's and n's apart, or the b's and d's, or the s's and f's. But even once in, commands like NVDA+. (laptop layout) to read the current character don't work. That bug may merit a ticket of its own. For this one though, I share that as motivation for a phonetic mode feature request. When enabled, MathCAT would read the phonetic corresponding to a letter instead of the letter itself for all 1-letter words in Math blocks. This would contribute considerable verbosity so it should be turned off by default. However, I think enable phonetic mode, read current line, and then disable phonetic mode would be a much better workflow than trying to navigate the Math block and arrowing around to try to hear the confusing letter in isolation a couple times.
Activity
andrew-l-d commentedon Jun 9, 2023
NSoiffer commentedon Jul 4, 2023
I'm not clear what you want.
Do you want something "log" to spell itself "l o g" when reading? Or are you asking for letters themselves to somehow be spoken differently? If so, how would you want (for example) "m" to be pronounced? Use the NATO phonetic alphabet so that "m" becomes "mike"? Something else?
andrew-l-d commentedon Jul 4, 2023
Neil, what I would like is the ability to expand to the military alphabet, but do not know if that is possible. It is possible with screen readers when reading in most applications, but does not currently work in MathType or MathCAT.
Andrew
NSoiffer commentedon Jul 5, 2023
@andrew-l-d: Do you mean something different from referenced NATO phonetic alphabet the when you write "military alphabet"?
It would not be hard to add that to MathCAT. The question is how to control that speech. The obvious thing is to make it an option that can be changed in the preferences panel, but I suspect turning it on and off that way would be annoying. Do you have any suggestions? Maybe make it time based or character count based (both are harder). That sort of option turns itself back off after the specified limit is reached. Maybe there is a more intuitive auto-off feature so you don't need to keep changing the option.
Another option would be a keystroke to toggle the mode. It's hard to see how this feature is common enough to use up a (valuable) key combination though.
andrew-l-d commentedon Jul 5, 2023
I had not heard it called "referenced NATO phonetic alphabet " previously - take "military alphabet" as synonymous.
Most screen readers will present the expanded form when pressing the key to present the character under the cursor twice. NVDA has recently introduced a feature which can be toggled on/off under Screen in Settings which works as follows. When arrowing right or left, if pausing for a second the expanded form is announced. I really like that approach, as it is inobtrusive most of the time. If either option could be implemented in MathCAT, that would be great. I agree that having to toggle in Preferences would be a bit tedious, but certainly better than not having the option if it cannot be implemented otherwise.
Andrew
NSoiffer commentedon Jul 5, 2023
That sounds like it might be doable and MathCAT could use the NVDA setting (as it does for how caps are spoken).
I'll transfer the issue to the python repo because that is where the NVDA implementation lives and that is where this feature (with this suggestion) would get implemented. I'll see if I can mimic the code that NVDA uses (hopefully I can find it... and maybe even use it).
bhavyashah commentedon Oct 2, 2023
I think I originally made this ticket when I still wasn't using/aware of the relative speech rate. With that feature though, I think I'd be better served by the ability to use NVDA review cursor commands in Math blocks, i.e. pressing NVDA+. twice (laptop layout) to phonetically report the current character. This is because a reduced Math speech rate is enabling me to process a majority of Math content, meaning that I think I now feel like I'd prefer to check/confirm my understanding with phonetics in specific cases rather than have them auto-reported for entire equations. Either way, the two are not mutually exclusive. Please let me know if discussion on that fits within this ticket or if I should open a new one.
P.S. I have just resumed engaging with Math content after a summer break, so some thoughts may be fluid.
bhavyashah commentedon Oct 2, 2023
Another change of heart: pressing Space twice itself could read the current expression phonetically.
NSoiffer commentedon Oct 17, 2023
Helping to resolve sound-alike characters sounds like a good idea. If NVDA has a feature that (sort of) does what is wanted, I think the best thing is for MathCAT to:
From the discussion so far, it sounds like @andrew-l-d likes the Settings:Speech:Delay descriptions for characters on cursor movement feature. @bhavyashah, would that solve the problem for you if I added that to MathCAT?
If I do add some feature, should it only run when navigating at a character level: either NavigationMode=Character or zoomed in to the character level. (Still not fully implemented ). If it should work at a higher level (e.g., "x plus 1" or "x squared"), what should it do in those cases? Spell out the entire phrase using the military/NATO alphabet?
NSoiffer commentedon Oct 17, 2023
Note to self: if the NVDA feature above is the one to mimics, see
characterProcessing.py: getCharacterDescription(locale: str, character: str) -> Optional[List[str]]speech/speech.py: getCharDescListFromText(text,locale)I didn't see where the timing delay was coming from.
andrew-l-d commentedon Oct 22, 2023
Neil asked, "If I do add some feature, should it only run when navigating at a character level: ...?"
My suggestion would be yes.
bhavyashah commentedon Oct 24, 2023
Personally, I do not use the Delay descriptions for characters on cursor movement feature in NVDA. It is verbose when I don't need it (which is most times), requires me to wait, and only works for characters. I prefer to use the NVDA review cursor commands (read current character command pressed twice, read current word command pressed thrice, etc.) FOr MathCAT, my ideal implementation would be extending the read current position command such that pressing it twice phonetically reads the Math at the current position. Notably, this would work at any level, not just character level. Also, it would not try to convert things like exp/exponential, numbers, symbols +-/, etc. into phonetics. Basically, I don't want to need to zoom in to the lowest level before I can get the phonetic for a letter variable or a group of them (s, m^2n) and then work my way back up to the level I actually want to parse the expression at.
andrew-l-d commentedon Oct 24, 2023
"It is verbose when I don't need it (which is most times), requires me to wait, and only works for characters."
But if you do not need the phonetic spelling you do not have to wait for it, so no time lost. I agree though that double pressing to get the phonetic spelling works well. However, I am very doubtful that it could be made to work in MathCAT because it works with the review cursor and the review cursor does not access the MathCAT content.
Andrew
bhavyashah commentedon Oct 25, 2023
andrew-l-d commentedon Oct 25, 2023
I would strongly suggest that, if introduced, it would only work at character level. The way it works in NVDA outside MathCAT is that the user chooses whether or not to enable it. That would be the ideal if it can be implemented in MathCAT. On the other hand, if a double-press could be implemented to produce the phonetic spelling, that would a very good solution. But, given that the review cursor does not do its thing within MathCAT, that may not be possible.
Andrew
bhavyashah commentedon Oct 27, 2023
I think we agree that:
Please let me know if I misunderstand your view.
NSoiffer commentedon Jun 22, 2026
This probably involves some small modifications to MathCAT (adding a pref) along with the python code interface, looking at the NVDA settings.