Prevent PC sleep or screensaver during Speak

[hopespoppa]

Is it possible to configure TextAloud on a Windows PC so that the PC will not go to sleep while TextAloud is speaking? My students enjoy listening to books while some distance from the Laptop/PC and must regularly disrupt their activity to go move the mouse to prevent halting of Speak....

Changing the power options to prolong screensaver or sleep is not a good work around since it is a laptop and setting should be appropriate to the device without the need to go into control panel every time student listen to a book. The same annoyance is not found when listening to YouTube and such.

Somewhat related, but maybe for a different thread... Textaloud is not recovering from the PC's sleep mode and must be exited, then relaunched to resume speaking.

HP Elitebook 8570p Notebook
Windows 8.1 64bit OS
TextAloud 3.0.80

P.S. my apologies if this has been discussed in this forum. Searches on 'sleep' and 'screensaver' didn't produce results.

Thanks in Advance.

[Jim Bretti]

Preventing the system from sleeping while speaking is a great idea, I'll check on it and see if we can implement.

Haven't heard of the problem with recovering from sleep before, but I'll do some testing and see what I can find.

[Amuya]

Hello All.

Actually my concern is the other way round.

I like listening when away from laptop and when drifting to sleep.

It seems that TalkAloud does not allow the screen to sleep, as it continues.

How can I achieve this?

TextAloud 4.0.46

Lenovo Thinkpad X260

My regards..

[Jim Bretti]

In TextAloud 4 there is a settings in Advanced Settings that should help with this. From the main menu click Control Center -> Settings, and in the left panel, click Advanced Settings. Around the middle of the panel there is an option labeled "Keep display powered on when speaking aloud". Try switching that setting to No.

Let me know if that doesn't help.

[Amuya]

Hello, JB.

Thanks, it does indeed help, and am sorted, as well as finding a host of other useful features.

Am liking it more, and more...

Regards.

[Ural4320]

Well that's pretty good to know, I'll see what other features I like from TA4, and will decide whether it's worth getting it when I already have TA3.
What would be the other key improvements introduced by the latest one?

[Jim Bretti]

There is an overview of new features in TextAloud 4, including some screenshots, at https://nextup.com/TextAloud/upgrade.html

If you have any questions post them here or email me at jim@nextup.com

[Ural4320]

Okay, thanks, it does look interesting, I may well get TextAloud 4 when I get my next paycheck then.