Beta Testers Needed - TA Extension for Chrome

[Jim Bretti]

A TextAloud update is now available that includes an extension for the Chrome browser. It is a beta version of the extension, so we're looking for feedback, and there is a chance you may find some bugs.

You can download the installer, TextAloud version 3.0.88.1, from http://www.nextup.com/files/ta3.exe

Couple things to note about the new extension:

1. The extension is not implemented as a toolbar, it is implemented as a 'Browser Action', like most Chrome extensions. So you'll see a TextAloud icon next to the address bar in Chrome, instead of a full toolbar.

2. You can optionally integrate the TextAloud extension into Chrome's context menu. This allows you to select text in chrome, right click, and select a menu item to speak the text.

3. At the very bottom of the Chrome extension settings page (chrome://extensions), there is a link labeled "Keyboard Shortcuts". Click this link to configure keyboard shortcuts for speak actions in Chrome.

Please give it a try and pass along any feedback or problems you find. You can post here or email me at jim@nextup.com

Thanks

[BarDev]

Ah perfect. The primary reason I have not purchased TextAloud is because it does not work with Chrome. I will try this out now.

BarDev

[BarDev]

I downloaded the TA Extension for Chrome from this page. On my home computer the Chrome Extension works great, but on my work computer, the Chrome Extention is not available. TA application works, but the Chrome Extention does not seem to load.

I re-installed TA Extension multiple times, and the Chrome Extension still does not work.

Is there any information that may help to resolve this issue that I can provide?

Mike Barlow - BarDev

[Jim Bretti]

Not sure what this could be. Try installing the latest version of TextAloud, version 3.0.89, fro http://www.nextup.com/files/ta3.exe. Or, you can also download from our downloads page at http://www.nextup.com/download.html.

Exit Chrome and run the updated installer. Restart Chrome, and see if the extension shows up. The extension is actually downloaded from the Chrome store, it is not packaged in the TextAloud installer, so it is possible there may be some delay. On the systems I've tested on, the extension appears pretty much instantly.

If the extension does not show up, look in your Chrome Extension settings and see if the TextAloud extension is there. Click Settings -> Extensions, or type chrome://extensions in the Chrome address bar. Check that the extension named "TextAloud for Chrome" is listed on the extensions page, and verify that the "Enabled" checkbox is selected.

Does that help?

[oldandcrusty]

Thanks for the chrome extension.
Is there a way to change voices and speed?

[Jim Bretti]

Yes, you can change the voice and voice speed in the popup dialog. Click the TextAloud icon to display the popup, and at the bottom of the popup, you'll see a section labeled "Options" that you can expand and collapse. So click Options, and you'll see a voice dropdown and voice speed slider.

[oldandcrusty]

Jim,
I see the options section but the text is dimmed (compared to the other text section.)and will not highlight or drop down like the other sections.

[Jim Bretti]

I'm not sure what the problem could be, it might help if I could see a screenshot of the dialog.

Click the TextAloud icon in Chrome to display the extension popup. Don't click anything else, and press Alt+PrtScn to get a screenshot. The screenshot should capture the popup dialog and nothing else. Paste the screenshot into a reply, or paste into a document and send as an attachment. Send the email to jim@nextup.com. Thanks.

[oldandcrusty]

Jim,
I'm sorry, I was previously right clicking the button instead of left clicking. When I left click it works fine.

Thanks for the help.

[BarDev]

I did purchase TextAloud and love the Chrome extension. The Chrome extension works on my home computer and my Surface Pro 4, but does not work on my Work computer. All computer have Windows 10.

On my work computer, I uninstalled TextAloud and installed version 3.0.89. TextAloud works as a standalone app and works in Internet Explorer (IE). But I still can not get it to work in Chrome.

Is there any information that I can provide that would help resolve this issue. I use Chrome as my browser of choice. Changing to a different browser is not an option

Any help with this issue is greatly appreciated.

Cheers,

Mike Barlow

[BarDev]

I finally got TextAloud (TA) Chrome extension to work on my Work computer, but not exactly how I wanted to.

In Chrome, I changed my Chrome account from my Work account to my Home account. When this occurre all my Chrome extension for my Chrome Home account was added, except for the TA extension. But what did happen, in the top left corner of Chrome the setting menu button (3 horizontal lines) turned orange. After clicking the orange button, the first item in the menu was an alert "New extension added (TextAloud for Chrome)". When I click the alert, a popup displayed to enable TextAloud for Chrome, which I did. Now the TA extension works in Chrome for my Home account, but it still does not work from my Chrome Work account. I would like to get this to work for my work

I would have attached images to this post, but I don't believe I have the permission to do so.

Hope this helps

Mike Barlow

[Jim Bretti]

Hi Mike,

I don't know the answer to this yet but I'm checking around. Do you happen to have other extensions (other than the TextAloud extension)? Are these extensions installing for both chrome users?

Also, this is just a guess, but you may want to compare the privacy settings for your home and work accounts. Type chrome://settings in chrome's address bar, and at the bottom of the page, click Show Advanced Settings. You should see the privacy settings there.

[BarDev]

Hello Jim,

I have the following extensions that are the same between the two Google accounts (Work and Home).
-Pocket
-Video Speed Controller
-Wappalyzer
-Grammarly
-Cisco WebEx

All the previously mentioned extension, except for Cisco WebEx, were loaded using the Chrome Web Store.

I checked the privacy settings between the two Google accounts, and they are exactly the same.

Thanks for the help.

Mike Barlow

[Jim Bretti]

Hi Mike,

Don't have an answer yet, but one other question ... in your work account, if you type chrome://extensions into the address bar in Chrome, does the TextAloud extension show up at all?

At the top of the chrome://extensions page, there is a button labeled "Update Extensions Now". If you click that button, does it make any difference?

[BarDev]

For my Chrome work account, there is not a TextAloud extension on the "chrome://extensions/" page. I clicked on the "Update extension now" button; TextAloud extension was not added.

Just to confirm, for my Chrome home account on the "chrome://extensions/" page, the TextAloud is listed.

[Jim Bretti]

Really strange, there isn't anything account related to installing the extension. Lets try removing the extension and reinstalling, and see if that makes any difference. Please follow these instructions.

1. Download the toolbar utility at https://nextup.s3.amazonaws.com/support ... tility.zip. Unzip the program, TAToolbarUtility.exe.
2. Before running the utility, exit Chrome if it is running.
3. Now run the program TAToolbarUtility.exe.
4. On the dialog displayed, click the radio button labeled "TextAloud Extension for Chrome", then click the Remove button. You should see a confirmation message that the extension was removed.
5. Start Chrome, and access both Google accounts. The extension should no longer be available in your home account, and I want to make sure we load your work account with the extension removed.
6. Exit Chrome again.
7. Go back to the toolbar utility, select the chrome extension, and click the Add button.

Now restart Chrome. Enable the TextAloud extension when prompted, switch accounts, and see if you're prompted a second time.

Let me know what happens.

[BarDev]

Hello Jim,

I followed your instructions. After step 7, I opened Chrome - it defaulted to my Work Account. The TextAloud extension did not load. I then changed my account to my Home account, and I was then prompted to enable the TextAloud extension, which I did. The Chrome extension for my Home account loaded and worked.

FYI, Step 5 outcome - After I used the TextAloud Toolbar Utility to remove the Chore extension, I opened Chrome for both my Work and Home account. For both accounts, the Chrome extension did not load.

Barlow

[Jim Bretti]

Can you let me know if you're running 32 / 64 bit Chrome on the work computer? If you're not sure, type chrome://help into chrome's address bar. If you're running 64 bit Chrome, the version number displayed on the page will look like this:

Version 48.0.2564.109 m (64-bit)

[BarDev]

On my work computer, the version number is "48.0.2564.109 m"

On my Surface Pro 4, the version number is "48.0.2564.103 m (64-bit)"

On my Surface Pro 4, I added my work account in addition to my home account. The TextAloud extension did load for my work account. To reiterate, on my Surface, both my Chrome home and work account loaded the TextAloud Extension and it works.

[Jim Bretti]

Please email me at jim@nextup.com. I'd prefer to continue debugging via email and updating this thread with resolution.

[gaetancharron]

I installed the Chrome Extension and it worked right away and it was simple to find the menu options!
I prefer using Chrome over IExplorer and this is a blessing!
Will there be a way to change the voice settings as I sometimes read French texts and I see no options yet for voices like in IExplorer?
Cheers!

[Jim Bretti]

Are you referring to the voice dropdown? If thats what you mean, click "Options", at the bottom of the popup dialog displayed when you click the TextAloud icon in Chrome. The options area expands and collapses when you click Options.

When the options area is displayed, you'll see a voice dropdown and a slider control for setting the voice speed.

Is that what you're looking for?

[killercolors]

Doesn't work inside of a google document. In fact the TA extension/toolbar doesn't work on either Chrome or Firefox.

It does this in both browsers.

I highlight text and it does nothing. Speak From Cursor is greyed out, despite having cursor active in doc, but the Speak Entire Page works, except it doesn't. It reads quite literally the entire page, so it's spitting out nonsense. I hit, Add Article to see what was happening and it's reading the DIV class stuff!

Please if possible fix this so it may read from inside an online text editor like google docs or word online. I mean it can't even read from inside this one.

[Jim Bretti]

Thanks for reporting this, sorry about the problem. We'll try to get it fixed in future updates to both extensions.

[appletreezria]

Will this extension ever be updated to work with rich text editors? Or to work within google docs?

[Jim Bretti]

We plan to add support in this area, Google Docs in particular comes up quite a bit. No estimate on availability yet, but it is definitely on the to-do list.