Audiobooks make my life easier when I have idle ears and a mind free to wander, but something better for my eyes to do.
This program is one of my more recent efforts to allow most of the stories written on popular websites to be transformed into a more accessible audio format so that they can be enjoyed without having to steal the important function of vision from the user.
Concerns:
Primary Concerns:
Actual usefulness of program
Can I clean up the code in any further way so as to make it easier to read?
How the program holds up to real-world inputs from various sources and how to handle an unexpected error
Secondary Concerns:
Making it more convenient to use
Cross platform compatibility (Possibly)
Dealing with inputs I have not accounted for (URLs with no '
http://' in them)
Tertiary Concerns:
Making sure I have formatted my code for readability.
Are there any parts of my code that need more explanation?
Core Components:
Automated required module retrieval
- Will fetch required modules if they are not installed on the system
say()Function- Uses Google's Text-to-Speech engine if online to read text and a local solution using Microsoft's built in Text-to-Speech engine if offline
getStoryClass- Handles the retrieval and classification of text from the various websites or formats
OmniReaderFunction- Handles how to output the text from these websites or formats
Pros:
You can listen to stories as they are being downloaded by navigating to your
C:\Users\'Username'directory, where an MP3 will be stored containing your story name and chapter number.The succeeding chapters in a fanfiction.net story will be downloaded in preparation. (Is this something that I should remove?)
Cons:
If a URL or path is not formatted correctly for the program to read, it will treat that URL or path as text and will instead read it out loud.
Will spit out large blocks of story-text. (Would it be better for me to instead print out a progress report on what my code is doing?)
In the case of the fanfiction.net function, it will take an amount of time to process the text and then open up the MP3 after the file is completely downloaded.
- If possible, I want to create the MP3, have the audio start downloading, then have the program open the MP3 while it is still being downloaded so as to avoid a long wait for the download to be completed.
Works better for some websites than others (fanfiction.net > wattpad)
No generalized text-grabber system. The fallback is to simply speak the input.
Long-Term Goal:
- Have a more generalized solution for most websites or file formats while still retaining a precise solution for those, more popular websites or formats.
Supported Websites/Filetypes:
PDF Books
Plain Text
Code:
import os
import time
from subprocess import call
from platform import python_version
home = os.path.expanduser("~")
if '2.' == python_version()[:1]:
print("This program requires Python 3 in order to properly function.\nA backwards compatible version may be available in the future.")
input("End of line.")
sys.exit()
else:
try:
from urllib.request import urlopen
except:
from urllib import urlopen
try:
from gtts import gTTS
except:
answer = input("Your system does not have Google's Text to Speech API installed. Do you want to install it?")
if 'y' or 'Y' in answer:
os.system('python -m pip install --upgrade gTTS')
else:
print("Without the Google Text to Speech API, this process will not sound natural.")
try:
from bs4 import BeautifulSoup
except:
answer = input("Your system does not have BeautifulSoup installed. Do you want to install it?")
if 'y' or 'Y' in answer:
os.system('python -m pip install --upgrade beautifulsoup4')
else:
print("Without BeautifulSoup, this process will not be able to pull text from websites successfully.")
try:
import PyPDF2
except:
answer = input("Your system does not have PyPDF2 installed. Do you want to install it?")
if 'y' or 'Y' in answer:
os.system('python -m pip install --upgrade PyPDF2')
else:
print("Without PyPDF2, this process will not be able to process PDF files successfully.")
speech_system = 'google'
def say(message,title='Speak',speech_system='google'):
if speech_system == 'google':
try:
# Create the MP3 file which will speak the text
title += '.mp3'
tts = gTTS(message)
tts.save(home+'\\'+title)
os.system("start /MIN {}".format(home+'\\'+title))
except:
print("Vocalization failed.")
else:
try:
# Create the Visual Basic code which will speak the text
with open(title + '.vbs', 'w') as file:
file.write(
"""speaks="{}"\n
Dim speaks, speech\n
Set speech=CreateObject("sapi.spvoice")\n
speech.Speak speaks""".format( str(message) ))
# Execute the file
call(['cscript.exe', title + '.vbs'])
except:
print("Vocalization failed.")
class getStory:
def __init__(self,url):
self.url = url
self.speech = speech_system
self.text = 'Please initialize.'
if 'wattpad' in self.url:
self.type = 'wattpad'
elif 'fanfiction' in self.url and 'wattpad' not in self.url:
self.type = 'fanfiction'
elif 'deviantart' in self.url:
self.type = 'deviantart'
elif 'pdf' in self.url:
self.type = 'pdf'
else:
self.type = 'text'
if 'http://' in url or 'https://' in url:
self.pathtype = 'url'
else:
self.pathtype = 'local'
def initialize(self):
if self.type == 'wattpad':
self.wattpad()
elif self.type == 'fanfiction':
self.fanfiction()
elif self.type == 'deviantart':
self.deviantart()
elif self.type == 'pdf':
self.pdf_inititialize()
else:
pass
def fanfiction(self):
# Opens and parses the URL with BeautifulSoup
soup = BeautifulSoup(urlopen(str(self.url)))
# Finds the path and contents given by the search
try:
self.text = soup.find(class_='storytext').text
except:
print('Retrieval Failed.')
def deviantart(self):
try:
soup = BeautifulSoup(urlopen(str(self.url)))
self.text = soup.select('#devskin > div > div > div.gr-body > div > div > div')[0].text
except:
print('Retrieval Failed.')
def wattpad(self, page=0, mode='singular'): # Modes are singular and plural
if page:
page = '/page/' + str(page)
else:
page = ''
#Opens and parses the URL with BeautifulSoup
soup = BeautifulSoup(urlopen(str(self.url + page)))
#Finds the path and contents given by the search
if mode == 'singular':
self.text = soup.find(class_="panel panel-reading")
elif mode == 'plural':
self.text = soup.find_all(class_="panel panel-reading")
def pdf_inititialize(self):
try: #Safety first!
os.remove(os.getcwd() + '\\PDF2BEREAD.pdf')
except:
pass
if self.pathtype == 'url':
#Download the PDF from the web
path = urlopen(self.url)
with open('PDF2BEREAD.pdf','wb') as file:
file.write(path.read())
self.url = os.getcwd() + '\\PDF2BEREAD.pdf'
def pdf(self,page):
self.text = PyPDF2.PdfFileReader(self.url).getPage(page).extractText().replace('\u2122',"'")
def text(self):
self.text = self.url
def parse(self):
#Removes all unicode characters, nonprintable characters, and HTML code
text = str(bytes(self.text,'utf-8').decode('unicode_escape').encode('ascii','ignore').decode('utf-8'))
#Removes newline and return characters
if speech_system == 'local':
self.text = text.replace('\n',' ').replace('\r',' ').replace('"',"'").replace('.','. ').replace('. . . ','').replace("\'", '').replace('\"', '').replace('Klenon','Klenn une').replace('Tali','Tahlie').replace('tali','tahlie').replace ('Yalo',' Yah-lo ').replace('Garrus','Gae-rrus').replace('Vakarian','Vah-kare-eean').replace('Noveria',' No-veir-eaah ').replace('Binary','Bi-nary').replace('caf ', 'cafe ')
else:
self.text = text.replace('\n',' ').replace('\r',' ').replace('"',"'").replace('.','. ').replace('. . . ','').replace("\'", '').replace('\"', '').replace('Tali','Tahhlee').replace('tali','Tahhlee').replace('caf ', 'cafe ')
def OmniReader(text):
story = getStory(text)
if story.type == 'wattpad':
number_of_pages = int(input("How many pages are in the story: ")) + 1
# Iterates through the pages of the story
for each_page in range(number_of_pages):
if each_page:
#Designed to cope with Wattpad's annoying multi-page system
story.wattpad(each_page,'plural')[1]
else:
#Meant for the first page
story.wattpad()
#Get all the text in one array
paragraphs = story.text.find_all('p')
#Iterates through the paragraphs in each page of the story
for each_paragraph in range(len(paragraphs)):
#Get all the text segments
paragraphs[each_paragraph] = paragraphs[each_paragraph].text
text = ' '.join(paragraphs)
#Helps to save special characters before the purge
text = text.replace(':', ': ').replace('!', '! ').replace('?', '? ').replace('. . .', '...').replace('1',
'1 ').replace(
'2', '2 ').replace('3', '3 ').replace('4', '4 ').replace('5', '5 ').replace('6','6 ').replace('7',
'7 ').replace(
'8', '8 ').replace('9', '9 ').replace('0', '0 ').replace('! ', '! ').replace('? ','? ').replace(': ',
': ').replace(
';', '; ').replace('; ', '; ')
text = bytes(text, 'utf-8').decode('unicode_escape').encode('ascii', 'ignore').decode('utf-8')
print(text)
#Say it for me, baby.
say(text,speech_system=speech_system)
input("End of Line.")
elif story.type == 'fanfiction':
#Loop through each chapter in a fanfiction and save the audio reading of each
try:
while 1:
url = story.url.split('/')
story.fanfiction()
#Set up the name for each audio recording
title = url[-1] + '_' + url[-2]
story.parse()
print(story.text)
say(story.text,title,speech_system)
#Iterate to the next chapter and reset the URL
url[-2] = str(int(url[-2]) + 1)
story.url = '/'.join(url)
except:
input("End of Line.")
elif story.type == 'pdf':
first_page = int(input("Please enter the beginning page: ")) - 1
for each_page in range(first_page,PyPDF2.PdfFileReader(self.url).getNumPages()):
story.pdf(each_page)
print('\n \t \t' + str(each_page + 1) + '\n')
print(story.text)
story.parse()
say(story.text,speech_system=speech_system)
input("End of line.")
elif story.type == 'deviantart':
story.deviantart()
url = story.url.split('/')
title = url[-1]
story.parse()
print(story.text)
say(story.text,title,speech_system)
input("End of line.")
elif story.type == 'text':
print(story.url)
story.text()
story.text = story.url
story.parse()
say(story.text,speech_system=speech_system)
input("End of line.")
try:
say("Initializing...")
except:
speech_system = 'local'
text = input("State your request, creator: ")
OmniReader(text)
