Voice.. Also new to the latest versions of Homer are its abilities to utilize the new Speech Manager. If you have the Speech Manager properly installed, you shall have various selections of Voices to choose from within Homer.
FIRST!!! We do NOT answer questions of how to install the Speech Manager. We've already been bombarded with questions of "How do I get speech to work?", "Where is the Speech Manager?", "How do I know if it's installed properly?" If you don't know how to install the Speech Manager, TOO BAD. You have to do your own leg work.
To first utilize the Voice capabilities, you must have your Speech Options enabled under the Sound Options.
 
In the example above, I have Homer set to speak all text that everyone says. I don't have the 'Announce joins/leaves' option selected, therefore Homer will not announce people joining and leaving the channel.
Homer now has the ability to assign voices to invidual users. Therefore, I think I'll assign Ben's voice to Primary whenever he says anything to the channel. To select a specific voice for a user, you select their name in the user list, and while it is selected, hold down your option key while pressing the View button.. Once again, you hold down your option key and then click on the 'View' button. You will be presented with the following dialog box.
 
While this dialog box is up, you can set the variables of the voices. Thus, you could use the voice 'Ben' for every user, and alter the pitch and word rate to alter their sound.
DCC..
Serial Homer cannot DCC. And no, sorry, but it never will, either. Due to the DCC protocol, it's impossible to do it using Serial Homer.
DCC works MUCH more quickly when Homer is the foreground application.
Implemented in .92, DCC will allow you to send and receive files from other users over IRC. Now, in .93 DCC has finally reached the point of being reliable. Too initiate a DCC send, simply open the DCC Window (as shown below) and select the type of transfer (Auto, Binary, Text) and click on the send button. It will request the name of the user you want to send a file to. After you have entered in the name of the user, Homer will pop up a dialog box asking you to show Homer the file you want to send. Double click on the file and it will send the request to the user you selected. Homer sends out a message to the recipient that you have a file you wish to DCC to them. If that user doesn't respond with a 'Receive', Homer will just sit and wait. DCC (not Homer) does not automatically, it must be manually told to initiate the receive. If the individual never starts the receive, select your transfer in the list below and 'Cancel' the send.
 
In the example below, I have initiated a DCC with Primary by selecting the 'Send' button and typing in Primary. I have it set to 'Auto' to automatically sense the file type. I have already selected the file which was called Read_Me, and now it is waiting to send it to Primary. Primary has not selected to receive this file, so it is in a matter of stasis. Once the transfer has begun, you will see the next screen. If at this point I wished to cancel the send, I would click on the transfer to highlight it and then select 'Cancel' to the right.
If there were multiple DCC sends going on at once, they would all be listed here. If I were to initiate a second transfer, the first file would slide down in the list and the second one would appear at the top. This in no way effects to whom the file is going. File order in the window is irrelevant.
 
Below is an example of a DCC send in progress. The file Type and Creator are listed in the middle section (I sent a document created with Microsoft Word), while the progress of the DCC send is updated to the right. As this snapshot was taken, 2680 bytes of 29824 were sent to Primary. The bottom right corner will give you a speed of your transfer in characters per second.
 
Homer will keep you updated as to the situation of the DCC send. When the send has been completed, you will get a message from the server to this effect. You need not keep your DCC window open once you have started a DCC send. It will finish and clear itself from the list.
 
If you don't see that response, it has not completed its send. Keep in mind that DCC is not fast in any manner and that there may be times when you might assume that the transfer has stopped completely, it would be best to wait and see if the server sends you a message before giving up. Also, slip users must also contend with slow connections as well.
If you are on the receiving end of a DCC transfer, it's very simple. You will receive a message from the server that looks like the following.
 
This tells you that Cornum wishes to send you a file called Test_Send. If you were to open up your DCC Status Window, you would see the following:
 
To initiate the transfer, I would place my mouse on the file I wish to receive, highlight it, and then the 'Receive' button becomes active. Click on the 'Receive' button and Homer will present you with a dialog box requesting you to give it the location of where you want the incoming file placed in your hard drives.
How Many Concurrent DCC Transfers Can I Make?
If you recall the console window at the startup of Homer, some information regarding DCC flew by at the very top. In my case, it says the following:
 
The number of concurrent DCC transfers that your copy of Homer can handle will be displayed to you here. In my case, I have given Homer 1500k of memory to work with. Also, I have a direct connection to the internet, so Homer has enough memory to handle 10 DCC lines. By varying the amount of memory you give Homer, you can adjust this number. I believe there is a set limit on slip lines though, whether or not you give Homer 10 megs of RAM or 1.5 megs. Bug Primary for specifics.. he's eating right now and I can't verify this right this second.
Problems: Because DCC was a little flaky in previous versions, Tob has worked a lot on squashing all bugs with DCC. WIth the last few versions that I've beta tested, I've had no problems at all with DCC and it's worked great. If you experience any problems, see if you can attribute it to anything specific or if you can duplicate the failures.
