how can i use japanese google tts engine in my android app without change any device setting

Question

I am developing a Japanese study app. i wanna hear japanese pronunciation in my app.

i initialize tts like this

private TextToSpeech tts;

private void initTTS()
{
    tts = new TextToSpeech(this, new TextToSpeech.OnInitListener()
    {
        @Override
        public void onInit(int status)
        {
            if(status == TextToSpeech.SUCCESS)
            {
                Locale loc = new Locale("ja_JP");
                int result = tts.setLanguage(loc);
                if(result == TextToSpeech.LANG_MISSING_DATA || result == TextToSpeech.LANG_NOT_SUPPORTED)
                {
                    Intent installIntent = new Intent();
                    installIntent.setAction(TextToSpeech.Engine.ACTION_INSTALL_TTS_DATA);
                    installIntent.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK);
                    //installIntent.setPackage("com.google.android.tts");
                    startActivityForResult(installIntent,MY_DATA_CHECK_CODE);
                }
                else
                {
                    Log.e(TAG,"initilization success");
                }
            }
            else
            {
                Log.e(TAG,"initilization failed");
            }
        }
    });
}

my phone's default language setting is not japanese. and my app users neither.

when default laguage setting is not japanese, tts.setLanguage return TextToSpeech.LANG_MISSING_DATA. so i installed tts data with new activity. but google tts engine japanese already had been installed. how can i provide japanese tts service to my client without change client's phone language.

Answer 1

To initialize a TTS object that specifically uses the google engine regardless of the user's preferred engine settings:

private void createGoogleTTS() {

        googleTTS = new TextToSpeech(this, new TextToSpeech.OnInitListener() {
            @Override
            public void onInit(int status) {
                if (status != TextToSpeech.ERROR) {
                    Log.i("XXX", "Google tts initialized");
                    onTTSInitialized();
                } else {
                    Log.i("XXX", "Internal Google engine init error.");
                }
            }
        }, "com.google.android.tts");

    }

Of course, this will only work if the google engine is installed, so you could also use these methods:

private boolean isGoogleTTSInstalled() {

        Intent ttsIntent = new Intent();
        ttsIntent.setAction(TextToSpeech.Engine.ACTION_CHECK_TTS_DATA);
        PackageManager pm = this.getPackageManager();
        List<ResolveInfo> listOfInstalledTTSInfo = pm.queryIntentActivities(ttsIntent, PackageManager.GET_META_DATA);
        for (ResolveInfo r : listOfInstalledTTSInfo) {
            String engineName = r.activityInfo.applicationInfo.packageName;
            if (engineName.equals("com.google.android.tts")) {
                return true;
            }
        }
        return false;

    }

private void installGoogleTTS() {

        Intent goToMarket = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_VIEW)
                .setData(Uri.parse("market://details?id=com.google.android.tts"));
        startActivity(goToMarket);

    }


// use this if attempting to speak in Japanese locale results in onError() being called by your UtteranceProgressListener.
private void openTTSSettingsToInstallUnsupportedLanguage() {

        Intent intent = new Intent();
        intent.setAction("com.android.settings.TTS_SETTINGS");
        intent.setFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK);
        startActivity(intent);

    }