SC-Voice: some new & cool features!

Greetings to everybody!

You haven’t heard much from SC-Voice lately, which doesn’t mean there isn’t still work being done on it. I want to present two new features that I believe are a great addition.

Playlists

Imagine you have a sutta study group and want to study a number of suttas on a certain topic. You want to provide a link to the suttas of your choice for all participants. If your topic encompasses, say, 10 suttas, that would be 10 different links. A bit much, right?

How if there were an easier possibility?

There is in fact! SC-Voice allows you to send an entire playlist with several suttas in one single link!

Let’s make it easy for us and choose just 3 suttas on the topic of old age and death: SN 3.25, Thig 13.1, and SN 48.41.

We proceed as follows:

  • open search card with :mag:

  • type sutta IDs, separated by commas (without spaces): sn3.25,thig13.1,sn48.41

  • press “ENTER”

  • click on the “speaking head” icon :speaking_head: in the top right corner

  • sutta card with playlist opens

  • copy URL from URL line and send it to your study group: SC-Voice —VOILÀ!

  • switch between the texts via the number buttons at the top and bottom of the playlist card

  • when listening with the audio function, play will automatically continue with the next sutta in the list once you reach the end of a sutta

Pali lookup with DPD

@karl_lew has started to integrate a simplified version of the Digital Pali dictionary DPD into our apps. This is still under ongoing development, but already at the current stage it is very useful.

Click on a Pali word and see!

If you then click on the Pali word in the dictionary lookup line, a separate dictionary card will open and show more details.

Have fun with looking up Pali while listening! :ear: :mag_right: :laughing:

A great SADHU for @karl_lew and his tireless work!

:pray: :pray: :pray:

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Playlists

There are two primary ways to create playlists

  • search phrase
  • sutta list

Search phrase

Playlists are great for listening to multiple suttas about a given topic such as six topics for recollection.

SC-Voice orders search lists in decreasing order of relevance to the search term. Relevance is defined to prioritize suttas which devote themselves to a single phrase (e.g., AN6.9 for “six topics for recollection”). Such definitional suttas are considered more relevant by means of a simple formula (i.e., percentage of segments having the search phrase). Definitional suttas tend to be short and to the point. In contrast, expositional suttas such as DN34 provide greater context with less detail.

Playlists based on a search phrase will be ordered by relevance so that the listener will first hear the definition of a phrase followed by suttas that use the phrase in context.

Sutta List

Teachers can also present a topic for group study with a single URL for a list of sutta identifiers (e.g. SN3.25), separated by commas. In this case, the playlist will simply follow the list and students can study individually or in unison during a class.

Pali Dictionary

Thanks to the kind generosity of Venerable Bodhirasa and the Digital Pali Dictionary team, SC-Voice will present an audible version of the DPD that will allow users to select a Pali word in a sutta and hear the definition of that word. This is a work in progress that will initially simply show definitions and some inflections. Over time, users will be able to hear them as well. The DPD itself is a vast work encompassing works throughout the Pali texts. However, SC-Voice relies on a simpler version of the DPD which limits itself to the Pali found in the EBTs.

If you have questions or challenges with these (or any) SC-Voice features, please feel free to share your feedback here and we’ll respond.

In particular, many thanks to Ayya @sabbamitta for her vast patience and deep insight into how these features should work.

:pray:

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