SuttaCentral Voice v1.0.0 Released 😍

[Aminah]

Hmmm… that’s getting to be quite a handsome list of search issues.

Karl, if you think there’s one common root problem, great, it would be lovely to get that fixed for the next release, otherwise, I think we’ll have to start breaking the things up, because, already that list looks to exceed capacity considerably. I’ll shortly go through it to try to measure things out a bit.

[Robbie]

@Aminah

(Incidentally, I think there might currently be a bit of a glitch with the Thig and Thag so if anyone has that problem, please do report it so as to confirm, but I’ve already got it noted).

Yup, Thig is also glitchy for me. Most importantly, SCV gets stuck on Thig 3.4, also in an incognito tab.

[karl_lew]

@Aminah

Karl, if you think there’s one common root problem,

Yes. The problem is that I have no idea what I’m doing and am simply muddling along. Thank you all for noticing the large gaps in SCV. We shall keep plodding along!

@brooks

snp 1.8 didn’t show up in the search results on SCV.

@Aminah

I realized I might know why this is so: SCV (and even more specifically SCV search) is built on SC’s segmented texts

Aminah is quite right. SuttaCentral Voice is restricted to segmented suttas. SCV only supports segmented suttas fully. The notion of “supported sutta” is documented here.

Currently, the only segmented suttas we have are the ones translated by Bhante Sujato. Ajahn Brahmali and team are working to add the Vinaya to the segmented texts. SCV therefore currently only supports 3999 suttas. That number is slowly increasing but will always lag behind SuttaCentral’s own vast resources.

Having written the above, I now realize that we might actually have a need for SCV to speak arbitrary suttas found on SC. For example, suppose someone wished to hear a translation by Caroline Rhys Davids. Althought her translations are not segmented, they are a remarkable legacy that one might wish to hear. SCV has a rudimentary ability to create and download such MP3’s but we have not really explored that feature in depth. I will be happy to look into that as Aminah directs.

[Aminah]

@karl_lew

the large gaps in SCV

Marvellous! It must be well on its way to Nibbana with such an excellent grasp on emptiness!

@karl_lew

The problem is that I have no idea what I’m doing and am simply muddling along.

Mmm-hmmmn. Is that so?! I wish my “having no idea” could produce something so magnificent as SCV, but all it seems to get me is a dizzy expression.

@karl_lew

I will be happy to look into that as Aminah directs.

Perhaps we shall stick to ‘bread and butter’ issues for the foreseeable. Although saying that, I’m all up for starting a petition to get Snp1.8 segmented as a one-off.

[karl_lew]

Aminah and Sabbamitta have found a post-release bug that requires flushing a cache. We will therefore re-release v1.1.3 within about an hour after testing it with the updated cache. Apologies for the disruption.

[Aminah]

Thanks so much for sorting this out so quickly.

By the way, just to remind of a key purpose of this thread:

@Aminah

general celebration of Karl’s brilliance

I think this about sums things up:

@brooks

One thing that really stood out to me was to be able to look at a sutta and see a speaker icon, which lets people know they can also listen to the sutta. And indeed they can! Not sure why, but I’m almost ecstatic regarding this feature.

So y’know, less of this young man:

@karl_lew

The problem is that I have no idea what I’m doing and am simply muddling along. Thank you all for noticing the large gaps in SCV.

!

[Aminah]

Hullo again, friends,

Following a glitch with some of the Thig/Thag. files Karl will be pushing a re-release of SuttaCentral Voice v1.1.3 at approx. 17:40UTC (~10m) to fix this. Hold on to your hats folks!

---

The update’s been made. Happy listening!

[SarathW1]

Minor issue.
DN34.2.1.52 dots read as dot, dot etc in few places.

[sabbamitta]

@SarathW1

DN34.2.1.52 dots read as dot, dot etc

Thanks, it’s on the list.

[SarathW1]

Is it possible to easily move to the next Sutta by pressing > or go back<?
For instance I want to go to MN 2 after reading MN1 with ease.

[Aminah]

No, but it is on the list of things.

[karl_lew]

@SarathW1

For instance I want to go to MN 2 after reading MN1 with ease.

I have this rather odd sudden vision of SarathW1 under a tree for days (and days and nights) quietly listening to ALL of MN without interruption.

[SarathW1]

Just a general question.
I have two laptops.
One is just a cheap one for access internet and the other one is a ThinkPad. Downloading speed of ThinkPad is few seconds slower than my old cheap laptop.
What is the possible cause?

[karl_lew]

@SarathW1

What is the possible cause?

The first download of any sutta is always the slowest because SCV has to talk with both SC and AWS.

Throw away the times for the first downloads and average out three downloads for each laptop. They should be about the same since most of that time is waiting for the internet. Also, you should get faster downloads on direct internet vs. wifi. And the fastest downloads are from a laptop in Northern California or Oregon (because of the speed of light).

Lastly, SCV deletes downloads older than an hour to save space. Creating a new download takes a few seconds.

What you have shared is actually good news. A cheap laptop works fine. That is the best for all. Thank you.

[SarathW1]

@karl_lew

get faster downloads on direct internet vs. wifi.

I try to connect directly to the net but it is still same.

[sabbamitta]

Let's read Bhante Sujato's Sutta translations

Wow, @karl_lew, this is a challenge! I just listened to MN 1, and—my goodness!—you’ve expanded the whole thing across all sections! With Pali and English, this would be a listen of 4h 5m!! This proofed too discouraging even for me. Even with English only I found it too long. Maybe another time when I feel inclined to sit for 1h 30 and get immersed in earth, water, fire, and air… This time I cheated a bit by just jumping through the segments.

Maybe I have another feature request concerning this recent experience: Would it be an idea to make this sort of expansions optional (and, of course, is this technically possible)?

[karl_lew]

@sabbamitta

sort of expansions optional

Yes. Currently that option would only work for MN1. Auto-expansion for all the suttas would require a lot of work. The suttas are quite inconsistent with expansions. So I gave up after MN1. Note that MN1 expanded is shorter than DN33 unexpanded.

[sabbamitta]

@karl_lew

Currently that option would only work for MN1.

I’m wondering about the word option. I can’t see any option to either expand or not, but it is expanded by default.

Would it be possible to make this for the user to select?

[karl_lew]

@sabbamitta

Would it be possible to make this for the user to select?

Yes it would be possible to make that option. It is also more work to make the option than to simply disable the expansion for all. The choices are:

1. Do nothing (0 day)
2. Create a settings option for users to turn off the expansion that only works for MN1 (0.5 day)
3. Turn off the expansion for MN1 for all of us (0.1 day)

[sabbamitta]

@karl_lew

• Do nothing (0 day)
• Create a settings option for users to turn off the expansion that only works for MN1 (0.5 day)
• Turn off the expansion for MN1 (0.1 day)

I guess this is now up to Aminah to decide.