Question

I’m trying to use text-to-speech in a Chrome app, but I’m getting an error when trying to load the app.

My manifest.json looks like this:

{
  "name": "APPNAME",
  "description": "DESCRIPTION",
  "version": "3",
  "app": {
    "urls": ["APPURL"],
    "launch": {"web_url": "APPURL"}
  },
  "icons": {"24": "icon24.png", "128": "icon128.png"},
  "permissions": ["tts"]
}

The error I’m getting reads “Could not load extension from <PATH>. Access to permission ‘tts’ denied.”

Removing the “app” part of the manifest seems to allow it to load without problems. That would make me think that TTS is limited to Chrome extensions, but the docs suggest otherwise. Changing the “tts” permission to the “cookies” permission results in the same error, but changing it to “clipboardRead” does not.

I’m attempting to load the app via: Tools > Extensions > Load unpacked extension, and I’m using Chrome 16 on Ubuntu 11.10.

Can anyone tell me what I’m doing wrong?

Answer 1

It turned out that some permissions are only available for extensions and packaged apps. I was trying to use tts with a webapp, which is unfortunately not available.

That said, the Web Speech API is now available, along with Speech Synthesis.