Director Article

Have you heard the word? No, I mean it literally. Open the Message panel and try this:

voiceSpeak("Director can talk!")

One of the major new features of Director MX is the Speech Xtra. This is a small Xtra that is now a standard part of Director and Shockwave, like the Text, Font, Shockwave Audio, and 3D Xtras. It was added as part of the new accessibility features in Director MX, which also include a behavior library for captioning and keyboard selection.

The uses of the Speech Xtra for accessibility are obvious—especially to anyone who has ever had to build a government-related project that adheres to Section 508. But the Speech Xtra isn't only for government contractors. There are plenty of other uses for it as well.

Using the Speech Xtra
What the Speech Xtra does, essentially, is to connect to the text-to-speech system software on the user's computer. Once connected, the Xtra sends the system a string of text, which causes the system to speak the text. Most computers today have text-to-speech capability, even if the user doesn't know it. Anyone on a Macintosh or Windows XP system will almost certainly have it.

To make your computer speak some text with Director MX, all you need to do is type the text below into the Message panel:

voiceSpeak("Hello World")

Technically, when writing scripts, you should first use the voiceInitialize() function. This will return a TRUE or FALSE value, indicating whether the user's computer is capable of text-to-speech functionality. You can use this result to tell the user that they need to install their OS text-to-speech software before using your product. Here is an example of a frame script that handles this:

on exitFrame me
   if voiceInitialize() then
      go to frame "Start"
   else
      go to frame "Speech Problem Notice"
   end if
end

Once you have established that the user has the text-to-speech software installed, you can customize the way the speech sounds by using the voiceSetRate, voiceSetPitch, and voiceSetVolume commands. There are also equivalent voiceGetRate, voiceGetPitch, and voiceGetVolume functions. Unfortunately, the values these commands and functions use depends on which system you are running. So be sure to experiment with your test machines if you plan on using them.

You can also change the voice entirely. The voiceSet command allows you to set the voice type. On Macintosh systems there is usually a selection of twenty or so voices. The default text-to-speech usually has only one, but users can add more.

You can use the voiceGet command to see which voice is currently set. This code example returns a property list:

put voiceGet()
-- [#name: "Agnes", #age: "35", #gender: "Female", #index: 1]

You can use the voiceGetAll() command to get a list of all of the voices available to that user. When you use voiceSet, you should pass it the index number of the voice as it appears in the voiceGetAll() list. You can use this functionality to provide a "Next Voice" button—or perhaps a screen with a whole list of voices and attributes that the user can choose from.

But if you are not ready for this kind of Lingo programming, you can just stick to using voiceInitialize and voiceSpeak.

Ten Uses For the Speech Xtra
Outside of its intended use as an accessibility feature, I've come up with ten other uses for the Speech Xtra. Most of these take advantage of the fact that you can incorporate the Speech Xtra into your project and make it speak some basic text without significantly increasing development time or file size.