HotVoice

Use your voice as a Hotkey in AutoHotkey!

Discussion Thread

Help improve HotVoice!

If you speak a language other than English, I would greatly appreciate it if you could help expand the demo or suggest other changes!

Using HotVoice in your scripts

Initial Setup

1. Install the Microsoft Speech Platform Runtime
   You will need either x86 or x64, depending on what version of AHK you run. No harm in installing both, just to be sure.
2. Install at least one Language Pack
   Speech recognition packs will have SR in their name. TTS labelled downloads are for Text-to-speech and will not work with HotVoice.
   eg MSSpeech_SR_en-US_TELE.msi
   Note that while Windows 7 is technically supported, language packs may fail to properly load. See here
3. Download a release of HotVoice from the Releases Page and unzip it to a folder of your choice (This shall be referred to as the "HotVoice folder" from now on).
   DO NOT use the "Clone or Download" button on the main GitHub page, this is for developers.
4. Ensure the DLLs that are in the HotVoice Folder are not blocked.
   Right-click unblock.ps1 in the HotVoice Folder and select "Run as Administrator".
5. Run the Demo script and make sure it works for you.
   It should look something like this:
   

"Recognizers" are basically Language Packs. Ordering seems to be based on installation order, with the "Lightweight" pack always present and at the end of the list. Therefore, if you only install one language pack, it should always be ID 0, so everything in HotVoice defaults to using ID 0. The Mic Volume slider should move when you speak.
HotVoice uses the "Default Recording Device" that is configured in Windows.

Using the Library

Grammar and Choices objects

HotVoice uses these two types of object to build up commands.
Throughout this documentation, the following syntax will be used to denote a phrase with optional components:
Launch [Notepad, Word]
In this instance it can mean "Launch Notepad" or "Launch Word".

Choices Objects

Choices objects represent a series of optional words. As in the above example, [Notepad, Word] is a series of Choices.

Grammar Objects

Grammar objects are the primary building blocks of HotVoice. They can hold either single words, or choices objects, or even other Grammar objects.

Initializing HotVoice

A HotVoice script must do the following:

1. Load the HotVoice Library
   #include Lib\HotVoice.ahk

2. Create a new HotVoice class

hv := new HotVoice()

3. Add at least one Grammar

; Create a new Grammar
testGrammar := hv.NewGrammar()

; Add the word "Test" to it
testGrammar.AppendString("Test")

; Load the Grammar
hv.LoadGrammar(testGrammar, "Test", Func("MyFunc"))

4. Start the Recognizer

hv.StartRecognizer()

Function Reference

NewChoices

Creates a new Choices object from a comma-separated string Choices NewChoices(string choiceListStr)
eg choices := hv.NewChoices("Up, Down, Left, Right")
Note that if you want to re-use the same choices in multiple scripts, see MikeHotelOscar's ChoiceBuilder library

NewGrammar

Creates a new, empty Grammar Object
GrammarObj NewGrammar()
eg grammarObj := hv.NewGrammar()

GetChoices(name)

Gets a Choices object from HotVoice's store of choices objects.
By default, this is empty execpt for the Percent Choices object, which contains the numbers 0-100
Choices GetChoices(string name)
eg percentChoices := hv.GetChoices("Percent")

SetChoices(name)

Adds a Choices object to HotVoice's store of choices objects.
void SetChoices(string name, Choices choices)
eg percentChoices := hv.SetChoices("Directions", hv.NewChoices("Up, Down, Left, Right"))

LoadGrammar

Loads a GrammarObject into the Recognizer and specifies which function to call when it is triggered.
void LoadGrammar(GrammarObject g, string name, BoundFunc callback)
eg hv.LoadGrammar(testGrammar, "Test", Func("MyFunc"))

GetRecognizerList

Gets a list of available recognizers
RecognizerObject GetRecognizerList()
eg recgonizers := recognizers := hv.GetRecognizerList()
RecognizerObject is an array containing objects with the following properties:
ID: The ID of the recognizer (Starts at 0)
Name: The Name of the recognizer
TwoLetterISOLanguageName: The ISO 639-1 code for the language (eg "en")
LanguageDisplayName: The display name for the language (eg "English (United States)")

Initialize

Loads a Recognizer
void Initialize(int recognizerId = 0)
eg hv.Initialize()
Note that if you call Initialize, any previously loaded recognizer is unloaded.

StartRecognizer

Starts the Recognizer
void StartRecognizer()
eg hv.StartRecognizer()

Object Reference

GrammarObject

GetPhrases

Gets a human-readable string that describes the phrasology that this Grammar supports
string GetPhrases()
eg phrases := grammarObj.GetPhrases()

AppendString

Adds a word or words to a GrammarObject
void AppendString(string text)
eg grammarObj.AppendString("Hello")

AppendChoices

Adds a ChoicesObject to this GrammarObject
void AppendChoices(Choices choices)
eg grammarObj.AppendChoices(choicesObj)

AppendGrammars

Adds up to 10 GrammarObjects to this GrammarObject
void AppendGrammars(GrammarObject g1, ... , GrammarObject g10)
eg grammarObj1.AppendGrammars(grammarObj2, grammarObj3)

Developers

This ONLY APPLIES if you want to work with the C# code that powers HotVoice.
If you are writing AHK scripts using HotVoice, this does not apply to you.

Initial Setup

1. Install the Microsoft Speech Platform SDK 11.
2. When you open the SLN, you may need to fix the reference to Microsoft.Speech
   It can be found in C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Speech\v11.0\Assembly

Speech API Reference on MSDN