Alexa Google Directions (DE only)

THIS SKILL IS FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY AND IS NOT ENDORSED BY GOOGLE OR AMAZON - DO NOT SUBMIT THIS TO AMAZON FOR CERTIFICATION AS IT WON'T PASS!

This skill provides route information based on Google's Directions API. It supports cities, streets and POIs, as well as all travel modes provided by the API: driving, bicycling, walking and transit.

Premises

Beside AMAZON Developer and AWS accounts you will need a Google Developer account to get an GOOGLE MAPS API KEY. Activate the following Maps APIs in your Google Developer Console:

• Directions - https://console.developers.google.com/apis/api/directions-backend.googleapis.com/overview
• Geocoding - https://console.developers.google.com/apis/api/geocoding-backend.googleapis.com/overview

Quick Setup

(basic knowledge of AWS Lambda and Skill setup needed, see http://alexamods.com/guide-install-ask-google-alexa-skill/ for a guide on how to setup a basic custom skill with AWS)

1. Edit the resources.js to your needs:

• APP_ID: Your Alexa Skill ID, if you want to restrict the Lambda function to it (optional)
• GOOGLE_MAPS_API_KEY: Your API key from Google developer console (mandatory)
• DEFAULT_START: A default start location, if you don't mention a start in speech request (e.g. your home address). It will be used to geolocate the other locations as well, so be sure you insert at least a location near to your place.
• DEFAULT_MODE: The default travel mode, if you don't mention it during request
• CLOSE_SESSION: enable, if you want to close session after route has been found. Otherwise it stays open to switch travel mode for same route or ask for other routes
  
  

2. Zip the content(!) of the folder 'src' and upload it to your Lambda function.

3. Name your skill and allocate an invocation name - I just use 'maps'. Don't forget to select your language.

4. For Interaction Model tab use the files from folder 'speechAssets':

• Copy IntenSchema.json into the 'Intent Schema' text-area
• Add Custom Slot Type 'LOC_STRING' and copy LOC_STRING.txt content into the 'value' text-area
• Add Custom Slot Type 'ROUTE_MODE' and copy ROUTE_MODE.txt content into the 'value' text-area
• Copy SampleUtterances.txt into 'Sample Utterances'
  
  

5. Wait - as saving will take a while with all of these sample values and utterances.
   If you get a saving error, ensure that there are no tabs or empty lines in your text-areas.

6. Do a test with the Service Simulator. Most common reason for a 'invalid response' message is, that you have zipped the 'src' folder itself and not it's content.

7. Enjoy.

If you want to add a translation, all necessary spots can be found in 'speechAssets' folder and ressources.js. Basically, there should be no need to adjust code - if so, feel free to open an issue.