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Originally published at Internet.comIntroduction
I was surfing the web and saw the announcement of Microsoft Surface. Surface right now is a tabletop Windows Vista machine with cameras pointing out, no keyboard, and no mouse. Interactions are done with the surface of the device. Combined with the cameras and Bluetooth capabilities, Surface interacts with objects in the real world. For example, lay an enabled cell phone on the device and Surface downloads your pictures or possibly synchronizes your phone contacts with your Outlook contacts. I can't do the device justice here; it's one of those things you will have to see to believe (www.microsoft.com/surface). It's worth seeing.
I was so intrigued with a device that interacts naturally with the physical world that I became interested in the day-to-day possibilities of a more natural interaction with computing devices (as well as interested in writing a book about Surface. Hint: Microsoft, send me a Surface machine, for research purposes of course). Consequently, this article is an off-shoot of that interest.
This article demonstrates how to make your web clients read some or play some of the text content to the users. I am aware of accessibility tags and HTML, but as a programmer how could capabilities like audio-text be used for routine development purposes: first, making debug and trace information audible, and permitting everyday end-users to hear content. And, I will admit it's fun too. In this article, you will get to experiment with JavaScript from the command line, learn a JavaScript debugging technique that might be useful, and how to load the Speech API and ask it to read the ALT (text) attribute of HTML controls.
Even if you aren't that interested in new computing techniques or speech, you will find the JavaScript techniques helpful.
Running JavaScript from the Command Line
JavaScript can be used for more than snappy web clients and as part of the plumbing that makes Ajax work. (And, Ajax is a very cool capability of web programming.) JavaScript can be run from the command line to perform routine tasks.
If you create a .js file and click in Explorer or type the file name from the command line (cmd.exe), the Windows Scripting Host (WScript.exe) will run the JavaScript like a program. Try this example: 1. Open Explorer. 2. Create a new text file and name it Hello.js. 3. Type: WScript.Echo("Microsoft Surface is cool!"). 4. Save the file and double-click it in Explorer.
The WScript host will execute the script and display a standard message box containing the text. Listing 1 demonstrates JavaScript that will create a desktop URL shortcut (to Microsoft's Popfly—Code mashup tool). (Figure 1 shows a Mashup sample I created on Popfly, which is based on Microsoft's Silverlight technology.)
Listing 1: JavaScript that creates a desktop shortcut to Microsoft's Popfly. var shell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell"); var desktop = shell.SpecialFolders("Desktop"); var url = shell.CreateShortcut(desktop + "\\Popfly.url"); url.TargetPath = "http://www.popfly.ms"; url.Save(); WScript.Echo("Shortcut added to Popfly");
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Figure 1: My FlickringVirtualEarth Mashup that shows the location of pictures from Flickr on VirtualEarth.
Adding Speech to a Web Client
You can use the Speech API with just a few lines of code. You will need to create an ActiveXObject passing the name of the Speech API component, SAPI.SpVoice. (You can download the Speech API for free, if it's not installed on your computer already. Check oout http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms723627.aspx.) Next, you can pick a voice, and optionally set the speech rate and volume. Finally, send the text you'd like to be spoken (see Listing 2). Note: Other browsers may not support ActiveX objects, but this technique works great on the most popular browser, IE.
Listing 2 The bare bones code it takes to read some hard coded text. var voice = new ActiveXObject("SAPI.SpVoice"); voice.Speak("Microsoft Surface is cool!");
You can select from available voices and modulate the rate and volume with code like that shown in Listing 3. The rate can be from 1—slow—to 10—very fast; the volume can be from 0 to 100, which is the loudest; and the voice selected has to be an installed voice.
Listing 3: Speech script that sets the rate of speech, volume, and picks from an available voice. var voices = voice.GetVoices(); v ar len = voices.count; WScript.Echo("Length: " + len ); WScript.Echo("Voice: " + voices(1).GetDescription() ); if(len >= 2) voice.Voice = voices(1); voice.Rate = 1; voice.Volume = 75; voice.Speak("Microsoft PopFly is cool too!");
The code above gets the array of available voices. The number is retrieved and displayed and a description of voice at index 1 is displayed. On my machine, I have three voices and the voice at index 1 is LH Michelle. The speech rate is set to 1 (slow) and the volume is set to about ¾'s of the maximum volume.
Listing 4 combines the elements you have seen so far with some new features. I have introduced the debugger keyword that causes the debugger to break precisely at that line, making it easier to target specific code for debugging. I have also introduced a try..catch block and some cleanup code (see Listing 4).
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Figure 2: By adding a debugger statement to your code, you will be prompted to select a debugger (usually Visual Studio or Microsoft Script Editor (shown)) and execution will be suspended at the debugger statement.
Listing 4: Speech capability bound to the onclick event of an ![]()
control. (The numbering is for reference only.) 1: 2:
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