Voice Command Definition (VCD) elements and attributes v1.1

Required child element of the CommandSet element.

Takes the Name attribute. Defines an app action that users can initiate by speaking and what users can say to initiate the action. Each Command element can be associated with a specific page in your app. Contains the following required child elements: Example (exactly 1), ListenFor (1 to 10), Feedback (exactly 1), and Navigate (exactly 1). These child elements must occur in the order listed.

Required (1 to 10) child element of the Command element.

Contains a word or phrase that your app will recognize for this command. This may include or be a reference to a PhraseList (or PhraseTopic) element's Label attribute, which appears in the ListenFor element enclosed in curly braces, for example: {myList}, or {myTopic}.

The content of any ListenFor elements can be recognized to activate the command.

Use brackets around a word or words that are optional. That is, the word or words can be spoken, but are not necessary for a match. For example, <ListenFor>[Show] {options}</ListenFor>.

You can set up wildcard functionality by including an asterisk character inside a pair of curly braces, such as <ListenFor> Find {*} </ListenFor>. In this example, the voice command will match as long as the user speaks "Find", optionally followed by any other word or phrase. If the voice command for a wildcard-enabled ListenFor element is matched, the SpeechRecognitionResult.Text property will contain the string "…" in the same position as the wildcard.

The Target attribute is optional and is typically used to specify the page that the app should navigate to when it launches. You can obtain the value of the Target attribute (or the empty string if you omit the Target attribute) from the SpeechRecognitionSemanticInterpretation.Properties dictionary using the "NavigationTarget" key.

Optional child of the CommandSet element. One CommandSet element can contain no more than 2,000 Item elements, and 2,000 Item elements is the combined total limit across all PhraseList elements in a CommandSet. Each Item specifies a word or phrase that can be recognized to initiate the command that references the PhraseList. The Items content may be programmatically updated from within your application. A PhraseList requires the Label attribute, the value of which may appear—enclosed by curly braces—inside ListenFor or Feedback elements, and is used to reference the PhraseList.

PhraseList has an optional Disambiguate attribute (default true), which specifies whether this PhraseList will produce user disambiguation when multiple items from the list are simultaneously recognized. When false, this PhraseList will also be unusable from within Feedback elements and will not produce parameters for your application. That's useful for phrases that are alternative ways of saying the same thing, but do not require any specific action.

In your app, to find out which phrase from the list was spoken, you can access the SpeechRecognitionSemanticInterpretation.Properties dictionary using a key with the same value as the Label of the PhraseList.

Optional child of the CommandSet element. Specifies a topic for large vocabulary recognition. The topic may specify a single (0 or 1) Scenario attribute and several (0 to 20) Subject child elements for the scenario, which may be used to improve the relevance of the recognition achieved. A PhraseTopic requires the Label attribute, the value of which may appear—enclosed by curly braces—inside ListenFor or Feedback elements, and is used to reference the PhraseTopic.

The Scenario attribute (default "Dictation") specifies the desired scenario for this PhraseTopic, which may optimize the underlying speech recognition of voice commands using the PhraseTopic to produce results that are better-suited to the desired context of the command. Valid values are "Natural Language", "Search", "Short Message", "Dictation", "Commands", and "Form Filling".

The Subject child elements specify a subject specific to the Scenario attribute of the parent PhraseTopic to further refine the relevance of speech recognition results within spoken commands using the PhraseTopic. Subjects will be evaluated in the order provided and, when appropriate, later-specified subjects will constrain earlier-specified ones. Valid inner text values are "Date/Time", "Addresses", "City/State", "Person Names", "Movies", "Music", and "Phone Number". For example: <Subject>Phone Number</Subject>

In your app, to find out the content spoken in the subset of a ListenFor element represented by a PhraseTopic reference, you can access the SpeechRecognitionSemanticInterpretation.Properties dictionary using a key with the same value as the Label of the PhraseTopic.