react-dictate-button

A button to start speech recognition using Web Speech API, with an easy to understand event lifecycle.

Breaking changes

[2.0.0] - 2021-05-15

• Requires react@>=16.8.0 and core-js@3
• Modifying props while recognition has started will no longer abort recognition immediately, props will be updated in next recognition
• SpeechGrammarList is only constructed when grammar props is present
• If speechRecognition prop is not present, capability detection is now done through window.mediaDevices.getUserMedia

Demo

Try out this component at github.io/compulim/react-dictate-button.

Background

Reasons why we need to build our own component, instead of using existing packages on NPM:

• Most browsers required speech recognition (or WebRTC) to be triggered by a user event (button click)
• Bring your own engine for Web Speech API
  • Enable speech recognition on unsupported browsers by bridging it with cloud-based service
• Support grammar list thru JSpeech Grammar Format
• Ability to interrupt recognition
• Ability to morph into other elements

How to use

First, install our production version by npm install react-dictate-button. Or our development version by npm install react-dictate-button@master.

import DictateButton from 'react-dictate-button';

export default () => (
  <DictateButton
    className="my-dictate-button"
    grammar="#JSGF V1.0; grammar districts; public <district> = Tuen Mun | Yuen Long;"
    lang="en-US"
    onDictate={this.handleDictate}
    onProgress={this.handleProgress}
  >
    Start/stop
  </DictateButton>
);

Props

Note: change of extra, grammar, lang, speechGrammarList, and speechRecognition will not take effect until next speech recognition is started.

Events

(event: MouseEvent) => void

({
  result: {
    confidence: number,
    transcript: number
  },
  type: 'dictate'
}) => void

(event: SpeechRecognitionErrorEvent) => void

({
  abortable: boolean,
  results: [{
    confidence: number,
    transcript: number
  }],
  type: 'progress'
}) => void

(event: SpeechRecognitionEvent) => void

Hooks

Although previous versions exported a React Context, it is recommended to use the hooks interface.

Checks if speech recognition is supported

To determines whether speech recognition is supported in the browser:

• If speechRecognition prop is undefined
  • If both window.navigator.mediaDevices and window.navigator.mediaDevices.getUserMedia are falsy, it is not supported
    • Probably the browser is not on a secure HTTP connection
  • If both window.SpeechRecognition and vendor-prefixed are falsy, it is not supported
  • If recognition failed once with not-allowed error code, it is not supported
• Otherwise, it is supported

Even the browser is on an insecure HTTP connection, window.SpeechRecognition (or vendor-prefixed) will continue to be truthy. Instead, mediaDevices.getUserMedia is used for capability detection.

Event lifecycle

One of the design aspect is to make sure events are easy to understand and deterministic. First rule of thumb is to make sure onProgress will lead to either onDictate or onError. Here are some samples of event firing sequence (tested on Chrome 67):

• Happy path: speech is recognized
  1. onProgress({}) (just started, therefore, no results)
  2. onProgress({ results: [] })
  3. onDictate({ result: ... })
• Heard some sound, but nothing can be recognized
  1. onProgress({})
  2. onDictate({}) (nothing is recognized, therefore, no result)
• Nothing is heard (audio device available but muted)
  1. onProgress({})
  2. onError({ error: 'no-speech' })
• Recognition aborted
  1. onProgress({})
  2. onProgress({ results: [] })
  3. While speech is getting recognized, set props.disabled to false, abort recognition
  4. onError({ error: 'aborted' })
• Not authorized to use speech or no audio device is availablabortable: truee
  1. onError({ error: 'not-allowed' })

Function as a child

Instead of passing child elements, you can pass a function to render different content based on ready state. This is called function as a child.

For example,

<DictateButton>
  {({ readyState }) =>
    readyState === 0 ? 'Start' : readyState === 1 ? 'Starting...' : readyState === 2 ? 'Listening...' : 'Stopping...'
  }
</DictateButton>

Customization thru morphing

You can build your own component by copying our layout code, without messing around the logic code behind the scene. For details, please refer to DictateButton.js, DictateCheckbox.js, and DictationTextbox.js.

Checkbox version

In addition to <button>, we also ship <input type="checkbox"> out of the box. The checkbox version is better suited for toggle button scenario and web accessibility. You can use the following code for the checkbox version.

import { DictateCheckbox } from 'react-dictate-button';

export default () => (
  <DictateCheckbox
    className="my-dictate-checkbox"
    grammar="#JSGF V1.0; grammar districts; public <district> = Redmond | Bellevue;"
    lang="en-US"
    onDictate={this.handleDictate}
    onProgress={this.handleProgress}
  >
    Start/stop
  </DictateCheckbox>
);

Textbox with dictate button

We also provide a "textbox with dictate button" version. But instead of shipping a full-fledged control, we make it a minimally-styled control so you can start copying the code and customize it in your own project. The sample code can be found at DictationTextbox.js.

Design considerations

• Hide the complexity of Web Speech events because we only want to focus on recognition experience
  • Complexity in lifecycle events: onstart, onaudiostart, onsoundstart, onspeechstart
  • onresult may not fire in some cases, onnomatch is not fired in Chrome
  • To reduce complexity, we want to make sure event firing are either:
    • Happy path: onProgress, then either onDictate or onError
    • Otherwise: onError
• "Web Speech" could means speech synthesis, which is out of scope for this package
• "Speech Recognition" could means we will expose Web Speech API as-is, which we want to hide details and make it straightforward for recognition scenario

Roadmap

Please feel free to file suggestions.

• While readyState is 1 or 3 (transitioning), the underlying speech engine cannot be started/stopped until the state transition is complete
  • Need rework on the state management
• Instead of putting all logic inside Composer.js, how about
  1. Write an adapter to convert SpeechRecognition into another object with simpler event model and readyState
  2. Rewrite Composer.js to bridge the new SimpleSpeechRecognition model and React Context
  3. Expose SimpleSpeechRecognition so people not on React can still benefit from the simpler event model

Contributions

Like us? Star us.

Want to make it better? File us an issue.

Don't like something you see? Submit a pull request.