WoW VoiceBox Beta 0.4 Now released

[Anozireth]

Edit 4: Beta 0.4 is now released. Please see post #56 ('http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=Thread&postID=216936#post216936') for details!

Edit 3: Alpha 3 is released, which should fix the crash on loading for those using non-US versions of Vista. Download link is on page 2.

Edit 2: I've released Alpha 2. Please see post #31 ('http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=Thread&postID=91967#post91967') for details!

Edit 1: I've got it up as a test version on Sourceforge now. Here is the link: http://sourceforge.net/projects/wowvoicebox/ http://wowvoicebox.codeplex.com Included in the download are three files: the program, the command configuration XML file and a small HTML user guide. I would suggest having a look at the user guide before you start. For those interested in the source, it's available in the project's SVN repository.

Please download it and let me know how it goes! If you run in to trouble, the more information you can provide, the better. Try to tell me details about your system, what you were trying to do and what didn't work, as well as any information about other third party software you're using such as Keyclone. If you have ideas on how to improve it, I'm definitely interested. For feedback, you can either drop me a PM, post in this thread or email anozireth AT yahoo DOT com (please put "voicebox" somewhere in the subject line). My goal is to make this as useful as possible, so all the feedback I get is important!


Original post follows (some information may be out of date):

Hi everyone. I've almost gotten my voice recognition program to the point that I'm ready to send it out to a few people for a small alpha test. It allows for key presses and macros to be mapped to voice commands. It also allows voice control of in-game chat channels, so you can chat directly without having to pause what you're doing. All commands can be either broadcast to all copies of WoW (via your normal software key broadcaster) or sent only to the focused window.

Here's what I'm looking for in a tester:





Multiboxing
Running Vista 32 or 64 with SP1 (XP support may come later)
Running a software key broadcaster (ones other than keyclone would be nice to see how it works with those)

Currently all the commands are manually set up in XML, so it would probably be helpful for testers to be familiar with XML. Not a requirement though as I'm writing a manual that hopes to explain how to set it up. Eventually I want to have a nice user interface for editing the commands.

Some things I would like to get tested:




Does it run on your system?
Does it affect your system performance?
Does it play nice with Ventrilo?
Does the user interface get in your way?
Does the broadcast feature work properly with your key broadcaster?
Testing with another game would be cool too

I'm hoping to have it ready tonight or tomorrow. I haven't yet set up a website for it (sourceforge takes a few days to activate), so I would have to email it to those interested at this point. Source code included upon request (it's a mess at this point :D ). I'm only looking for about half a dozen testers at this point, so please note that I may not be able to let everyone in on it if demand is higher.

Post here with any questions, or send me a PM with an email address if you'd like to help test it. :)

[The_Whack]

I think I would like to give this a go. I spent most of this morning trying to set up MS Vista Voice Recognition for playing WoW.

I'm not too familiar with XML but learning has never been a problem.

I'm Multiboxing 5
Vista 32 w/SP1
Keyclone

I think testing this might be fun.

[Fleecy]

I'm currently using Dragon Naturally Speaking but I'm always keen to try an alternative.

Check, check & check to all tester "requirements".

[Knapenburger]

Will it "train" to my voice? I mean..I have an accent and I have used voice recognition software before and most are a peice of shit, this is what I am fearing:


Heal
*character dances*
Healing Wave
*character waves*
FUCKING HEALLLLLLLLLLLL
*hearthstone*

[Anozireth]

Well the voice recognition in Vista is pretty good in my experience, but it depends greatly on your voice. I have a pretty strong voice so it works well for me. On the other hand I've watched a quadriplegic woman with a very soft voice try to use it and it just failed miserably, which is sad because she could really use it.

I think you will find that when it's listening for specific commands, it's almost 100% accurate unless you have two very similar commands, something like "Send" and "Sand". The dictation is hit and miss still on mine. I think the more you train it outside of my program, the better it will get.

As far as how an accent affects it, well your profile says you're from the UK and I see an option in the voice recognition settings for UK English instead of US English. If you have an accent because English is a second language, I'm not sure how well it would handle that.

[Anozireth]

Just noticed that my Sourceforge page for this got approved, so I'll get it up on there today so people can play around with it. I've got it working to the point that it's ready, I just need to write a help file and package it up.

[Fleecy]

A quick search of SourceForge.org does not show "VoiceBox" yet :)

I assume you're using the SAPI SDK? What version 5.X? Personally I'm hoping its 5.3, but that would limit it to Vista only. I've tested a few apps using earlier version than 5.3 and all had/have some minor/major issues with Vista. I was reading the MSDN on SAPI 5.3 last night and I'm toying with the idea of pulling out VS and having a play with it again - its been "a few years" since I did anything serious with VS.

[Anozireth]

Well I'm using VS 2008, which is .NET 3.5, so it should be the newest version of the SAPI. I think it defaults to whatever's installed? I tried it once on an XP machine with some SAPI 5.x version a while back and it seemed to work. I don't have XP installed at home here anymore so it's not easy to test.

I'm working on getting it up on sourceforge. First I had to wait for the project to be approved, then had to wait for the repository to be set up. This is more work than I expected! :D

[Anozireth]

Released Alpha version. See first post.

[blast3r]

I don't have Vista but if you need another tester let me know. I use voice commander right now.

[Anozireth]

You're welcome to give it a try on XP, but it's completely untested. You'll probably need the Windows speech API, which can be found here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=5e86ec97-40a7-453f-b0ee-6583171b4530&DisplayLang=en (it's pretty big). I think that speechsdk51msm.exe is the file you need. You should also need .NET 3.5, which you should have if you've downloaded SP3. If you try it, let me know if it works!

[The_Whack]

oh I see, so this is working off of Vista's built in Voice Recognition? Very cool, the whole XML thing looks quite easy to edit too.... will test when I get home tonight.

[blast3r]

I'll test this weekend. Thanks!

[Fleecy]

...I don't have XP installed at home here anymore so it's not easy to test.
I use VMware for this very reason. To test software on OS installations I don't physically have on my machine(s).

[zanthor]

...I don't have XP installed at home here anymore so it's not easy to test.
I use VMware for this very reason. To test software on OS installations I don't physically have on my machine(s).Last I checked you can't run WoW on a VM.

[Daki]

If it comes out for XP I will be on it *throws a rock at vista*... I will switch when windows forces me to!!!

[Anozireth]

Has anyone tried it? I didn't see any downloads on sourceforge last I checked. Is something not working?

[Leyuna]

I shortly tried this

1. downloaded it
2. unpacked it
3. ran the WowVoiceBox.exe
4. got the msg that the program stopped working.
5. tried to start it a few more times, same msg.

running vista 32bit home premium

[Meathead]

Dam Awsum DUDE! Thanks for this the first one that works with Vista 64bit! Keep up the good work man! :D

[Meathead]

I shortly tried this

1. downloaded it
2. unpacked it
3. ran the WowVoiceBox.exe
4. got the msg that the program stopped working.
5. tried to start it a few more times, same msg.

running vista 32bit home premium


Yea i got the Same Problem aswell but with Vista 64bit Here is the Error Message



Description:

Stopped working

Files that help describe the problem:

C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\Temp\WER4287.tmp.v ersion.txt

C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\Temp\WER54B1.tmp.m dmp

Hope that helps with it :D Keep up the good work!
P.S Sorry did not notice i was not in Edit mode

[blast3r]

Instead of testing this software out I decided to create some new shammies on Mag and join the zerg. Been busy getting things rolling. I'll hopefully try this out this weekend.

[Anozireth]

Hmm, I haven't seen that error when I tried it on a couple different systems. I'll try to look into it. Here's some more information that would be helpful for me to fix it.

Do you see the window pop up before it crashes? Does the Vista speech recognition try to start at all? Have you updated to Vista SP1? Go to c:\windows\Microsoft.Net\framework and you should see a few folders with different version numbers. See what the highest version is, such as v3.5, v2.0.xxxxx, etc, and let me know Load up the "Files that help describe the problem" in Notepad and cut and paste the contents to here. Exact text of any error message would also be very helpful.

I will see if I can work on another version with more detailed error messages when it runs into a problem, but the above information will be helpful in the mean time.

Edit: You could also try running as Administrator, but that should not matter unless you're running WoW as administrator, so I doubt it's the problem.

[Leyuna]

Do you see the window pop up before it crashes?
The window does appear in the processline but the error msg comes right away shuting the program down.

Does the Vista speech recognition try to start at all?
The program sapisvr.exe is in the Taskmgr

Have you updated to Vista SP1?
Yes

Go to c:\windows\Microsoft.Net\framework and you should see a few folders with different version numbers. See what the highest version is, such as v3.5, v2.0.xxxxx, etc, and let me know
V3.5

Load up the "Files that help describe the problem" in Notepad and cut and paste the contents to here.
not sure where to location this one?

[Anozireth]

Hmm, that's quite strange. It sounds like you've got all the pre-requisites, so I'll have to do a little more digging or make up another version with better error information.

Edit: Leyuna ('http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=User&userID=10355'), can you give me the exact text of the error message you're getting please?

[adamkm]

the program crashes for me too. So i did a little investigating.

Firstly i get the same crash in windows xp (SP3) and vista 32 (sp1) i have posted the problem details at the bottom of my post.

Ok so i tried testing as much as possible to find out where it is crashing....

If i load wow and then run your program, it starts the voice recognition program and crashes with the error. (doesnt load its frame or window). It has loaded the windows voice software and left it in "off" mode. trying to load your program again just keeps crashing over and over.

Now, if i click "start listening" on the voice recognition software and then load your program it will load OK. It has its overlay and 2 "semi transparent" boxes and a quit box. Now if i talk "sometimes" it sends the commands to the wow window, othertimes it tries launching all sorts of windows crap... i guess for some reason my voice is not directed to your program ? or it doesnt like my voice... is there something i need to do so that it ignores all other commands and only listens for your commands? or something i need to do to configure windows voice thing so it only sends stuff to wow ?...

Anyway... futher to investigating... if i right click on your box above your Quit button it also crashes with the error.

Im using .net v 3.5.... like i say, its exactly the same error windows XP or windows Vista.

i hope that lot helps, really looking forward to using this and screaming omg heal me at my screen :)

Thanks

Adam



Description:

Stopped working

Problem signature:

Problem Event Name: CLR20r3

Problem Signature 01: wowvoicebox.exe

Problem Signature 02: 1.0.0.0

Problem Signature 03: 487ee3df

Problem Signature 04: PresentationFramework

Problem Signature 05: 3.0.0.0

Problem Signature 06: 470bc696

Problem Signature 07: 949

Problem Signature 08: 83

Problem Signature 09: System.InvalidOperationException

OS Version: 6.0.6001.2.1.0.768.3

Locale ID: 2057

[Depherios]

I'll definitely be giving this a try next week!

[Anozireth]

Thanks for the detailed update adamkm ('http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=User&userID=10602'). I'm still looking into it at this point, but your details should help. The crash when right-clicking above the quit button seems to be a different problem, so I should have that fixed for the next release. Left clicking there should allow you to move the window.

As for the crash on loading, all I can think for people to try is to go through the Speech Recognition setup if you have not. You can do this by going to the Control Panel, then select Ease of Access, then Speech Recognition options. Clicking Start Speech Recognition should bring up the setup and tutorial if you haven't used it before.

I'm also working on the command editor for the next release. It will make it much easier to edit the commands, rather than having to edit the XML file manually.

Thank you all for helping test this! Hopefully I'll be able to get the bugs worked out soon.

[RadicalPi]

I downloaded it and it seemed to work perfectly. I only used it to type a few lines in chat for me, but it did a damn good job of doing it. If I can get this set up properly, healing will be a breeze! Thanks for the hard work, mate!

[Leyuna]

i might have found the problem and i think it is on my end.

I tried to find the speak to text setup, and i can only find the text to speak setup.
so it looks like there is something missing, kind of wierd i though vista came with a speak to text buildin.

[Anozireth]

RadicalPi ('http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=User&userID=5055'), good to hear someone got it up and running easily! I was getting worried. 8)
i might have found the problem and i think it is on my end.

I tried to find the speak to text setup, and i can only find the text to speak setup.
so it looks like there is something missing, kind of wierd i though vista came with a speak to text buildin.As far as I know, all versions of Vista come with it built in. I know I've tried it on Home Premium, Business and Ultimate. Only one I'm not sure of is Home Basic, but I think it has it too.

I've almost finished another build with better error logging. I haven't been able to figure out what would cause it not work yet, so hopefully the improved error messages will help track it down. Should be ready in an hour or so.

Edit: I decided to try and get the command editor working for this release as well, so it will take a little while yet. Should still be today though.

[Anozireth]

Hi everyone. I've released Alpha 2. The big change in this one is the easier to use command editor. Just say "Options" to bring it up. See the HTML manual for more details. I also added much better error logging to try to figure out the problems people are having.

Here is the link to download:
https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=234179 http://wowvoicebox.codeplex.com

If you're still having trouble getting it to run, please post the contents of the error.log and logfile.log along with full text of any error messages that popped up here so I can try to figure out where it crashed.

[Meathead]

Will give it a try :D

[Simulacra]

I'll be trying this tonight on XP >.< Ive got the 5.2 engine so should be ok. The xml file is a great way to go, very intuitive. Is it possible to put more complex macros into the xml? I'm not thinking of cast sequences but more along the lines of
/use trinket
/cast fireball
or maybe something like a focus polymorph macro

[Anozireth]

I'll be trying this tonight on XP >.< Ive got the 5.2 engine so should be ok. The xml file is a great way to go, very intuitive. Is it possible to put more complex macros into the xml? I'm not thinking of cast sequences but more along the lines of
/use trinket
/cast fireball
or maybe something like a focus polymorph macroIt might work ok on XP. I tried a really early version of it on XP a few months ago and it seemed to run, but I didn't have WoW on that computer so I couldn't really test it fully. Let me know how it goes! As far as the macros, I haven't tried a multi-line macro yet. I think the XML parser might break up new lines in it, but I'd have to try it. You can always map in-game macros to a single key press.

[adamkm]

Thanks for the update :)

Ok.... error i get is below... it does this if the windows speech program is not running or if it is in off mode and wowvoicebox will not load. If windows speech program is running and "sleeping" or "listening" then it is ok ! I didnt test it actually works following that cos im at work and dont have a mic plugged in, but im presuming its ok after that.

Sooooo... what do i need to change at my end for my grammar ? im using language english United Kingdom.

Question though... when i have 2 wow sessions open, which wow session will the commands be sent to ? im using a custom AHK script for key cloning so ofc the key sends goto both... but which will the chat commands goto ? active window im guessing ?

Thanks Mate !

Adam

23/07/2008 12:11:58 - Error initializing speech recognition: The language for the grammar does not match the language of the speech recognizer.

[Leyuna]

It seems like that there aint installed a speak to text or atleast thats what the error msg says when i try to start the program.
I belive it might have something to do with language that vista was installed with, and if your unlucky to not have a multi language cd then i think im stuck.

[Anozireth]

I hadn't thought about localization issues. It sure looks like that's the problem. At least the error logging did it's job. :) I'll take a look at it later today, it should be a fairly easy fix for UK English (I think I saw that as an option in my speech recognition settings), but I'm not sure about other languages. In the mean time, if you go into the Advanced Speech Recognition options in the Vista control panel, you might have an option to set it to US English.

adamkm ('http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=User&userID=10602'), as far as which window the chat commands go to, there's two possibilities. It can either be broadcast to all local instances of WoW, or it will be sent to the focused (active) window.

[Anozireth]

Ok, I was able to duplicate this crash on my system by setting my speech recognition to UK English. I think I've found the fix, so I should be able to get it out later today.

[Anozireth]

Released Alpha 3. This version should fix the crash on loading for those not running the US English version of Vista. Download is available at the link below. Please let me know how it goes!

https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=234179 http://wowvoicebox.codeplex.com

[Anozireth]

Any of you non-US folks have better luck with the newest one?

[noir]

My carpal tunnel's in overdrive, so I'll be testing this tonight...

[Anozireth]

Hope it works well for you. :)

On a side note, I had a hard drive failure a few days ago and lost all my code since Alpha 1 (I was being lazy about uploading it to SF). So I'm having to redo everything since then. But I'm almost done.

[Teejayv]

the question begs to differ: voice commander... or wowvoicebox... which is better?

all i care about is ease of setup and use.

[Anozireth]

I'm not 100% sure of Voice Commander's capability, but I don't think it allows for you to dictate a chat message. You also have to edit the commands in a text file with it, where mine has a simple UI for editing commands.

I'm guessing from his documentation that he's using the method of simulating keystrokes that will get picked up by keyclone. My current version does not, but I plan to allow the option to switch methods in my next release, since my method is quicker and more reliable for entering more than a single key press. I do already have a means to broadcast to all instances on the local machine, just not over the network.

[Henka44]

Hi there,

i just started to try out ur program and i find myself getting a crash every time i try to either edit a command or when i add a new one, so that leaves me with the fact that i can only use the pre-existing commands.. im running Windows Vista Ultimate x64 Service pack 1 (English version) and ive tryed running it as administrator without any success.. my "error.log" is empty and there's nothing weird in my "logfile.log" , am i doing something wrong?

If not, maybe u can look in to it :) I would love to be able to use this program fully.



And oh, while im at it, im using Hotkeynet as my dual-boxing software, and it renames my 2 copies of world of warcraft to wow1 and wow2, will that cause confusion with your program, becouse i now find your program not responding anymore after i renamed my wow's.. If thats the reason, is there maybe an easy way to change it, or maybe u can include a function in ur next release that allows users to type in an input for what their wow's are named.. that would solve it.. if now thats the case :P



SRY FOR THE WALL OF TEXT!

Thanks in advance

/Henka44

[Anozireth]

Thanks for your interest in my app, it's good to know someone is using it! :) I haven't worked with it in quite a while, but it sounds like you must have an error in your commands.xml file. If you can PM or email me the contents of that file, I might be able to help you out more.


For the second question, my app looks for windows with the title "World of Warcraft". I haven't used HotKeyNet, so I'm not sure how it renames the windows. If the windows don't say "World of Warcraft" as the title (on the start bar or if in windowed mode, at the top of the window), then my program wouldn't be able to find them. Fixing this would require a code change that I'm afraid I can't promise right now.

[Henka44]

Have u found any solution for my problem/s ?

Btw Anozireth.. im not good at coding AT ALL but i took a look at the code of ur app, couln't this be solved by changing


if (p.MainWindowTitle.CompareTo("World Of Warcraft") == 0)

to lets say...

if (p.MainWindowTitle.CompareTo("WoW1,WoW2") == 0)

??

[Anozireth]

Yes, that's where the change needs to be made. I would need to have a setting for that so it could be easily changed. I'm going to work on this tonight and I should be able to have a fix in a couple of days. I wasn't able to find any obvious problems in your commands file, but I'll do some more digging and try to add better error handling around the loading of that.



I'd like to get this project off the ground again since I have some more free time lately and I think it has a lot of potential. With that, I think I will move it to codeplex.com.

[F9thRet]

Please keep us informed, as I liked how it worked. Only problem I ever had was when I had to play more then one toon and be on vent at the same time, But the program worked real well. Would love to try it again.

Stephen

[Anozireth]

Yeah needing to talk on vent at the same time would definitely be a conflict. Perhaps I can add a hot-key that temporarily disables the speech recognizer, which would of course be set to the same key as your vent push-to-talk button. Though if you don't use push to talk, it's a harder problem to solve.

[chaosultimamage]

Downloading now. I'll try it when I get home. Seems really damn cool, though!

Anyone tried it on Windows 7 yet? If not, I suppose I can be the guinea pig for that. I also have Vista Ultimate 32-bit.

[rahven32]

I'd really like to try this out but I'm using HKN which renames the window's. Have you thought about changing that aspect anymore?

[Anozireth]

I've been running it on the 64-bit RC build (7100) of 7 the last couple of days. It wasn't originally written with 7 in mind, but there don't seem to be any issues at this point.

I've got a solution in mind for the HotKeyNet imcompatibility that I'm going to work on tonight as much as I can.

[rahven32]

Can't wait to try it out thank you!

[Anozireth]

I've gotten a good bit done tonight. I've implemented the ability to specify multiple names of windows for it to send commands to, which should help those using HotKeyNet. I've also packaged it in a convenient Windows Installer (.msi) package to make it easy to install. I'm going to move the project to codeplex.com as well, I just like it better.



I've also noticed that the speech recognition in Windows 7 seems to be more accurate than Vista (which itself was way more accurate than XP's speech library). Maybe it was just lucky tonight, but it seemed to be making fewer errors in spite of my air conditioner running two feet from the microphone. So if there's any other early Win7 adopters out there, that's a bonus.



I'm out of time to deploy it tonight, but it's looking good for tomorrow pending any real-life interruptions.

[Anozireth]

I've released a new version and decided to move to the Beta milestone. This release will be known as Beta 0.4. Here's the changes:

Implemented the ability to specify multiple names of windows for it to send commands to for those using HotKeyNet.
Packaged it in a convenient Windows Installer (.msi) package to make it easy to install.
Moved project to CodePlex.

The project is now available at http://wowvoicebox.codeplex.com.

[F9thRet]

Thank you, Grabbing it now.

Stephen

Edit for spelling and to let you know, I will be trying it on two XP machines.