Speech Add-ins

Speech add-ins are optional packages that give existing controls a voice. They are ordinary tools and actions — you attach them to a ChatView or a TextEntry the same way you attach any other one — so nothing about the host control changes, and dropping the package removes the capability cleanly.

They ship separately because speech pulls in Shiny.Speech and its platform permissions. Apps that never dictate anything shouldn’t carry that weight.

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Frameworks

.NET MAUI

Blazor

What’s in the box

Tool	Host	What it does
SpeechToTextTool	ChatView input bar (MAUI)	Listens via ISpeechToTextService and backfills the entry, optionally submitting when recognition completes
TextToSpeechBubbleTool	ChatView message bubble (MAUI)	Reads a message’s Body aloud via ITextToSpeechService
TextEntrySpeechToTextTool	Any TextEntry (MAUI)	Appends recognized speech to the field, with a listening indicator
TextEntrySpeechToTextButton	Any input (Blazor)	The same voice-input button, driven by the browser’s Web Speech API

Setup

.NET MAUI

Install Shiny.Maui.Controls.SpeechAddins and register Shiny Speech. The tools are registered under the same http://shiny.net/maui/controls XAML namespace as the core controls, so there is no extra xmlns to add.

Speech recognition needs a microphone permission entry in the app manifest — a library cannot add it for you. See Shiny.Speech for the per-platform requirements.

Blazor

Install Shiny.Blazor.Controls.SpeechAddins and add the @using — typically in _Imports.razor:

@using Shiny.Blazor.Controls.SpeechAddins

Recognition uses the browser’s Web Speech API, which is not implemented everywhere. Chromium-based browsers support it; Firefox does not. The button is a no-op where the API is missing rather than an error.

ChatView

Add the tools like any other action:

<shiny:ChatView Provider="{Binding Provider}" SessionId="{Binding SessionId}">
    <shiny:ChatView.InputActions>
        <shiny:SpeechToTextTool AutoSend="False" SilenceTimeout="00:00:03" />
    </shiny:ChatView.InputActions>
    <shiny:ChatView.CustomBubbleActions>
        <shiny:TextToSpeechBubbleTool />
    </shiny:ChatView.CustomBubbleActions>
</shiny:ChatView>

Or in code:

using Shiny.Maui.Controls.SpeechAddins.Chat;

this.InputActions = [ new SpeechToTextTool { AutoSend = false, SilenceTimeout = TimeSpan.FromSeconds(3) } ];
this.CustomBubbleActions = [ new TextToSpeechBubbleTool() ];

SpeechToTextTool	Default
AutoSend	false	submit the entry after recognition completes
SilenceTimeout	2s	silence before recognition is considered done
Culture	null	recognition culture (e.g. "en-US")
PreferOnDevice	false	prefer on-device recognition
ListeningText	⏹	glyph shown while listening

TextToSpeechBubbleTool	Default
SpeechRate / Pitch / Volume	1.0
Culture / VoiceName	null (system default)

TextEntry

TextEntrySpeechToTextTool is a TextEntryTool, so it sits in the entry’s tool strip beside things like ClearButtonTool:

<shiny:TextEntry Placeholder="Say something">
    <shiny:TextEntry.RightTools>
        <shiny:TextEntrySpeechToTextTool Culture="en-US" SilenceTimeout="00:00:02" />
    </shiny:TextEntry.RightTools>
</shiny:TextEntry>

TextEntrySpeechToTextTool	Default
SilenceTimeout	2s	silence before recognition is considered done
Culture	null	recognition culture
PreferOnDevice	false	prefer on-device recognition
ListeningText	⏹	glyph shown while listening
ListeningColor	—	tint applied while listening

The tool restores the entry’s original text if recognition is cancelled, so an aborted dictation doesn’t leave a half-transcribed field behind.

Blazor

<TextEntrySpeechToTextButton @bind-Text="message" Culture="en-US" />

Parameter	Default
Text / TextChanged	— (bindable)
IdleText / ListeningText	🎙 / ⏹
IdleColor / ListeningColor	#4CAF50 / #F44336
Culture	null
Continuous	false

Next Steps

• ChatView Custom Actions — how input actions and bubble actions fit together
• TextEntry — the tool strip these plug into
• Shiny.Speech — the underlying recognition and synthesis services