Twilio Cookbook: Second Edition

Text-to-Speech is useful for having a voice read back text on a web page. You could do this by having a textbox of text that gets read back; or maybe you want to select text on a web page to be read back to a visitor.

Twilio Client is also handy for doing phone work straight from your browser.

Getting ready

The complete source code for this recipe can be found at Chapter1/Recipe7.

How to do it...

We're going to use the Twilio Client to set up a form where people can type in a message and have it spoken back to them either by a male or female voice.

First, since this is using the Twilio Client, you need to set up a Twiml app under your account.
Click on the Create TwiML App button and enter a name for your app. Also, you'll need to enter a URL for the Voice. In this case, set it to the URL where you have uploaded incoming_call.php, that is, http://MYWEBSITE.COM/incoming_call.php.
Now, go back to the application list and you will see your new app. Look at the line directly beneath the name of your app; this is your app SID. Copy that as you will need it for this recipe.
Download the Twilio Helper Library from https://github.com/twilio/twilio-php/zipball/master and unzip it.
Upload the Services/ folder to your website.

Upload config.php to your website and make sure the following variables are set:

<?php
  $accountsid = '';  //  YOUR TWILIO ACCOUNT SID
  $authtoken = '';  //	  YOUR TWILIO AUTH TOKEN
  $fromNumber = '';  //  PHONE NUMBER CALLS WILL COME FROM
?>

Let's create a file on your website called text-to-speech.php:

<?php
  require_once('Services/Twilio/Capability.php');
  include("config.php");
  $APP_SID = 'YOUR APP SID';
  $token = new Services_Twilio_Capability($accountsid,$authtoken);
  $token->allowClientOutgoing($APP_SID);
?>
<html> 
<head> 
  <title>Text-To-Speech</title>
  <script type="text/javascript" src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.6.2/jquery.min.js"></script> 
  <script type="text/javascript"src="//static.twilio.com/libs/twiliojs/1.1/twilio.min.js"></script>
  <script type="text/javascript"> 
    Twilio.Device.setup("<?php echo $token->generateToken();?>",{"debug":true});
    $(document).ready(function() {
      $("#submit").click(function() {
        speak();
      });
    });
    function speak() {
      var dialogue = $("#dialogue").val();
      var voice =$('input:radio[name=voice]:checked').val();
      $('#submit').attr('disabled', 'disabled');
      Twilio.Device.connect({ 'dialogue' :dialogue, 'voice' : voice });
    }
    Twilio.Device.disconnect(function (conn) {
      $('#submit').removeAttr('disabled');
    });
  </script> 
</head> 
<body> 
<p> 
  <label for="dialogue">Text to be spoken</label> 
  <input type="text" id="dialogue" name="dialogue"size="50">
</p>
<p>
  <label for="voice-male">Male Voice</label>
  <input type="radio" id="voice-male" name="voice"value="1" checked="checked"> 
  <label for="voice-female">Female Voice</label> 
  <input type="radio" id="voice-female" name="voice"value="2">
</p>
<p>
  <input type="button" id="submit" name="submit"value="Speak to me"> 
</p> 
</body> 
</html>

Tip

Downloading the example code

You can download the example code files for all Packt books you have purchased from your account at http://www.packtpub.com. If you purchased this book elsewhere, you can visit http://www.packtpub.com/support and register to have the files e-mailed directly to you.

Now, let's create another file on your website called incoming_call.php, which is the file Twilio Client will call. This will then read back the text you entered using either a male or female voice:

<?php
  header('Content-type: text/xml');
  echo '<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>';
  $dialogue = trim($_REQUEST['dialogue']);
  $voice = (int) $_REQUEST['voice'];
  if (strlen($dialogue) == 0){
  $dialogue = 'Please enter some text to be spoken.';
  }
if ($voice == 1){
  $gender = 'man';
}else {
  $gender = 'woman';
}
?>
<Response>
  <Say voice="<?php echo $gender; ?>"><?php echohtmlspecialchars($dialogue); ?></Say>
</Response>

How it works...

In step 1, we set up our Twiml app in our Twilio account.

In steps 2 and 3, we downloaded and installed the Twilio Helper Library for PHP.

In step 4, we uploaded config.php that contains our authentication information to talk to Twilio's API.

Using Twilio Client, this recipe will read the content of a text box and play it back to you in either a male or female voice.

Twilio Client is a nice addition to the Twilio API that lets you do phone work straight from the browser. This way, you can add functionality directly to your web apps.

Twilio Cookbook: Second Edition

By : Roger Stringer

Twilio Cookbook: Second Edition

By: Roger Stringer

Overview of this book

Related Content you might be interested in

Current Title:

Twilio Cookbook: Second Edition

Setting up Text-to-Speech

Getting ready

How to do it...

Tip

How it works...