Accessing Windows.Media.SpeechRecognition in a Windows Phine Silverlight 8.1 app

Question

I have an older Windows Phone app that has been migrated along from Windows Phone 7 and is currently targeting Windows Phone Silverlight 8.1.

I'd like to add Cortana Voice Command integration. I started following the steps in Quickstart: Voice commands with Cortana (XAML) and got to C# that referenced the Windows.Media.SpeechRecognition namespace.

The namespace can't be resolved. There are references in the project to:

• .NET for Windows Phone
  C:\Program Files (x86)\Reference Assemblies\Microsoft\Framework\WindowsPhone\v8.1\
• Windows Phone
  C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Phone Silverlight Kits\8.1\Windows Metadata\

I can use Windows.Phone.Speech.VoiceCommands, but I suspect it won't give the required Cortana integration. The question Speech Recognition vs. Voice Commands in Windows phone seems to confirm this.

Creating a new Windows Phone 8.1 app from scratch gives a different set of references:

• .NET for Windows Store apps
  C:\Program Files (x86)\Reference Assemblies\Microsoft\Framework\WindowsPhoneApp\v8.1\
• Windows Phone 8.1
  C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Phone Kits\8.1\References\CommonConfiguration\Neutral\

How can I access the Cortana API's from a Windows Phone 8.1 Silverlight App?

Answer 1

Windows Phone Silverlight apps use the Windows.Phone.Speech.VoiceCommands and Windows.Phone.Speech.Recognition namespaces.

Windows.Media.SpeechRecognition is the version of this for Windows Runtime apps. See the version section in the Windows.Media.SpeechRecognition documentation.

For voice commands in a Windows Phone Silverlight app see the Voice commands for Windows Phone 8 documentation (and more generally Speech for Windows Phone 8). This will still integrate with Cortana for voice commands. Speech recognition occurs within the app.