Passing the app state to the dialog script (Ionic Angular)¶

An important feature of a robust voice assistant is context awareness. To provide relevant responses to users, the voice assistant must know what is happening in the app: what screen is currently open, what options are enabled and so on.

To get information about the app state, you can use Alan AI’s visual state functionality. The visual state allows you to send an arbitrary JSON object informing about the current app context to the dialog script. You can access this data in the script through the p.visual runtime variable.

In this tutorial, we continue using an example Ionic app with three tabs. We will send information about the currently opened tab to the dialog script with the help of the visual state. On the script side, we will access the state to do the following:

Create a voice command that will let the AI assistant reply differently depending on the tab open in the app
Create a tab-specific command that can be matched only if the necessary tab is open

What you will learn¶

How to pass the app state from an Ionic app to the dialog script with the visual state
How to access the data passed with the visual state in the dialog script
How to filter intents by the app state

What you will need¶

To go through this tutorial, make sure the following prerequisites are met:

In this tutorial, we will continue using the example Ionic app provided by Alan AI. You can also use your own app with several tabs.

Make sure you have completed all steps from the previous tutorials:
- Building a voice assistant for an Ionic Angular app
- Navigating between tabs in an app (Ionic Angular)
The environment for using the Ionic framework is properly set up. For details, see Ionic documentation.

Step 1: Get routing information¶

First, we need to subscribe to route changes so that our app knows what tab is currently open. In the example Ionic app, go to the src/app folder, open app.component.ts and make the following changes:

At the top of the file, add the following import statement:
app.component.ts¶
```
import { Router, NavigationEnd } from '@angular/router'
```
To the constructor of the AppComponent class, inject Router:
app.component.ts¶
```
private router: Router
```

And subscribe to the router events:

app.component.ts¶

export class AppComponent {

  private visualState: any = {};

  constructor(
    private navCtrl: NavController,
    private router: Router
  ) {
    /* Subscribe to router events */
    this.router.events.subscribe((event) => {
      if (event instanceof NavigationEnd) {
        console.log(event.url); /* will be "/tabs/tab1" or "/tabs/tab2" depending on the open tab */
      }
    });
  }

  @ViewChild('alanBtnEl', {static:false}) alanBtnComponent: ElementRef<HTMLAlanButtonElement>;
}

Now the app logs the currently open tab to the console.

Step 2: Send the app state to the dialog script¶

To send data from the app to the dialog script, you can use Alan AI’s visual state object. This method can be particularly helpful if the dialog flow in your app depends on the app state. In this case, you need to know the app state on the script side to adjust the dialog logic. For example, you may want to use the app state to filter out some voice commands, give responses applicable to the current app state and so on.

The visual state allows you to send an arbitrary JSON object from the app to the script. You can access the passed data in the script through the p.visual runtime variable.

Let’s modify our app to send information about the currently open tab to the script.

Open app.component.ts.

To the subscribe code block, add the setVisualState() method:

app.component.ts¶

this.router.events.subscribe((event) => {
  if (event instanceof NavigationEnd) {
    console.log(event.url); /* will be "/tabs/tab1" or "/tabs/tab2" depending on the open tab */
    /* Set visual state */
    this.alanBtnComponent.nativeElement.setVisualState({
      tab: parseInt(event.url.replace('/tabs/tab', ''), 10)
    });
  }
});

see full source

Now, when we navigate to a specific tab, the app will send a JSON object with the tab number to the dialog script.

Step 3: Add a voice command with different answers for tabs¶

Imagine we want to provide the user with a possibility to ask: What tab is open? in the app, and Alan AI must reply differently depending on the tab open. Let’s go back to Alan AI Studio and add a new intent:

Dialog script¶

intent('What tab is open?', p => {
    const tab = p.visual.tab;
    switch (tab) {
        case 1:
            p.play('This is the first tab');
            break;
        case 2:
            p.play('This is the second tab');
            break;
        case 3:
            p.play('This is the third tab');
            break;
        default:
            p.play('This is an example Ionic app by Alan');
    }
});

Here we use the p.visual.tab variable to access data passed with the visual state. Depending on the variable value, the AI assistant plays back different responses.

You can test it: run the app, click the Alan AI button and ask: What tab is open? The AI assistant will reply: This is an example Ionic app by Alan. Now say: Go to the second tab and ask: What tab is open? again. The AI assistant will get back with: This is the second tab. Then try navigating through the app with voice or using the UI. The response to: What tab is open? must be correct in any case since we capture the app state.

Step 4: Create a tab-specific command¶

If an app has several screens or tabs, it may be necessary to create voice commands that will work for specific tabs only. In Alan AI, you can create tab-specific commands with the help of filters added to intents. The filter in an intent defines conditions in which the intent can be matched. In our case, we can use information about the open tab as the filter.

Let’s add another voice command that will work only if the third tab is open. In Alan AI Studio, add the following intent:

Dialog script¶

const vScreen = visual({tab: 3});

intent(vScreen, 'Go forward', p => {
    p.play('There are no more tabs in this app');
});

The filter comes as the first parameter in the intent. This intent will be matched only if the third tab is open and the visual state is {tab: 3}.

You can test it: run the app, navigate to the third tab with voice and say: Go forward. The AI assistant will reply: Sorry, there are no more tabs in this app. Then navigate to the second tab and say: Go forward. The AI assistant will not be able to match the intent.