When speech input is installed, Microsoft Agent includes a special tooltip window that displays when the user presses the push-to-talk hot key. The following table summarizes the display of the Listening Tip when speech recognition is enabled.
| Action | Result |
| User presses the listening mode hot key | The Listening Tip appears below the active client's character and displays:
-- CharacterName is listening -- The first line identifying the character is centered. The second line is left justified and breaks to a third line when it exceeds the Listening Tip's maximum width. If an input-active client of the character does not have a caption or defined voice parameters for its Commands object, the Listening Tip displays:
-- CharacterName is listening -- If there are no visible characters, the Listening Tip appears adjacent to the Microsoft Agent taskbar icon and displays:
-- All characters are hidden -- If the speech recognition is still initializing, the Listening Tip displays: Say the name of a character to display it. If the audio channel is busy, as when the character is audibly speaking or some other application is using the audio channel, the Listening Tip displays:
-- CharacterName is preparing to listen -- |
| User presses the listening mode hot key and speaks a voice command | The Listening Tip appears below the active client's character and displays:
-- CharacterName heard -- The first line is centered. The second line is left justified and breaks to a third line when it exceeds the Listening Tip's maximum width. |
The Listening Tip automatically times out after being presented. If the "heard" text time-out completes when the user presses the hot key, the tip reverts to the "listening" text unless the server receives another matching utterance. In this case, the tip displays the new "heard" text and begins the time-out for that tip text. If the user releases the hot key and the server is displaying the "heard" text, the time-out continues. However, although the server displays the "listening" text, it immediately removes the Listening Tip when the user releases the hot key.
The Listening Tip does not appear when the pointer is over the Microsoft Agent taskbar icon. Instead, the standard notification tip window appears and displays "Press the name of hot key key to talk to InputActiveCharacterName" when the server is enabled. If all characters are hidden, the tip displays, "Press the name of hot key key and say the name of a character." However, if the user presses the speaking hot key, the tip reflects the same text as the listening tip. For example, it displays, "CharacterName is listening for InputActiveClientCaption commands," or, "CharacterName is listening for commands," if the input-active client has not defined its Caption property; and "CharacterName heard CommandText," when the speech engine processes a recognition. When the user disables speech input (or speech recognition is not installed), the icon's tooltip displays, "Microsoft Agent is running." When the server is in its suspended state, the tip displays, "Microsoft Agent is suspended."
Clients cannot write directly to the Listening Tip, but you can specify alternative "heard" text that the server displays on recognition of a matching voice command. To do this, set the Confidence property and the new ConfidenceText property for the command. If spoken input matches the command, but the best match does not exceed the confidence setting, the server uses the text set in the ConfidenceText property in the tip window. If the client does not supply this value, the server displays the text (grammar) it matched.