Microphone access in Silverlight via Flash and JavaScript

Silverlight is unquestionably a powerful tool for .NET application developers; using almost of all the same WPF skills,.NET developers can create rich internet applications (RIA) right out of the gate. However, Silverlight has no microphone/webcam support, and if you need this functionality in a cross-browser RIA, the common thinking is cross out Silverlight and pencil in Flash or Java.

While it's true that you'll need to dip into Flash or Java for microphone/webcam support (at least until Silverlight 3, and possibly not even then), there's no reason you can't take advantage of Silverlight as your base application host and selectively use Flash as necessary for Silverlight's missing features. Then, using a JavaScript bridge, you can get these browser technologies communicating with each other fairly painlessly. This integrated solution is what we're considering at Tutor.com when we add voice communication support to the Tutor.com Classroom, and this post will detail how to use Flash for microphone support inside a Silverlight application, where the button controlling the microphone on/off switch is in the Silverlight application.

Flash: Microphone management
First, we'll create a simple Flash movie (I'm using ActionScript 2) that manages and outputs microphone input. Thankfully, there's really very little code you need to write to do this; just note that your Flash movie must be at least 250x150 to allow room for the microphone Allow/Decline dialog, and if you don't want the movie to be visible, you need to set its background color to transparent.

As an aside, note that there's similarly very little code you need to write to connect to a Flash Media Server (FMS) for real-time communication, although the example here omits the FMS part. As another aside, note that the code for Flash webcam support is almost identical, except instead of a Microphone object you're working with a Camera object.

OK, so in the first frame of your Flash movie, write a function to access the microphone and monitor microphone activity:

var mic:Microphone = null;

function toggleVoice(isOn:Boolean)
{
  //setup the mic
  if (mic == null)
  {  
    //call Microphone.get() to access the microphone and prompt user with Allow/Decline dialog
    mic = Microphone.get();

    //Microphone.get() will return null if user declined access
    if (mic == null)
      return;

    //setup onActivity handler to get notification of mic activity
    mic.onActivity = function(active:Boolean)
    {   
      //call out to JavaScript bridge via ExternalInterface
      flash.external.ExternalInterface.call("IsTalking", active);
    };

    //create movie clip and attach mic to clip so we can hear output
    this.createEmptyMovieClip("sound_mc", this.getNextHighestDepth());
    sound_mc.attachAudio(active_mic);
  }

  //set the microphone gain as per the isOn input variable
  mic.setGain(isOn ? 50 : 0);
}

Below the function, add a callback handler that makes the function callable via JavaScript:

  flash.external.ExternalInterface.addCallback("ToggleVoice", this, toggleVoice);

Html: Application host page
When you add a Silverlight application to your solution in Visual Studio, the boilerplate html makes your application full-screen in the browser window (as in the Tutor.com Classroom); this is exactly what we ant. Next, we need to add our Flash html object tag. Silverlight is a bit picky about where you add this html tag since you need to preserve this 100% height style, so slot the Flash object tag immediately before the div tag, and style it with "position:absolute" so that it doesn't interfere in the html layout:

  <form id="form1" runat="server" style="height:100%;">
    <asp:ScriptManager ID="ScriptManager1" runat="server" />
            
    <object 
      id="voice" 
      style="position:absolute;"
      classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000"
      codebase="http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=8,0,0,0" 
      width="250" 
      height="150" 
      align="middle"
      ...
    />

    <div style="height:100%;">
      <asp:Silverlight     
        ID="Xaml1" 
        runat="server"                 
        ...
      />                                
    </div>
  </form>

Javascript: Flash/Silverlight bridge
Next, we'll create the JavaScript function that our Silverlight app will call, which will in turn call into our Flash movie to set the Microphone input status. Since our Flash movie registered the ToggleVoice() callback function using ExternalInterface, Flash added a JavaScript entry point to function when the Flash movie loaded:

<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">
function toggleVoice(on) 
{
    var flashVoiceObject = thisMovie("voice");
    if (!flashVoiceObject)
        return;

    flashVoiceObject.ToggleVoice(on);
}

function thisMovie(movieName) {
    if (navigator.appName.indexOf("Microsoft") != -1) {
        return document.getElementById(movieName);
    }
    else {
        return document[movieName];
    }
}
</script>

We can also very simply call from JavaScript into Silverlight, and we'll do this to alert our Silverlight application when Flash notifies us of microphone activity:

function IsTalking(active) 
{
    //access the Silverlight application
    var control = document.getElementById("Xaml1");

    control.Content.Page.ToggleIsTalking(active);
}

Silverlight – Microphone toggle button
Finally, in Page.xaml, add a toggle button with Checked and Unchecked handlers, and an indicator that we'll show when the microphone is active:

<ToggleButton Content="Toggle Microphone Input" Checked="ToggleVoice_CheckedToggled" Unchecked="ToggleVoice_CheckedToggled" />

<TextBlock Text="You are talking..." Visibility="Collapsed" x:Name="IsTalkingIndicator" />

Then in Page.xaml.cs, implement the handler and call into the JavaScript function:

private void ToggleVoice_CheckedToggle(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
    //call js layer to set microphone state
    ScriptObject voiceToggleScriptObject = (ScriptObject)HtmlPage.Window.GetProperty("toggleVoice");

    ToggleButton tb = sender as ToggleButton;
    voiceToggleScriptObject.InvokeSelf(tb.IsChecked.Value);
}

Lastly, implement the ToggleIsTalking() function that we'll call from JavaScript when the Flash movie responds to the microphone's onActivity() event. You just need to decorate this function with the [ScriptableMember] attribute so that Silverlight registers the function with the JavaScript runtime:

[ScriptableMember]
public void ToggleVoiceOn(bool On)
{
    IsTalkingIndicator.Visibility = (On) ? Visibility.Visible : Visibility.Collapsed;
}

And that's it! You now have a relatively straightforward Flash <=>JavaScript <=> Silverlight solution that affords you the best of all worlds.