How to call .NET from QB64?

[freetrav]

Inspired by ron77's talking Eliza, I checked some of my older PowerShell work to see how one could do speech without having to install eSpeak. I found that I was basically doing .NET calls to System.Speech.Synthesis.SpeechSynthesizer, which allowed me to call the installed Microsoft voices, which don't sound mechanical the way the eSpeak voices do. Furthermore, calling the .NET speech synthesizer allows you to pass either plain text or SSML,  which allows for some additional vocal expressivity.

Thus the question: Given the PowerShell code

Add-Type -AssemblyName System.Speech
$voice = New-Object -TypeName System.Speech.Synthesis.SpeechSynthesizer
$voice.SelectVoice("Microsoft Server Speech Text to Speech Voice (en-CA, Heather)")
$voice.Speak("Good morning, world!")

How would I do the equivalent in QB64?

[bplus]

I got speech working on my Windows 10 system, One-liner jokes:
https://www.qb64.org/forum/index.php?topic=215.msg1080#msg1080

I have kleptomania, but Im taking something for it.

Here is the crucial call in QB64:

Code: QB64: [Select]

1. SUB speak (message AS STRING)
2.     'modifed from "Code" at JB forum
3.     OPEN "sound.vbs" FOR OUTPUT AS #1
4.     PRINT #1, "Dim message, sapi"
5.     PRINT #1, "message=" + CHR$(34) + message + CHR$(34) + " "
6.     PRINT #1, "Set sapi=CreateObject(" + CHR$(34) + "sapi.spvoice" + CHR$(34) + ")"
7.     PRINT #1, "sapi.Speak message"
8.     CLOSE #1
9.     SHELL "wscript sound.vbs"
10. END SUB
11.  

but Fellippe said it didn't work for him, so ?
(still working for me...)

[freetrav]

This is a "hack" not really different in principle from using eSpeak, although accessing the speech assembly through VBScript does allow access to the Microsoft voices; I was hoping for a solution that didn't require 'shelling out' to a non-QB64 executable to actually handle the speech. If it comes to shelling out, I might as well just shell out to PowerShell...

[Pete]

Or, you can look into the hell that is working with Windows API calls. We used to have a working example of calling a midi file, but that somehow went to crap on Windows 10. Frankly, I'd just go with SHELL, as I'm fairly certain there is no native way to do what you are requesting in the latest release of QB64 and I don't expect much in terms of development going forward.

Oh, and if you're actually hearing Microsoft voices... see a priest!

Pete