ToolBox is a voice driven command line interface which gives Alexa skill developers access to useful data and information.
Optional feature: Alexa skill developers can use ToolBox to ask for metrics / usage information regarding their productive skills. This requires account linking the skill to your developer account. This step is optional. Other features of this skill can be used without account linking.
More and more features will be added to the skill soon. Suggestions and feedback are welcome!
More information about this skill can be found on the skill homepage at: https://applicate.de/alexa-skill-toolbox-en/index.html
Basic Voice commands
- Start the skill: "Alexa, open ToolBox"
- Ask for a command list: "Alexa, Help"
- Ask for current APL version support: "Alexa, show APL version"
- Ask for viewport properties (screen resolution, supported video codecs, dpi, shape, canRotate etc.) of your current device: "Alexa, show viewport properties"
- Request device ID: "Alexa, show device id"
For more information regarding the internal device id see: https://developer.amazon.com/en-US/docs/alexa/custom-skills/device-address-api.html#get-the-api-access-token-and-device-id
- Ask for environment parameters: "Alexa, show environment parameters"
- Let Alexa repeat an utterance: "Alexa, repeat 'Do it again Sam'"
Experiment with slot types and utterances
"Alexa, test slot type AMAZON Search Query" (try for example '20 degrees Celsius') '20 degrees Celsius' ==> '20°C'
"Alexa, test slot type AMAZON Date" (try for example 'yesterday') 'yesterday' ==> '2021-04-08' (or something similar)
"Alexa, test slot type AMAZON Time" (try for example 'noon') 'noon' ==> '12:00'
"Alexa, test slot type AMAZON Duration" (try for example 'eight hours') 'eight hours' ==> 'PT8H'
A lot of APL templates work fine as a standalone solution but still need a skill environment to launch on a real world device. Using the following technique the skill ToolBox offers a list of preregistered APL skill templates which can then be loaded by voice command.
- List available APL templates: "Alexa, list available APL templates"
- Load and execute a specific APL template: "Alexa, load template 'Pixel Tester'"
Access metrics information for your production skills (optional, account linking required)
- List your production skills: "Alexa, show my skills"
You will see a list with all your skills running in production. Skills updated latest will be shown close to the command line. Older skills may turn out to 'appear' on a previous screen in case you have a lot of skills running. Every skill has its own number assigned to it. This number is the key for the following commands.
- Show access information for today: "Alexa, skill number 1 for today"
- Show access information for yesterday: "Alexa, skill number 1 for yesterday"
- Show access information for yesterday: ('yesterday' is default): "Alexa, skill number 1"
- Show access information for last week: "Alexa, skill number 1 for last week"
Within the concept of a command shell we naturally expect some concepts to work which ToolBox makes available via voice:
- The user may navigate throughout the history buffer to see older or newer results: "Alexa, page up" "Alexa, control P"
"Alexa, page down" "Alexa, control N"
- Delete history buffer: "Alexa, reset" "Alexa, control L"
- Increase font size: "Alexa, increase font size" "Alexa, control plus"
- Decrease font size: "Alexa, decrease font size" "Alexa, control minus"
- Switching layout schemes "Alexa, switch layout"
Using ToolBox on devices without a screen
ToolBox is intended to be used on a screen based device (including a Fire TV) but it does its best to also work on headless devices where it makes sense.
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