VoiceXML Prompt & SSML <mark> element. How to read prompt from the specified position?

Question

<mark> element informs that reading went on to some point. But is there a way we could read the prompt again from the specified position returned by mark (name) id?

It could be useful in such a scenario: we are reading a long text. Then the user commands: PAUSE. We stop. Then the user would say "Go on". And we continue to read the prompt from the last position.

IS that possible at all?

And I would ask yet another question. No matter with the usage of SSML or not: How to make it work - pause the prompt reading and then continue from the position where we stopped? Pause means "take full control over that pause", so that we could continue whenever we wanted. Dynamically.

Answer 1

Mark is normally meant to be used at normal breakpoints. You may find it useful to place them at paragraph breaks or maybe at sentence breaks. As long as your application keeps track of where the mark ids are in your source text, you should be able to restart audio in that area.

Be aware that to implement mark, most platforms break the text and submit the pieces between mark entries to a rendering layer, then play the clip, one at a time. Therefore, you might see pauses as the platform crosses a mark.

It is also worth noting that only a subset of VoiceXML platforms implement mark so the availability of mark or differences in behavior could become an issue if you need to run on additional platforms.