How to improve tts script with variable

Configuration
#1

I want to make a script which I can call from automations, to call the tts service. The reason I need this, I’ll have conditions etc to change which speakers to use. Eg now I have a test toggle, it only beeps 1 speaker instead of all.
Also I want to do other things - eg set volume to play text, then restore old volume. Because tts is too soft somehow.

alias: Announce
sequence:
  - if:
      - condition: state
        entity_id: input_boolean.test_mode
        state: "on"
    then:
      - service: tts.google_cloud_say
        data:
          entity_id: media_player.bedroom_speaker
          message: "{{ message }}"
      - stop: ""
    else:
      - service: tts.google_cloud_say
        data:
          entity_id: media_player.all_speakers
          message: "{{ message }}"
mode: queued

It works. I call it with

service: script.announce
data:
  message: hello.

But it doesn’t really support the gui. Is there a way to change this so I can call service, and it pops up a place to type in the message, and I don’t have to remember to start with "message: " each time?

#2

Use script fields.

    alias: Announce
    description: "Play specified message as TTS"
    fields:
      message:
        name: Message 
        description: "The message you want to play"
        selector:
          text:
    mode: queued
    sequence:
      ... the rest of your script...

Here’s the documentation for the Text Selector.

#3

Thanks that works a treat.

I tried to add variables, but I’m not sure what’s wrong:

Defined up top

...
fields:
  ...
variables:
  entities: null
sequence:
...

then I set them

sequence:
  - if:
      - condition: state
        entity_id: input_boolean.test_mode
        state: "on"
    then:
      - entities: media_player.office_speaker
    else:
      - entities: >-
            media_player.office_speaker, media_player.living_room_group

etc a few more times

then call at end

  - service: tts.google_cloud_say
    data:
      entity_id: "{{ entities }}"
    message: <speak><prosody volume="+60dB">"{{ message }}"</prosody></speak>

I got “Message malformed: Unable to determine action @ data[‘sequence’][0][‘then’][0]”

I’m really finding this yaml difficult to read.

Which part is wrong?

#4

You’re welcome!

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I don’t know what you read in the variables documentation that led you to believe you can define a variable like that but you can’t.

This is the correct format. However it still won’t work the way you want because of the scope of variables.

      - variables:
           entities: media_player.office_speaker

What are all the conditions that will determine which media_players to use? It may be possible to use a template instead of if-then-else.

#5

Well I couldn’t see anything in Script Syntax - Home Assistant about how to set the variable.

I thought I could scope it up top before sequence and it would be visible to all below it?

I don’t have all the rules yet but basically

if (toggle1 == on)
  entities = speaker1
elif (toggle2 == on)
  entities = speaker3, speaker5
...<x many>

set tts params
call tts(entities)

I don’t see how to set a variable at all. Otherwise I have the dumb way

if (toggle1 == on)
  set tts params
  call tts(speaker1)
elif (toggle2 == on)
  set tts params
  call tts(speaker3, speaker5)

set tts params
call tts(entities)

which is ugly because I may have a few lines to setup tts.

#6

You can implement that directly within the service call using a template.

sequence:
  - service: tts.google_cloud_say
    target:
      entity_id: >
        {% if is_state('input_boolean.toggle1', 'on') %}
          media_player.speaker1
        {% elif is_state('input_boolean.toggle2', 'on') %}
          media_player.speaker3, media_player.speaker5
        {% endif %}
    data:
      message: '<speak><prosody volume="+60dB">"{{ message }}"</prosody></speak>'

Having said that, the template’s logic should be improved (at least a final else) because if both input_booleans are off it will report nothing and that’s not a valid value for entity_id (resulting in a runtime error).