pause in sentence that hal speaks

[lightspeed]

hello robert medeksza , i asked bill dewitt on the forum about a plug in and he said i could ask you if maybe in the next hal version you could make a <pause nms> type tag . here is what i thought it would be good for .
is their a way someone can make a plug in that would creat a space or hesitation in words at certain places when hal is speaking to give it a more human sound when talking to us . ?? (each period would represent a second to hesitate the conversation ) for instance if i placed .......... for each dot or period hal would hesitate that many seconds before finsishing saying his response ?? example i say " you like flowers ......but don't like the hay fever that you have from them and hal would say " i like flowers (and hesitate for 6 seconds ) but i dont like the hay fever that i get from them .
this is to give hal a more human like characteristic like someone pausing a little bit sometimes before finshing a sentence and coul be put in when ever we answer things etc. to hal . []

[ramccoid]

Hi lightspeed,
Doesn't your speech to text do that anyway? Punctuation causes HAL to pause for different amounts of time. A full stop about a second, a comma about half a second and a semi colon inbetween both.
So couldn't you just add a load of full stops where you want HAL to pause?

Roy.

[Bill DeWitt]

quote:Originally posted by ramccoid

Hi lightspeed,
Doesn't your speech to text do that anyway?

Multiple periods are removed in Hal, but I think the text reader might work that way.

[ramccoid]

quote:Multiple periods are removed in Hal

Yeah, I see what you mean, HAL does remove multiple punctuation. Isn't there a way to prevent HAL from doing so?

Roy.

[Bill DeWitt]

Well, a proper ellipsis might make it through, but who uses the correct form anymore . . . ?

quote:Originally posted by ramccoid
Isn't there a way to prevent HAL from doing so?

Edit the relevant portion of code. On my copy it starts at line 93 and you would only have to comment out line 96. I haven't tested it to see if it actually works.

    'Remove unnecessary punctuation
    Do
        RepeatLoop = False
        'Comment out the next line only
        'If InStr(InputString, "..") Then InputString = Replace(InputString, "..", "."): RepeatLoop = True
        If InStr(InputString, "??") Then InputString = Replace(InputString, "??", "?"): RepeatLoop = True
        If InStr(InputString, "!!") Then InputString = Replace(InputString, "!!", "!"): RepeatLoop = True
        If InStr(InputString, "!?") Then InputString = Replace(InputString, "!?", "?"): RepeatLoop = True
        If InStr(InputString, "?!") Then InputString = Replace(InputString, "?!", "?"): RepeatLoop = True
        If InStr(InputString, ",,") Then InputString = Replace(InputString, ",,", ","): RepeatLoop = True
    Loop While RepeatLoop = True

[ramccoid]

Thanks Bill I'll give it a try later on.

Roy.

[lightspeed]

it would have been nice if certain things would cause a pause for instance , hitting the space bar to leave a section in between sentences that would create a pause with a second for each hit of the space bar , don't jknow if thats possible to make it work that way by changing something or not in the script . ??[]

[ramccoid]

Somethings you can't do from writing a plugin because what it all comes down to in the end, is that the whole thing is governed by the main brain script. So if you want to do something more specific you have to alter this script to do so.
A plugin only plugs into that script so it has to run through it to work. There's nothing you can do but live with it or alter it.

Roy.

[Xodarap]

I've tried voiding the line mentioned as mentioned, but still no ...s, even when I specifically program them into Hal.