Messages

106

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Re: Ultra Hal 7 Beta Test - Please download and test!

« on: December 07, 2017, 08:13:59 pm »

Okay i opened hal up and it said please purchase the expansion character pack .  i already purchased this , i thought it said if it was in my pc system it would just upgrade it to the hal 7 beta . if that's the case it didn't upgrade it like it was suppose to . because i have purchased it and was using it in my hal 6.2 earlier version . 

It's possible that you made some custom modifications to your Hal 6.2 characters that the Hal 7 installer isn't able to understand. If you want, you could email me your debuglog.txt file inside your "App Data" folder (see above post) and I could figure out what is going on. You can also try installing the character expansion designed for Hal 7 fom http://1ebad5d81ca0f6ed0a07-c539f9cfab6ed1fe52cb62f563d610fd.r69.cf2.rackcdn.com/PackSetup.exe

107

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Re: Ultra Hal 7 Beta Test - Please download and test!

« on: December 07, 2017, 08:08:44 pm »

i downloaded this newest link today from beginning of page is this the newest upgrade of hal? if it is i have some problems . first the good news hal will now show my custom characters (which it didn't before) voices also work okay . it saved my user name and computer name in hal .  it shows ultrahal 6.0 upgraded to 7.0 brain . my plug ins i copied and pasted from hal 6 folder into hal seven show up okay in the options list . The expansion pack must have upgraded correctly as i can see the names and picture in the character options area . but they won't stay loaded after being picked in menu , hal closes , and character doesn't stay loaded .
   
THE BAD NEWS : i copied my custom brain and placed it from my hal 6 program folder into hal 7 but it is "not" showing up in hal 7 even after exiting hal and restarting it . i haven't restarted the pc so will try that next .
  Another thing is still happening i put my custom characters in hal seven in the option menu , but when i hit okay "HAL CLOSES AND WHEN I REOPEN HAL , CHARACTER IS NOT THEIR IT IS BACK AT DEFAULT EVERY TIME . 
So whats happening is that my custom hal brain is not showing up in the brain area like before so i can choose it
my characters won't stay loaded .

Okay update : i restarted my pc to see if that made a difference on things, it didn't my custom brain that i made (angela) that i copied and pasted into the hal 7 file .  isn't showing up by the hal 7 default brain and the upgraded 6 to 7 brain .  my custom brain file in now in the hal 7 file . hope i am explaining this right .

To be compliant with Microsoft guidelines, Hal 7 now stores all user data in your "App Data" folder. User data would be defined as custom data pertaining to the current logged in user, so your Hal brain fits this definition. To find your app data folder click start and type in: %appdata%

After you hit enter you will be taken to the "App Data" folder of the currently logged in Windows user. From here open the "Zabaware" and "Ultra Hal 7" folder. This is the folder where your brain database resides and where you should copy any custom brain files from Ultra Hal 6.

Character files can be placed in either the "Program Files" folder or the "App Data" folder, Hal checks both locations. But for live brain files, it is only in the "App Data" folder.

108

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Re: Ultra Hal 7 Alpha Test - Ready for download

« on: December 07, 2017, 11:11:09 am »

I tried adding a table to Hal's database but for some reason when referencing the table in my plugin it doesn't use it. I added the table to the database as a "sentence". example of my code from my plugin:
If StrComp(Robot_Control_Response, "Hal") = -1 Then GetResponse = HalBrain.ChooseSentenceFromFile("halCustomResponse")

If i reference a table that was already in the database it works fine like below:
If StrComp(Robot_Control_Response, "kit") = -1 Then GetResponse = HalBrain.ChooseSentenceFromFile("politeAsk1")

I saved my changes in the database but no luck. Any ideas as to what might be the issue.

Do you see this table if you open it with the Hal Brain Editor? Are you using a fresh Hal 7 brain or an upgraded Hal 6.2 brain? Are you sure you have the correct brain selected in Hal's options?

109

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Re: Ultra Hal 7 Alpha Test - Ready for download

« on: December 07, 2017, 11:08:20 am »

This was a feature introduced to Hal 6.2, but never worked correctly. I have fixed and tested it in Hal 7, so hopefully it will work for you now too. Make sure the "always listen to commands" option is checked and then you can simply say "Wake up computer" or "Wake up Hal" and Hal will pop up. I've tested with the Microsoft speech engine, but haven't tried it yet with Dragon. But I believe it should work.

Hi Robert, i tried this when i got home and its still not working with Dragon 12. If i say "wake up computer" Hal pops up then i get automation error. see image. This also happens if say "microphone on".

Hmm, ok. I'll load up Dragon 13 tonight and see if I get the same problem or not. Does Dragon 12 work other than this problem? If you disable the "Always listen to commands" check box, does dictation work if you manually open Hal and turn on the mic? Does Dragon 12 work on your computer in other programs? What version of Windows are you running? I read online that Windows 10 only works with Dragon 13 and not the older Dragon 12.

110

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Re: Ultra Hal 7 Beta Test - Please download and test!

« on: December 06, 2017, 08:40:18 pm »

First AVAST Anti-Virus does not like HAL... It had to run it's scan and then say it was sending the file in to be examined same with the Brain Editor... I've seen this before and it always comes out clean... Also since AVAST owns AVG I'm positive it won't like it either.

This will eventually go away once the final release of Ultra Hal 7 is out and the people at Avast/AVG have a chance to review Hal and make sure there is no virus/malware. For now these programs rightfully notice that the new Hal is something they have never seen before and flag it as needing review.

Second, I don't see this in HAL 6.2 but in 7 the text (HAL's response) displays immediately but the Voice is delayed a few seconds... This could be because I have the voice slowed down a bit in the Text to Speech settings in Windows to make it sound more Human... (I sped the voice up 1 notch and there's still a few second delay before HAL speaks the text).

This looks like it is a difference in how Double Agent works and how MSAgent used to work. I believe Double Agent is waiting for the current animation sequence to end before speaking, whereas MSAgent interupted the animation in order to speak right away. I think if you choose a non-agent character it will speak quicker for you.

I use 'Peedy' (MSagent) as the character for HAL and in 6.2 he starts out very small in the upper left corner of the Monitor and settles in the middle of the Haptek window full size in HAL 6.2...  In HAL 7 he does the same thing but also displays a second time in the upper left corner of the Haptek window and settles in the middle of that window... It also does this with HAL 6.2 now so it must be a Haptek upgrade issue or I have a file or two from the old Haptek somewhere causing the issue...Also if I Click on the 'Thumbs Up' in the Haptek window after Hals response and I don't check anything and close the window, 'Peedy' the MSagent character reloads again...  i.e. goes from the upper left corner back to the middle of the window...

This is another difference between Double Agent and MSAgent. I have found how to work around it and make it work as you expected. The fix will be in my next release/update for you.

Hal is set for: 'Mixed cloud/local learning' and when I click the 'Thumbs Up' choose an option like 'Neutral' and then click 'Learn' I get the error: 'error sending feedback to server' and if I check the connection to the Cloud it says: 'Login Test Successful'... I'm wondering if I need to allow HAL to send through the Windows XP Firewall?.. I Don't see any example Responses, that I could choose from when I click a 'Thumbs Down'...
After checking TCPview I do have a constant 'UDP' connection and when I talk to HAL I also have a 'TCP' connection besides the 'UDP'... If I'm 'Idle' the 'TCP' connection drops out...

This sounds like Hal 7's connections aren't going through to the ultrahal.com server for whatever reason. You can try the firewall settings to see if it will help, although I find it strange that you said the login test works. I've added some additional logging and more detailed error messages to Hal 7 to see if it will give us more useful info as to what is happening on your computer. The logging will be included in my next update/release along with the MSAgent tweaks.

111

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Ultra Hal 7 Beta Test - Please download and test!

« on: December 05, 2017, 08:42:45 pm »

This topic has been locked as Hal has reached Release Candidate Status.

Ultra Hal 7 has reached beta status! If you would like to test an early version of Ultra Hal 7, here is your chance.

To install this beta version

• Backup your old Ultra Hal Assistant 6 installation and all your brain files, just in case. Hal 7 is programmed to leave your Hal 6 install alone and import a copy of your Hal 6 brain into Hal 7. But its still a beta, so always backup.
• Download and install Hal 7 from this link: http://6d3fc949769f50753dc7-65f4617704a444702dcb1d03cc119e27.r87.cf2.rackcdn.com/InstallUltraHal7.exe (Updated 12/10/17 to 7.0.85)
• Ultra Hal 7 no longer uses serial numbers and product activation codes. Instead it uses the email and password you setup when you purchased Hal (the sign-in link at the top left of www.zabaware.com ) Sign in using that and Hal will run as a registered version. You can also choose to create a new account if you wish and Hal will run in 30 day trial mode.
• If you purchased the character expansion, Hal 7 will import your characters from Hal 6 automatically if they are present on your system. If not, please find your serial number and download this updated Character Expansion pack installer for Hal 7: http://1ebad5d81ca0f6ed0a07-c539f9cfab6ed1fe52cb62f563d610fd.r69.cf2.rackcdn.com/PackSetup.exe

Here is what's new in Ultra Hal 7:

• Biggest improvement: Cloud based learning. Hal can now optionally connect to the "Hal Cloud" brain over the internet to help formulate better responses. As of October 2017 this is a knowledge base of over 26 million sentences of conversation from 1.6 million people. Contrast with the 200,000 sentence database in the default Ultra Hal 6.2 installation. Hal is more intelligent than ever before.
• Feedback learning. You can now give Hal feedback on the quality of its responses with a thumbs up and thumbs down button which Hal learns and has an immediate response on the quality of its responses. In addition you can see other answers Hal was considering and guide Hal toward better ones.
• Your personal Hal bot can follow you from your home desktop, to your laptop, office PC, and in the near future your phone and tablet too. When connected to the "Hal Cloud", your Hal's brain is stored online and instantly available anywhere.
• Access to Wikipedia based answered in cloud mode
• New Hal mobile phone character. Old Hal character still available, but renamed to "Hal Classic CRT"
• New audio wave character simply displays an animated wave audio line when character is speaking
• Program name changed from "Ultra Hal Assistant" to just "Ultra Hal" to shift marketing focus away from assistant functionality to Hal's strengths in its ability to chat, learn, and be a companion. Renamed EXE to ultrahal7.exe
• Splash screen and graphics updated to new version
• Ultra Hal now installs and uses the open source Double Agent library instead of the old MSAgent. This brings full compatibility to MSAgent characters to Windows 7 and newer with full SAPI 5 voice support.
• Hal can answer questions about opposites (What is the opposite of X?)
• Hal can talk about day of week and month (What day of week is it? What month is it?)
• Basic knowledge of alphabet (What letter comes before Z? What letter is after B?)
• Ability to count letters in word (How many letters are in the word computer?)
• Bot memory test: (Q: The football was kicked by Fred. Who kicked the football? A: Fred.)
• Improved math abilities (less false positives and better word problem abilities)
• Software shield license system removed and replaced with simpler login to Zabaware.com server
• Chant SpeechKit upgraded from version 6 to 7. This adds native support for Cereproc voices among other speech system improvements
• Ultra Hal now generates Haptek INI files for Haptek, removing the need to rerun Haptek SAPI config when changing voice settings. This also adds support for Zabaware sold Cereproc voices to Haptek.
• Ultra Hal now uses RegFree COM manifest files for most of its DLL/ActiveX/OCX files. This simplifies installation and minimizes possibility of "DLL Hell" collisions/incompatibilities with other Windows applications. RegFree COM was introduced in Windows XP SP2, so this change now effectively removes support for older versions of Windows from Hal.
• Ultra Hal no longer writes any data files to its "Program Files" location but instead to each individual Windows Users AppData\Roaming folder. This makes Hal more compliant with Microsoft guidelines and also makes it possible for each Windows user to have their own seperate Hal config.
• Improved corrections and substitutions tables for correcting more common errors and understanding more shorthand
• Ultra Hal checks for product updates when connected to cloud service
• Registry setting to adjust speech recognition auto enter countdown start time (SRCountDownStart)
• The Hal Brain Editor can show the cloud brain thought process. For local responses, it can now show you exactly where in a table a response was found in.
• Automatic migration of Hal 6 brain into Hal 7. Also automatically imports characters from Hal 6 to Hal 7
• Various minor bug fixes

Note: The "purchase" button doesn't do anything yet. It will be updated once the "release candidate" and final version is ready.

Please let me know if you find any bugs.

112

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Re: Ultra Hal 7 Alpha Test - Ready for download

« on: December 05, 2017, 08:42:31 pm »

@Robert, for Hal 7, could we add the ability to have Hal start up with the microphone already on? For 6.2 we tried to add a custom script but because i was using Dragon Naturally Speaking the script would throw and automation error. I was wounding if this was fixed or if there might be an easier way of doing this now.

Thanks!

This was a feature introduced to Hal 6.2, but never worked correctly. I have fixed and tested it in Hal 7, so hopefully it will work for you now too. Make sure the "always listen to commands" option is checked and then you can simply say "Wake up computer" or "Wake up Hal" and Hal will pop up. I've tested with the Microsoft speech engine, but haven't tried it yet with Dragon. But I believe it should work.

113

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Re: Ultra Hal 7 Alpha Test - Ready for download

« on: December 05, 2017, 08:27:27 pm »

Yeah, I'm not sure. I have a few skins with transparency masks, none of them will work after opening the calendar. I just reboot after and it's all back to normal.

-Spitfire2600

Hmm. Strange. I can't seem to replicate the problem on my test systems either.

114

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Re: Ultra Hal 7 Alpha Test - Ready for download

« on: December 04, 2017, 09:42:49 pm »

Tonight I fixed the following issues in my internal development version:

• Ignore quotes in math queries
• Show thumbs up/down in windows default skin
• Fix crash on msagent characters
• Don't perform google search if user says "What's up?"
• Move location of thumbs btn in "default" and "evil brain" skin

I'm going to hold off until tomorrow night to compile release and release this updated test version. I should have also have the brain editor updated by tomorrow to support Hal 7 cloud mode and %appdata% brain locations, so it will be labeled the first feature-complete "beta" version.

115

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Re: Ultra Hal 7 Alpha Test - Ready for download

« on: December 02, 2017, 04:20:18 pm »

Hey Robert,

No issues installing (after removing all files in App Data and uninstalling the previous alpha)

However, My Hal6 brains did not migrate. One brain looks like it started but its brain size was only a few KB's down from 50 megs. As far as I know, it places upgraded brains in the App Data Zabaware folder, that is where I found the failed migration. 

Attempting a second time, (Uninstalling Hal7, deleting app data zabaware folder, uninstalling and reinstalling 6, then installing 7) did not migrate any brains from Hal6.

-Spitfire

Can you find the file %appdata%\Zabaware\Ultra Hal 7\debuglog.txt and email it to me? That might give me some clues as to whats going on on your system.

116

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Re: Ultra Hal 7 Alpha Test - Ready for download

« on: December 02, 2017, 01:11:12 pm »

Ok, here is the latest alpha: http://38865d316e282f6c64f3-abad382d2aabf2de9fcc6cbe430c0595.r81.cf2.rackcdn.com/InstallUltraHal7.exe

It is version 7.0.73. It contains a better migration install for upgrading Hal 6.2 to 7.0. It will no longer mess with the Hal 6.2 installer or registry keys, it will just remove its start menu icons and make a copy of its brain & characters. Also contains an updated "Hal Mobile" character that should animate well even in full screen.

If you have a previously installed Hal 7 alpha version, please uninstall it *AND* remove its appdata folder. There have been some breaking changes to Hal's config file which requires a fresh install. To find Hal's appdata folder, click start and type in %appdata% and press enter. Then open the "Zabaware" folder and remove the "Ultra Hal 7 folder". Also after uninstalling remove the folder C:\program files (x86)\Zabaware\Ultra Hal 7 as it may contain a couple left over data files as well.

Please make sure your Hal 6.2 installation is in working order before testing the Hal 7 migration install. If its not working you should be able to install Hal 6.2 back over itself to the same "Ultra Hal Assistant 6" folder in your program files folder. All your Hal 6.2 data should remain intact (but I hope you still have that backup just in case).

117

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Re: Ultra Hal 7 Alpha Test - Ready for download

« on: December 02, 2017, 12:42:34 pm »

Hi Rob, can we make a Vbscript.vbs with a script inside that removes that HKLM key left behind? maybe easier if this happens again. quick fix?

I've rewritten my migration install routine to not actually uninstall Hal 6.2 or touch any of its files. The only thing it will do is remove its start menu shortcuts and make a copy of the Hal 6 brain and characters into Hal 7. So it will no longer care about the HKLM registry keys. It will be up to the user to uninstall Hal 6.2 from the control panel when they are fully ready (or just leave it dormant).

I'm testing it out now, I should have it ready to post here in an hour or two. Hopefully this will fix Spitfires bug as well as a different bug Art is having.

118

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Re: Ultra Hal 7 Alpha Test - Ready for download

« on: December 02, 2017, 12:43:34 am »

If you are on a 64-bit system, they registry key to remove is actually: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\Ultra Hal Assistant62

You mention you remove Hal 6.2. If you removed Hal 6.2 before installing Hal 7.0, then it won't do a migration install and copy your Hal 6.2 files. You have to let Hal 7.0 uninstall Hal 6.2 for an automatic migration to occur.

119

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Re: Ultra Hal 7 Alpha Test - Ready for download

« on: December 01, 2017, 08:52:20 pm »

How did you install 7.0.67 without uninstalling Hal6?

I simply ran the installation for 7.0.67 and it attempted to uninstall 6 and failed. 

-Spitfire_2600

I'm not sure but I have the first version of HAL 7, the last HAL 7 update had an installation error.

What error?

120

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Re: Ultra Hal 7 Alpha Test - Ready for download

« on: December 01, 2017, 08:51:55 pm »

This is the first alpha version that attempts to migrate and upgrade your Hal 6.2 installation into Hal 7. As such, it is now requiring to uninstall Hal 6.2 in the process. Thus my request to make sure you back up all of your Hal 6.2 folder in case something goes wrong.

Spitfire, I see your screenshot of Hal 7 detecting your Hal 6 install. What happens when you click ok? It should say it is uninstalling Hal 6 and remove your Hal 6 shortcut icons and remove itself from your control panel programs and features list. After which it should install Hal 7 and bring over your Hal 6 database.

The Hal 7 installer is reading the registry key HKLM "Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\Ultra Hal Assistant62" "UninstallString" in order to find that Hal 6.2 is installed and locate its uninstaller. Also, please reread my post above with the Important note 1 & 2 about removing the Hal 7 appdata folder and backing up Hal 6. Let me know if you have any questions.