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526

Ultra Hal Assistant File Sharing Area / New Script: Hal learns user's nicknames.

« on: November 14, 2003, 08:00:11 pm »

Hi All,
You can download some new script hot off the design board. Just download the attached file and cut and paste the script into file hal5.uhp file between the "POST PROCESS: SAVE HAL'S RESPONSE" and "POST PROCESS: PRESERVE ALL VARIABLES". This is near the bottom of the hal5.uhp file. No other mod's are needed. As usual always back up your original hal5.uhp file!

Now start up Hal and type: Hal nickname Buzz Bigfoot.
Hal responds: USERNAME! I'll remember your nickname Buzz Bigfoot.

Of course, if your Hal is named Fred then you would type: Fred nickname Buzz Bigfoot. And "USERNAME" is just your current default name. Add as many nicknames as you like.

Short description of what it does...
x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x==vonsmith==x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x
PROCESS: HAL CALLS USER BY NICKNAME
This is an entirely new function written by =vonsmith= , version 11-14-03a.

This function lets the user specify one or more nicknames that the user wishes to be called by Hal. The nicknames are stored in a user specific self generated file called <UserName>UserNickname.brn. If more than one nickname is specified then Hal will randomly choose one of the nicknames from the <UserName>UserNickname.brn file. If a nickname is specified then the default Hal Assistant username will no longer be used when Hal speaks to the user, however the default username is still used for assigning user filenames and all other normal Hal functions. If the user wants to be called by his/her default Hal Assistant username then just add it as a nickname. If the user prefers to be called one nickname more often than another then just add that nickname multiple times. The more times the user adds a nickname the more likely that nickname will be used. The function does not affect any other Hal brain operations or files. To get rid of the nicknames delete the <UserName>UserNickname.brn file.
x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x==vonsmith==x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x

Have fun with this script and post comments/suggestions here on the forum. I wonder what Hal's going to call me next, hmm... Master, Oh Wonderous One, Supreme Leader or  [^]

= vonsmith =


Download Attachment: Hal_Calls_User_By_Nickname,v11-14-03a.txt
3.23 KB

527

Programming using the Ultra Hal Brain Editor / Help with HalBrain.SearchPattern(...) function

« on: November 13, 2003, 06:43:21 pm »

Don,
As I understand it you have to use double quotes to quote a quotation mark.

If you do it this way...

text = ""word""
GetResponse = text  --> doesn't print "word" and you will get an error.

Instead...

text = """word"""
GetResponse = text  --> does print "word"

What I'm trying to do is to have HalBrain.SearchPattern(...) work with a string variable and not just a string. This way many various search patterns can be passed to the search function without having a instance of HalBrain.SearchPattern(...) on every line. If I wanted to search 50 patterns it would take 50 lines to do it. If I select string variables from an array of 50 string variables I can just use a For,Next loop and one instance of the HalBrain.SearchPattern(...) function.

Example:

Dim PatternArray
'Initialize array.
PatternArray = Array("""* DEFINITION OF *""","""* WHAT'S ""","""* HOW """)
For I = 0 to 2
   TextString = HalBrain.SearchPattern(UserSentence, PatternArray, 1)
Next


Thanks for the input. I guess I should ask Robert M. if he would publish some info on the various Hal functions.

= vonsmith =

528

Programming using the Ultra Hal Brain Editor / Help with HalBrain.SearchPattern(...) function

« on: November 12, 2003, 05:53:41 pm »

I'm trying to figure out the syntax of the HalBrain.SearchPattern(...) function.

This works:
Dim Phrase
Phrase = HalBrain.SearchPattern(UserSentence, "* DEFINITION OF *", 2)

This doesn't:
Dim TextString, Phrase
TextString = """* DEFINITION OF *"""
Phrase = HalBrain.SearchPattern(UserSentence, TextString, 2)

Am I doing something wrong or doesn't the HalBrain.SearchPattern(...) function accept variables for the string argument?

Robert Medeksza, Don, onthecuttingedge2005, anyone? Help please.

Thanks,

= vonsmith =

[Download Attachment:]

529

Ultra Hal Assistant File Sharing Area / Hal can Capitalize much better now.

« on: November 11, 2003, 02:51:44 pm »

Here is the newest version of the "PROCESS: REVERSE CERTAIN CONTRACTIONS AND OTHER SUBSTITUTIONS" replacement script. The first version had an intermittent bug which I have corrected.

Just download the file and cut & paste into the hal5.uhp file as indicated. See my prior email for details about the script.

Comments, questions, or whatever are welcome.

= vonsmith =


Download Attachment: REV_CONTRACTIONS_AND_SUBSTITUTIONS,11-10-03a.txt
7.94 KB

[Download Attachment:]

530

Ultra Hal Assistant File Sharing Area / New Script: Brit to US and spelling correction.

« on: November 11, 2003, 02:39:22 pm »

I let a British friend of mine talk to Hal for a while via keyboard. I realized quickly that Brit's (God bless them all) don't spell some words like Americans. Hal's responses, especially deductive reasoning responses, weren't as good as I hoped. So I set out to write some new script for preprocessing the user's input to convert British words to American. While I was at it I noticed some American words have multiple spellings and some words are frequently misspelled, (i.e., mispelled).

My new script corrects many of the above issues by converting Brit to US and standardizing the spelling of several American words. The script should correct about 80% of the most common word problems. Adding this script to the hal5.uhp file won't make Hal a genius, but it will give him an edge on improved responses. If this script is working you won't notice anything new, but some poor responses will be avoided.

Just download the files below and cut and paste the script between the "PROCESS: CONTROL TOPICFOCUS" and "PROCESS: PRESERVE ORIGINAL SENTENCE" functions near the top of the hal5.uhp file. Copy the new file, Xstandardizespelling.brn, to the DefBrain directory. Remember to always back up your original files before adding new script.

'==========================================
This script excerpt might give you idea of what words it corrects.
'
'The Xstandardizespelling.brn file format is:
' "WORD_TO_DETECT","WORD_TO_DETECT,REPLACEMENT_WORD"
'
'Examples:
' " AGEING"," AGEING, AGING"
' "AEROPLANE","AEROPLANE,AIRPLANE"
' "ALUMINIUM","ALUMINIUM,ALUMINUM"
' " AXE "," AXE , AX "
' "CATALOGUE","CATALOGUE,CATALOG"
' " CENTRE"," CENTRE, CENTER"
' "CIGARET ","CIGARET ,CIGARETTE "
' "CIGARETS ","CIGARETS ,CIGARETTES "
' " DISC "," DISC , DISK "
' " DISCS "," DISCS , DISKS "
'==========================================

Have fun and report back with comments; good or bad.

= vonsmith =


These files haven't changed since the original posting and are still the latest as of 11/17/03...

Download Attachment: Standardize_Word_Spellings_11-11-03b.txt
4.78 KB

Download Attachment: Xstandardizespelling.brn
5.22 KB

531

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Agent Characters appear behind UltraHal 5

« on: November 10, 2003, 11:43:23 am »

UPDATED INFO, MINOR BUGS?

#1 Using Hal v.5.0.55 everything works fine on my laptop until it goes into sleep mode. When I leave sleep mode the Haptek character isn't visible although the beach background is. If I click and drag the mouse in the character window I can see a vestige of the Haptek character rotating/moving with the mouse. Restarting Hal cures the problem.

#2 When I go into Hal's menu and click on the Transparency setting it doesn't seem to work on my laptop. That's okay, but if I go back to the menu a second time the transparency menu selection is no longer there.

Just my 2 cents worth...

= vonsmith =

532

Ultra Hal 7.0 / OUTLOOK 2003 PROBLEMS

« on: November 08, 2003, 06:54:48 pm »

I haven't used Hal in conjunction with email yet. I'm sorry I can't help with the POP3 issue. Perhaps someone else can?

Good luck,

= vonsmith =

533

Ultra Hal 7.0 / OUTLOOK 2003 PROBLEMS

« on: November 07, 2003, 06:44:32 pm »

Crystal2003,
When you tell Hal to open something he interprets the program name very literally from *his* perspective. For instance, if you say, "Hal open Word", he might open Wordpad instead of Word for Windows. The reason for this is apparent when you use Notepad to open the shortcut.dat file (located in Hal's home directory). This file contains the program names followed by their execution path.

When you ask Hal to open a program he will search down the list of programs in the shortcut.dat file until the first match he sees. In the case of Wordpad, he saw the word "Word" in "Wordpad". Word for Windows was listed as "Microsoft Word" on the line just following the Wordpad entry. But if I typed, "Hal open Microsoft Word", he would open Word for Windows correctly since the phrase "Microsoft Word" doesn't match "Wordpad".

In your case the Outlook entry in the shortcut.dat file probably says "Outlook Express", but Hal of course just looks for the first occurence of the word "Outlook". Use Notepad to open the shortcut.dat file and see how Outlook 2003 is listed. You should be able to type that name exactly and have Hal open it for you. A better solution would to be cut the Outlook 2003 entry (2 lines) and paste it at the top of the shortcut.datfile. Then when you say, "Hal open Outlook", the first occurence he sees will be the correct one.

Forgive me for being a bit wordy. I hope this helps.

= vonsmith =

534

Programming using the Ultra Hal Brain Editor / Help with dictionary in Hal 5, please

« on: November 06, 2003, 11:35:03 am »

joe90 / larry,
Just for clarification the learn from text mode does not incorporate the text into any dictionary. The input is stored in the <username>user_strings.brn and <username>usersent.brn files. The script in the hal5.uhp file limits these file sizes to 2MB no matter how many text files you feed in.

Hal is not very intelligent about reading text files. The punctuation, notations, headings, page numbers all get mixed into sort of a data soup and stored into these files. If you look in these files you'll see Hal's interpretation and understand why logical responses based on the text file inputs are difficult at best. I applaud Larry's effort to make a VB program to sort it all out.

As it stands right now Hal's learn from text mode is marginal. Proper pre-processing of the text files to "clean" them up would help a lot. A dedicated VB program would be the way to go. I believe changing the limit on file size is as easy as editing the hal5.uhp file to change the 2000000 numbers to 4000000 or larger. You'll see these numbers under the "POST PROCESS: LIMIT FILE SIZE" in the hal5.uhp file. The larger file sizes *may* start to impact performance speed on slower computers.

That's my 2 cents...

= vonsmith =

535

Programming using the Ultra Hal Brain Editor / More on Hal's age

« on: November 06, 2003, 10:31:54 am »

There have been various postings about how additional script can allow Hal to tell time periods. onthecuttingedge2005 published the AgeDetect script back in September. As I recall the script just responds to questions about Hal's birthday. As for calculating years, months, weeks, days since his birthday that is another matter. I imagine there are equations and/or data base files on the Internet that show how to calculate just that. You would have to add the equation to the script and add script to detect what the user is asking for; years, months, days, etc.

It wouldn't take too much code. Is there a reason for Hal to figure this out for the user? If someone asked me how many days since I was born I would be stumped for an answer. However adding a Hal function that allows Hal to answer user inquiries about how many days 'til Xmas or how many days left in this month, or how many working days 'til retirement would be kinda' cool.

= vonsmith =

536

Programming using the Ultra Hal Brain Editor / More on Hal's age

« on: November 05, 2003, 02:56:27 pm »

By default I think Hal says he is 8 years old when asked. I used inputs to the deductive reasoning routine to change that to 20 years old.

Example:
User: If how old are you, then you are 20 years old.
Hal: I see the relationship. Here and now, I am 20 years old!

then...

User: How old are you?
Hal: I am 20 years old.

Other attributes can be added similarly. You will have to add a few variations since Hal will be looking for an exactly worded question to respond to from the deductive.brn file.

A dedicated function like the one you are suggesting would be a plus. It would require a moderate bit of script. This and other Hal attributes could reside in a user created Hal_attributes.brn and accessed by the script.

Have fun.

= vonsmith =

537

Programming using the Ultra Hal Brain Editor / Having fun wiith Hal

« on: November 04, 2003, 06:34:02 pm »

Bill819,
I like your enthusiasm. I hope it's infectious. I too imagine Hal with a much more complex personality. Time limitations have mostly restricted me to focusing on Hal's language interpretation capabilities and improved responses. My long term goal is to expand Hal's personality and emotional abilities. I also want to make Hal more interactive with the user.

Keep us posted on your robot's progress.

= vonsmith =

538

Programming using the Ultra Hal Brain Editor / vonsmith & onthecuttingedge

« on: November 04, 2003, 06:18:17 pm »

Psych,
All of the scripts I have produced are intended to be 100% backward compatible with the default Hal v5.0 script. In general my scripts expand on Hal's current capabilities and add new functionality. As a precaution I always suggest to users to back up the original files before installing any new script.

Based on postings on this forum I am not aware of any problems with the scripts I have produced. I encourage all forum participants to post comments on my or anyone else's scripts. I gladly accept both criticism or kudos. That's how I can learn to improve. I hope everyone is having as much fun modifying Hal as I am.

I agree with onthecuttingedge2005 about Robert Medeksza. He is a fine programmer. It is to his credit that he makes it possible for us to modify his work. Don has contributed some great stuff. I expect to see more wonders coming out of this forum.

Thanks for the question.

= vonsmith =

539

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Tried AT&T Natural Voices with Hal v5.0 yet?

« on: November 02, 2003, 12:24:42 pm »

Pysch,
Thanks for the info and the kudos. I guess I should start shopping AT&T voices soon. Robert M. mentioned in an earlier post that Zabaware would be selling AT&T voices. I'll wait patiently to see if that comes to fruition.

= vonsmith =

540

Programming using the Ultra Hal Brain Editor / v5.0 is nice, but Wordnet responses are strange.

« on: November 01, 2003, 01:47:18 pm »

Larry,
Interesting thought. The usefulness of Wordnet may lie in broadening the search for related responses by modifying the search string, not in just generating a response that uses some related words out of context. I was thinking similarly about using Wordnet to indicate which user topic brn's should be searched for a response. Modifying the search string as you imply and searching related user topic brn files may lead to improved responses. Thanks for sharing the concept.

= vonsmith =