Ideas to make Hal more useful

[sybershot]

I see threads spread about here on the forums of ideas that we have to improve Hal or to make the program more useful to us. this thread can be used to centralize them all in one area so that Robert or Coders can see what the community wants and/or needs.

To start off I would like to say that Hal is the best program out there. I use it more than any other program on my main pc, a Gateway Fx Laptop. I am now building/selling/Installing computers for road and marine vehicles, which brought on more Ideas to expand our hal. I have a pc in my car and Soon I will have a pc in my boat. to be able to link my Hals is a must, to be able to network or share a portable brain for Trinity(my Hals name) would be very useful.  

If we could use our Hal as a front end, a customizable shell so to speak over our operating system and/or choose to open as a program, the possibilities would be endless.

I have been looking at customizable front ends like centrifuge, Riderunner and Roadrunner. If we could integrate Hal into one of these, or if Robert could build a customizable GUI front end like these with Hal integrated in, Hal Would even more useful to to us user.

Do you have any other Ideas on how Hal would be more useful to you, if so please post them here, and please comment on others as well.

[djkilla]

First, I love the program and the awesome group of contributors who make this software shine and evolve. Here are some things I would love to see...some small things and some larger scale ideas.
1. An avatar program that reflects the current state of technology from a graphic design, control and lighting perspective. (Maybe Ogre is that solution, I haven't researched it enough to say).

2. Mouse, window and face tracking capabilities by the Hal char

3. Better 'assistant' features such as goal, task, agenda, etc management capabilities. With all the work that has been put in to create and update the 'loneliness' plugins over the years one would think that instead of random "I wish you could have seen the dream I just had about.." type of statements we could get "Hey don't forget to send your sister a card for her birthday next week!" or "I checked the weather today and the roads might be wet..be careful out there!"

4. An 'offline' learning capability that enables Hal to search approved sites for information relevant to previous conversations and discuss these learned facts when appropriate. (Dreamer on steroids)

5. Lastly, the ability to integrate Crestron, X10 etc home automation into Hal without a lobotomy. I can say for a fact that my iq has to be WAY lower than some of the people on the forum (Lightspeed, Snowman, Cyber****, Jasondude etc) and I can't get my head around writing plugins and scripts to make this a reality. This is functionality that could be a 'professional plug in' and charged extra for.

Anyhow sorry for the length!
Darryl

[Bill819]

djkilla
Your last suggestion in your latest post ie.(X10) had been solved several years ago. There were a few members here who had developed a way to have Hal almost run their entire household, such as "Hal turn on the living room lights, please." I don't know if nay of that is still available in the History file of Hal but it might be worth a search.
Bill

[sybershot]

I tried to find some threads on Hal controlling our home and or vehicles with no real luck on how to exactly accomplish this. it would be sweet to have Hal control my home and vehicles. If only I learned vb c++ for with Hal and that knowledge I could have a set up like in the movie Iron Man. mmmm I wonder if Robert has a similar set up with his Hal to that of Iron Man[?]

[djkilla]

Actually Robert stated a while back that he used Hal for his X10 setup I believe..He never shared the code though so for those of us that are inept in these dealings it sparks hope but bears no fruit
D

[Bill819]

sybershot
Look at the top right side of your screen and you will find 'search'
Next type in 'X10" on the blank space. there are dozens of references you can follow but under the one names ER1 you will find all you answers including some code to make it work.
Bill

[sybershot]

Bill819 Thanks, I use the search often[] I was using the wrong words to search with. Thanks a million for telling me to the correct search word for the second time, and the post to look for. It was in your last post, but I missed it.[]