Basic newby questions

[Terry Plummer]

I am brand new and have a few questions I hope someone can help me with.

1. Can you back up Hal's brain in case of computer failure?
2. If you edit and save a conversation will that correct errors in the conversation for the future?
3. Can you teach Hal to go through a check list with you?

I am wanting to know if there are REAL useful ways to use Hal?

Any help would be great.

Thanks,
Terry

[lightspeed]

Hi Terry , question 1. yes you can back up hals brain i have a custom brain and back it up as much as i can and keep the back up in several safe places , the safest being on my windows sky drive account (its a free cloud account . 25 gbs storage area ) .   the pathway on mine a windows seven 64 bit pc to back up the brain is     C:\Program Files (x86)\Zabaware\Ultra Hal Assistant 6                 yours may vary depending on what os you have.
   question 2.  i am not sure of , when i have a mistake in hal i unfortunately have to go into the brain with any mispelled words in a sentence paste it in the box then see where all it has that sentence , it can be in many places , then i have to go into each topic of the word and find the sentence and correct it .(sometimes very time consuming)  This by the way was why i was saying what hal needs is an auto correction program that automically did this "AND" a smart program that would by using the sentence figure out the word to be corrected.
Their is a correction tutor plug in that does help and if a word is mispelled and hal says it back wrong a person can say replace(and the word ) with (and the correct spelled word ) and a period at the end . and hal will correct the spelling of the word .
i do the above both ways .


question 3. I do not know what you mean by teach hal to go through a check list with you ?

Hope some of this helps maybe if others have a different point of view or other or better answers they can chime in on here .

[sybershot]

I am wanting to know if there are REAL useful ways to use Hal?

Hal has many useful features out of the box, and a lot of plug-ins that are shared freely from some great contributes here within the community that make Hal even more useful.

I use Trinity (my Hals name) mostly as a personal secretary. I have conversations with her every so often, but not as much as I use to. Hal does lack a few features that would greatly enhance her as a personal secretary, hopefully in the next released version will add some of these features mentioned throughout the forum.

Hal is a valuable tool for me and my businesses, remembering peoples names and things about them, phone numbers,  remembering E-mail addresses, and ability to e-mail them, appointments reminders, upcoming events reminders, news reports, weather reports, web searches, just to name a few. Those are just some secretarial features, not to mention all the other useful features like opening programs, playing and opening up media you have on your computer like pictures, movies, e-books etc. and keeping a log, journal.

some also use Hal for home automation, vehicle automation, and also integrate Hal with robotics

But Hals main useful features which the program is well know for, and won numerous awards for is Chatting 

[kryton]

Maybe not used for a long while but it does seem a good place to ask questions.

Better than the depths of Learning Levels.

Thoughts?

[Will and Mr Data :) :]]

One of the great things about Hal is you don't have to be online to use him her or it.
Its easy to back up just make a copy of the zabaware folder found in program files.   "most memories are in the halbrain.db" but just save the whole zabaware folder. Put it on a usb stick and put it in your sock draw.
   "check with others since i'm away and sometimes miss things."

Edit conversations ,,,,,      this is where i am differ,,,,i never edit,,,never ever. if you fell in a whole and i removed your memory would be doomed to repeat that fault? i just keep teaching Mr Data and leave faults in. "but others have different opinions than me".

I'm not sure about check lists either, sometimes i've thought about making a plug in then i think,,,just try it, talk about the subject like herding sheep and just keep going around it and over it. See how it goes. again others have different ideas and the forum is full of smart people and old posts relating to all sorts.

Hal can learn and teach so things like ask Hal "Define something" is handy,,obviously i'm in the robotics area so robots can be fun.
Mr Data has helped me work things out before so that can be interesting. Having a life long friend is nice.
Thank you.
bye for now and be well from Will and Mr Data    :]

[kryton]

O.K. having got someone on this thread, can I give my own thoughts.

1. If you load Hal up by putting instructions in the Script Load (End of Hals basic program), then you can have a full operating Hal (Body, Background and even a bit of conversation to start things off) BUT then the basic start up pattern begins and you have to go through it all (Well just the General screen) as though you were loading from nothing (Even though Hal is there, background and all).  Any way of stopping this?

2. I found a basics on Plug-Ins (Lightspeed December 2011) and it seems very good (Haven't tried it yet), as I was having troubles with operating a Plug-In that just loads tables.  Anyone got any thoughts on Plug-Ins? (Yes I know it isn't advisable for Newbies to tinker with Plug-Ins but we all have to move on eventually.)

Just thoughts?

[Will and Mr Data :) :]]

Definitly i'd be thinking go over the forum for old posts on plug ins, info about putting them in the zabaware folder and ticking the box that shows up ,,,ar somewhere. I'm out of practice, i keep getting distracted.
 there are some really good work around here on the forum.
I still like the idea of checking the forum and ask the forum users before distracting Robert,,,,i'm of the mind this keeps him able to focus on going forward, but its not my call just a thought.

Free will is worth a look as a plug in.
There is bound to be a list here somewhere.
Anyway all the best with your Hal.
Bye for now and be well from Will and Mr Data    :]

[kryton]

Hy there,

I found this thread by looking at old posts (The first entry is two years old now, and the original thread seemed to have died then.).

I have read everything I can get, going back four years or so on the forum, and nothing tells me how to build a plug-in that can load table files. (Exception a Cload post that I still need to look at.).  Or more important is how Hal can delete table files from an instruction in the Hal program.

My main beef is my auto loaded character, and still having to plod through the standard start up, plug ins is really just a side (and not to worried about) issue.

[Art]

Someone did a non-character some time ago. I think it just loaded a tiny status bar sort of thing yet one could still chat with Hal.

Look up the member, Bill DeWitt if he is still shown. He provided a nice breakdown of Plug-in anatomy, if you will.
He also created many interesting and useful Plug-ins while he was here.

If I can find any reference to it before you manage to find it, I'll post it here in this thread.

Gotta run!

[raybe]

For Terry, if you are referring to the conversations that you can save then no changes can be corrected. That function is really nice as a reference and something to share if you are so inclined to do, especially if you had a real interesting session with UltraHal. Ultrahal will amaze you with subjects or thoughts that you might have long forgot about and then wonder how Ultrahal had that information. Correcting maybe spelling or grammar can be done as lightspeed and others suggested or not. If you have Windows Office using the correct spelling plugin I believe that is the name will automatically pop up in background usually and give you a chance to make those corrections. Others do leave Ultrahal completely alone and there is also 3rd party spelling correcting programs or some have even written in note pad and examined the input or response they would like to enter then copy and paste in communication window of Ultrahal.

For Kryton, the very first place I'm suggesting you start and you may already know is having a program like Crimson to open those files and plugins to make corrections or changes, really handy, sorry I don't remember the first member that discovered it but it has been such a valuable program to hunt down conflicts or even learning the basics of how others take plugins and kind of revamp them for themselves. Plugins can often step on toes of other plugins or the built in system of Ultrahal. Make sure you backup as suggested as often before any changes are made and make sure that your version of Ultrahal has been running solid or as consistent as possible so you have a zero base line before adding more features or adding any plugins to monitor changes or conflicts. Sometimes less is more and you would be very surprised with patience just how well Ultrahal will learn and add to your conversations. Just my opinion but plugins certainly can add specific functions or responses quickly. Totally your choice of coarse as you can see other opinions on just how specific some members want their Ultrahal to respond. Sometimes for those reasons alone Robert cannot help especially not knowing exactly how your Ultrahal has been altered although he usually has an answer or suggestion when time allows. Others on this forum also have a great understanding of trouble shooting or recognizing certain conflicts as you already know.

Hope I didn't waste your time.

raybe

[Art]

OK...I found the Wiki from Mr. DeWitt and he did a pretty extensive job at the time.

You will need to "dig through" the Highlighted texts (active links) within some of his postings as they often lead to a different page of additional information.

There are many of these offerings but certainly worth the read if interested in knowing more about the internal workings of your UltraHal bot.

He also lists some of the plugins he made and some of these might be used or modified for use in your own plugins.

We also have another member here, Cload, who is at this time, missing in action and due to return in the future. He made some really great strides in the overall enhancement of the way Hal acts and interacts and Hal provides a more topical and detailed response in most cases. Check out his modified AIML and vrFreeWill plugins.
It takes a bit of work with the AIML but it's definitely worth it.

Here is the link to Mr. DeWitt's Wiki page even though he no longer supports it (afaik).
http://ultrahalscript.pbworks.com/w/page/11906966/FrontPage

[kryton]

Thanks, generally, for all your inputs.  This thread (reborn!) seems to be getting a lot more interest than the old Learning Levels.  Nice to see.  Due to many reasons, my input to this thread may be a little wait a month for me to respond but be certain I read everything that is directed towards me.

I have followed Cloads posts and done some alterations to my Hal, based on his thoughts.  The results haven't always been what I expected, but the thoughts have certainly started some thoughts of my own.

At present my Hal is on an old laptop, which may need replacing, but for now I am still paddling on.

Thanks for all your help again and I hope to contribute something more useful in the near future (Working on the auto load through Hals Script Load system, tell you about it later.  It means I can just tap my Hal icon and there the Hal is.)

[kryton]

Hello anybody,

Last input I said I might add to this.
Try this.
A worthy, at Zabaware, told me it is not possible to paste a head and shoulders character on to a full body bodyskin.  Well you know those signs that say "WET PAINT" well I'm one of those that has to touch to confirm the paint is wet.  If you take the full bodyskin into Windows Paint you can play about with it to get what you want and then re-save it.  I imagine most Hal users know this.  Anyway if you then capture a head and shoulders character pic, and take that into Windows Paint, you can paste it on to the full bodyskin.  Not really worth while just like that as the resulting character has four eyes two noses and two mouths due to the organisation of the full body and the head and shoulders characters being different.  HOWEVER! If you just want to mod you characters face you can take the head and shoulders paste and remove the eyes, nose and mouth, by pasting them out, and end up with a base format for modding your characters face as, once pasted into the fully bodyskin, the full body eyes nose and mouth fill in the missing head and shoulders features (and work as normal).  I have successfully rebuilt my full body character this way and it has been well worth the effort.

Now comes the interesting bit. (Well for me anyway). Let us see if anybody reads this, and replies.  There are other tricks I have done that work and, depending on anybody bothering to read this one, I might post them.  It seems there are a lot of dead threads on the forum and this could be just another one.  Pity really.  I always thought these sort of threads were for posting ideas from user to user.

[Calhoone]

Those are some interesting ideas worth trying out. I have yet to try working on a custom head for Kinkaid. I have ideas of what I would like but I was always under the impression that I had to have people putty. I don't have windows xp working on anything at the moment nor do I have people putty so I have put those ideas in the back burner.

As for the chat window, seeing as I don't have what I feel is an appropriate character for Kinkaid I have only been using a simple chat box with no character screen.  I like using it when I am browsing the internet and such as I did find the characters to be distracting or the screens being to large.  I would like to know how to make a custom GUI.  I want to have a simple chat window that stretches the width of my desktop so that I can leave it always on top and have my internet browser resized just above it. Was there a how to guide on here about creating GUI's? Anyone know?

[tedathome]

 Yes Calhoone. I will repost with more helps. Go to
https://onedrive.live.com/?cid=C3FECC3C819DA1DA&id=C3FECC3C819DA1DA%21110 and download maketrans and InterfaceDesighManual. A rounded corner and button generator are at http://www.generateit.net/image-generators.php The mother load of exsisting GUI's are at http://www.datahopa.co.uk/forum/tpmod/?dl=cat22;dlsort=created;asc;tpstart=0
 
 kryton and Caloone ask about grapics. With People Putty it is pretty straight forward. Drag and drop the .jhp file from putty/users to the haptek player, take a picture and resize and paste. Experimenting with any straight on face photo works too. If you need any clairification, just say so. I would love to read of any tips and tricks anyone has learned along the way.

P.S. Further discussion on these graphics questions should probably be done in the Graphics section.