Programming the MS Agent Control

Download demo project - 21 Kb

Download source files - 44 Kb

Introduction to the Microsoft Agent

Microsoft has introduced the new MS Agent Control. This control is very similar to the office assistant that we see in MS Office Applications. This control can seamlessly integrate into existing applications with a lot of ease due to good programming support that is available. It richly enhances the user interface and has seemingly wide applications as it is even scriptable in to Web Pages for which it is actually meant and supposed to have good performance on the internet because of low band width requirements.

The control is available as an OCX interface and COM programming support is also provided.

Key appreciable features are:

• Text To Speech Conversion Support
• Speech Recognition Engine

The MS Agent is distributed in to several components (put into a single file AGENT.CPP and AGENT.H in the sample):

• Request
• Agent (control)
• Characters (collection)
• Character Commands (collection)
• Command
• Balloon
• AnimationNames (collection)
• SpeechInput
• AudioOutput
• CommandsWindow
• PropertySheet

The best place to go to refer to the documentation is at Microsoft's site.

Programming

I wished to make a control like the office agent almost a year back. But then I knew I had to do it on my own and I gave up at ease. All I wished was an API interface to the Agent and the prayer was answered even without asking.

I wished to share with you this information as I felt all might find this information quite useful. I really don’t deserve any credit for this code as I have just referred MSDN, Microsoft Web site and MS Samples. But I will surely be glad to help if you need any help from me.

This sample is provided so that you can check it out and the MFC Wrapper class that I have written encapsulates quite a few details and can be useful in case it helps you.

Steps that I followed were to download the following and I could install it without problems:

1. Download the Microsoft Agent core components
2. Download Agent Interface files. Unzip the header files to your DevStudio/VisualStudio VC/Include folder.
3. Download MS Agent Characters. (Peedy and Genie are really cute characters)
   (Note: - After installation characters will be available in your $Windows\MSAgent\Chars directory)
4. Download the Text to Speech engines.
5. Download the Speech Recognition engines. (I have not yet checked this out)
6. Download the Speech control panel.
7. Optionally download:
   • Agent Character Editor
   • Linguistic information sound editing Tool
   • The Microsoft Site offers lot of code samples and documentation to download.
8. Download the End User Downloads
9. Download the Developer Downloads

Sample Screen of the test application

The MFC Wrapper: CMsAgentWrapper

CMsAgentWrapper does not have a base class. A CMsAgentWrapper object consists of a CAgentCtlEx MS Agent.

Data Members

• CAgentCtlEx m_obAgent - the the Agent Control Object.
• CStringArray m_szAnimationsArray - an array of supported Animations.
• BOOL m_bStopBeforePlay - determines whether Previous Animation should be stopped before playing next Animation
• BOOL m_bAgentReady - determines whether the Agent Character Loaded.

Construction/Destruction

• CMsAgentWrapper();
• virtual ~CMsAgentWrapper();

Initialization and Cleanup

BOOL Create(UINT uId, CWnd *pParentWnd = NULL, DWORD dwStyle = WS_CHILDWINDOW, BOOL bRaiseRequestErrors = FALSE);

Creates the MS Agent Wrapper control for the given id.

BOOL Exit();

Closes the Agent Control.

BOOL LoadCharacter(CString pszCharFilename);

Loads a Character File. (Note: - After installation characters will be available in your $Windows\MSAgent\Chars directory)

BOOL Move(int iX, int iY);

Moves the Microsoft Agent Character Absolute screen coordinated X,Y Location taking into account the agent size.

BOOL Speak(CString szSpeakText, BOOL bBalloonEnabled = TRUE, BOOL bBalloonSizeToText = TRUE, BOOL bBalloonAutoPace = TRUE, BOOL bBalloonAutoHide = TRUE);

The specified text is shown in a message box and if a sound card and Text to speech support is installed the given text is spoken out. Setting Auto Pace to FALSE makes the text displayed in the message box appear at once rather than a word at a time.

BOOL SetSoundEffectsOn(BOOL bSoundEffectsOn = TRUE);

Sets sound support for the agent.

BOOL Stop();

Requests the Agent to stop animations.

BOOL Show();

Requests the Agent Server to show the selected character.

BOOL Hide();

Requests the Agent Server to hide the selected character.

BOOL ActivateApp(BOOL bActive);

Requests the Agent Server to hide/select the selected character. This function is ideal to be used to activate and deactivate the Agent when the parent activates and deactivates.

LPCTSTR GetCharacter>();

Gets the Name of the Character not correctly implemented yet.

void SetStopBeforePlay(BOOL bStopBeforePlay = TRUE);

Decides whether the previous animation should be stopped before playing the next animation.

BOOL GetStopBeforePlay();

Retrieves the setting specifying whether previous animation should be stopped before playing the next animation.

int GetSizeOfAnimations();

Retrieves the number of supported animations for the given Microsoft Agent Control.

CString GetAnimationIndex(int i);

Retrieves the name of the specified supported animations by index.

BOOL Play(int iAnim = 0, BOOL bStop = TRUE);

Plays the Animation at the specified index. bStop specifies whether the previous animation has to be stopped before playing the current animation.

Additional Resources

• Microsoft Agent Home
• Programming the Microsoft Agent

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How would you list all the available voices? prudnik 7:02 18 Dec '07   So far I like your wrapper, but when it comes to listing all available voices neither your programm, nor that of another article on this site on the same subject gives an answer. Maybe it is too simple? So far I could only spot solutions in Visual Basic. Any solutions on this subject should in my view answer some simple questions first: 1. is MS agent available on a computer? 2. what are the available characters? 3. what are the available voices/languages (I am not sure if there is a distinction, I believe a voice can speak different languages, but then a voice would be almost the same as a character, whereas the idea is to have characters be able to have different voices, which is maybe somewhat odd) 4. What are the gestures/animations, that a character can do? Your program answers önly question 4. Why? prudnik 18.12.07 prudnik Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Thermal measurement project israa mohammed 0:23 24 Nov '07   What is the suitable c code to program PIC16F877A to measure temperaure using LM35 transistor and display the result in seven segment display? Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Conext menu in MS Agent control neetu gahlot 20:23 23 Sep '05   i want to know how the context menu hide function works Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink 1.00/5 (2 votes) Borland C++ BuilderX compatible? (how to) Millyard 12:48 16 Mar '05   Hi there, I am using Borland C++ BuilderX application -- it appears to be using a slightly different version of C+ -- the above example is not working...do you have any thoughts on adjustments in order to make it work fine. Cheers. Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink display indexed msg bayue 18:18 27 Dec '04   hi.. can somebody please tell me..how can you display multiple index info for query that matches the database Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink add ms agent to my webpage without uploding it bayue 17:40 27 Dec '04   hi.. can we use ms agent in our website without uploading it(for demo purpose only)? should i get the license if i wanted to do this? Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink 2.00/5 (1 vote) automaticly recording menag 4:19 2 Nov '04   Is it possible to automaticly start recording the sound to file? build my own UI , can I have sample ? Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink How to mix animation with speech Anonymous 9:51 13 May '04   Thanks for your demo. It has been a great start for me I really needed it in my project but I have one problem that I urgently need help for. I don't know how to mix animation with speech . for example to let the agent say "Hello" while greeting I hope you have the time to help me Best Regards Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink 1.00/5 (1 vote) ordinal 5076 Anonymous 8:14 18 Nov '03   When I try to start a program I get the error: "The ordinal 5076 could not be located in the dynamic link library MFC42D.DLL" I did not program this file for myself, so I don'have the source code. What can I do to make this program work? Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink 1.30/5 (7 votes) Re: ordinal 5076 Anonymous 23:47 21 Mar '05   this has nothing to do with the source code coz it's an application extension file in your windows system. you might want to download a newer version of this dll file and install it on your computer. Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Assertion with Dev 7... LilMoke 19:06 25 Oct '03   Hello, I downloaded and compiled the sample. No compiler errors, but when I execute it I get a runtime error. Have you seend this before? Does anyone else get this? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Also, the Agent does appear and I can even move it around, but the app asserts. Tony Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Re: Assertion with Dev 7... LilMoke 5:11 26 Oct '03   More on the Assertion... Santosh, I have compiled it in Dev Studio 7 and received no compiler errors, but when it executes I get an assertion at the following line of code: CWnd *pWnd = m_obAgent.GetParent(); In MsAgentWrapper.cpp, line 219. It appears that the hWnd of m_obAgent is null. I do not know if that means anything , a I am just now starting to look through the code to understand what is going on. Has anyone seen this before? Do you know what could be causing this? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink 2.00/5 (1 vote) Same Compile Error alan93 6:10 30 Sep '03   C:\Temp\MSAgent\MsAgentWrapper.cpp(226) : error C2065: 'UserHidViaCharacterMenu' : undeclared identifier C:\Temp\MSAgent\MsAgentWrapper.cpp(310) : error C2065: 'BALLOON_STYLE_BALLOON_ON' : undeclared identifier C:\Temp\MSAgent\MsAgentWrapper.cpp(313) : error C2065: 'BALLOON_STYLE_SIZETOTEXT' : undeclared identifier C:\Temp\MSAgent\MsAgentWrapper.cpp(316) : error C2065: 'BALLOON_STYLE_AUTOPACE' : undeclared identifier C:\Temp\MSAgent\MsAgentWrapper.cpp(319) : error C2065: 'BALLOON_STYLE_AUTOHIDE' : undeclared identifier These aren't declared anywhere in the projecct. Thinking maybe they were part of a lib I searched the INet for them and found nothing. ?????????????? Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink 1.33/5 (5 votes) Ordinal 5077 & 5076 Sanjin 12:44 17 Dec '02   Hi, I've been playing with MS example code for agents that works fine. Hower your application or any application that is not Microsoft code returns this error when it starts executing. "The Ordinal 5076 could not be located in dynamic link library MFC42D.dll". Anybody has any idea what this is all about? Sanyin Bitchainch Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink 3.50/5 (2 votes) Re: Ordinal 5077 & 5076 TeisDraiby 11:16 27 Dec '02   I experienced the same problem working on another example involving an exe and a dll file. I found a workaround changing the active configuration to 'Release' for both files. By some reason the 'Debug' conf. didn't work, no idea why. I hope it solves your problem. Teis Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Re: Ordinal 5077 & 5076 Bill944 21:05 21 Sep '03   Good call Teis - changing the active configuration to 'Release' solved the problem for me. --Bill Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Re: Ordinal 5077 & 5076 Anonymous 9:44 23 Jun '03   I switched from using MFC as a shared DLL to a static library and debug builds worked. Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Great Job! Paul Kissel 21:20 13 Dec '02   Santosh, The demo source compiled with no problem with VC++6 and I found your coding and inline documentation to be very clean. Thanks much for sharing this with the world anbd the great job! Regards, Paul Kissel Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Some help!! Anonymous 18:37 11 Oct '02   I am a new MS Agent programmer (With VB) I need someone to create me a character for MS Agent, or at least all the bitmaps for it, then ill put it together. Thanks, Chris Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink 1.00/5 (1 vote) Why did Error happen when I added ActiveX control? Anonymous 18:22 8 Jul '02   After I added ActiveX control to this demo project , I can't run the project because of "Assertion failed" dialog. Please tell me why this happens. I think that this is because this project itself doesn't support ActiveX control. saru Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink 3.50/5 (2 votes) MS Access versus MS Agent Robert Goyvaerts 13:13 21 May '02   Hello, i've tried to integrate MS Agent into MS Access 2002. Propably i do something wrong because it don't work at all. However everything is installed propperly and the ActiveX control is also into the library. Can someone give me a demo or a good documentated explanation that will work in Access2002 so that i can see what i doing wrong and learn out it. Many thanks and best regards, Robert Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink 1.67/5 (3 votes) Compile error Abhishek Jain 8:00 8 Apr '02   Compiling... Hi given below is the error that is generated on compiling your code Please help me out also what is the format of acf file, etc i need to do speech regognition using MS agent in cpp. How do go about it thanks Abhishek Jain MsAgentWrapper.cpp C:\csidc\speech\MSAgentCtrl_src\MsAgentWrapper.cpp(226) : error C2065: 'UserHidViaCharacterMenu' : undeclared identifier C:\csidc\speech\MSAgentCtrl_src\MsAgentWrapper.cpp(310) : error C2065: 'BALLOON_STYLE_BALLOON_ON' : undeclared identifier C:\csidc\speech\MSAgentCtrl_src\MsAgentWrapper.cpp(313) : error C2065: 'BALLOON_STYLE_SIZETOTEXT' : undeclared identifier C:\csidc\speech\MSAgentCtrl_src\MsAgentWrapper.cpp(316) : error C2065: 'BALLOON_STYLE_AUTOPACE' : undeclared identifier C:\csidc\speech\MSAgentCtrl_src\MsAgentWrapper.cpp(319) : error C2065: 'BALLOON_STYLE_AUTOHIDE' : undeclared identifier Error executing cl.exe. MsAgentHelp.exe - 5 error(s), 0 warning(s) Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink 2.00/5 (2 votes) Re: Compile error Franz Brunner 0:29 2 Nov '03   you should download the new header files from microsoft site. http://www.microsoft.com/msagent/dev/code/vstudio.asp#VC Copy the files to your Visual Studio include-directory. The sample should compile without any further error. Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink 2.00/5 (1 vote) Compile error Abhishek Jain 7:55 8 Apr '02   Compiling... Hi given below is the error that is generated on compiling your code Please help me out i need to do speech regognition using MS agent in cpp. How do go about it thanks Abhishek Jain MsAgentWrapper.cpp C:\csidc\speech\MSAgentCtrl_src\MsAgentWrapper.cpp(226) : error C2065: 'UserHidViaCharacterMenu' : undeclared identifier C:\csidc\speech\MSAgentCtrl_src\MsAgentWrapper.cpp(310) : error C2065: 'BALLOON_STYLE_BALLOON_ON' : undeclared identifier C:\csidc\speech\MSAgentCtrl_src\MsAgentWrapper.cpp(313) : error C2065: 'BALLOON_STYLE_SIZETOTEXT' : undeclared identifier C:\csidc\speech\MSAgentCtrl_src\MsAgentWrapper.cpp(316) : error C2065: 'BALLOON_STYLE_AUTOPACE' : undeclared identifier C:\csidc\speech\MSAgentCtrl_src\MsAgentWrapper.cpp(319) : error C2065: 'BALLOON_STYLE_AUTOHIDE' : undeclared identifier Error executing cl.exe. MsAgentHelp.exe - 5 error(s), 0 warning(s) Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink 3.00/5 (1 vote) Re: Compile error wingswings 18:34 8 Jun '03   Does anyone knows where to change ?? I meet the same errors with Abhishek Jain !! Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink 2.00/5 (3 votes)

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