MSAgent Class

Stefan Voitel

4.38/5 (8 votes)

Sep 15, 2003

2 min read

81547

2698

A Class to use MS-Agents instead of MessageBoxes

Introduction

Apologies in advance about my English and the brief descriptions, as my native language is German. I demonstrate a class to use MS-Agents instead of MessageBoxes to communicate with users. The following features are included:

simple command interface.
serialize all commands.
support scripting.
can interact with user through mouse events.

Using the code

class cAgent

cAgent (char *Character = NULL);

Create a Agent object. Character can be a *.acs file. NULL uses the default character from system.

bool  Command (char *Command);

Push a Command to the Queue. Commands are case sensitive, Parameters and Values are not.

Command	Parameter	Values [defaults]
`Speak`	Text
`Think`	Text
`Play`	AnimationName
`MoveTo`	xPos yPos Speed	{number}{number}{[0]\|> 0}
`MoveTo`	Position Speed	{center\|lefttop\|leftbottom\|righttop\|rightbottom}{[0]\|>0}
`Move`	DeltaX DeltaY Speed	{number}{number}{[0]\|>0}
`Show`	Speed	{[slow]\|fast}
`Hide`	Speed	{[slow]\|fast}
`Size`	xSize ySize	{number}{number}
`Resize`
`Name`	Name for Character
`Language`	Language	{german\|american\|english}
`Menu`	ShowAutoPopup	{[off]\|on}
`Sounds`	AnimationSounds	{[on]\|off}
`Volume`	channel switch	{master\|wave}{[on]\|off\|reset\|volume in percent}
`Phrase`	FileName	{[Phrases.txt]}
`Execute`	Executable [Parameter]
`Shell`	["Verb"] File
`Stop`
`Quit`

bool  Script (char *IniFile,char *Key);

Execute a script. Scripts are Sections from Windows .ini files :

An additional command available from scripts is :

Command	Parameter	Values [defaults]
`Goto`	a key in this script file

Sample Script File :

[FIRST]
MoveTo Center 0
Show Slow
Play Greet

[HALLO]
Goto First
Speak Hallo !
Hide Slow

[GOODBY]
Goto First
Speak Goodby !
Hide Slow
Quit

void  GetIdle     (void);

Wait for Queue is empty.

void  GetQuit     (void);

Wait for Quit command and terminate. You can't use the cAgent Object after GetQuit().

virtual void   Click     (teMouseEventKeys keys,tMousePosition p);
virtual void   DblClick   (teMouseEventKeys keys,tMousePosition p);

Overwrite this functions to get response from Agent. A window created from here will be destroyed with the cAgent object.
Click() will be called before DblClick(), to avoid this use the next four functions.

virtual void   LeftClick      (teVirtualKeys key,bool SysTray);
virtual void   RightClick     (teVirtualKeys key,bool SysTray);
virtual void   LeftDblClick   (teVirtualKeys key,bool SysTray);
virtual void   RightDblClick  (teVirtualKeys key,bool SysTray);

Overwrite this functions to get response from Agent. This functions would be executed from a thread that terminate on return XXClick(). A window created from here will be destroyed after return !

The simplest way to use :

#include "cAgent.h"

extern "C" int PASCAL WinMain (HINSTANCE i,HINSTANCE prev,
    LPSTR cmd,int show) {
cAgent *Agent = new cAgent();

Agent->Command ("MoveTo  Center 0");
Agent->Command ("Show    Slow");
Agent->Command ("Play    Greet");
Agent->Command ("Speak   Hallo world !");
Agent->Command ("Play    RestPose");
Agent->Command ("Hide    slow");
Agent->GetIdle ();

delete Agent;
return ERROR_SUCCESS;
}

Other classes used from cAgent

cAgentCommands

Covers the commands from cAgent.

cAgentSink

Controls the queue that will serialize the commands. Raise mouse and bookmark events.

Queue

A simple circular buffer to hold the commands.

cMMControl , cPhrase

cMMControl controls the system audio mixer. cPhrase picks a random phrase from a simple formatted text file.

Points of Interest

MS-Agent Hompage	http://www.microsoft.com/msagent/
Developer downloads	http://www.microsoft.com/msagent/downloads/

History

15 Sep 2003 Initial release
24 Sep 2003 Updated sourcecode