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[kytuzian]

Note:
Whenever I refer to Amaline as "she" or "her" replace that word with it. Calling it with a gender pronoun seems more natural and I do it unintentionally.

Amaline is a simple chatbot I programmed from scratch in C#. She uses an XML files to store all of her data. See 'The Basic Framework" for more

Download Link:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/rvacxfpdglyxbjo/Amaline.zip

Video Demonstration (and Tutorial):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beGfWDCppu8

Internet Client (Windows Only, Sorry!):
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzgXJ3LjGyQzR0RRVlVXZlROTjQ/edit?usp=sharing

Source Code is Available Here:
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0BzgXJ3LjGyQzMlJSOGRSa3luSnc&usp=sharing

Note: You can only teach Amaline or tell her she spelled something wrong if you run the program on your computer, not online. This will probably added soon.

How to tell Amaline she spelled something wrong

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Type something along the lines of "You spelled something wrong."
You can type stop at any time

She will respond with: "What did I misspell?"
Type the incorrect version. For example you are trying to correct the word "u" to "you", then type "u".

She will then ask you for the correct version.
If you are following the example, you would type "you".

How to teach Amaline:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Type teach.
This line should come up:
If you accidentally reached this menu, just type "stop" and keep going.
"Do you want to teach me something new? (Y / N). Type stop at any time to stop."
If you choose Y, then she will ask you for a list of options. Each of these is what the user should type to get to the response. Usually it is beneficial to type several of these in order to account for more variations.

For example:
What is my favorite color?
What color do I like the most?

When you are done with this, type OPTIONSDONE in capitals and hit enter (or return if you're one of those people).

Next she will ask what you want her to respond with. Type each response you want her to be able to respond with on a newline, and finally type "RESPONSEDONE". If all goes well she will thank you and another option will be added to her memory.

If you chose N, then she will ask you to type something. Type this as if you are talking to her, and she will show you the option you selected along with its variations and response. To remove it type Y, or to cancel type N.

The Basic Framework:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

A conversation is the combination of options and the response to them.

There are two tags that are valid in the response line of a conversation.

<get></get>
This tag retrieves a value from the variables stored and replaces itself with that value.
There are a number of special, reserved names which are as follows:

time - This returns the current time and date.
binary, hexadecimal, octal - These return the value stored in the variable (binaryparam, hexadecimalparam, octalparam) in the base (2, 16, .
getmemory - This returns the value of a variable specified by index. It can also be used with the keywords "last" and "first". Ex. <get>getmemory last</get> returns the last variable added to the list.
randomcolor - This returns a random color along with a shade, which can either be nothing, "bright", "light", "dark", or "deep." Ex. dark chartreuse, bright yellow, light brown.
random - Returns a random number. Can either be limited by the numbers specified in the variable "randomparams" or none, in which case it will choose a random number with no limits.
datafilesize - Returns the size of both "Amaline.xml" and "Database.xml" in bytes.
exefilesize - Returns the file size of "Chat.exe" in bytes.

<set></set>
This tag is used to set variables to a certain value.
Commands are separated by spaces. If you wish to have multiple words in a command, surround it by quotes, or use a backslash before the spaces to ignore them.

Commands:
cull - Only has one acceptable parameter after right now, which is words. This will remove all words in the input provided by the user that are in one of the options, leaving only additional text. For example, if the option was, "My name is", and the user typed, "My name is John." using cull words would return "John." This command replaces itself with the text culled.
into - Sets the variable on the right side to the value on the left. For example - 10 into x - sets x to 10. Can be used like this "cull words into name." Reserved variable name - "new". "new" adds a new variable to the end of the variable list with name specifying its index and the variable from the left of the into.
quit - Quits the program.

If you decide to teach her anything, I'd love to take a look at your xml file!

[Lectorog]

I've been poking around her a bit~  :b

Are you planning to work further on this?

[kytuzian]

A little yes, but not that complicated. Next to do is probably have her be able to recognize spell errors and differences (like colour vs. color). She's not really going to be good at keeping up a conversation, and I was actually thinking of maybe trying to make an RPG of some sort with this sort of system.

Thanks for trying it out, what do you think?

[Lectorog]

Very simple, like you said. But it certainly works!

A thing that would be good for natural conversation is multiple responses to the same question, so it's not the same thing over and over. However, that would conflict with the typical RPG "conversation" approach.

[kytuzian]

Very simple, like you said. But it certainly works!

A thing that would be good for natural conversation is multiple responses to the same question, so it's not the same thing over and over. However, that would conflict with the typical RPG "conversation" approach.

I was thinking about doing and it shouldn't be much of a problem. Even in an RPG, if I don't want the person to have multiple response, I just won't give them those responses. I could also possibly give them a couple different synonyms for the same word, just to make it seem more natural. Also, if you don't mind can you tell me some of the things you said to it that had no response?

[Lectorog]

I'm always curious about the person I'm talking to, so I tried asking things like
"What are you?" "What do you know?"
Less along the line of preferences, more factual identification.

On the track of multiple responses, one idea that is used in a lot of RPGs is giving a different response after the first.

There are also silly things like this:

I'm pleased to meet you.
Sure, I can call you whatever you like.

What's my name?
You said you were pleased to meet you.

The "Hi hungry, I'm dad" phenomenon~

[Moghjubar]

There are also silly things like this:

I'm pleased to meet you.
Sure, I can call you whatever you like.

What's my name?
You said you were pleased to meet you.

The "Hi hungry, I'm dad" phenomenon~

So obviously... we need Dad-bot.

[kytuzian]

I'm always curious about the person I'm talking to, so I tried asking things like
"What are you?" "What do you know?"
Less along the line of preferences, more factual identification.

On the track of multiple responses, one idea that is used in a lot of RPGs is giving a different response after the first.

There are also silly things like this:

I'm pleased to meet you.
Sure, I can call you whatever you like.

What's my name?
You said you were pleased to meet you.

The "Hi hungry, I'm dad" phenomenon~

New Version: Amaline can now correct simple spelling errors like "teh" and "you", and she also recognizes spellings of words such as "colour" and "favourite". Added a new XML file for her to store some other data in. She can also handle multiple responses and two more reserved variable names were added.

Thanks for doing this. About the name thing, I don't really have any good way to check if a name is valid, and making a long list of names won't work even if I wanted to put it that kind of effort because anything could be someone's name.

EDIT: Added video demonstration/tutorial link.

[Nienhaus]

I was bored so I made it so you can rename her. Her new name for me is now Jeff atm.

[kytuzian]

I was bored so I made it so you can rename her. Her new name for me is now Jeff atm.

Okay, whatever floats your goat. How was your conversation with her(him)?

Also. New version with slight change:
You can now used the program from the command line. Just type "Chat.exe Your message here" and she will respond just as if you typed it to her normally. I'm not quite sure why you would want this but now you can.
Also added a couple new options and responses, and created a word category for "Thanking" words such as thanks and thank you, and she will now interchange the two randomly.

[Lectorog]

If the multiple response choice is random, can you put the same response into the pool multiple times to make it more likely to be said?

[Araph]

This... is actually really cool. PTW, and keep up the good work! I'll be interested to see where this goes.

[kytuzian]

If the multiple response choice is random, can you put the same response into the pool multiple times to make it more likely to be said?

Yes you can.

This... is actually really cool. PTW, and keep up the good work! I'll be interested to see where this goes.

Thanks! Its still very simple though, and I'm not quite sure what my next step should be.

Additionally, I'd be happy to give the source code if anyone is interested.

[Araph]

Have you considered making your next goal be enabling Amaline to remember previous interactions?

[kytuzian]

Have you considered making your next goal be enabling Amaline to remember previous interactions?

I have considered it yes, but I think that it might be a little too much for right now. My next goal will probably be enabling her to ask and understand responses to questions.