Windows Live Agents Team Blog : Getting Started with WLA

Visual Studio hints

imiluk — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 22:01:00 GMT

If you are moving from the old Colloquis IDE to the Visual Studio-based Windows Live Agents SDK, and you've never used Visual Studio, you may be a little lost. This post aims to collect simple hints and tricks for agent developers new to working with Visual Studio. This is just a start -- if you have any hints, please do comment, and later on we'll post a sequel.

Also, this is by no means much of a guide to Visual Studio as a whole, and is really meant to get you started and oriented for agent-development tasks. Also, it's not a guide for creating agents. The first resource for using the new SDK is the Windows Live Agents SDK documentation. You should start there before doing anything.

Agents menus

Here are some common menu locations for agent-development tasks:

Edit -> Find and Replace ... Lots of options for searching through single or multiple files. Regular expressions work!

View -> Solution Explorer ... This is rougly equivalent to the Explorer feature in the old IDE, and lets you see the project files in a tree view.

View -> Class View ... Lets you see all the project's domains and packages as a flat list of classes.

View -> Error list ... Displays compile errors and warnings.

View -> Output ... Similar to the "Misc Debug" pane of the old IDE, displays compiler messages.

View -> Other Windows -> Conversation Window ... Where you compile and talk to the agent.

View -> Other Windows -> Comprehension Info Window ... Displays match scoring information.

Project -> Add DLS Item ... Add datasources and other DLS items.

Project -> ProjectName Properties ... Specify compile parameters like buddy id, filter, and command-line options.

Tools -> Windows Live Agents Tools -> Code Management ... The SDK's interface to the Partner Hosting Infrastructure.

Tools -> Windows Live Agents Tools -> Request License Certificate ... Get a new license cert.

Tools -> Windows Live Agents Tools -> Management Console ... Launches the web management console within Visual Studio.

Tools -> Windows Live Agents Tools -> Update connections file ... Attempts to update the connections file based on the content of your project.

Tools -> Windows Live Agents Tools -> Performance ... Various tools for measuring performance.

Tools -> Options ... Set things like tabs and syntax highlighting.

Show All Files

By default, the SDK will mount a filesystem in the Solution Explorer, which may affect performance if there are a lot of files, causing the editor to lag. If this is the case, you can click "Show All Files" to remove the All Files view, and navigate to files through the Class View. Editing will be a lot faster. Set Show All Files to false by default at Tools -> Options -> Windows Live Agents SDK -> SDK Settings -> General -> "Show All Files on project open."

Keyboard Shorcuts

As of right now, there isn't a keyboard shortcut for starting/stopping the agent in the Conversation Window. However, here are some shorcuts you may find useful:

CTRL-K CTRL-C ... comment

CTRL-K CTRL-U ... uncomment

CTRL-ALT-L ... Solution Explorer

CTRL-TAB ... toggle through open windows

CTRL-Shift-<arrow key> ... move forward/backward by one word

Many other shortcuts are listed next to the menu items they correspond to.

Window Arrangement

One of the best things about Visual Studio is the flexibility it provides for laying out your environment. Any window can be tabbed, docked, or floating, and you can drag everything around the way you like. Right click a window title, or click the small arrow in the top of the pane, to see your options

Best Practices for Developing a Windows Live Agent: part 3

imiluk — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 22:14:00 GMT

Use Dialogs

Dialogs create a more interactive experience and help the user to feel like he/she is driving the conversation.

Example:

- Hey, I have really cool games. You wanna see them?

? Yes.

- Here are my games:

Hangman {*}

Word Scramble {*}

Reversi {*}

? No.

- OK! Next time you want to see my games, just type “games.”

Best Practices for Developing a Windows Live Agent: part 4

imiluk — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 22:14:00 GMT

Use Canonical Questions

A canonical question establishes the most concise, “representative” question for a topic. If a user asks an ambiguous question, the agent responds with a clarification request using the canonicals for each matched topic. Note that only one question should be marked as a canonical in a topic.

Example:

+- What is my horoscope?

? What is my horoscope?

? Zodiac

+- What is my Zodiac sign?

? What is my Zodiac sign?

? Zodiac

User: zodiac

Agent: What did you mean?

1 What is my horoscope?

2 What is my Zodiac sign?

Best Practices for Developing a Windows Live Agent: part 2

imiluk — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 21:51:00 GMT

Create Good Subpatterns

Subpatterns are one of the most powerful NL recognition features in the BuddyScript language. They allow you to write efficient, reusable code. Many subpatterns are defined in various packages in the Vocabulary directories for each language in BuddyScriptLib. Have a look at the subpatterns created there before you create your own. Many general parts-of-speech and “chat” subpatterns, as well as subpatterns for industry-specific terminology, are defined there. Create subpatterns for anything else you foresee your end users chatting about – product names, peoples’ names, place names, etc.

NL-brick Subpatterns

When you define a subpattern as an NL-brick, every element of the subpattern that is recognized at maximum strength is a candidate to replace sections of your NL handles. This is a very useful property, but use it carefully. If you want only certain elements to replace the natural language in an NL-brick subpattern, make the other elements score lower.

Define subpatterns as NL-bricks by putting them within NL-brick zones. If your project is derived from the WLATemplate, add NL-bricks in “YourAgent/YourLanguage/CustomSubpatterns.pkg,” which already contains an NL-brick zone.

Example:

begin properties SubpatternsAreNLBricks // Start of NL brick zone

…

### “n” prefix: Noun Stems
subpattern nBike + (bike|bikes)

subpattern nMotorcycle
+ (motorcycle|motorcycles)
+ motor (cycle|cycles)

subpattern nMotorbike
+ (motorbike|motorbikes)
+ motor =nBike

### “ns” prefix: Noun Senses

subpattern nsMotorcycle

+ (=nMotorcycle|=nMotorbike)

+ =nBike {score=MACRO_ MEDIUM_SCORE}

…

end properties SubpatternsAreNLBricks // End of NL brick zone

In the above example, the word “motorcycles” in the natural language handle “? How much do motorcycles cost?” will be replaced by = nsMotorcycle, but the word “bike” in the natural language handle “? Can I ride my bike to work?” will not be replaced by =nsMotorcycle as “bike” does not match at maximum strength in the subpattern. Therefore, if the user types “How much do bikes cost?” it will match on “? How much do motorcycles cost?” (albeit with a lower score), but if the user types “Can I ride my motorcycle to work?” it will not match on “? Can I ride my bike to work?”

Example:

begin properties SubpatternsAreNLBricks

subpattern nsNewYorkCity

+ (new york [city]|manhattan)

+ nyc {spellcorrect=no}

return “New York City”

end properties SubpatternsAreNLBricks

subpattern ACity

+ CITY=NewYorkCity

+ CITY=SanFrancisco

+ CITY=Chicago

return CITY

In the above example, the =ACity subpattern should not be an NL-brick because you would not want “New York City” in a natural language handle such as “? What are some good restaurants in New York City?” to be replaced by =ACity (if it were, the user query “What are some good restaurants in Chicago?” would match on “? What are some good restaurants in New York City?”)

In general, specifying some subpatterns as NL-bricks and leaving others as non-NL-bricks (the default behavior) allows you great control over how subpatterns are used in your matching.

Binding Subpatterns to Variables

Bind subpatterns to variables whenever you need to use the value returned by a subpattern, either as a parameter in a data request, to store interesting user data, or simply to make the agent’s response “smarter.”

Example:

- Where do you live?

? I live in CITY=ACity

? CITY=ACity

STATE = GetStateForCity(CITY)

USER_LOCATION = CITY

- Wow! I love CITY! That’s in the state of STATE, right?

User: I live in nyc

Agent: Wow! I love New York City! That’s in the state of New York, right?

Best Practices for Developing a Windows Live Agent: Part 1

imiluk — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 21:49:00 GMT

Today we will start a series on best practices for developing a Windows Live Agent (WLA). Here we go:

Use the WLATemplate Project as a Starting Point

The WLATemplate Project (“C:\Program Files\Colloquis\Colloquis SDK\Projects\WLATemplate“) is a generic project you can quickly customize into your own Agent. Simply launch the instantiation script “StartInstantiation.bat” and follow the instructions to start a new Agent in the right directory.

Use Natural Language Handles

The fastest and most efficient way to get your Agent to recognize User questions is to add Natural Language Handles. NL Handles are analyzed against the libraries of rephrase rules and synonym subpatterns defined in your project and in the BuddyScriptLib packages (included in the SDK) and are transformed into regular “+” style matching patterns.

Example:

This natural language handle:

? What can you do?

is rephrased as:

? What do you do?

and “patternized” into these subpatterns:

+ =qsWhat =vDo =You =vDo

This user query:

Tell me what you do

is rephrased as:

What do you do?

Case and punctuation are stripped from queries, so:

what do you do

matches perfectly on the patternized natural language in the agent.

Natural language handles should be:

Concise—ideally 15 words or less and one sentence
Unambiguous
Grammatically correct and properly punctuated (including question marks or periods)
Free of spelling mistakes