Using MS Agents

The C# Column - Yashawant Kanetkar

The characters provided by Microsoft Agent technology are something we often use in MS-Word, Excel and PowerPoint applications. These are cute, animated characters that appear on-screen to help us finding answers to questions. The MS Agent characters can be added to Windows applications as well as to Web applications. The MS Agent control provides access to four animated characters—Genie (genie), Merlin (genius), Peedy (parrot) and Robby (robot). From these, we will use Peedy and Merlin in this article.

We will first create a user control called ‘timer’ that can show current time on a label. The control would expose two properties through which the client can set the alarm time and a message string. It would also raise an event when the time set by the client and the current time are equal. The client would handle this event and communicate the message through either Peedy or Merlin. Selection of the animation character can be made through radio buttons. Every character supports a number of animations. Our application would allow user to select the animation using a combo-box. The characters would also speak the text that the user would enter in a text box.

Let us see in brief how to create a user control. Create a ‘Windows Control Library’ project named ‘ClockControl’. As soon as we do this, a class called UserControl1 gets created. Add two labels and a timer control (named mytimer) to the form. Set the Interval property of the Timer control to 1000 milliseconds (1 second). Add two methods—start( ) and stop( )—to the UserControl1 class. These methods are given below:

public void start()
{
   DateTime d = DateTime.Now;
   sec = d.Second;
   min = d.Minute;
   hrs = d.Hour;
   mytimer.Start();
} 

public void stop()
{
   mytimer.Stop();
}

Add the three integers—sec, min and hrs as data members of the class that represent the seconds, minutes and hours respectively. In the start( ) method we have set these data members to the present time using DateTime class. We have then started the timer by invoking the Start( ) method of the Timer control. In the stop( ) method we have stopped the Timer using the Stop( ) method. Add the Tick event handler. In this event handler we have simply displayed the current time in the label control named time. The mytimer_Tick( ) handler is given below:

private void mytimer_Tick (object sender, 
System.EventArgs e)
{
   sec += 1;
   if(sec == 60)
   {
   min+=1;
   sec=0;
   if(min==60)
   { 
   hrs+=1;
   min=0;
   }
   }
   String str = hrs + ":" + min + ":" + sec;
   time.Text=str;
}

Add the data members altime and almessage of type string. Add the AlarmTime and Message properties for these data members. Now our approach is that whenever the alarm time becomes equal to the current time, the event must be raised. To do so, we need to keep on checking the current time in the mytimer_Tick( ) event handler, and once the condition is satisfied we need to raise an event and send a notification to the client. Declare the delegate and an event in the UserControl1 class as shown below:

public delegate void del (object sender, TimeEventArgs e);
public event del d;

The TimeEventArgs is a user-defined class that needs to be necessarily derived from the EventArgs class. This class simply contains a public data member msg of type String and a constructor to initialise msg. The TimeEventArgs is given below:

public class TimeEventArgs:EventArgs
{
   public String msg;
   public TimeEventArgs(String s)
   {
	   msg=s;
   }
}

Add the code as shown below to check the time and raise the event.

int i=str.LastIndexOf (":");
str=str.Substring (0,i);
if((str==altime) && (sec==0))
{
   TimeEventArgs t = new TimeEventArgs(almessage);
   d(this, t);
}

Here, when the current time equals the alarm time, we have created an object of the TimeEventArgs class by passing the message to it and raised the event d. Build the application. The ‘ClockControl.dll’ file would get created.

We will now create the client. Create a Windows application and design the form as shown in the following figure:

Note that in order to run the application we must first download and install Microsoft Agent software from the website www.microsoft.com/products/msagent/downloads.htm. Next we need to add them to the toolbox by right-clicking on the Toolbox and selecting ‘Customize Toolbox’. From the dialog box that appears we need to select Microsoft Agent Control 2.0 and then click on ‘OK’. On doing so the Microsoft Agent control would get added to the toolbox. Next we need to drag the control on the form.

On dragging the Microsoft Agent control an object of the type AxAgent class that belongs to the AxAgentObjects namespace gets added as data member of our Form1 class. The adjoining table shows the controls and their properties.

Add the following code to the constructor.

String loc = @"C:\WINNT\msagent\chars\";
agent.Characters.Load("Merlin",loc+"merlin.acs");
agent.Characters.Load ("Peedy",loc+"peedy.acs");
speaker=agent.Characters["Peedy"];
loadmoods();
speaker.Show (0);

Here we have first created a string, loc, specifying the location of the character on the disk. Next we have used the Load( ) method of IAgentCtlCharacter, whose reference can be obtained by accessing the Characters property of AxAgent class, to load both the characters. We have passed the character name, location and file name to the Load( ) method, which creates an object of the specified character. In this application we have planned to keep Peedy as the default character and so set the Checked property of ‘Peedy’ radio button to true. Add a reference to the IAgentCtlCharacter interface as the data member of the form as

AgentObjects.IAgentCtlCharacter speaker;

Next, we collected the reference of Peedy in speaker. Then we have called the loadmoods( ) method. This is a user-defined method that populates the combo-box with names of animations. We have then called the Show( ) method to display the character. Lastly, we have started the timer by calling UserControl1.start( ) method. The loadmoods( ) method is defined as given below:

public void loadmoods()
{
   IEnumerator arr;
   arr=agent.Characters [speaker.Name].AnimationNames.GetEnumerator() ;
   mood.Items.Clear();
   while(arr.MoveNext())
   mood.Items.Add(arr.Current);
}

Here, we have created a reference arr of the type IEnumerator. Then using the GetEnumerator( ) method we have obtained a list of all the animations of the current speaker and added the animations to the combo-box.

The user can select the character of his choice using the radio buttons and clicking the ‘Change’ button. The change_Click( ) method is given below:

private void change_Click ( object sender, System.EventArgs e )
{ 
   String character;
   if(ped.Checked == true)
   character = ped.Text;
   else
   character = mer.Text;
   speaker.Hide (0);
   speaker=agent.Characters[character];
   loadmoods();
   speaker.Show(0);
}

Here, we have first checked which of the two radio buttons is selected using the Checked property of the ped radio button. Then using the Hide( ) method we have removed the current character from view and loaded the newly selected character. We have again called the loadmoods( ) method to populate all the moods of the newly selected character in the combo box. Finally using the Show( ) method we have displayed the character.

As soon as the user selects a mood from the combo box, the mood_SelectedIndexChanged( ) event handler gets invoked. This handler is given below.

void mood_SelectedIndexChanged ( object sender, System.EventArgs e )
{
   speaker.StopAll("Play");
   speaker.Play(mood.Text);
   speaker.Play("RestPose");
}

In this handler we have first stopped all the animations presently playing using the StopAll( ) method. Next we have played the selected mood from the combo box using the Play( ) method. To this method we have passed the name of animation to play. After this we have played the ‘Rest Pose’ animation, which indicates an idle position of the character.

If we type something in the textbox and click on the ‘Speak’ button, the speak_Click( ) event handler gets called. Here we have first played the animation selected by the user and then played the text written by the user using the Speak() method. Here is the handler.

void speak_Click(object sender, System.EventArgs e)
{ 
   speaker.Play(mood.Text);
   speaker.Speak(speechtext.Text, "");
}

The jobs that are remaining are adding the user control and writing an event handler for it. Add the user control by right-clicking on the Toolbox and selecting ‘Customize Toolbox’. From the dialog box that appears, select the .NET Framework Components tab. Click the ‘Browse’ button. From the ‘Browse’ dialog select the ‘ClockControl.dll’ and click ‘Open’. The user control would get added to the list of controls. Dismiss the dialog by clicking on ‘OK’. It would appear on the Toolbox. Drag and drop it on the form. Name it as c. Set the Alarmtime and Message property of the control through the Properties window. First of all we need to start the timer in the constructor of the Form1 class by calling the start( ) method of the control as shown below.

c.start();

We also need to add an event handler to handle the d event of the control. Do so through the ‘Properties’ window. The code in this handler is shown below.

void c_d (object sender, ClockControl.TimeEventArgs e)
{
   int i;
   for (i = 0 ; i < 5 ; i++)
   speaker.Speak (e.msg, "");
}

The TimeEventArgs object would contain the message to be displayed in the msg data member. In the event handler we have simply made the character speak out the message five times.

Yashavant Kanetkar, one of the first Express Computer columnists, is an established software expert, speaker and author with several best-sellers to his credit, including titles like “Let Us C” and the “Fundas” series. Contact him at kanet@nagpur.dot.net.in