The Conversation Pane (which you get by clicking on the “Conversation” tab), is where you actually converse with the artificial intelligence. It looks something like the following:
The
“Conversation Log” text-area shows
the conversation that has occurred so far in the current session.
Within it, paragraphs starting with “<--” indicate information
that was sent to the artificial intelligence, and paragraphs starting
with “-->” indicate information that was generated by the
artificial intelligence.
You can select text in the text-area, and copy/paste it into a text editor, if you wish to save the conversation itself.
The “Current Input” text-field is where you enter your input. When you have finished typing your response (to the last thing the artificial intelligence said), simply press the Enter-key (making-sure your input ends with end-of-sentence punctuation). You can also copy/paste plain, unformatted text into this field for input (Java dialogs use control-v to paste), so you can feed it information from other sources.
It really helps if you use proper punctuation and capitalization, but (except for end-of-sentence punctuation), it is not necessary. You can also use contractions (such as “can't”), and it will understand them properly. Compound words (such as “under-represented”) also work fine.
Also, if you use an abbreviation that ends-with (or contains) a period (such as “Mr.”, “M.D.”, “P.H.D.”, or “Mrs.”, it is best to leave-off the period(s), since the artificial intelligence will think it is the end of a sentence (which is not what is intended in such cases).
The application is designed to accept ISO-8859-1 character-sets, so it should work with a wide variety of languages.
If you can't think of something to say, but instead want the artificial intelligence to say something, simply press the Enter-key, and it will say something continuing-on from what was last said. Clicking the “Send” button has the same effect.
The “Read” button (disabled if the application has only 'sand-box' privileges), lets you specify a text file for the application to read, and learn-from.
The “Print” button (disabled if the application has only 'sand-box' privileges), prints the contents of the “Conversation Log” text-area on a printer available to your computer.
The “Save” button (disabled if the application has only 'sand-box' privileges), lets you specify a file where the artificial intelligence's memory can be saved. This allows you to continue the current conversation at a later time. If the application has access to your computer's file-system when it starts, it will let you choose from the various such files you have saved, to be loaded into the artificial intelligence's memory.
When a prior conversation's memory is loaded in this manner, its file-name is shown in the title-bar, and the configuration parameters used by the former conversation (except for the look-and-feel) are restored.
If you click the “Help” button (disabled if the application has only 'sand-box' privileges), your Internet browser is activated, to display this help information page via Internet access.
Clicking the “Exit” button terminates the application, and if the application has privileges to access your file-system, you are given the opportunity to save the artificial intelligence's memory (if you've done anything to change it).
The default file-name used to save the memory, is “PriorConversation.hal”, which is also the default file-name used in loading a prior conversation's memory, so it's easy to continue the prior conversation.