Digital Workshop

Problem fixed. Just a case of the idiot factor at work. Sorry for the confusion.

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Almost exactly 12 months ago, I started investigating the effectiveness of using MS Agent technology with tutorials and other CBT pubs. Almost immediately I recognised that this was indeed a powerful companion for Opus, but there was one frustrating issue that for me made it impossible to use MS Agent with Opus. That was the inability to completely close the Agent when finished with. That challenge has now been solved, and MS Agent effectively can be incorporated in Opus pubs.

Another issue arises when distribiting products that use MS Agents. You need a Distribution Licence, but MS give that away -- FREE! This is the issue: while most PCs (sorry people, MS Agents cannot be used with Macs ) come with MS Agent installed, there is always the chance that some clients might not have it.

While it's simple enough to download and install, that's not something with which I'd burden my clients. After some more minor research I will use Opus to develop a MS Agent Installation Package which I will distribute with my Opus+Agent pubs. That should save me (and them) any hassles.

For those of you who are interested, I've uploaded a small Opus pub (2.6MB). http://www.jeelan.com.au/transfers/Demo.zip.

This pub is a front-end for learing materials for pre-school and kindergarten children. Several of the available (and free) agents are ideal for this use. This sample is not a polished final pub. I've posted it to merely demonstrate some of the capabilities of MS Agents. Please particularly note that because I have used absolute movements at a resolution of 800x600 resolution (resized to fill the screen) on a 19" monitor, these movements might not correctly align on your computer. I plan to correct this by using relative movements.

When you run this pub, the sequence should be that 1: an Opus page loads -- a row of 10 coloured boxes on the left; a panel of 5 ticks and 5 crosses on the right; 2: shortly after that page loads, the Agent, Merlin, appears; 3: When the agent finishes, the empty Contents page appears.

If you want more info, let me know and I'll post more details.

I forgot to add:
If you stop the Opus program by exiting while it is running, Merlin remains active. Just right-click on the agent, and then click Exit..

Hi Sentosa,

I have used MS Agents for years, but if memory serves me correctly, they are for text to speech? When you say that they work with your publication - does that mean that they will read whats on screen or in a passed variable?

I did download your publication, but after selecting a star and sounds, got a white page with an EXIT and BACK button and a the text MENU so didn't do what I was supposed to be seeing.

AM I clutching at straws or could I make my pubs talk? That would be really useful and save hours of auto narrate.

Mackavi

EDIT ALSO;

Posted this whilst you were editing. Where can I find this?

No, they don't read what is on the Opus screen. By using a command like "Merlin Speak" in the script file, I have Merlin say what I want him to say. I develop the script for the Agents by using a product called MASH. It simplifies the script writing to the point where I can actually make it work MASH is worth having a look at, because it is inexpensive -- about US$25 (I think) with a free evaluation. Recent version of MASH support the use of variables, but I've not yet tried that. MASH also outputs to EXE files, which makes it easy to use with the Opus Launch File action.

Re text-to-speech: I use this a lot, but I do so my writing my text on an Opus page, copying it to my TTS app., writing the result to a .wav file and adding that to Opus.



This pub is purely a small example of how MS Agents can be incorporated to work with an Opus pub. As you'll see from what I write below, you saw what I expected you to see, to let you perhaps evaluate whether Agent technology might be useful in your pubs.

I stripped out the graphics and .wav files to make downloading more practical. This sample was intended to do nothing more than what you saw. Eventually, it will be the "set up" page for a pub that will have 100+ pages.

These "working" pages have exercises that are self-correcting by the sounds the user hears. The appearance and movement of the star also highlights a correct result. This particular pub is for "reading readiness" exercises, and the young children (who can't yet read) rely heavily on sounds, and for agents such as Merlin for instruction.

Feedback from a test group indicated that the young children would like to (a) select different coloured stars when they start a session; (b) to choose from a range of sounds associated with right/wrong results; and (c) to have a choice from the 20+ major "rewards" which are pictures which they colour, and which a supervisor (usually a mother) then cuts into pieces for the child to re-assemble.

Thanks for your comments. I'm only too willing to explain more, if people are interested.

Cheers Sentosa,

But am still confused. Is Merlin supposed to appear when the publication is run?

I will certainly have a look at this MASH application as it would be great to pass information to Merlin.

As for using TTS as wave file, I was under the impression that there were problems concerning the copyright. Is their a GPL speech library that can be used or does it cost?

Mackavi

Hi Macavi

You certainly ask some interesting questions.



MASH supports saving the script file as an .exe file. Therefore, it can be launched by any Opus action that supports launch file. In this example, I've used an On Show trigger.



MASH also has several active forums.



I use Text Aloud provided by NextUp.com. There are many free voices available through MS and Lernaught & Hauspie (?) who have since gone out of business, but you can still get their voices from NextUp. These free voices are not great, but most of us won't have a choice because of the HUGE cost of some of the better ones, and I'm talking from $10,000 and upwards (I've seen $100,000+) for a distribution licence.

There are no restriction on distribution of the free voices. There are all sorts of restrictions on the so called better voices.

Be very careful with the commercial voices, because you can buy them for around $35 each BUT you can only use these on your local computer, and cannot distribute them. I have 2 really great Australian voices, but only for local use. For distribution, you have to pay the prices mentioned. My advice is to ask very specific questions about distribution if you are thinking of buying the better voices.

Re voices used with MS Agents. Again, you might find that the better voices won't work with Agents. Agents (which use an older technology) are based on SAPI4 technology. Many of the newer better voices use SAPI5 technology, and these won't work with MS Agents.

HTH

Hi Sentosa,

Cheers. Have DL MASH and created an exe but as I really need to produce thousands of 'speeches' - would only find this practical if the I could pass the a variable.

According to the help and forum, I should be able to do this by adding %myvariable% to the script and calling the saved exe as myspeech.exe /myvariable

Do ya think I can this to work. the exe part works except for the reading of %myvariable% as a text string, but add the /myvariable and it's dead in the water.

Any ideas?

Mackavi

P.S Just had a thought, I think that you mean (???) and tested it. Your ON SHOW calls the exe from the demo folder and Merlin then gives a tutorial - except that it does nothing on my machine unless I run the exe directly. Am going to restart and recheck, but have you had this problem before.

EDIT:

Have just seen you don't download. This explains why it doesn't work for you publication. However, restart did nothing. I still can't pass a command line variable

This is a self-induced problem which I've recently described at the top of my first post. I've been using Opus for almost 7 years, and this is the first time that absolute directy paths have got into my distribution files. I'll correct that, and report -- sometime in the next few hours.



The use of variables in MASH is reasonably new, and I've never tried it because I've never needed to. I suggest that you try to do what you think is right, save it as a MASH script, and post that file and your questions to the MASH forum. There are some really knowledgeable users who can help you.

MASH is a great program, but it took me almost 12 months to solve the problem that prevented it from being of use with Opus. Basically, none of the "normal" commands would permanently close the Agent file, and the agent would just reappear and hang around being a nuisance. About 2 months ago, I tracked down an undocumented command that solved the issue.

Have just posted there.

For reference, this undocumented command is....

I wondered if you'd ask

Here is the content of a file I now keep on my Desktop:

Some detailed research took me to this useful command: CloseApp "My Application" Quotation marks are essential.
The only restriction is that the text used to replace "My Application" must be identical to the information displayed in the Title Bar. As long as that info is static, this works.

I just placed CloseApp "My Application" at the end of the normal MASH script, saved it as an .exe, ran it from within Opus, and everything worked great!

HTH