Hello Developers and Partners of Windows Live Agents,

 

We are very excited that 5.0 is here! We have received many questions from all of you regarding the transition from 4.3 to 5.0.  Windows Live Agents Partner Support is no longer accepting projects developed in 4.3. All agent projects should be developed in 5.0 using our SDK in Visual Studio and submitted through our Partner hosting site at http://phi.agents.live.com. If you send us a new project developed in 4.3 or 5.0 via email, we will unfortunately not be able to accept it. If you have not already downloaded the 5.0 SDK in Visual Studio, you can do so here. For instructions on getting started with hosting, please click here.

 

If we are currently hosting an agent of yours that was developed in 4.3, please continue to send us updates in 4.3 via email. We will let you know when we are ready to migrate your project from 4.3 to 5.0.

 

Thanks,

Windows Live Agents Team

Quite often we hear from partners who complain that the screen name, personal status message, or display picture of their agent has disappeared from the Messenger client, and ask us to fix it. Strictly speaking, the display of these parameters in the client is subject to forces outside the control of the Windows Live Agents group, however we continue to work with those in charge of the Messenger network to resolve issues like this.

 

In the meantime, here is the code we use to "fix" the problem. If you are not already doing so, you should be using Method 3 from this blog post about changing friendly names, icons, and status messages. Updates to these Messenger parameters via edits to the BFG are no longer supported after 4.3!

 

To add the screen name parametes updater, simply include these lines in your project:

 

Greetings,

 

We often design dialogs in BuddyScript to answer to user queries in a specific context. We will see today how by using actions, we can have initiate and notify to answer dialogs, and what can be the use.

A dialog is a set of dialog entries that leaves in your script. A dialog entry is some matching information and a script block associated with. The matching information part usually contains patterns, but can contain actions. An action has a name and potentially parameters.

The first example is a trivia with timer.

// Trivia with timer

 

? Play trivia

  - Let's play trivia

    in what year was the Eiffel Tower built ?

    in 1889 {action=Right()}

    in 1943 {action=Wrong()}

    in 2001 {action=Wrong()}

    You have 30 seconds to answer

  NID = notify in 30 seconds: action TimeOut()

  ? 1889

  action Right()

    - That is correct!

  ? 1943

  ? 2001

  action Wrong()

    - Nope, the correct answer is 1889.

  action TimeOut()

    - Too late, the correct answer is 1889.

 

At first, you can see a common use of actions, and that is with an enumeration. Typing 1 will trigger the action Right, typing 2 or 3 will trigger the action Wrong. Or you can fully type the date and match one of the three patterns.

Then, you will notice the action in the notify. After 30 seconds, the notification will answer the dialog for you. If you do respond before the notification triggers, it would be wise to cancel the notification, but if you don’t, that’s ok because when the notification will trigger, no dialog with a TimeOut action will be active and the notification will simply be ignored.

Initiates can also use actions, but through the respond statement. The syntax is:

RID = respond SOURCE: action MyAction(PARAMS)

The SOURCE is an object that contains the user identity (screenname, service and UID), the buddy id and the conversation id to send the action to. Most of the time, you are coming from an initiate and you simply pass the object from SYS.ConversationSource. Don’t forget to save that object in a variable if you have a dialog, because this variable won’t survive the dialog.

A typical use for this statement is to get information from another user’s profile. In the following example, I have altered the “Do you know my friend” example to display a friendly name that the friend may have provided.

// Do you know my friend(oh you mean Jacky ?)

 

stored variable PREFERRED_NAME = ""

 

? Call me NAME=AnythingRaw

  PREFERRED_NAME = NAME

  - Ok, for now on, I will call you PREFERRED_NAME

 

procedure GetPreferredName()

  if PREFERRED_NAME = ""

    NAME = SYS.User.ScreenName

  else

    NAME = PREFERRED_NAME

  CID = respond SYS.ConversationSource: action SetName(NAME)

 

? Do you know EMAIL=AnEMailAddress ?

  RESULT_NOLOAD = initiate EMAIL, "MSN": GetPreferredName() {createprofile=false loadprofile=false}

  if RESULT_NOLOAD.Delivered

    IN_SESSION = true

  else

    IN_SESSION = false

    RESULT_LOAD = initiate EMAIL, "MSN": GetPreferredName() {createprofile=false loadprofile=true}

    if !RESULT_LOAD.Delivered

      - Sorry, I can't say that I do

      exit

  action SetName(NAME)

    if NAME != EMAIL

      - Oh, you mean NAME ? \c

    - Yes, I know that guy\c

    if IN_SESSION

      - , and he/she's talking to me right now.

    else

      - .

 

 

This script calls GetPreferredName under the friend’s profile, this procedure will respond by sending the preferred name. The script will wait in a dialog to get that answer.

 

You can also constantly exchange information back and forth between users with respond. You just need one initiate to initiate the dialog. Here is another example that lets two users chat through the agent.

// Chatter

 

declare procedure InviteToChat(NAME)

declare procedure Chat(SRC)

 

? I want to chat with EMAIL=AnEMailAddress

  - Ok, let me invite your friend over

  CID = initiate EMAIL, "MSN": InviteToChat(SYS.User.NickName) {createprofile=false loadprofile=true}

  action Accept()

    - Ok, your friend has accepted, you may chat now.

    call Chat(SYS.ConversationSource)

  action Reject()

    - Sorry, your friend has declined the offer.

  action NoResponse()

    - Hmm, nobody replied...

 

procedure InviteToChat(NAME)

  - Hey, your friend NAME would like to chat with you, do you want to accept ?

  set user conversation

  SRC = SYS.ConversationSource

  NID = notify in 30 seconds: action TimeOut()

  ? Yes

    - Great, let's start chatting...

    RID = respond SRC: action Accept()

    call Chat(SRC)

  ? No

    - Fine.

    RID = respond SRC: action Reject()

  action TimeOut()

    - Hmm, you must not be here...

    RID = respond SRC: action NoResponse()

  insist: Please, say Yes or No.

       

procedure Chat(SRC)

  - Type "quit" to quit the chat.

  ? TEXT=AnythingRaw

    RID = respond SRC: action SendText(TEXT)

    restart dialog

  action SendText(TEXT)

    - TEXT

    restart dialog

  ? Quit

    RID = respond SRC: action Quit()

    - You have terminated the conversation

  action Quit()

    - Your friend has terminated the conversation

   

Have fun with all that.

 

damien