ALDialog Tutorials

NAOqi Interaction engines - Overview | API | Tutorials

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Getting started

Start with Choregraphe

Choregraphe offers a full environment enabling you to quickly create and test dialog boxes.

Follow step by step the tutorials: Creating Dialog boxes.

Go deeper with the full syntax

Once familiar with the main functions, you can add more complex rules.

For further details, see: QiChat - Syntax.

Other option: Python

Two Python examples below show how to load and unload dialog topics. There are two ways to do it: either you need to have a .top file ready on the robot (you can use the example file below), or you can pass your qichat syntax directly to the dialog engine, as a text string. The second way is more useful for very short topics (as you don’t need any additional files), whereas the first is general.

aldialog_example_topic_file.top

topic: ~example_topic()
language: enu

concept:(food) [fruits chicken beef eggs]

u: (I [want "would like"] {some} _~food) Sure! You must really like $1 .
u: (how are you today) Hello human, I am fine thank you and you?
u: (Good morning Nao did you sleep well) No damn! You forgot to switch me off!

u: ([e:FrontTactilTouched e:MiddleTactilTouched e:RearTactilTouched]) You touched my head!

u: (Do you want to be tested) %testing Yes, please, test me now!
u: (test test test) Yes, it works!
    u1: ([cool awesome]) isn't it?

u:(start counting) 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

aldialog_example_load_as_file.py

#! /usr/bin/env python
# -*- encoding: UTF-8 -*-

"""Example: Using ALDialog Methods"""

import qi
import argparse
import sys

def main(session, topic_path):
    """
    This example uses ALDialog methods.
    It's a short dialog session with one topic.
    """
    # Getting the service ALDialog
    ALDialog = session.service("ALDialog")
    ALDialog.setLanguage("English")

    # Loading the topic given by the user (absolute path is required)
    topf_path = topic_path.decode('utf-8')
    topic_name = ALDialog.loadTopic(topf_path.encode('utf-8'))

    # Activating the loaded topic
    ALDialog.activateTopic(topic_name)

    # Starting the dialog engine - we need to type an arbitrary string as the identifier
    # We subscribe only ONCE, regardless of the number of topics we have activated
    ALDialog.subscribe('my_dialog_example')

    try:
        raw_input("\nSpeak to the robot using rules from the just loaded .top file. Press Enter when finished:")
    finally:
        # stopping the dialog engine
        ALDialog.unsubscribe('my_dialog_example')

        # Deactivating the topic
        ALDialog.deactivateTopic(topic_name)

        # now that the dialog engine is stopped and there are no more activated topics,
        # we can unload our topic and free the associated memory
        ALDialog.unloadTopic(topic_name)


if __name__ == "__main__":
    parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
    parser.add_argument("--ip", type=str, default="127.0.0.1",
                        help="Robot's IP address. If on a robot or a local Naoqi - use '127.0.0.1' (this is the default value).")
    parser.add_argument("--port", type=int, default=9559,
                        help="port number, the default value is OK in most cases")
    parser.add_argument("--topic-path", type=str, required=True,
                        help="absolute path of the dialog topic file (on the robot)")

    args = parser.parse_args()
    session = qi.Session()
    try:
        session.connect("tcp://{}:{}".format(args.ip, args.port))
    except RuntimeError:
        print ("\nCan't connect to Naoqi at IP {} (port {}).\nPlease check your script's arguments."
               " Run with -h option for help.\n".format(args.ip, args.port))
        sys.exit(1)
    main(session, args.topic_path)

Execution:

$ python aldialog_example_load_file.py --ip $YOUR_ROBOTS_IP_ADDRESS --topic-path $ABSOLUTE_PATH_TO_YOUR_TOPIC_ON_THE_ROBOT

aldialog_example_load_as_content.py

#! /usr/bin/env python
# -*- encoding: UTF-8 -*-

"""Example: Using ALDialog Methods"""

import qi
import argparse
import sys

def main(session):
    """
    This example uses ALDialog methods.
    It's a short dialog session with two topics.
    """
    # Getting the service ALDialog
    ALDialog = session.service("ALDialog")
    ALDialog.setLanguage("English")

    # writing topics' qichat code as text strings (end-of-line characters are important!)
    topic_content_1 = ('topic: ~example_topic_content()\n'
                       'language: enu\n'
                       'concept:(food) [fruits chicken beef eggs]\n'
                       'u: (I [want "would like"] {some} _~food) Sure! You must really like $1 .\n'
                       'u: (how are you today) Hello human, I am fine thank you and you?\n'
                       'u: (Good morning Nao did you sleep well) No damn! You forgot to switch me off!\n'
                       'u: ([e:FrontTactilTouched e:MiddleTactilTouched e:RearTactilTouched]) You touched my head!\n')

    topic_content_2 = ('topic: ~dummy_topic()\n'
                       'language: enu\n'
                       'u:(test) [a b "c d" "e f g"]\n')

    # Loading the topics directly as text strings
    topic_name_1 = ALDialog.loadTopicContent(topic_content_1)
    topic_name_2 = ALDialog.loadTopicContent(topic_content_2)

    # Activating the loaded topics
    ALDialog.activateTopic(topic_name_1)
    ALDialog.activateTopic(topic_name_2)

    # Starting the dialog engine - we need to type an arbitrary string as the identifier
    # We subscribe only ONCE, regardless of the number of topics we have activated
    ALDialog.subscribe('my_dialog_example')

    try:
        raw_input("\nSpeak to the robot using rules from both the activated topics. Press Enter when finished:")
    finally:
        # stopping the dialog engine
        ALDialog.unsubscribe('my_dialog_example')

        # Deactivating all topics
        ALDialog.deactivateTopic(topic_name_1)
        ALDialog.deactivateTopic(topic_name_2)

        # now that the dialog engine is stopped and there are no more activated topics,
        # we can unload all topics and free the associated memory
        ALDialog.unloadTopic(topic_name_1)
        ALDialog.unloadTopic(topic_name_2)


if __name__ == "__main__":
    parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
    parser.add_argument("--ip", type=str, default="127.0.0.1",
                        help="Robot's IP address. If on a robot or a local Naoqi - use '127.0.0.1' (this is the default value).")
    parser.add_argument("--port", type=int, default=9559,
                        help="port number, the default value is OK in most cases")

    args = parser.parse_args()
    session = qi.Session()
    try:
        session.connect("tcp://{}:{}".format(args.ip, args.port))
    except RuntimeError:
        print ("\nCan't connect to Naoqi at IP {} (port {}).\nPlease check your script's arguments."
               " Run with -h option for help.\n".format(args.ip, args.port))
        sys.exit(1)
    main(session)

Execution:

$ python aldialog_example_load_content.py --ip $YOUR_ROBOTS_IP_ADDRESS