ALDialog Tutorials¶
NAOqi Interaction engines - Overview | API | Tutorials
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