We would talk about Dialogs.<\/p>\n
If you have been following my lessons on\u00a0 How to Build Chatbots or MS Bot Framework Tutorials<\/a>, you would realize for you to develop a useful chatbot application, you simply need the right information, and from the right person. That is exactly what I do for my subscribers.<\/p>\n Contents<\/b><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Honestly, it’s really very easy to develop applications no matter how complex they are. Ask me why. The reason is because, the tools are already there. Also bits and pieces of any application have already be developed, you simply need to find them and piece them together. And that’s it.<\/p>\n Today, I would tell you about dialogs in Chatbots. If you understand the concepts of dialogs in chatbots, then you will see that development of chatbots is really easy if you have a basic knowleges of programming.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n A dialog si simply a single flow of communication between the user and the chatbot. For example: You see fromthe above that this is a single flow of conversation that follows a particular logic. If along the line, the user would like to know about the wheather, then another dialog would be needed. Or if the user wants the bot to get stock market reports, similarly, another dialog would be needed.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n To start developing a chatbot you simply need to download the template.This template already is a complete chatbot but just with one dialog.You could just build and run this template and it works perfectly. Just <\/p>\n Just like you can add several forms or pages to your web application, you can also add several dialogs to your Chatbot application. Once you have the template with the root dialog, you can simply add new dialog by adding a new class file. You could also copy and modify the existing dialog file<\/p>\n <\/b> You can easily redirect from on dialog to another in a chatbot application. But unlike web application, you don’t use hyperlinks, you simply write the code to do this. 1. Using context.call<\/span>: This simple calls the new child dialog without passing any parameter<\/p>\n 2. Using context.forward()<\/span>: This method allows us to invoke a child dialog and pass an a parameter (which could be a message) to the dialog. <\/p>\n Listing 1: Foward message to a QnaDialog<\/p>\n <\/p>\n This Listing 1 shows how to foward the program execution to a QNA Dialog when no intent is identified by the LUIS dialog<\/p>\n Here, a new instace of the qnaDialog is created\u00a0 and th foward method takes an input message and passes it to the new dialog. It also specifies a callback when the new child dialog is completed. In this case the function to call after completion is AfterQNADialog.<\/p>\n Once it has completed, the AfterQNADialog will call context.Done.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Bot Framework Tutorial Series<\/b><\/p>\n\n
1. Introduction<\/b><\/h3>\n
2. What is a Dialog?<\/b><\/h3>\n
\n
\n<\/span>User: Please play me a song<\/span><\/span>
\nBot: Which song would you like me to play<\/i><\/span><\/span>
\nUser: Ada Ada by Flavour<\/span><\/span>
\nBot: I could not get Ada Ada by Flavour. Would you like Golibe by Flavour?<\/i><\/span><\/span>
\nUser: Ok<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n3. Where to Start<\/b><\/h3>\n
\nThis is the same way that you have a single form when you start a new web application in visula studio.
\nSo just go ahead to download the template from this link<\/a>. It is in a zip file. Unzip it. Open it in Visual Studio and then run it.
\nTo actually test it by sending messages and getting response, you need an Emulator Applicaiton. You can also get it free from here and install.
\nRefer to this tutorial. Build Your First Chatbot in Visual Studio <\/a>
\nVideo Lessons here<\/a><\/p>\n4. Adding New Dialog<\/b><\/h3>\n
\n<\/ins><\/p>\n5. Redirecting to Another Dialog<\/b><\/h3>\n
\nWhen you redirect to another dialog, you are adding it to the stack. This means that you could return to the previous dialog later.
\nI would tell you two ways to redirect to another dialog:<\/p>\n
\nThe syntax is:<\/p>\n [LuisIntent(\"\")]<\/span>\r\n public<\/span> async<\/span> Task None<\/span>(IDialogContext context, IAwaitable<IMessageActivity> message, LuisResult result)\r\n {\r\n var<\/span> qnaDialog = new<\/span> qnaDialog();\r\n var<\/span> messageToSend = await<\/span> message;\r\n await<\/span> context.Forward(qnaDialog, AfterQNADialog, messageToSend, CancellationToken.None);\r\n }\r\n<\/pre>\n