From: gv@... (Gerard A.W. Vreeswijk)
Date: 2003-07-14T19:10:26+09:00
Subject: programming a bird -- yes!

Hello all,

Hi all,

Serious (but possibly less attracting) subject title: Win32ole event loop
with MSAgent.

Thanks to Suketa Masaki for doing such a good job on giving us 'win32ole'.
It relieves us from Microsoft's RSI-stimulating clickfests.

Inspired by Rubytalk 36676, Shusaku <tsyk@yk.rim.or.jp>:

   http://blade.nagaokaut.ac.jp/cgi-bin/scat.rb/ruby/ruby-list/36676

I decided I wanted to beef up my Agent-app with MSAgent (sorry, Unix):

   http://www.microsoft.com/msagent/downloads/user.asp
   (download merlin + speech engine + maybe more, depending on your
hardware)

Tried out the script below.  All works fine --- as a matter of fact, I
showed one of the characters who happens to be a bird called Peedy to my
4-year old son pronouncing my son's name.  He ran down to his mom and said
that a bird talked to him and knew his name :-)

Anyway:
======================================================================
#!/usr/bin/ruby
require 'win32ole'

agent = WIN32OLE.new('Agent.Control.1')
agent.Connected = true
agent.Characters.Load("some random string, 'peedy' or so", "peedy.acs")

peedy = agent.Characters("some random string, 'peedy' or so")

# The way we should officialy check when we're done:
ev = WIN32OLE_EVENT.new(agent, nil)
ev.on_event("RequestComplete") { |rRequest|

  # rRequest.ole_obj_help.name      -> "IAgentCtlRequest"
  # rRequest.ole_obj_help.typekind  -> 4 ( TKIND_DISPATCH )
  # rRequest.ole_obj_help.ole_type  -> "Dispatch"
  # rRequest.ID                     -> 197  ( ?? )

  if rRequest.ID == $peedySpeak.ID
      peedy.Hide # or exit, or move on, or ..
  end

}

peedy.Show

# You can program gestures here.   Nothing fancy at the moment, just
speak.

$peedySpeak = peedy.Speak <<EOF
Thanks Suketa Masaki, for giving us win32ole!
And thanks Shusaku, for giving us a link between Ruby-win32ole and
MsAgent!
EOF

# speak = peedy.ole_method("Speak")  #=> WIN32OLE_METHOD
# speak.return_vtype        #=> 26
# speak.return_type         #=> "IAgentCtlRequest"
# speak.return_type_detail  #=> ["PTR", "USERDEFINED", "IAgentCtlRequest"]


# More mundane check to see when we're done:
loop do
   $stderr.puts $peedySpeak.Status
   $stderr.flush
   # status should become 0 or so, see
   #
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/msagent/pacontrol_3tws.asp
   break if $peedySpeak.Status != 2
   sleep 1
end

# never get here :-(

======================================================================


As you see, the WIN32OLE_EVENT-loop doesn't seem to recognize events,
which is needed to recognize that an action is over.
Also, the "Status" attribute does not work.  Status could also be used to
see that an action is over. Currently, Status keeps returning 2's.  This
is different from Perl's,

   foreach my $animation ($c->AnimationNames)
   {
       my $request = $c->Play($animation);
       $c->Speak($animation);
       my $i = 0;
       while (($request->Status == 2) || ($request->Status == 4))
       { $c->Stop($request) if $i >10; sleep(1);  $i++}
   }


where it *does** work (not the events, though).  (Thanks, Jouke).  See

   http://www.cpan.org/modules/by-authors/id/J/JO/JOUKE/

Examined Suketa Masaki "ienavi.rb" example for inspiration.  There must be
some "DWebBrowserEvents" event sink identifier for MSAgent as well, but
which??

Thanks.
Gerard