Welcome to the latest incarnation of Frank, a non-intelligent language learner. What that means, is as you talk to him, he learns the words that you use, and what order they can appear in. So the more you say to Frank, the more he can say back.
But what purpose does Frank serve? I don't really know to tell you the truth. I suppose if you were a really lonely person, you could hold conversations with him, but beware, because he comes up with some beautiful conversation killers.
Why have I spent so long writing a new version, if the existance of Frank is utterly pointless? Well, for firstly, it was a challenge (is this the 'because it was there' syndrome?) and secondly, because people asked me to. Yes believe it or not, people actually bothered to email me, telling me how Frank could be improved. (Thanks, I wouldn't have had the motivation to do this if it wasn't for you.... you only have yourselves to blame!)
..-----------------------------..
Hardware requirements
''-----------------------------''
Frank was written on a Risc PC 600 (original version), so I can be pretty certain that it will run ok on the new A7000 and Risc PC's. (i.e. anything that runs RISC OS 3.5 or above.) Unfortunately, at the time of writing, I haven't been able to check how well it runs on the older machines. If someone could (e)mail me (my address is given at the end of this document) telling me what, if anything, goes wrong on the older variety of Acorns then I would be most appreciative.
..-------------------..
Quick start
''-------------------''
If you want to find out what Frank is all about quickly, follow these instructions:
(Note: Frank supports !Help, so you may find it helpful if that is running while you are getting used to Frank.)
1: Go into the 'Vocabs' directory.
2: Double click on the 'Starter' vocabulary. If Frank wasn't already loaded,his icon will appear on the icon bar.
3: Click on Frank's icon (on the icon bar), and the main window will open.
4: Click in the white box near the bottom of the main window, and the caret should appear in it.
5: Type something in, and you should be well under way to having a 'conversation' with Frank!
..----------------------------..
Frank in more detail
''----------------------------''
--The main window
This is where the conversations will take place.
The four boxes that take up the top half of the window contain yours and Frank's past sentences. Only the last ten sentences are stored, and they can be viewed using the scroll bar at the side of the boxes, but remember, the latest response always appears in the bottom box, so if you enter a sentence, the scroll bar will need to be as low as it can go, or else you will not see Frank's comment.
Below these boxes is the white text entry box. If you are trying to write something, and nothing is appearing, make sure the caret is present by clicking in the box.
Underneath this are three icons, from left to right:
-The Vocabulary icon:
Clicking on this leads to the current vocabulary list.
Functions can be performed on words from the vocab list.
-The Quick save icon:
This is just a quick route to the save box.
-The Preferences icon:
Clicking on this opens up the preferences window.
--The preferences window
This is where you can set Frank up to suit you.
Max. Words: This is the current maximum number of words that Frank can store in memory. You can increase it by clicking on the right arrow, or decrease it by clicking on the left arrow.
Max. Links: This is the current maximum number of words a word can link to. You can increase it by clicking on the right arrow, or decrease it by clicking on the left arrow.
Any changes you make to these only come into effect when you next run Frank, and you will be informed as such when you do so.
IMPORTANT NOTE:Frank can get _very_ memory hungry when you increase the max words, and the max links especially. The reason behind this is due to Frank having to reserve memory for every single possible link, for every single possible word, even if they are unused. A very rough way to calculate the amount of memory that will be used is to multiply the max. words by the max. links and add 88. For example, if you were to up Max words to 1000, and Max links to 300, you would have to have (1000*300)+88k=3088k (roughly) of memory free to run Frank! However, the default (Max words of 300, Max links of 80) only takes up 328k, so as long as you keep to reasonable boundarys, everything
should be ok.
Learning: When this is off, no new words are added to the vocabulary.
This is mainly useful for when you have created a decent vocab, and you don't
want people filling it with swear words, and other junk.
Comma=full stop: When this is selected, Frank treats commas as the end
of a sentence (just as he does full stops, exclamations marks and question
marks) so the word following the comma will be able to start a sentence.
Ignore commas: When this is selected, Frank will treat commas as a 'junk'
character (see next item).
Junk Characters: In the box next to the word 'Ignore', you can enter
characters that you don't want appearing in your vocab. As a default,
()*$& are all treated as 'junk'. So when you enter the sentence:
'Hi Frank! (I'm Mike)'
The words Frank will learn are: hi
frank
i'm
mike
Because the brackets are ignored (punctuation is automatically ignored)
If you didn't have the brackets as junk characters, Frank would have learned:
hi
frank
(i'm
mike)
Word linkage: When this is on, Frank is able to construct sentences
using his knowledge of which words can follow on from others. If this is off,
Frank just constructs sentences of up to six random words.
Word frequency: For this function to operate, word linkage needs to be
on as well. If both are on, Frank takes into acount how often words have been
linked to each other as well.
Save prefs with vocab: When this is on, the preferences are saved
along with the vocabs. They are loaded with the vocabularys, and come into
instant effect.
Auto-loaded vocabulary: You can select which (if any) vocabulary is to
be loaded upon execution of Frank by dragging the desired vocab's icon onto the
import arrow.
--The vocabulary window
Most of this window is occupied by the vocabulary (surprisingly enough)
You can scroll up and down the list by clicking on the arrows to the left of
the list. Pressing the left mouse button on them will scroll up/down the list
one at a time, whilst using the right mouse button will zip up and down a page
at a time.
To the right of the list are four icons, from top to bottom:
Correct word icon: By clicking on this icon, and subsequently on a word,
you can correct a mis-spelt word.
Delete word icon: By clicking on this icon, and then on a word, you can
perminantly remove a word from the vocabulary. Beware - there is no 'undelete'
View links icon: By clicking on this icon, and then on a word, you will
open the word linkage window, where you can perform operations on the word's
link data.
Toggle capitals icon: By clicking on this icon, and then on any word, you
can toggle whether the given word begins with a capital letter or not. This is
useful for names and dates, etc, because all words are stored in a lower case
form.
--Word linkage window
This is where you can find out which words link onto one another. Like
the vocabulary list, you can scroll up and down the linked words using the
arrows to the left of the list.
To the right of the list is a set of icons, from top to bottom:
Add link icon: By clicking on this icon, you open a window that allows
you to add a link from the current word to another word (selected from the
vocabulary window), or an end of sentence command.
Break link icon: By clicking on this icon, and then on one of the linked
words, you can sever the link between the current word, and the selected one.
If you break all the links in a word, an end of sentence command automatically
appears in the link list.
View links icon: See the vocabulary window section. The reason this
icon is in this window too, is so you can follow through possible sentences.
Reset counter icon: By clicking on this icon and the on a linked
word, you can reset the counter (of how many times that link has been
called) to 1.
..======================..
Final comments
''======================''
Well, I realise that this new version will undoubtedly have bugs in it.
I hope they are not too serious, for my sake! If you spot any, let me know,
and I'll see what I can do. My method of implementing the vocabulary storage
was completely different to all previous versions, and I didn't think it would
work, to be honest, but it seems to have (just), so that's where I expect most
of the errors to arise.
I hope you enjoy chatting to Frank with, or without friends!
You can contact me thusly:
Email: M.P.Goatly@herts.ac.uk
Snail mail: Mike Goatly,
20 Ely Road,
St. Albans,
Herts.
AL1 5NA
Cheers! See you in the next release of Frank!
Mike.
ps. If you mailed me during the holidays, I'm sorry that I didn't reply -
my mail box went unchecked, and it's probably been wiped, now I'm returning
