The C# BotBuilder SDK supports a really cool thing call FormFlow. With this, you can write a C# class which is used as a base for a dynamically generated series of question/answer pairs, in order to fill the properties of this class. For instance, do you want to create a burger ordering bot? Just add a enum for BreadOptions, an enum for Toppings, a choice of SauceOptions etc. This is a really cool feature of the C# BotBuilder SDK which allows you to quickly develop a chatbot with predefined rules and flow. As the Node.js BotBuilder SDK lacks this functionality, I tried to replicate it since I needed it for a simple project I’m building. Meet formflowbotbuilder.
Tag: node.js
Using AIML files with Microsoft Bot Framework
A few days ago, I was pitching Bot Framework to an interested party, when a question came up: “Does the Bot Framework support AIML files? We have a lot of them and we are wondering whether we could use them”. Honestly, I didn’t have a clue what AIML is, so I decided to run a quick search.
Turns out that AIML stands for Artificial Intelligence Markup Language and, as Wikipedia nicely mentions it, it is an XML dialect for creating natural language software agents. AIML was used to power Alice Bot back in 1995 (this was one of the first chat bots available to the public). Moreover, AIML powered a discussion with Captain Kirk of Enterprise (ho there, Star Trek fans!). Alice AIML files are open source, you can find them here.
Dimitris Gkanatsios 