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Character Object Methods

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[Microsoft Agent is deprecated as of Windows 7, and may be unavailable in subsequent versions of Windows.]

The server also exposes methods for each character in a Characters collection. The following methods are supported:

To use a method, reference the character in the collection. In VBScript and Visual Basic, you do this by specifying the ID for a character:

   Sub FormLoad

   'Load the genie character into the Characters collection
   Agent1.Characters.Load "Genie", "Genie.acs"

   'Display the character
   Agent1.Characters("Genie").Show
   Agent1.Characters("Genie").Play "Greet"
   Agent1.Characters("Genie").Speak "Hello. "

   End Sub

To simplify the syntax of your code, you can define an object variable and set it to reference a character object in the Characters collection; then you can use your variable to reference methods or properties of the character. The following example demonstrates how you can do this using the Visual Basic Set statement:

   'Define a global object variable
   Dim Genie as Object

   Sub FormLoad

   'Load the genie character into the Characters collection
   Agent1.Characters.Load "Genie", " Genie.acs"

   'Create a reference to the character
   Set Genie = Agent1.Characters("Genie")

   'Display the character
   Genie.Show

   'Get the Restpose animation
   Genie.Get "animation", "RestPose"

   'Make the character say Hello
   Genie.Speak "Hello."

   End Sub

In Visual Basic 5.0, you can also create your reference by declaring your variable as a Characterobject:

   Dim Genie as IAgentCtlCharacterEx

   Sub FormLoad

   'Load the genie character into the Characters collection
   Agent1.Characters.Load "Genie", "Genie.acs"

   'Create a reference to the character
   Set Genie = Agent1.Characters("Genie")

   'Display the character
   Genie.Show

   End Sub

Declaring your object of type IAgentCtlCharacterEx enables early binding on the object, which results in better performance.

In VBScript, you cannot declare a reference as a particular type. However, you can simply declare the variable reference:

<SCRIPT LANGUAGE = "VBSCRIPT">
<!—--

   Dim Genie
   
   Sub window_OnLoad
   
   'Load the character
   AgentCtl.Characters.Load "Genie", "https://agent.microsoft.com/characters/v2/genie/genie.acf"

   'Create an object reference to the character in the collection
   set Genie= AgentCtl.Characters ("Genie")

   'Get the Showing state animation
   Genie.Get "state", "Showing"

   'Display the character
   Genie.Show

   End Sub

-->
   </SCRIPT>

Some programming languages do not support collections. However, you can access a Character object's methods with the Character method:

   agent.Characters.Character("CharacterID").method

In addition, you can also create a reference to the Character object to make your script code easier to follow:

<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JScript" FOR="window" EVENT="onLoad()">
<!--
   
   //Load the character's data
   AgentCtl.Characters.Load ("Genie", _
      "https://agent.microsoft.com/characters/v2/genie/genie.acf");   

   //Create a reference to this object
   Genie = AgentCtl.Characters.Character("Genie");
   
   //Get the Showing state animation
   Genie.Get("state", "Showing");

   //Display the character
   Genie.Show();

-->
</SCRIPT>