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Read more about the article Implementing Skill Listing in SUSI iOS

Implementing Skill Listing in SUSI iOS

Skills are basically a set of rules which respond to the user’s queries through any client app. All the skills are defined in the SUSI Skill Data repo where the user’s queries are matched with the already present skills and the server responds accordingly. Apps like Alexa, Google Assistant have an interface to view skills with a set of sample queries that can be used therefore, we are adding the same skill display UI in the SUSI iOS app.

Implementation

All the skills are arranged into categories or groups, so we first need to fetch all those groups followed by fetching skills from each group. For listing all the groups, we use the endpoint below:

http://api.susi.ai/cms/getGroups.json

Which returns all the groups in the groups object like below:

{
  "session": {"identity": {
    "type": "host",
    "name": "67.214.191.117",
    "anonymous": true
  }},
  "accepted": true,
  "groups": [
    "Social",
    "News",
    "Food and Drink",
    "Travel and Transportation",
    "Connected Car",
    "Movies and TV",
    "Problem Solving",
    "Knowledge",
    "Business and Finance",
    "Productivity",
    "Games, Trivia and Accessories",
    "Lifestyle",
    "Health and Fitness",
    "Music and Audio",
    "Shopping",
    "Communication",
    "Novelty and Humour",
    "Utilities",
    "Sports", 
    "Weather"
  ],
  "message": "Success: Fetched group list"
}

After the groups have been fetched, we need to get the skills for each group. Here, we use the endpoint below:

http://api.susi.ai/cms/getSkillList.json?group=GROUP_NAME

Since, we have a number of groups, we need to make the above API call as many times as the group count is. A sample call would look like:

http://api.susi.ai/cms/getSkillList.json?group=News

which would fetch all the skills in the News group.

{
  "accepted": true,
  "model": "general",
  "group": "News",
  "language": "en",
  "skills": {"news": {
    "image": "images/news.png",
    "author_url": "https://github.com/AliAyub007",
    "examples": [
      "News",
      "latest news",
      "most viewed articles in science today",
      "most viewed articles in science in the last week",
      "most viewed articles in science in the last month",
      "most shared articles in science today",
      "can you tell me last week's most shared articles in science",
      "do you know most shared articles in arts in the last month",
      "most emailed articles today in arts",
      "most emailed articles in science in the last week",
      "can you tell me most emailed articles in science in the last month",
      "articles in science",
      "show me articles",
      "most emailed articles",
      "most shared articles",
      "tell me news in tech world"
    ],
    "developer_privacy_policy": null,
    "author": "Ali Ayub Khan",
    "skill_name": "NEWS",
    "dynamic_content": true,
    "terms_of_use": null,
    "descriptions": "A skill to give news.",
    "skill_rating": null
  }},
  "message": "Success: Fetched skill list",
  "session": {"identity": {
    "type": "host",
    "name": "23.94.137.239",
    "anonymous": true
  }}
}

Each such json object gives us the following values:

  • Model
  • Group
  • Language
  • Image Path
  • Author’s URL
  • Author’s Name
  • A list of sample queries
  • Skill Name
  • Licence and terms of use
  • Rating
  • Description

Implementation in SUSI iOS

The UI for listing skills is a little complex as it consists of a UITableView where each UITableViewCell consists of a UILabel(group name) and a UICollectionVIew (horizontal scroll).

Let’s see the step by step process to implement the skill listing.

  1. First, we need to fetch all the groups available using the endpoint above.
// get all groups
func getAllGroups() {
  Client.sharedInstance.getAllGroups { (groups, success, message) in
    DispatchQueue.main.async {
      if success {
        self.groups = groups
        self.tableView.reloadData()
      } else {
        print(message ?? "error")
      }
    }
  }
}
  1. After the response from the above call is obtained, the groups object containing all the groups is returned to the controller which the group name to set the UILabel.
var groupName: String? {
  didSet {
    backgroundColor = Color.grey.lighten3
    groupNameLabel.text = groupName
  }
}
  1. After the label is set, each cell makes another API call to populate the collection view, since these calls are concurrent, the collection view populates as soon as the response is fetched.
  2. The response from the above API call is used to create an array of Skill Model objects which is used to parse the response and to effectively use the data to display.
if let skills = response[Client.SkillListing.skills] as? [String : AnyObject],
  let model = response[Client.SkillListing.model] as? String,
  let group = response[Client.SkillListing.group] as? String,
  let language = response[Client.SkillListing.language] as? String,
  skills.count > 0 {
    let skillData = Skill.getAllSkill(skills, model, group, language)
    completion(skillData, true, nil)
    return
}

static func getAllSkill(_ skills: [String : AnyObject], _ model: String, _ group: String, _ language: String) -> [Skill] {
  var skillData = [Skill]()
  for skill in skills {
    let newSkill = Skill(dictionary: skill.value as! [String : AnyObject])
    newSkill.imagePath = getImagePath(model, group, language, newSkill.imagePath)
    skillData.append(newSkill)
  }
  return skillData
}
  1. At last, the skill object for the collection view is used to populate it as below:
var skill: Skill? {
  didSet {
    if let skill = skill {
      if let url = URL(string: skill.imagePath) {
        imageView.kf.setImage(with: url)
      }
      exampleQueryLabel.text = "\(skill.examples.first?.debugDescription ?? "")"
      skillNameLabel.text = skill.skillName
      skillDescription.text = skill.skillDescription
    }
  }
}

Here, we make use of the didSet method to populate the collection view. We have used Kingfisher to display the images.

That’s all for the scope of this tutorial. We learned how to fetch the skill groups followed by fetching the skills and displaying the skill data using the skill model object.

Below is the final UI we see after implementation.

Resources

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Read more about the article Settings Controller UI using Static Table View

Settings Controller UI using Static Table View

Dynamic Table Views are used at places where there may be any kind of reusability of cells. This means that there would exist cells that would have the same UI elements but would differ in the content being displayed. Initially the Settings Controller was built using UICollectionViewController which is completely dynamic but later I realized that the cells will remain static every time so there is no use of dynamic cells to display the UI hence, I switched to static table view cells. Using Static Table View is very easy. In this blog, I will explain how the implementation of the same was achieved in SUSI iOS app.

Let’s start by dragging and dropping a UITableViewController into the storyboard file.

The initial configuration of the UITableView has content as Dynamic Prototypes but we need Static cells so we choose them and make the sections count to 5 to suit our need. Also, to make the UI better, we choose the style as Grouped.

Now for each section, we have the control of statically adding UI elements so, we add all the settings with their corresponding section headers and obtain the following UI.

       

After creating this UI, we can refer any UI element independently be it in any of the cells. So here we create references to each of the UISlider and UISwitch so that we can trigger an action whenever the value of anyone of them changes to get their present state.

To create an action, simply create a function and add `@IBAction` in front so that they can be linked with the UI elements in the storyboard and then click and drag the circle next to the function to UI element it needs to be added. After successful linking, hovering over the same circle would reveal all the UI elements which trigger that function. Below is a method with the @IBAction identifier indicating it can be linked with the UI elements in the storyboard. This method is executed whenever any slider or switch value changes, which then updates the UserDefaults value as well sends an API request to update the setting for the user on the server.

@IBAction func settingChanged(sender: AnyObject?) {
        var params = [String: AnyObject]()
        var key: String = ""

        if let senderTag = sender?.tag {
            if senderTag == 0 {
                key = ControllerConstants.UserDefaultsKeys.enterToSend
            } else if senderTag == 1 {
                key = ControllerConstants.UserDefaultsKeys.micInput
            } else if senderTag == 2 {
                key = ControllerConstants.UserDefaultsKeys.hotwordEnabled
            } else if senderTag == 3 {
                key = ControllerConstants.UserDefaultsKeys.speechOutput
            } else if senderTag == 4 {
                key = ControllerConstants.UserDefaultsKeys.speechOutputAlwaysOn
            } else if senderTag == 5 {
                key = ControllerConstants.UserDefaultsKeys.speechRate
            } else if senderTag == 6 {
                key = ControllerConstants.UserDefaultsKeys.speechPitch
            }

            if let slider = sender as? UISlider {
                UserDefaults.standard.set(slider.value, forKey: key)
            } else {
                UserDefaults.standard.set(!UserDefaults.standard.bool(forKey: key), forKey: key)
            }

            params[ControllerConstants.key] = key as AnyObject
            params[ControllerConstants.value] = UserDefaults.standard.bool(forKey: key) as AnyObject

            if let delegate = UIApplication.shared.delegate as? AppDelegate, let user = delegate.currentUser {
                params[Client.UserKeys.AccessToken] = user.accessToken as AnyObject
                params[ControllerConstants.count] = 1 as AnyObject

                Client.sharedInstance.changeUserSettings(params) { (_, message) in
                    DispatchQueue.main.async {
                        self.view.makeToast(message)
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    }

References

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Read more about the article Making SUSI Alexa skill as an express app

Making SUSI Alexa skill as an express app

Previously SUSI Alexa skill was deployed using AWS Lambda service (Refer to this blog). Each SUSI.AI Bot should be deployed on Google cloud using Kubernetes. To accomplish that, we need to remove the dependency of the SUSI Alexa skill from AWS Lambda service. We need to make it an express app, to be able to deploy it to Google cloud. Let’s start with on how to achieve it:

SUSI Alexa skill:

We require three files to make the skill as an express app. The main entry point for the skill would be server.js file, which will serve the incoming request using two helper files alexa.js and handlers.js.

Server.js:

This file acts as the main entry point for the incoming request. We handle two type of requests using it, that are:

  1. Launch request
  2. Intent request

Launch request is triggered when a person utters “Alexa, open susi chat” , “Alexa, start susi chat”, “Alexa, launch susi chat” etc. This request is responded with an introductory phrase about SUSI.AI. To catch this request:

if (type === "LaunchRequest") {
        var endpoint = "http://api.susi.ai/susi/chat.json?q="+"Welcome"; // ENDPOINT GOES HERE
        
        http.get(endpoint, (response1) => {
            var body = "";
            response1.on("data", (chunk) => { body += chunk; });
            response1.on("end", () => {
                var viewCount;
                viewCount = JSON.parse(body).answers[0].actions[0].expression;
                endpoint = "http://api.susi.ai/susi/chat.json?q="+"Get+started"; // ENDPOINT GOES HERE
                body = "";
                http.get(endpoint, (response2) => {
                    response2.on("data", (chunk) => { body += chunk; });
                    response2.on("end", () => {
                        viewCount += JSON.parse(body);.answers[0].actions[0].expression;
                        response.say(viewCount,false);
                    });
                });
            });
        });
    }

Intent request gets triggered, when any other phrase is uttered by the user except Launch related phrases. We check if the intent triggered has a corresponding handler to handle the request. If the handler is found in handlers.js file, we call it passing the required arguments to the handler function. Let’s see how handlers make this step possible.

Handler.js:

This file decides on what function to run when a particular type of intent is triggered. As we have just one intent for our SUSI Alexa skill i.e. callSusiApi, we have just one function in our handlers.js file. During its execution, the first step we do is extract the query value:

let query = slots.query.value;

Depending upon the query value, we run its corresponding code. For example, in case of a generic query (i.e. any query except stop, cancel and help):

var endpoint = "http://api.susi.ai/susi/chat.json?q="+query; // ENDPOINT GOES HERE

http.get(endpoint, (response1) => {
    var body = "";
    response1.on("data", (chunk) => { body += chunk; });
    response1.on("end", () => {
        var data = JSON.parse(body);
        if(data.answers[0].actions[1]){
            // handle rss and table type results
        }
        else
        {
            viewCount = data.answers[0].actions[0].expression;
        }
        response.say(viewCount,true);
    });
});

At the end of the function we respond to the user with an answer to his/her query using:

response.say(viewCount,true);

Alexa.js:

When we get a request from the user, we pass that request and response object to this file. This file helps us wrap the required request properties into an object and return that back to the server file, which was the entry point for the request. Now, we can easily extract the properties in server file and work with those:

We extract the properties like this:

let session = req.body.session,
        intent,
        slots;
session.attributes = session.attributes || {};

if (req.body.request.intent) {
    intent = req.body.request.intent.name;
    slots = req.body.request.intent.slots;
}

Then we return the object back at the end:

return {
        type: req.body.request.type,
        intent: intent,
        slots: slots,
        session: session,
        response: {
            say: (text, shouldEndSession) => say(text, shouldEndSession),
            ask: (text, shouldEndSession) => say(text, shouldEndSession)
        }
    };

Great, we have made the SUSI Alexa skill as an express app. The next step is to do some changes in the configuration tab of our skill:

  1. Instead of Amazon resource number, we fill our webhook address here: 

  2. A new property shows up that is SSL certificate. As we are using Heroku for webhook services, we select the second option as shown below: 

  3. It’s time to test the skill: 

    This repository by Salesforce helped me a lot in making the SUSI skill as an express app.

    Resources:

    1. Developing Alexa Skills Locally with Node.js by Josh Skeen from Bignerdranch.
    2. Amazon Alexa Skills: Create a Custom Skill by Simon Coope from SJCNET.
Continue ReadingMaking SUSI Alexa skill as an express app
Read more about the article Displaying essential features when the Phimpme Application starts

Displaying essential features when the Phimpme Application starts

In this blog, I will explain how I implemented showcase View to display all the essential features of the Phimpme Android application when the application starts first. In this, the users will know which activity is used for what purpose.  

Importing material design Showcase View

I used material design showcase in Phimpme  Android application to take the benefit of the latest Android design and to add more text on the screen which is easily visible by the users. We need to add the following to our gradle. 

compile 'com.github.deano2390:MaterialShowcaseView:1.1.0'

There is a very good repository in Github for material design Showcase view which we have used here.

Implementing Material design showcaseView on the desired activity

In Phimpme Android application we have three main activity on the home screen. Namely:

  • Camera
  • Gallery
  • Accounts Activity

Camera Activity and Gallery Activity is used to take pictures and select the picture respectively. Accounts Activity contains more than 10 accounts of various social media platforms and storage platform. When the application starts my aim is to display the function of all three activities in a showcase View. it is implemented in the following Steps:

Step 1

Import all the module from the Material showcase view we have used in the gradle.

import uk.co.deanwild.materialshowcaseview.MaterialShowcaseSequence;
import uk.co.deanwild.materialshowcaseview.MaterialShowcaseView;
import uk.co.deanwild.materialshowcaseview.ShowcaseConfig;

Step 2

Get the reference all the buttons you want to show the features. These buttons will be highlighted when the showcase View is displayed. 

nav_home = (BottomNavigationItemView) findViewById(R.id.navigation_home);
nav_cam = (BottomNavigationItemView) findViewById(R.id.navigation_camera);
nav_acc = (BottomNavigationItemView) findViewById(R.id.navigation_accounts);

Step 3

In Phimpme Android application I have used to display the features of three navigation buttons. So, to display the features of more than one button or View we have to use MaterialShowcaseSequence class to display the features of the buttons in a sequence, that is one after the other.

In the onCreate activity, I am calling presentShowcaseSequence function. This function has a delay time. This delay time is required to wait for four seconds until the splash screen activity is over and the activity is started. 

private void presentShowcaseSequence() {
   ShowcaseConfig config = new ShowcaseConfig();
   config.setDelay(4000); // half second between each showcase view
   MaterialShowcaseSequence sequence = new MaterialShowcaseSequence(this, SHOWCASE_ID);
   sequence.setOnItemShownListener(new MaterialShowcaseSequence.OnSequenceItemShownListener() {
       @Override
       public void onShow(MaterialShowcaseView itemView, int position) {
       }
   });
   sequence.setConfig(config);

Step 4

Set the initial target Button. This target button will be pointed first when the app is launched for the first time. 

sequence.addSequenceItem(nav_home, getResources().getString(R.string.home_button), getResources().getString(R.string.ok_button));

 

Step 5

Add subsequent target buttons to display the features of that buttons. To add more subsequent target buttons we will use function addSequenceitem. To set the target we have specify the button which we want to focus in setTarget(Button). We need to display the text which will show the important features in regarding that activity in setContentText(text to be displayed). For a dismiss button we need to specify the a string in setDismissText(Dismiss button string)

sequence.addSequenceItem(
       new MaterialShowcaseView.Builder(this)
               .setTarget(nav_cam)
               .setDismissText(getResources().getString(R.string.ok_button))
               .setContentText(getResources().getString(R.string.camera_button))
               .build()
);
sequence.addSequenceItem(
       new MaterialShowcaseView.Builder(this)
               .setTarget(nav_acc)
               .setDismissText(getResources().getString(R.string.ok_button))
               .setContentText(getResources().getString(R.string.accounts_button))
               .build()
);
sequence.start();

Sequence.start is used to display the showcase.

Conclusion

Using this method users can easily have the knowledge of the functionality of the application and can navigate through the activities without wasting a lot of time in figuring out the functionality of the application.

Github

Resources

 

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Read more about the article Updating Skill Data Repository through SUSI Server

Updating Skill Data Repository through SUSI Server

SUSI Skill Data is the storage place for susi skills. All the skills are stored in these repository follows schema  Models -> Groups -> Languages -> Skill -> Intents. Using this, one can access any skill based on four tuples parameters model, group, language, skill. The SUSI skill CMS is an editor to write and edit skill easily. It follows an API-centric approach where the SUSI server acts as API server and a web front-end  act as the client for the API and provides the user interface. In this blog we will see how SUSI server updates the skill data repository.

For implementing versioning of SUSI Skills, server uses JGit. JGit is an EDL licensed, lightweight, pure Java library implementing the Git version control system.  To include a Gradle dependency to add JGit to the SUSI Server project.

compile 'org.eclipse.jgit:org.eclipse.jgit:4.6.1.201703071140-r'

Next we initialize the SUSI Skill Data repository in DAO.

 susi_skill_repo = new File(data_dir.getParentFile().getParentFile(), "susi_skill_data/.git");
repository = builder.setGitDir((DAO.susi_skill_repo))
           .readEnvironment() // scan environment GIT_* variables
           .findGitDir() // scan up the file system tree
           .build();

The code above opens our local git repository and creates an object “git”. Then we perform further operations on “git” object. Now we add our changes to “git”. This is similar to when we run any command using git. Next, to pull the latest changes we define a pull method catching the IOException,

public static void pull(Git git) throws IOException {
       try {
           PullResult pullResult = git.pull().call();
           MergeResult mergeResult = pullResult.getMergeResult();

           if (mergeResult!=null && mergeResult.getConflicts()!=null) {
               pullStatus =false;
               // we have conflicts send email to admin
               try {
                   EmailHandler.sendEmail(getConfig("skill_repo.admin_email",""), "SUSI Skill Data Conflicts", getConflictsMailContent(mergeResult));
               } catch (Throwable e) {
                e.printStackTrace();
               }

           } else {
               PushCommand push = git.push();
               push.setCredentialsProvider(new UsernamePasswordCredentialsProvider(getConfig("github.username", ""), getConfig("github.password","")));
               push.call();
           }
           
       } catch (GitAPIException e) {
           throw new IOException (e.getMessage());
       }

We check if there are any merge conflicts while merging the latest changes and local commits, if there are any we send the email to administrator to resolve them manually. Otherwise we push the commits to update the local git repository. The credentials currently are stored in config.properties file, and is used using the getConfig method.
To pull Susi_SKill_Data every minute we add a thread in DAO initialization method.

 log("Starting Skill Data pull thread");
       Thread pullThread = new Thread() {
           @Override
           public void run() {
               while (DAO.pullStatus) {
                   try {
                       Thread.sleep(getConfig("skill_repo.pull_delay", 60000));
                   } catch (InterruptedException e) {
                       break;
                   }
                   try {
                       DAO.pull(DAO.getGit());
                   } catch (Exception e) {
                       DAO.pullStatus =false;
                       Log.getLog().warn("SKILL PULL THREAD", e);
                   }
               }
           }
       };
       pullThread.start();

The thread sleeps for a default of 60 seconds, and updates the skill_data until any exception is faced. In case of exception the threads stops and administrator is informed about the git status.

This is how server pulls skill data every minute. To add the metadata  to the skill visit susi_skill_data, the storage place for susi skills. For more information and complete code take a look at Susi server and join gitter chat channel for discussions.

Resources

Continue ReadingUpdating Skill Data Repository through SUSI Server
Read more about the article Implementing Skill Page in SUSI Skill CMS

Implementing Skill Page in SUSI Skill CMS

The SUSI skill CMS is an editor to write and edit skill easily. It follows an API-centric approach where the SUSI server acts as API server and a web front-end  act as the client for the API and provides the user interface. A skill is a set of intents. One text file represents one skill, it may contain several intents which all belong together. All the skills are stored in SUSI Skill Data repository and the schema is Models -> Groups -> Languages -> Skill -> Intents. Using this, one can access any skill based on four tuples parameters model, group, language, skill.

A skill format looks like following,

::name <Skill_name>
::author <author_name>
::author_url <author_url>
::description <description> 
::dynamic_content <Yes/No>
::developer_privacy_policy <link>
::image <image_url>
::terms_of_use <link>

#Intent
User query1 query2 quer3....
!example:<The question that should be shown in public skill displays>
!expect:<The answer expected for the above example>
Answer for the user query

 

Susi Skill class in Susi Server provides parser methods for sets of intents, given as text files.  It reads the skill line by line. The SusiMind class process this JSON and stores the metadata in a map of skill path and data, which provides the API endpoint for getting the skill the metadata .    http://api.susi.ai/cms/getSkillMetadata.json?model=general&group=Knowledge&language=en&skill=cars. It takes four parameters, model, group, language, and skill. The endpoint returns null value if the skill metadata field is not present in the skill. The following is the response for model=general, group=Knowledge, language =en and skill =cars.

"skill_metadata": {
    "model": "general",
    "group": "Knowledge",
    "language": "en",
    "developer_privacy_policy": null,
    "descriptions": "A skill to tell user about cars made by a car manufacturer",
    "image": "images/cars.png",
    "author": "Uday Theja",
    "author_url": "https://github.com/uday96",
    "skill_name": "Cars",
    "terms_of_use": null,
    "dynamic_content": true,
    "examples": [
      "Know any car models manufactured by ford",
      "Know any car models manufactured by ford in the year 2016",
      "Know any car models manufactured in 2016 by ford"
    ]
  },

Image is the path to image of the skill, stored in skill data repository and dynamic content represents if the skill’s response changes based on the user inputs.
To make the required API call we first need the value of 4 parameters. We will get these as props from browse skill route.

<Link key={el}
   to={{
        pathname: '/skillPage',
state: { url: url, element: el, name: el, modelValue: self.state.modelValue, groupValue:self.state.groupValue,        languageValue:self.state.languageValue}
                             }}>

Using these props we will append the base url with all the four parameters.

 let baseUrl = 'http://api.susi.ai/cms/getSkillMetadata.json';
 url = baseUrl + '?model=' + modelValue + '&group=' + groupValue + '&language=' + languageValue + '&skill=' + name;

Next we will make a ajax call and get the data updated.

 $.ajax({
                url: url,
                jsonpCallback: 'pc',
                dataType: 'jsonp',
                jsonp: 'callback',
                crossDomain: true,
                success: function (data) {
                    self.updateData(data.skill_metadata)
                }
            });

To display data on Skill CMS we will use Material UI components. Before rendering we will check the each state if it is null , we will display the default values for it. 

{this.state.imgUrl === undefined?
                            <CircleImage name={this.state.skill_name.toUpperCase()} size="250"/>:
                            <img className="avatar-img" alt="Thumbnail" src={this.state.imgUrl}/>

If the image is not present in the skill, we display the placeholder showing the name of the skill.

Otherwise, the image stored in skill_data repository is shown.

Similarly, we will display the other components using material-ui. Next, we add an edit button for editing the skill.

To make edit button we use floating action button. We link the button to skillEditor route and pass the  URL and skillname as props.

  <Link to={{
           pathname: '/skillEditor',
           state: { url: urlCode, name:name, }
   }}>

SkillEditor components uses getSkill.json endpoint and using these props make the ajax call to the endpoint like: http://api.susi.ai/cms/getSkill.json?model=general&group=Entertainment&language=en&skill=<skill_name>.

This is how skill Page is implemented in Susi skill CMS, To add more skills or modify the existing ones visit skills.susi.ai. For more information and complete code take a look at Susi server and Susi_Skill_cms and join gitter chat channel for discussions.

Resources

Continue ReadingImplementing Skill Page in SUSI Skill CMS
Read more about the article Adding download feature to LoklakWordCloud app on Loklak apps site

Adding download feature to LoklakWordCloud app on Loklak apps site

One of the most important and useful feature that has recently been added to LoklakWordCloud app is enabling the user to download the generated word cloud as a png/jpeg image. This feature will allow the user to actually use this app as a tool to generate a word cloud using twitter data and save it on their disks for future use.

All that the user needs to do is generate the word cloud, choose an image type (png or jpeg) and click on export as image, a preview of the image to be downloaded will be displayed. Just hit enter and the word cloud will be saved on your disk. Thus users will not have to use any alternative process like taking a screenshot of the word cloud generated, etc.

Presently the complete app is hosted on Loklak apps site.

How does it work?

What we are doing is, we are exporting a part of the page (a div) as image and saving it. Apparently it might seem that we are taking a screenshot of a particular portion of a page and generating a download link. But actually it is not like that. The word cloud that is being generated by this app via Jqcloud is actually a collection of HTML nodes. Each node contains a word (part of the cloud) as a text content with some CSS styles to specify the size and color of that word. As user clicks on export to image option, the app traverses the div containing the cloud. It collects information about all the HTML nodes present under that div and creates a canvas representation of the entire div. So rather than taking a screenshot of the div, the app recreates the entire div and presents it to us. This entire process is accomplished by a lightweight JS library called html2canvas.

Let us have a look into the code that implements the download feature. At first we need to create the UI for the export and download option. User should be able to choose between png and jpeg before exporting to image. For this we have provided a dropdown containing the two options.

<div class="dropdown type" ng-if="download">
                <div class="dropdown-toggle select-type" data-toggle="dropdown">
                  {{imageType}}
                <span class="caret"></span></div>
                <ul class="dropdown-menu">
                  <li ng-click="changeType('png', 'png')"><a href="">png</a></li>
                  <li ng-click="changeType('jpeg', 'jpg')"><a href="">jpeg</a></li>
                </ul>
              </div>
              <a class="export" ng-click="export()" ng-if="download">Export as image</a>

In the above code snippet, firstly we create a dropdown menu with two list items, png and jpeg. With each each list item we attach a ng-click event which calls changeType function and passes two parameters, image type and extension.

The changeType function simply updates the current image type and extension with the selected ones.

$scope.changeType = function(type, ext) {
        $scope.imageType = type;
        $scope.imageExt = ext;
    }

The ‘export as image’ on clicking calls the export function. The export function uses html2canvas library’s interface to generate the canvas representation of the word cloud and also generates the download link and attaches it to the modal’s save button (described below). After everything is done it finally opens a modal with preview image and save option.

$scope.export = function() {
        html2canvas($(".wordcloud"), {
          onrendered: function(canvas) {
            var imgageData = canvas.toDataURL("image/" + $scope.imageType);
            var regex = /^data:image\/jpeg/;
            if ($scope.imageType === "png") {
                regex = /^data:image\/png/;
            }
            var newData = imgageData.replace(regex, "data:application/octet-stream");
            canvas.style.width = "80%";
            $(".wordcloud-canvas").html(canvas);
            $(".save-btn").attr("download", "Wordcloud." + $scope.imageExt).attr("href", newData);
            $("#preview").modal('show');
          },
          background: "#ffffff"
        });
    }

At the very beginning of this function, a call is made to html2canvas module and the div containing the word cloud is passed as a parameter. An object is also passed which contains a callback function defined for onrendered key. Inside the callback function we check the current image type and generate the corresponding url from the canvas. We display this canvas in the modal and set this download url as the href value of the modal’s save button.

Finally we display the modal.

The modal simply contains the preview image and a button to save the image on disk.

A sample image produced by the app is shown below.

Important resources

  • Know more about html2canvas here.
  • Know more about Jqcloud here.
  • View the app source here.
  • View loklak apps site source here.
  • View Loklak API documentation here
  • Learn more about AngularJS here.
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Read more about the article Implementing Feedback Feature in SUSI Android App

Implementing Feedback Feature in SUSI Android App

Recently, on SUSI Server, a new servlet was added which is used to rate SUSI Skills either positive or negative. The server stores the rating of a particular skill in a JSON file. These ratings help in improving answers provided by SUSI. So, the server part is done and it was required to implement this in the SUSI Android App. In this blog, I will cover the topic of implementation of the Rating or Feedback feature in SUSI Android App. This will including all the cases when feedback should be sent, when it should not be sent, when to send positive feedback, when to send negative feedback, etc.

API Information

For rating a SUSI Skill, we have to call on  /cms/rateSkill.json providing 5 parameters which are:

  1. model: The model of SUSI Skill. (String)
  2. group: The Group under the model in which that particular skill resides. (String)
  3. language: The language of skill. (String)
  4. skill: This is skill name. (String)
  5. rating: This can be two strings, either “positive” or “negative”. String)

Basically, in the SUSI Skill Data repo (in which all the skills are stored), models, groups language etc are part of folder structure.

So, if a skill is located here

https://github.com/fossasia/susi_skill_data/blob/master/models/general/Knowledge/en/news.txt

This would mean

model = general

group = Knowledge

language = en

skill = news

rating = positive/negative

Implementation in SUSI Android App

    

So, when the like button on a particular skill is clicked, a positive call is made and when the dislike button is clicked, a negative call is made.

Let’s see example when the thumbs up button or like button is clicked.

There can be three cases possible:

  1. None of Like button or dislike button is clicked already: In this case, initially, both like and dislike button will be transparent/hollow. So, when like button is clicked, the like button will be colored blue and a call will be made with positive feedback.
  2. Like button is already clicked: In this case, like button is already clicked. So, it will already be blue. So, when user clicks again on positive button, it should get back to normal/hollow indicating rating which was sent is cancelled and a a call will be made with negative feedback thus cancelling or neutralizing the earlier, positive feedback.
  3. Dislike button is already clicked: In this case, the dislike button is already blue, indicating a negative call is already made. So, now when the like button is clicked, we need to cancel the earlier negative feedback call and sending another negative feedback call. Thus, sending two negative feedback calls. And after that coloring dislike button as blue.

Look at the code below. It is self explanatory. There are three if-else conditions covering all the above mentioned three cases.

thumbsUp.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
   @Override
   public void onClick(View view) {
       thumbsUp.setImageResource(R.drawable.thumbs_up_solid);
       if(!model.isPositiveRated() && !model.isNegativeRated()) {
           rateSusiSkill(Constant.POSITIVE, model.getSkillLocation(), context);
           setRating(true, true);
       } else if(!model.isPositiveRated() && model.isNegativeRated()) {
           setRating(false, false);
           thumbsDown.setImageResource(R.drawable.thumbs_down_outline);
           rateSusiSkill(Constant.POSITIVE, model.getSkillLocation(), context);
           sleep(500);
           rateSusiSkill(Constant.POSITIVE, model.getSkillLocation(), context);
           setRating(true, true);
       } else if (model.isPositiveRated() && !model.isNegativeRated()) {
           rateSusiSkill(Constant.NEGATIVE, model.getSkillLocation(), context);
           setRating(false, true);
           thumbsUp.setImageResource(R.drawable.thumbs_up_outline);
       }
   }
});

Similarly for when dislike button is clicked, the above three mentioned cases still hold resulting in this code snippet.

thumbsDown.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
   @Override
   public void onClick(View view) {
       thumbsDown.setImageResource(R.drawable.thumbs_down_solid);
       if(!model.isPositiveRated() && !model.isNegativeRated()) {
           rateSusiSkill(Constant.NEGATIVE, model.getSkillLocation(), context);
           setRating(true, false);
       } else if(model.isPositiveRated() && !model.isNegativeRated()) {
           setRating(false, true);
           thumbsUp.setImageResource(R.drawable.thumbs_up_outline);
           rateSusiSkill(Constant.NEGATIVE, model.getSkillLocation(), context);
           sleep(500);
           rateSusiSkill(Constant.NEGATIVE, model.getSkillLocation(), context);
           setRating(true, false);
       } else if (!model.isPositiveRated() && model.isNegativeRated()) {
           rateSusiSkill(Constant.POSITIVE, model.getSkillLocation(), context);
           setRating(false, false);
           thumbsDown.setImageResource(R.drawable.thumbs_down_outline);
       }
   }
});

Summary

So, this blog talked about how the Feedback feature in SUSI Android App is implemented. This included how a network call is made, logic for sending positive/negative feedback, logic to withdraw feedback etc. So, If you are looking forward to contribute to SUSI Android App, this can help you a little. But if not so, this may also help you in understanding and how rating mechanism in social media websites like Facebook, Twitter, Quora, Reddit, etc work.

References

  1. To know about servlets https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_servlet
  2. To see how to implement one https://www.javatpoint.com/servlet-tutorial
  3. To see how to make network calls in android using Retrofit https://guides.codepath.com/android/Consuming-APIs-with-Retrofit
  4. To see how to implement click listeners on button https://developer.android.com/reference/android/view/View.OnClickListener.html
Continue ReadingImplementing Feedback Feature in SUSI Android App
Read more about the article Reset Password Functionality in SUSI iOS

Reset Password Functionality in SUSI iOS

Reset Password as the name suggests is one of the features in the SUSI iOS app which allows a user to change his/her password when they are logged in. This feature was added because a user would want to change his password sometimes to prevent unauthorized access or make his account security stronger. We can find many popular apps online such as Facebook, Gmail, which allow the user to reset their password. The way this is done is pretty simple and all we need from the user is his current and the new password he/she wants to set. In this blog post, I am going to explain step by step how this is implemented in the iOS client.

Implementation

The option to Reset Password is provided to the user under the Settings Controller. On selecting the row, the user is presented with another view which asks the user for his/her current password, new password, and another field to confirm the newly entered password.

First, the user needs to provide his current password followed by the new password. The user’s current password is required just to authenticate that the account’s owner is requesting the password change. The new password field is followed by another field called confirm password just to make sure there isn’t any typo.

Now when the field is filled, the user clicks the `Reset password` button at the bottom. What happens here is, first, the fields are validated to ensure the correct length of the passwords followed by an API request to update the same. The endpoint for the same is as below:

http://api.susi.ai/aaa/changepassword.json?changepassword=user_email&password=current _pass&newpassword=new_pass&access_token=user_access_token

This endpoint requires 3 things:

  • Current Password
  • New Password
  • User’s email
  • Access Token obtained at the time of login
func validatePassword() -> [Bool:String] {
        if let newPassword = newPasswordField.text,
            let confirmPassword = confirmPasswordField.text {
            if newPassword.characters.count > 5 {
                if newPassword == confirmPassword {
                    return [true: ""]
                } else {
                    return [false: ControllerConstants.passwordDoNotMatch]
                }
            } else {
                return [false: ControllerConstants.passwordLengthShort]
            }
        }
        return [false: Client.ResponseMessages.ServerError]
    }

Initially, we were not saving the user’s email, so we added the user’s email to the User’s object which is saved at the time of login.

if var userData = results {
userData[Client.UserKeys.EmailOfAccount] = user.email
UserDefaults.standard.set(userData, forKey: ControllerConstants.UserDefaultsKeys.user)
self.saveUserGlobally(user: currentUser)
}

At last, the API call is made which is implemented as below:

let params = [
  Client.UserKeys.AccessToken: user.accessToken,
  Client.UserKeys.EmailOfAccount: user.emailID,
  Client.UserKeys.Password: currentPasswordField.text ?? "",
  Client.UserKeys.NewPassword: newPasswordField.text ?? ""
]
Client.sharedInstance.resetPassword(params as [String : AnyObject], { (_, message) in
  DispatchQueue.main.async {
    self.view.makeToast(message)
    self.setUIActive(active: false)
  }
})

Below is the final UI.

Reference

Continue ReadingReset Password Functionality in SUSI iOS
Read more about the article Implementing Event Export API in Open Event Frontend

Implementing Event Export API in Open Event Frontend

In Open Event Frontend, a user can export a particular event in the zip format and download that. While dealing with an issue, we had to implement the facility of exporting the event and downloading it with a single click of button. We achieved it as follows:

The endpoints for the event export API return the responses which are not in the format of the JSON API response as we have for others like tickets, events, etc. Their responses are just the JSON objects which are not having any relationship with any model. We have four checkboxes in our template component which are used to customise the data to be present in the zip file which is to be exported. The component name is ‘download-zip’. The content of which are the checkboxes as follows:

<div class="ui form">
  <div class="field">
    {{ui-checkbox class='toggle' label=(t 'Image') checked=data.exportData.dataImage onChange=(action (mut data.exportData.dataImage))}}
  </div>
  <div class="field">
    {{ui-checkbox class='toggle' label=(t 'Video') checked=data.exportData.dataVideo onChange=(action (mut data.exportData.dataVideo))}}
  </div>
  <div class="field">
    {{ui-checkbox class='toggle' label=(t 'Audio') checked=data.exportData.dataAudio onChange=(action (mut data.exportData.dataAudio))}}
  </div>
  <div class="field">
    {{ui-checkbox class='toggle' label=(t 'Document') checked=data.exportData.dataDocument onChange=(action (mut data.exportData.dataDocument))}}
  </div>
  <div class="ui basic segment less left padding">
    <button class="ui blue button" {{action 'startGeneration'}}>
      {{t 'Start'}}
    </button>
    <button class="ui button">
      {{t 'Download'}}
    </button>
  </div>
</div>

Thus, the above code shows the four checkboxes namely audio, video, image, document used to customise the zip file generated. We also have a ‘start’ button which is used to trigger the event export. On clicking the ‘start’ button, we are handling an action called ‘startGeneration’ where we make the requests to the server which returns the event download links in response. The action is being handled in the parent controller i.e export.js.

startGeneration() {
      this.set('isLoading', true);
      let payload = this.get('data');
      this.get('loader')
        .post(`/events/${this.get('model.id')}/export/json`, payload)
        .then(exportJobInfo => {
          this.requestLoop(exportJobInfo);
        })
        .catch(() => {
          this.get('notify').error(this.l10n.t('Unexpected error occurred.'));
        });
}

As we can see, we are getting the payload from the form in the template which is shown previously above. Since the response we get from the server is not JSON API formatted, we cannot use the ember data to make requests and get a response. Thus, we use an add on called ‘loader’ which is used to make requests and get responses.
As per the server, to obtain the download URL of an event, first, we make a POST request to the URL shown in the code above with the payload that we get from the form.
On getting the response, we resolve the promise by calling the method on the same controller called ‘requestLoop’ and pass the response returned by the POST request we made which is nothing but the ‘task_url’.

The ‘requestLoop’ method makes a GET request to the task_url that we got from the previous POST to get the ‘download_url’ for the event.

requestLoop(exportJobInfo) {
    run.later(() => {
      this.get('loader')
        .load(exportJobInfo.task_url, { withoutPrefix: true })
        .then(exportJobStatus => {
          if (exportJobStatus.state === 'SUCCESS') {
            this.set('isLoading', false);
            this.set('isDownloadDisabled', false);
            this.set('eventDownloadUrl', exportJobStatus.result.download_url);
            this.set('eventExportStatus', exportJobStatus.state);
            this.get('notify').success(this.l10n.t('Event exported.'));
          } else if (exportJobStatus.state === 'WAITING') {
            this.requestLoop(exportJobInfo);
            this.set('eventExportStatus', exportJobStatus.state);
            this.get('notify').alert(this.l10n.t('Event export is going on.'));
          } else {
            this.set('isLoading', false);
            this.set('eventExportStatus', exportJobStatus.state);
            this.get('notify').error(this.l10n.t('Event export failed.'));
          }
        })
        .catch(() => {
          this.set('isLoading', false);
          this.set('eventExportStatus', 'FAILURE');
          this.get('notify').error(this.l10n.t('Event export failed.'));
        });
    }, 3000);
  }

Thus, the above code shows the ‘requestLoop’ method which runs according to the response returned by the GET to the ‘task_url’. Thus, we have three states as the response of the GET to ‘task_url’. They are:
‘FAILURE’
‘WAITING’
‘SUCCESS’
As we can see in the method, we use the logic that once the event is exported successfully or if there is any failure, we stop the loop and set the status. If the server returns ‘WAITING’ then we keep on running loop until the server returns the state ‘SUCCESS’ or ‘FAILURE’.

Thus, once the event is exported successfully, we pass the download URL returned by the server to the template and link it with the download button. Thus clicking the download button, the user can download the event as a zip file.

Resources:
Github documentation of loader.js

Continue ReadingImplementing Event Export API in Open Event Frontend