Author: Akshat-Jain

This author has written 15 articles
Read more about the article Fetching Skills using the ID of a user

Fetching Skills using the ID of a user

The Dashboard on the SUSI Skill CMS is the page where all user specific Skill information is being displayed. It also has a section called “My Skills” which displays the Skills created by the user himself. The data for the “My Skills” section has to be fetched from the Skill metadata of each Skill. Hence, this blog post explains how the Skills created by an author are fetched using an API which takes author’s email as the only parameter.

Why is such an API required?

The task of displaying the “My Skills” section cannot be done entirely on the Client side with the use of existing APIs, as that would result in a lot of AJAX calls to the Server, because for each Skill, there would have to be an AJAX call for each user. Hence, we had to create an endpoint which could directly return the list of Skills created by a user using his ID. This would prevent multiple AJAX calls to the Server.

The endpoint used is:

"https://api.susi.ai/cms/getSkillsByAuthor.json?author_email="+author_email

 

Here, author_email is the email of the author who published the particular Skill, which is fetched from the Skill metadata object which looks like this:

"Antonyms": {
      // skill metadata
      "author_email": akjn11@gmail.com,
      // skill metadata
    }

Working of the API

The code to fetch the Skills created by an author is described in the GetSkillsByAuthor.java file. This API accepts either the author’s name, or the author’s email as the parameter. In our

We get all folders within a folder using the following method:

private void listFoldersForFolder(final File folder, ArrayList<String> fileList) {
        File[] filesInFolder = folder.listFiles();
        if (filesInFolder != null) {
            Arrays.stream(filesInFolder).filter(fileEntry -> fileEntry.isDirectory() && !fileEntry.getName().startsWith(".")).forEach(fileEntry->fileList.add(fileEntry.getName() + ""));
        }
    }

 

We use this method to get list of folders of all the group names for all the different Skills, and store them in a variable ‘folderList’ as per the following code:

File allGroup = new File(String.valueOf(model));
ArrayList<String> folderList = new ArrayList<String>();
listFoldersForFolder(allGroup, folderList);

 

For every folder corresponding to a group name, we traverse inside it and then further traverse inside the language folders to reach the place where all the Skill files are stored.

This is the code for the method to get all files within a folder:

private void listFilesForFolder(final File folder, ArrayList<String> fileList) {
    File[] filesInFolder = folder.listFiles();
    if (filesInFolder != null) {
        Arrays.stream(filesInFolder).filter(fileEntry -> !fileEntry.isDirectory() && !fileEntry.getName().startsWith(".")).forEach(fileEntry->fileList.add(fileEntry.getName() + ""));
    }
}

 

We need to get all Skill files inside the ‘languages’ folder, which itself is in ‘group’ folder. This is the code required to implement the same:

for (String temp_group_name : folderList){
        File group = new File(model, temp_group_name);
        File language = new File(group, language_name);
        ArrayList<String> fileList = new ArrayList<String>();
        listFilesForFolder(language, fileList);

        for (String skill_name : fileList) {
               // get skill metadata of each skill iteratively and put it in result JSONObject accordingly
            }
         }
    }

 

This is how the Skill metadata is fetched from the getSkillMetadata() method of SusiSkill class:

skill_name = skill_name.replace(".txt", "");
            JSONObject skillMetadata = SusiSkill.getSkillMetadata(model_name, temp_group_name, language_name, skill_name);

            if(skillMetadata.get("author_email").equals(author_email)) {
                skillMetadata.put("skill_name", skill_name);
                authorSkills.put(skillMetadata);

 

getSkillMetadata() method takes model of the Skill, group of the Skill, language of the Skill, Skill name and also duration (for usage statistical purposes) as the method parameters, and returns the metadata for the Skill in the format as shown below:

   "Antonyms": {
      "model": "general",
      "group": "Knowledge",
      "language": "en",
      "developer_privacy_policy": null,
      "descriptions": "A skill that returns the antonyms for a word",
      "image": "images/antonyms.png",
      "author": "akshat jain",
      "author_url": "https://github.com/Akshat-Jain",
      "author_email": akjn11@gmail.com,
      "skill_name": "Antonyms",
      "protected": false,
      "terms_of_use": null,
      "dynamic_content": true,
      "examples": ["Antonym of happy"],
      "skill_rating": {
        "negative": "0",
        "bookmark_count": 0,
        "positive": "0",
        "stars": {
          "one_star": 0,
          "four_star": 0,
          "five_star": 0,
          "total_star": 0,
          "three_star": 0,
          "avg_star": 0,
          "two_star": 0
        },
        "feedback_count": 0
      },
      "usage_count": 0,
      "skill_tag": "Antonyms",
      "creationTime": "2018-05-06T03:05:22Z",
      "lastAccessTime": "2018-06-23T18:48:36Z",
      "lastModifiedTime": "2018-05-06T03:05:22Z"
    }

 

This is how the Skills created by an author are fetched using this API. The JSON response of this endpoint shows the metadata of all Skills which have ‘author_email’ value the same as that given in the endpoint’s query parameter.

Resources

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Read more about the article Implementing API to Fetch all Ratings by a User on Different Skills on SUSI.AI Web Client

Implementing API to Fetch all Ratings by a User on Different Skills on SUSI.AI Web Client

SUSI Skill CMS allows the users to rate any Skill on a scale of 1 to 5. The user can also provide a feedback to any Skill. This paves the path to implementing a Dashboard, which has all the analytic data of the user. Hence, an API needed to be implemented which could return the ratings done by a particular user on all different Skills.

How are servlets implemented in SUSI.AI?

All servlets in SUSI extend AbstractAPIHandler class and implement APIHandler. All servlets have 4 methods, which we overwrite depending on what we want the servlet to do. They are as follows :

    @Override
    public String getAPIPath() {
        return null;
    }

    @Override
    public BaseUserRole getMinimalBaseUserRole() {
        return null;
    }

    @Override
    public JSONObject getDefaultPermissions(BaseUserRole baseUserRole) {
        return null;
    }

    @Override
    public ServiceResponse serviceImpl(Query post, HttpServletResponse response, Authorization rights, JsonObjectWithDefault permissions) throws APIException {
        return null;
    }

 

How these 4 methods work together?

  • First method is getAPIPath(). It returns the endpoint of the servlet.
  • The second method is getMinimalBaseUserRole(). It returns the minimum privilege level required to access the endpoint.
  • The third method is getDefaultPermissions(). It gets the Default Permissions of a UserRole in SUSI Server. Different UserRoles have different permissions defined in SUSI Server.
  • Whenever the endpoint defined in the getAPIPath() method is called properly, it responds with whatever is defined in the fourth method, which is serviceImpl().

Implementing a servlet to fetch all ratings by a user on different Skills

The task of this servlet is to fetch all the ratings done by a user on all the different Skills, so that this fetched data could be used later on for implementation of various user specific features like Dashboard page. This is the implementation of the 4 methods of this servlet:

    @Override
    public UserRole getMinimalUserRole() {
        return UserRole.USER;
    }

    @Override
    public JSONObject getDefaultPermissions(UserRole baseUserRole) {
        return null;
    }

    @Override
    public String getAPIPath() {
        return "/cms/getProfileDetails.json";
    }

    @Override
    public ServiceResp onse serviceImpl(Query query, HttpServletResponse response, Authorization authorization, final JsonObjectWithDefault permissions) throws APIException {

    JsonTray fiveStarSkillRating = DAO.fiveStarSkillRating;
    // JSONObject and JsonArray Declarations

    // Checking if access_token has been given and is valid
    if (authorization.getIdentity() == null) {
        throw new APIException(400, "Specified user data not found, ensure you are logged in");
    } 


    // Fetching email of the user from access token and storing it in a string
    String email = authorization.getIdentity().getName();


    // Iterating over the fiveStarSkillRating JsonTray by extracting keys at every level and accessing their child objects through the extracted keys
    for(String model_name : fiveStarSkillRating.keys())
    {
        // Storing the list of group names and iterating over them
        for(String group_name : groupnameKeysList)
        {
            // Storing the list of language names and iterating over them
            for(String language_name : languagenameKeysList)
            {
                // Storing the list of skill names and iterating over them
                for(String skill_name : skillnamesKeysList)
                {
                    skillnameArray = languageObject.getJSONArray(skill_name);
                    // Iterating over the different Skill JSONObjects
                    for(int i=0; i<skillnameArray.length(); i++) {
                        String jsonEmail = skillnameArray.getJSONObject(i).get("email").toString();
                        if(jsonEmail.equals(email)) {
                        // If the Skill has been rated by the required author, then put the Skill JSONObject into the result array
                        }
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    }

    if(result.length()==0) {
        // Handling case when user hasn’t rated any Skill yet
        result.put("accepted", false);
        result.put("message", "User has not rated any Skills yet.");
        return new ServiceResponse(result);
    }
    result.put("accepted", true);
    result.put("message", "User ratings fetched.");
    return new ServiceResponse(result);
    }

 

As it can be seen from the above code, the endpoint for this servlet is /cms/getProfileDetails.json and it requires 1 parameter – the access token of the user.

As the main task of this servlet is user specific, and should only be accessible to the particular user, hence we returned UserRole as USER in the getMinimalUserRole() method.

In the serviceImpl() method, we iterate over the fiveStarSkillRating.json JsonTray and keep on extracting keys and accessing the corresponding JSONObjects until we reach the lowermost layer, where all the Skill names are listed. Iterating over the JSONObjects corresponding to each Skill, we check the email in the Skill JSONObject to identify the user. If the email present in the Skill JSONObject matches with the email corresponding to the access token provided as a query parameter, we extract rating and the timestamp for the Skill and put it in a JSONArray. Then, finally we put the JSONArray into our resulting JSONObject.

This is how we can fetch all the ratings by a user on all the different Skills.

Resources

 

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Read more about the article Implementing API to facilitate changing review status of a Skill

Implementing API to facilitate changing review status of a Skill

As any registered user can make Skills in SUSI Skill CMS, sometimes the Skill made is not up to the mark to be displayed on the CMS site. There needs to be a feature implemented where the Admin and higher user roles can review a Skill and approve it accordingly. Then only the approved Skills should be displayed on the Skill CMS. This feature required implementation of an API to allow Admin and higher user roles to change the review status of a Skill. This blog post explains how such an API has been implemented.

Implementing a servlet to allow changing review status of a Skill

The basic task of the servlet is to allow Admin and higher user roles to allow changing the review status of a Skill. The review status of a Skill can either be ‘true’, indicating that the Skill has been approved by the Admin, or ‘false’, which would indicate that the Skill still needs some improvements before it is actually displayed on the SUSI Skill CMS.

Here is the implementation of the API:

  1. The API should be usable to only the users who have a user role Admin or higher. Only those with minimum Admin rights should be allowed to control what Skills are displayed on the CMS site. This is implemented as follows:
   @Override
    public UserRole getMinimalUserRole() {
        return UserRole.ADMIN;
    }

 

  1. The endpoint for the API is ‘/cms/changeSkillStatus.json’. This is implemented as follows:
   @Override
    public String getAPIPath() {
        return "/cms/changeSkillStatus.json";
    }

 

  1. The main method of the servlet is the serviceImpl() method. This is where the actual code goes which will be executed each time the API is called. This is implemented as follows:

    @Override
    public ServiceResponse serviceImpl(Query call, HttpServletResponse response, Authorization authorization, JsonObjectWithDefault permissions) throws APIException {

       // Store the query parameters in variables

        if(skill_name == null || !(reviewed.equals("true") || reviewed.equals("false"))) {
            throw new APIException(400, "Bad service call, missing arguments.");
        }

        JSONObject result = new JSONObject();
        JsonTray skillStatus = DAO.skillStatus;
        JSONObject modelName = new JSONObject();
        JSONObject groupName = new JSONObject();
        JSONObject languageName = new JSONObject();
        JSONObject skillName = new JSONObject();

        if(reviewed.equals("true")) {
            JSONObject reviewStatus = new JSONObject();
            reviewStatus.put("reviewed", true);
                // traverse through the skillStatus.json file down to the Skill name and put review status ‘true’ in it
                skillName.put("reviewed", true);
                result.put("accepted", true);
                result.put("message", "Skill review status changed successfully.");
                return new ServiceResponse(result);
            }


            // deleting skill name from skillStatus.json file if it’s review status is being changed to ‘false’
            else {
                if (skillStatus.has(model_name)) {
                    modelName = skillStatus.getJSONObject(model_name);
                    if (modelName.has(group_name)) {
                        groupName = modelName.getJSONObject(group_name);
                        if (groupName.has(language_name)) {
                          languageName = groupName.getJSONObject(language_name);
                            if (languageName.has(skill_name)) {
                                languageName.remove(skill_name);
                                    skillStatus.remove(model_name);
                                }
                                skillStatus.commit();
                            }
                        }
                    }
                }
                result.put("accepted", true);
                result.put("message", "Skill review status changed successfully.");
                return new ServiceResponse(result);
            }
        }

 

The list of reviewed Skills is being stored in the ‘skillStatus.json’ file. So we need to traverse through that file and store the review status of the Skill as required while making the API call.

The API takes 5 parameters:

  • Model of the Skill
  • Group of the Skill
  • Language of the Skill
  • Skill name
  • Review status to be set for the Skill – true or false

On making the API call, if the value of the query parameter ‘reviewed’ is ‘true’, then the Skill name along with its review status is being appended in the ‘skillStatus.json’ file. This is done by traversing through the file using the specified model, group and language info of the Skill.

However, if the value of the query parameter ‘reviewed’ is ‘false’, then we need to check if the Skill is already there in the ‘skillStatus.json’ file. If it is already there, then we remove its entry from the file. If it isn’t in the file already, then it’s review status is already ‘false’. We also need to commit this change to the JsonTray for it to get reflected in the Server.

This is how an API has been implemented which would allow Admin and higher user roles to change the review status of any Skill, which would then facilitate showing only the approved Skills on the CMS site.

  1. Resources

     

Continue ReadingImplementing API to facilitate changing review status of a Skill
Read more about the article Use of Flux Architecture in SUSI.AI

Use of Flux Architecture in SUSI.AI

SUSI Web Chat is based on Flux, a React.js Architecture. It provides a simple way for implementing many features in SUSI Web Chat. This blog post explains how Flux Architecture works, and also how it is used in SUSI Web Chat to implement the feature of switching between Light and Dark themes.

What is Flux?

Flux is a micro-architecture for software application development. It is the application architecture that Facebook uses for building client-side web applications. It complements React’s composable view components by utilizing a unidirectional data flow.

Flux Overview

As can be seen from the above diagram, Flux has four main components:

Component Description
Actions Helper methods that pass data to the Dispatcher.
Dispatcher Receives these Actions and broadcast payloads to registered callbacks.
Stores The Stores that are registered to the Dispatcher will update the Views accordingly.
Views  Views are actually React Components that grab the state from the stores and then pass it down to the child components.

How these 4 components work together?

  • Application Initialisation:
    1. Stores let the registered Dispatcher know that they want to be notified whenever an action comes in.
    2. Then the controller views ask the stores for the latest state.
    3. When the stores give the state to the controller views, they pass that state along to their child views to render.
    4. The controller views also ask the stores to keep them notified when state changes so that they can re-render accordingly.
  • The Data Flow:

Once the setup is done, the application is ready to accept user input. So let us trigger an action by having the user make a change.

    1. The view tells the action creator to prepare an action.
    2. The action creator formats the action and sends it off to the Dispatcher.
    3. The Dispatcher dispatches the action off to all of the stores in sequence. Then the store decides whether it cares about this action or not, and changes the state accordingly.
    4. Once it’s done changing state, the store lets its subscribed view controllers know.
    5. Those view controllers will then ask the store to give them the updated state.
    6. After the store gives it the state, the view controller will tell its child views to re-render based on the new state.

So this is how Flux works. Now let us see an example of Flux being used in SUSI Web Chat.

Use of Flux Architecture to Switch Between Themes in SUSI Web Chat

Different Flux components used in SUSI Web Chat:

  1. Actions – Settings.actions.js
  2. Dispatcher – ChatAppDispatcher.js
  3. Store – UserPreferencesStore.js
  4. View – MessageSection.react.js

Let us now see in detail how we are able to switch themes:
In the MessageSection.react.js file, we have the following functions to handle theme change:

handleThemeChanger = () => {
    //code
    this.applyLightTheme();
}


applyLightTheme = () =>{
    //code
    Actions.settingsChanged(settingsChanged);
}

 
Hence, the view tells the action creator to prepare an action.
Now, the settingsChanged() function in Settings.actions.js file is called as follows:

export function settingsChanged(settings) {
    ChatAppDispatcher.dispatch({
    type: ActionTypes.SETTINGS_CHANGED,
    settings
});
    //code
}

 
Hence, the process of invoking the callbacks is initiated through the dispatch() method, which takes a data payload object as its sole argument.

Now, as the UserPreferencesStore is registered with the ChatAppDispatcher, it receives the actions dispatched by the Dispatcher. It checks for the type of action, and with the help of switch cases, executes the code for the corresponding action type accordingly. In this case, the states inside the Store are updated with the new state which the User wants to switch to. 

UserPreferencesStore.dispatchToken = ChatAppDispatcher.register(action => {
    switch (action.type) {
        //code
        case ActionTypes.SETTINGS_CHANGED: {
            let settings = action.settings;
            //code
            UserPreferencesStore.emitChange();
            break;
        }
        //code
    }
});

 
This is how Flux Architecture is facilitating the switching of themes in SUSI Web Chat.

Resources

 

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Read more about the article Skill Development using SUSI Skill CMS

Skill Development using SUSI Skill CMS

There are a lot of personal assistants around like Google Assistant, Apple’s Siri, Windows’ Cortana, Amazon’s Alexa, etc. What is then special about SUSI.AI which makes it stand apart from all the different assistants in the world? SUSI is different as it gives users the ability to create their own skills in a Wiki-like system. You don’t need to be a developer to be able to enhance SUSI. And, SUSI is an Open Source personal assistant which can do a lot of incredible stuff for you, made by you.

So, let’s say you want to create your own Skill and add it to the existing SUSI Skills. So, these are the steps you need to follow regarding the same –

  1. The current SUSI Skill Development Environment is based on an Etherpad. An Etherpad is a web-based collaborative real-time editor. https://dream.susi.ai/ is one such Etherpad. Open https://dream.susi.ai/ and name your dream (in lowercase letters).
  2. Define your skill in the Etherpad. The general skill format is 

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

#Intent
User query1|query2|query3....
Answer answer1|answer2|answer3...

 

Patterns in query can be learned easily via this tutorial.

  1. Open any SUSI Client and then write dream <your dream name> so that dreaming is enabled for SUSI. Once dreaming is enabled, you can now test any skills which you’ve made in your Etherpad.
  2. Once you’ve tested your skill, write ‘stop dreaming’ to disable dreaming for SUSI.
  3. If the testing was successful and you want your skill to be added to SUSI Skills, send a Pull Request to susi_skill_data repository providing your dream name.

How do you modify an existing skill?

SUSI Skill CMS is a web interface where you can modify the skills you’ve made. All the skills of SUSI are directly in sync with the susi_skill_data.

To edit any skill, you need to follow these steps –

  1. Login to SUSI Skill CMS website using your email and password (or Sign Up to the website if you haven’t already).
  2. Click on the skill which you want to edit and then click on the “edit” icon.
  3. You can edit all aspects of the skill in the next state. Below is a preview:

Make the changes and then click on “SAVE” button to save the skill.

What’s happening Behind The Scenes in the EDIT process?

  • SkillEditor.js is the file which is responsible for keeping a check over various validations in the Skill Editing process. There are certain validations that need to be made in the process. Those are as follows –
  • Check whether User has logged in or not

if (!cookies.get('loggedIn')) {
            notification.open({
                message: 'Not logged In',
                description: 'Please login and then try to create/edit a skill',
                icon: <Icon type='close-circle' style={{ color: '#f44336' }} />,
            });
            this.setState({
                loading: false
            });
            return 0;
        }

 

  • Check whether Commit Message has been entered by User or not

if (this.state.commitMessage === null) {
            notification.open({
                message: 'Please add a commit message',
                icon: <Icon type='close-circle' style={{ color: '#f44336' }} />,
            });

            this.setState({
                loading: false
            });
            return 0;
        }

 

  • Check to ensure that request is sent only if there are some differences in old values and new values

if (this.state.oldGroupValue === this.state.groupValue &&
          this.state.oldExpertValue === this.state.expertValue &&
          this.state.oldLanguageValue === this.state.languageValue &&
          !this.state.codeChanged && !this.state.image_name_changed) {
            notification.open({
                message: 'Please make some changes to save the Skill',
                icon: <Icon type='close-circle' style={{ color: '#f44336' }} />,
            });
            self.setState({
                loading: false
            });
            return 0;
        }

 

  • After doing the above validations, a request is sent to the Server and the User is shown a notification accordingly, whether the Skill has been uploaded to the Server or there has been some error.

$.ajax(settings)
            .done(function (response) {
                this.setState({
                    loading: false
                });
                let data = JSON.parse(response);
                if (data.accepted === true) {
                    notification.open({
                        message: 'Accepted',
                        description: 'Your Skill has been uploaded to the server',
                        //success/>
                    });
                }
                else {
                    this.setState({
                        loading: false
                    });
                    notification.open({
                        message: 'Error Processing your Request',
                        description: String(data.message),
                        //failure />
                    });
                }
            }

 

  • If the User is notified with a Success notification, then to verify whether the Skill has been added or not, the User can go to susi_skill_data repo and see if he has a recent commit regarding the same or not.

Resources

Continue ReadingSkill Development using SUSI Skill CMS