#9 Guidance on use of Double Agent

[Arnold Page]

1. My software is for family use (http://www.anastasis.co.uk/files/setuphomedemodownload.zip), and the DoubleAgent Setting Options screen is rather complicated for a non-technical person to understand. Only the first of the three options is needed. So is it possible to provide a simpler version of the installation program which simply asks for agreement to the licence and then installs the Agent code without further questions?

2. I don’t know how to create and use Agents in conjunction with your program. Do you provide instructions for doing this? In my current program I do it as shown below. I would like to do something similar when DoubleAgent is installed instead of MSAgent.

3. Because the program is for children I set a large font size for the speech and think bubbles and use a sans serif font, and I slow down the speech to its minimum speed to give children time to read it. How would I adjust the balloon variables using DoubleAgent?

Here is the Delphi code I currently use for these things in conjunction with MSAgent.

{Declare two global Agent variables to simplify animation instructions}
Peedy,Genie: IAgentCtlCharacterExDisp;

function TStartForm.LoadAgents: Boolean;
begin
Result := True;
try
FAgent := TAgent.Create(Self);
Agent.Connected:= True;
with Agent.Characters do
begin
Load('Peedy',ProjectPath + 'Agent\Peedy.acs');
Load('Genie',ProjectPath + 'Agent\Genie.acs');
Peedy := IAgentCtlCharacterExDisp(Item['Peedy']);
Genie := IAgentCtlCharacterExDisp(Item['Genie']);
Item['Peedy'].Balloon.FontSize := 12;
Item['Genie'].Balloon.FontSize := 12;
Item['Peedy'].Balloon.SpeakingSpeed := 0;
Item['Genie'].Balloon.SpeakingSpeed := 0;
Item['Peedy'].Balloon.FontName := 'Comic Sans MS';
Item['Genie'].Balloon.FontName := 'Comic Sans MS';
end;
except
if Assigned(FAgent) then
FreeAndNil(FAgent);
Result := False;
end;
end;

I can then do things like
Peedy.Play('LookUpRight');
Genie.Speak(‘Hallo!’);

The software will run in Windows 8 using a version of MSAgent written by an Asian programmer, but this doesn’t display text properly in Think bubbles and it displays the text much too briefly to be read.

[Arnold V Page]

Did anyone ever explain how to do the equivalent with DoubleAgents? My software ('Captain Cook's Tuck Box') uses the same two agents. I'm rusty on my Delphi knowledge, so if DoubleAgents can be incorporated into a Delphi program I'd be very grateful if someone could explain fully how to do the above using DoubleAgents in a Delphi program.