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Reference Manual |
The Project Manager is the high-level tool used to create projects, agencies, and agents. Agencies can be created using the Agency Manager, and agents can be created using the Agent Manager. The Project Manager provides an overall view of the development process. The Project Manager allows you to easily see all of the projects, agencies and agents that you have created. The Project Manager is shown in Figure 5.
Figure 5. The Project Manager
The File menu allows you to create new projects, agencies, and agents. The File menu is also used to shut down the program. Using the Edit menu, you can delete a selected node in the project tree, cut, copy and paste agents, and view or edit AgentBuilder properties. The Tools menu provides access to the Agent Engine. The Windows menu lets you switch among the various open AgentBuilder tools. The Help menu provides access to the AgentBuilder help system.
The project tree allows you to view your repository. The top-level view shows the project folders. Each project folder can contain multiple agencies which, in turn, can contain multiple agents.
The description area provides a textual description of the project, agency, or agent in the project tree. To see a description, select a node in the project tree, and the description area's contents will show a description of the selected project, agency, or agent.
The project tree is based on a tree structure commonly used to display file systems and the hierarchical relationships between files and directories. Tree nodes that contain children can be opened, or expanded, by double-clicking on the node's label, or by clicking on its expand icon to the left of the label. Similarly, a tree nodes that has been expanded can be collapsed by double-clicking on its label or by clicking on its collapse icon to the left of the label.
The Agent Manager tool can be opened in the same manner as the Agency Manager. You can select the agent and then click on the Agents tab, or right-click on the agent and select the Edit menu item. You can also open the Agent Manager with no agent loaded, simply click on the agents tab without having selected an agent.
The project tree also provides context-sensitive pop-up menus. The pop-up menus are activated by using the right mouse button. Right-clicking on a project will display the project's pop-up menu. The same can be done with agencies and agents. Right-clicking on an empty area within the project tree will display the project tree's pop-up menu.
Projects can be created in two ways. You can select New from the File menu, or you can right click on the Projects folder, then select New Project from the pop-up menu. In either case, the Project Properties dialog will be displayed. You must supply a name and click on the OK button to create the new project.
Agencies can be created in two ways. The first way is to select a project folder in the project tree and then select New from the File menu. The other method used to create a new agency is to right click on a project folder, then select New Agency from the pop-up menu. You must supply a name and click on the OK button to create the new agency.
Agents can be created in two ways. The first way is to select an agency folder in the project tree and then select New from the File menu. The other method used to create a new agent is to right-click on an agency folder and then select New Agent from the pop-up menu. You must supply a name and click on the OK button to create the new agent.
Agents are the only nodes in the project tree that can be cut, copied, or pasted. There are two ways to use these clipboard functions on an agent. The first way is to use the Edit menu's Cut , Copy and Paste menu items. The other method is to use the agent's pop-up menus for Cut and Copy , and the agency's pop-up menu for Paste . Whichever method is used, an agent must first be selected before a cut or copy operation can be performed. For the paste operation, an agency must be selected. Invalid selections will be ignored. Once an agent has been pasted into an agency, the newly pasted agent will be assigned the current user's name and the current date and time. If the agency being pasted into already contains the name of the agent being pasted, the agent to be pasted will recursively have CopyOf prepended to its name.
To modify the properties of a project, agency, or agent, right-click on the node in the project tree. The pop-up menu for the selected node will contain a Properties menu item. Selecting the Properties menu item will display a properties dialog for the selected node. The properties dialog for projects and agencies allows you to modify the name and description. The properties dialog for an agency is more complex. You can modify an agency's name, description, author, company, and communications. The agent properties dialog is similar to the Agency Properties dialog, except that you can also modify the agent's icon, engine cycle time, and agencies. In each of the properties dialogs, you must select the OK button in order for the changes to take effect. Selecting the Cancel button or closing the window will discard any changes.
Projects, agencies, and agents can be deleted in two different ways. The user can first select the tree node to be deleted, then select Delete from the Edit menu. The other way in which tree nodes can be deleted is by right-clicking on a tree node, then selecting Delete from the pop-up menu.
To edit user preferences, the AgentBuilder Options dialog is accessed through the Edit menu's Options menu item. The AgentBuilder Options dialog allows you to view and edit various preferences such as:
To edit the user's name, email or company name, select the User Info tab in the AgentBuilder Options Dialog . Figure 6 shows the AgentBuilder Options Dialog with the User Info tab selected. The User Info panel is made up of text fields so that the user can easily change the contents of any or all fields.
Figure 6. User Preference Dialog
To modify the user's directories and error log location, select the Directories tab. Figure 7 shows the AgentBuilder Options Dialog with the Directories tab selected. The Directories tab contains a table for viewing and modifying the user's directories.
Figure 7. Preferences Dialog Showing Directories
To modify a directory entry in the table, first select the directory to be modified. Then, select the Browse button. Selecting the Browse button will bring up a Directory dialog, as shown in Figure 8.
Figure 8. Directory Dialog
The Directory dialog is similar to a file selection dialog, except that it only allows you to view and select directories. The Directory dialog has several features worth noting. At the top of the dialog, there is a combo box that displays the current directory. The combo box allows you to go up in the directory hierarchy. The dialog also contains icons for going up to the next directory, returning to the home directory, and creating a new directory, respectively. In the center of the dialog is a pane for displaying the contents of the current directory. In this pane, you can double click directories to open them. At the bottom of the dialog, there is and editable text field where you can type the name of the directory. When you find the desired directory, you can select the directory in the directory pane and then click on the Open button. If no directory is selected, the current directory becomes the selected directory. The selected directory will be displayed in the directories table.
You can choose to have error logging turned on or off by selecting the checkbox next to the Error Log Location label below the directories table. If error logging is turned on, you must also specify the error log file that will be used. You can specify the error log location by typing in the text field, or by clicking on the Browse button. Clicking on the Browse button will display the standard File dialog.
The general appearance of the AgentBuilder toolkit can be changed in the Appearance panel. Figure 9 shows the AgentBuilder Options dialog with the Appearance tab selected. The Appearance panel is divided into three sub panels. The top panel is the Look and Feel panel. The Look and Feel panel contains three radio buttons for selecting the Metal , Windows , and CDE/Motif look and feel. The Metal look and feel is the default look and feel. Due to licensing restrictions, only Microsoft Windows users can select the Windows look and feel. Selecting one of the radio buttons will immediately change the look and feel in all open windows. The Font Size panel allows you to change the default size of the fonts used in the application by simply typing in a font size in the text field.
Figure 9. Preference Panel for Setting Appearances
The background and foreground colors are shown as the colors of their respective buttons. The background and foreground color are modified by selecting the corresponding Colors button. Selecting the Colors button will display the Color Dialog , shown in Figure 10. The Color Dialog contains three sliders for setting the red, green and blue values of the background or foreground colors. You will also find, located on the right of the sliders, a box whose color is set to the current RGB value. Once the desired color has been determined, click on the OK button to set the color for the background or foreground color.
Figure 10. Color Preference Dialog
If you modify any of the preferences, you must select the OK button before any of the changes will take effect. Currently, font size and color modifications only take effect the next time the tool is started. Selecting the Cancel button or closing the window will discard any preference modifications.
The Sockets panel allows you to specify the class to handle the conversion of KQML messages to and from bytes. Figure 11 shows the AgentBuilder Options dialog with the Sockets tab selected. By default, the class com.reticular.agentBuilder.agent.perception.DefaultKqmlConverter will be used whenever you specify that AgentBuilder agents communicate using TCP/IP sockets.
Figure 11. TCP/IP Socket Options
Another function performed by the Agency Manager (in addition to providing a graphical display of your projects, agencies and agents) is providing access to the varous tools in AgentBuilder. These tools include the Agency Manager, Agent Manager, Ontology Manager, Protocol Manager, and Agent Engine. The following paragraphs describe several methods for opening each of these tools.
The Agency Manager can be displayed in three different ways. You can select an agency from the Project tree and then click on the Agencies tab. You can also, right-click on the agency and select the Edit menu item from the pop-up menu item. The third way to display the Agency Manager is to click on the Agencies tab without selecting any agency, the Agency Manager will be displayed with no agency loaded.
The Agent Engine tool can be opened in two different ways. You can either select the agent and then select the Tools < Agent Engine menu item, or by simply right-clicking an agent and selecting the Run menu item from the pop-up menu. The Agent Engine cannot be run without first selecting an agent. To run an agency, right-click on the agency and select the Run menu item from the pop-up menu. This will launch the EngineLauncher for the agency. It will use the agency JVM groups if it exists (See See Creating a JVM Group. for more info).
The Agent Manager tool can be opened in the same manner as the Agency Manager . You can select the agent and then click on the Agents tab, or right-click on the agent and select the Edit menu item. You can also open the Agent Manager with no agent loaded; simply click on the agents tab without having selected an agent.
There is only one way to open the Ontology Manager and Protocol Manager tools. You must select the Ontologies or Protocols tab from the Project Manager.
The Windows menu is a dynamic menu that provides a list of all AgentBuilder tools that are open. This menu facilitates switching between the tools when multiple tools are open. To switch to the desired tool, selects the tool from the Windows menu. The selected tool will then be brought to the front on the display.
The help system can be accessed using the Help menu item. The About menu item allows you to read the help information for the current tool. The Index menu item will display an index to the help system's contents. The Tutorial menu item will display the Quick Tour of the AgentBuilder toolkit. The About AgentBuilder menu item will display the AgentBuilder logo along with the version number and copyright information. The AgentBuilder Home Page menu item will display the home page for the AgentBuilder product.