Our bot build does a ‘personality quiz’ for the user. Think Buzzfeed.
I have a variety of attributes I want to increase, just integers, based on the user’s selections on a form, then return an end result.
Using Sandwichbot as a template, this is asking something like (paraphrased):
Do you like to help other people? Yes No
Code is like:
.Confirm(async (state) =>
{
switch (state.HelpYesNo)
{
case true: HelpfulValue++; break;
case false: HurtfulValue++; break;
}
return new PromptAttribute("Thanks, choose OK to continue.");
It works fine, but I hate that I have to make the user ‘Confirm’ by typing OK. It’s an extra step, especially if they have to do it after each question.
I tried writing this with a validate instead, eg validate: async (state, response) =>
Which gives a better user experience, but doesn’t actually run the switch-case. I think the formatting of the switch is in the wrong place for a validate? I'm not sure of the syntax here to get 'validate' to process the case.
What’s the right way to do something like this in FormFlow?
Try something like this. Boolean fields also result in a Yes/No question.
[Serializable]
public class QuizForm
{
public int HelpfulValue;
public int HurtfulValue;
[Prompt("Do you like to help people? {||}")]
public bool HelpPeople;
public static IForm<QuizForm> BuildForm()
{
return new FormBuilder<QuizForm>()
.Message("Let the quiz begin...")
.Field(nameof(HelpPeople), validate: ValidateBool)
// other fields
.Build();
}
private static async Task<ValidateResult> ValidateBool(QuizForm state, object value)
{
var TrueOrFalse = (bool) value;
switch (TrueOrFalse)
{
case true: state.HelpfulValue++; break;
case false: state.HurtfulValue++; break;
}
return new ValidateResult{IsValid = true, Value = value};
}
}
Related
I have a formflow dialog in which one of it's properties is this...
[Describe("Car Mileage")]
[Prompt("Cool! What's the mileage of the car?")]
[Template(TemplateUsage.NotUnderstood, "Sorry, I didn't understand that mileage value. Can you enter it again please?")]
public string Mileage { get; set; }
Ignore the [Template(TemplateUsage.NotUnderstood,... for now, I'll come back to that.
The dialog is built using the following...
var form = builder
.Field(new FieldReflector<CarValuationDialog>(nameof(ValuationOption))
.SetPrompt(new PromptAttribute($"Hi.<br /><br />Are you looking to get a value for a car you're selling, or car you're buying? {{||}}")))
.Field(new FieldReflector<CarValuationDialog>(nameof(RegistrationNumber))
.SetDefine(RegistrationNumberDefinitionMethod))
.Field(new FieldReflector<CarValuationDialog>(nameof(Mileage))
.SetValidate(async (state, value) =>
{
var result = new ValidateResult { IsValid = true, Value = value };
var regex = new Regex("[0-9,]+");
var match = regex.Match((string)value);
if (match.Success)
{
result.IsValid = true;
}
else
{
result.Feedback = "Sorry, I didn't understand that.";
result.IsValid = false;
}
return await Task.FromResult(result);
}))
.Field(
nameof(PreviousOwnerOption),
active: carValuationDialog => carValuationDialog.ValuationOption == ValuationOptions.LookingToSell)
.Field(
nameof(ServiceHistoryOption),
active: carValuationDialog => carValuationDialog.ValuationOption == ValuationOptions.LookingToSell)
.Confirm(Confirmation)
.OnCompletion(GetValuationAndDisplaySummaryToUser);
return form.Build();
This question is related to
`Feedback` text not shown in bot conversation
I'm experimenting with the validation for Mileage, as I've changed that property from int to string in order to allow freeflow text e.g. "23,456 miles". As a side-effect of changing the data type, when the validation for Mileage fails, I get the following...
Not only does the result.Feedback value now get shown to the user (it did not before, when Mileage was an int), which is fine, but also the original question text is shown.
So my main question is - what can I do so that when validation fails, the original question prompt is not shown to the user?
As a side note, when changing Mileage back to int, and the validation fails (result.IsValid = false), result.Feedback is not shown, but [Template(TemplateUsage.NotUndderstood.... is now shown. So it seems the type of the property matters in relation to what validation messages are shown.
So I have a list and for each item in the list I have to "do something" based on each list element.
The list consists of codes and there are a total of 5 codes. The list may contain any or all codes.
So far I've used the forEach and i've written the if conditions inside it as below -
List<Category> categories = getCategories();
categories.stream().forEach(category -> {
if(category.equals(Category.A)) {
// do something
} else if(category.equals(Category.B)) {
// do something
} else if(category.equals(Category.C)) {
// do something
} else if(category.equals(Category.D)) {
// do something
} else if(category.equals(Category.E)) {
// do something
}
});
I'm looking at refactoring this. Can someone please look at how better this can be done?
The only thing I would improve is to use a switch-statement:
switch(category){
case Category.A:
// do Something
break;
}
As mentionend by luk2302 this will only work if Category is an enum.
You can add a doSomething method to the Category class and simply call it in the .forEach.
For example:
public class Category {
// any other methods/variable/constructors
public void doSomething() {
//do something
}
}
Then you can call it like this:
categories.stream().forEach(Category::doSomething);
If the // do something has not a common behaviour, you can move the if part inside the doSomething method.
At first, do not use multiline lambdas and create new method (with switch):
private void doSomethingBasedOnCategory(Category category) {
switch(category) {
case A: // do something
break;
case B: // do something
break;
case C: // do something
break;
case D: // do something
break;
case E: // do something
break;
}
}
Then use it in your lambda:
getCategories()
.stream()
.forEach(category -> doSomethingBasedOnCategory(category);
Another way is to create static map prefilled with keys (which will be Category.X) and values (which will be functions ready to use)
I am using rxjava2 for the first time on an Android project, and am doing SQL queries on a background thread.
However I am having trouble figuring out the best way to do a simple SQL query, and being able to handle the case where the record may or may not exist. Here is the code I am using:
public Observable<Record> createRecordObservable(int id) {
Callable<Record> callback = new Callable<Record>() {
#Override
public Record call() throws Exception {
// do the actual sql stuff, e.g.
// select * from Record where id = ?
return record;
}
};
return Observable.fromCallable(callback).subscribeOn(Schedulers.computation());
}
This works well when there is a record present. But in the case of a non-existent record matching the id, it treats it like an error. Apparently this is because rxjava2 doesn't allow the Callable to return a null.
Obviously I don't really want this. An error should be only if the database failed or something, whereas a empty result is perfectly valid. I read somewhere that one possible solution is wrapping Record in a Java 8 Optional, but my project is not Java 8, and anyway that solution seems a bit ugly.
This is surely such a common, everyday task that I'm sure there must be a simple and easy solution, but I couldn't find one so far. What is the recommended pattern to use here?
Your use case seems appropriate for the RxJava2 new Observable type Maybe, which emit 1 or 0 items.
Maybe.fromCallable will treat returned null as no items emitted.
You can see this discussion regarding nulls with RxJava2, I guess that there is no many choices but using Optional alike in other cases where you need nulls/empty values.
Thanks to #yosriz, I have it working with Maybe. Since I can't put code in comments, I'll post a complete answer here:
Instead of Observable, use Maybe like this:
public Maybe<Record> lookupRecord(int id) {
Callable<Record> callback = new Callable<Record>() {
#Override
public Record call() throws Exception {
// do the actual sql stuff, e.g.
// select * from Record where id = ?
return record;
}
};
return Maybe.fromCallable(callback).subscribeOn(Schedulers.computation());
}
The good thing is the returned record is allowed to be null. To detect which situation occurred in the subscriber, the code is like this:
lookupRecord(id)
.observeOn(AndroidSchedulers.mainThread())
.subscribe(new Consumer<Record>() {
#Override
public void accept(Record r) {
// record was loaded OK
}
}, new Consumer<Throwable>() {
#Override
public void accept(Throwable throwable) {
// there was an error
}
}, new Action() {
#Override
public void run() {
// there was an empty result
}
});
In the example bot implementations from Microsoft, they use enums to define options for dialog, as shown in the example below:
public enum LengthOptions { SixInch, FootLong };
public enum BreadOptions { NineGrainWheat, NineGrainHoneyOat, Italian, ItalianHerbsAndCheese, Flatbread };
Can we use a normal list to fetch the values from the database and display it as options?
Thanks
You can't do this out of the box, but you could subclass FormBuilderBase<T>, overriding various methods to build the Form using whatever datasource you prefer.
Edit:
You can find the base class and implementation of FormBuilder here: https://github.com/Microsoft/BotBuilder/blob/master/CSharp/Library/FormFlow/FormBuilder.cs
Basically, there are a mess of virtual methods that you can override to customize how you want to form to behave, but the main one is Build. In the default implementation, it iterates though the enums to create a list of Field, which are basically each step in you form. Instead of that, you can iterate through whatever data you have pulled from your database and create a new Field for each item. It may look something like this:
public override IForm<T> Build(Assembly resourceAssembly = null, string resourceName = null)
{
var list = GetListOfItemsFromDatabase();
foreach (var item in _list)
{
// FieldFromItem is an IField and will also need to be created
Field(new FieldFormItem<T>(item));
}
Confirm(new PromptAttribute(_form.Configuration.Template(TemplateUsage.Confirmation)));
}
return base.Build(resourceAssembly, resourceName);
}
I know its late but found myself struggling with the same and found that below would be the right solution for this.In your FormFlow class just add the Terms and Descriptions manually.From your example if we are talking about length options then change the type of LengthOptions to string add following code when you build the form.
return new FormBuilder<SandwichForm>()
.Field(new FieldReflector<SandwichForm>(nameof(LengthOptions))
.SetDefine(async (state, field) =>
{
// Call database and get options and iterate over the options
field
.AddDescription("SixInch","Six Inch")
.AddTerms("SixInch", "Six Inch")
.AddDescription("FootLong ","Foot Long")
.AddTerms("FootLong ", "Foot Long")
return true;
}))
.OnCompletion(completionDelegate)
.Build();
I want to use the Redirect to Action result on this code which gives a null but i have several if statements and the code is becoming more complex to build need a solution on how i could use the Redirect to Action which outputs null, help please?
public ActionResult Convert(double temperature, string convertTo)
{
ViewBag.Temperature = temperature;
ViewBag.ConvertTo = convertTo;
if (convertTo.Equals("Celsius"))
{ ViewBag.ConvertedTemperature = this.FahrenheitToCelsius(temperature); }
else
{ ViewBag.ConvertedTemperature = this.CelsiusToFahrenheit(temperature); }
return View("Convert");
}
The error message would really help. But it seems like you'd need to make your temperature parameter nullable, like so:
public ActionResult Convert(double? temperature, string convertTo)
Then you could check for null and return RedirectToAction:
if (temperature == null)
return RedirectToAction("ActionName", "ControllerName");
You'll also need to do the following to get the temperature value in your conversion methods:
temperature.Value
Hope this helps.