Instructions for running Conversational Agent examples

[An improved version of these instructions will soon be available for preview on the Conversation Support Website .]

After installing ABLE into a directory of your preference (which we'll call ABLEHOME here), you can run the first (and at present, only) demo of conversational agents: the Asymmetric Multi-Agent Bargaining (AMAB) example.

To do so, you will run ABLE's Java Agent Services (JAS) Platform and two agents, each of which is loaded into its own  instance of the AbleEditor.

1. Configuring and starting the ABLE JAS Platform.
A detailed discussion of this can be found in the Guide to Distributed ABLE Agents .

2. Starting the First agent (Agent1)
1. Start the ABLE editor - Open a command prompt (DOS terminal, UNIX shell, etc.), navigate to the ABLEHOME\bin and type runjas . You should see the editor window.
2. From the menu, click File… Open Agent. Navigate to ABLEHOME\examples\conversation and open agent1.ser
3. Right click on the Agent1 icon inside the editor palette, and choose ‘Properties’.
4. Choose the Platform tab
5. Specify the port at which the platform services are running in the ‘Port’ text field. (You specified this port as the argument of startAbleJasPlatform in step 1.)
6. Click on Initialize
7. Start the agent. Making sure the Agent1 icon is selected, click on the "run continuously" button in the editor.

The AbleJasConversationAgent page contains some screen shots of what you should see.

3. Starting the Second Agent (Agent2)
Start a second ABLE editor from another command prompt. Repeat the same steps as in 2, except this time load agent2.ser. It will be loaded in as "Agent2". Modify it the same way as Agent1.

4. Starting the conversation
Either agent can start a conversation. Here, I'll describe how to get Agent1 to initiate a conversation with Agent2.
1. Open up Agent1's Properties window again, and click on the Conversation tab.
2. Enter the following information in the fields below the "New Conversation" heading:
Agent = "Agent2" (the name of the agent that Agent1 is going to converse with.)
Policy = "AMAB" (the name of the conversation policy Agent1 is going to propose.)
Role = "BUYER" (the name of the role that Agent1 is going to play in that conversation policy.)
(Note that Agent1 is configured to be a BUYER only, and Agent2 a SELLER.)
3. Click "Start Conversation".