Hello there, firstly great website, good job Dave, Steve, Erwin and all other contributors!

I am intending to learn more about chatbots - based on Dave’s forum post / article on here, I tried out with Pandorabots, and really enjoyed using the platform.  However, I’m not sure how I’m able to deploy the AIML files within a pre-existing website (html + css + js) as a pop-up window when called upon, i.e. a button is clicked.  Can anyone point me towards some resource about this please?  I asked pandorabots and was directed to Heroku (which worked easily enough!) but the idea is to deploy it within my own website.

Also, anyone know how to let the chatbot do the talking first?  Seems like it only reacts when I say hi first…

Really happy to hear any feedback, and thanks in advance!

Regards,
Alvin

(Sorry, couldn’t resist…)
ALLLLLLLLLLLVIIIIINNNNNNNNN!!!

Hi, and welcome to chatbots.org!

Pandorabots has an API that can be used to connect to a chatbot directly from your website. It’s not that difficult to use if you have a modicum of experience with HTML and JavaScript. you can also check out Program O for inspiration on how to set up an interface to access a remote chatbot (look in the GUI/JSON folder).

As far as letting the chatbot initiate the conversation, there are a number of methods to doing so. I’ll cover two here. The first is to simply “hard-code” the bot’s opening statement/question, which is the easiest, but least creative/imaginative, or you can write specific AIML code that generates a (sort of) random opening gambit, and have the interface trigger that AIML code when someone navigates to the chatbot’s page. I actually recommend neither course of action, simply from the standpoint of return visitors. That said, however, it’s possible to use a variation of the second method in order to have the chatbot welcome the visitor back to the conversation, but that’s an exceptionally tricky thing to pull off with anything less than journeyman to master level coding skills. Still, the option is there.

Thanks Dave for the warm welcome!! and for the quick response.

I have some (but not much) experience in html and js, but I’m struggling to find anything in the documentation that gives me the link I can use to connect directly, as per this previous thread from 5 months ago. 

Re chatbot having the opening line, I find your variation of the randomized opening line interesting (almost Westworld-like!), but a chatbot that “remembers” previous conversation is beyond my level, and (luckily) my requirement.  A simple “hard-coded” message would suffice at this stage.  Is there an easy way I could do this within the AIML file itself?  I tried writing a response without specifying an input but that didn’t work :-( I would imagine that if I could hard-code a single message, I could also write a list that randomizes the opening line, or am I missing something here?

Thanks again for the help!

Regards,
Alvin