Talking Moose

Home of the famous Talking Moose. She makes me laugh.

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Home of the Talking Moose

Previous Builds

January 21, 2019 By Steven Halls

Previous build July 11, 2019. New Moose.exe: Left-click on systray Moose icon, to open Home. Now you can safely close X on the Home page. Also got Http.Post, Http.Get, Http.Send, Http.SendWebHook which are simplified, mimicking ajax format.

Previous Build June 30,2019. New Moose.exe, fixes timeouts and SSL TLS 1.2, so international users of cloud services should work better. (Changed WebRequests, IoT WebSockets for Cloud API on Moose and Azure). Shutdown is faster, less is saved at shutdown. Green C# dialogs now in 4 languages. Raised minimum .NET version. July 5, 2019: My Plugin Uploader tool is fixed, and many plugins have changes, so go ahead and everyone can run Updates now.

Previous Build May 5, 2019. Now it seems OK to run Updates. Seems to be working, but earlier today, it wasn’t. This new build has code that might let more people with older PCs and older graphics chips, use the Moose without getting an error code. Please send email or facebook feedback to let me know if this update worked well or not. Login tokens fixed.

Previous Build April 25, 2019. PluginUpdater finds UTF-8 problems. Moose.exe allows new plugins to be installed. New Zip for alpha testers. Authentication token cleanup.

Previous Build April 20, 2019. PluginUpdater shows button feedback, and deletes conflicted copy files. Run double-moose won’t speak anymore. Fixed 60 second Azure timeouts during Updates. Got Resources.ReadFile(filepath) to enable reading local .json files. Got
Resources.ReplaceSettings(“NewSettings106.xml”, true);

Previous Build April 15, 2019. Esc key for full screen Moose3D. new C++ toolset, new SDKs, code cleanup improved startup speed by at least 50%. Some pluginUpdater improvements.

Previous Build April 1, 2019. PluginUpdater change. Fixed Whistle Off. View window max size fix. new loggers. Investigating how to avoid “Unblock” step on the download Zip.

Previous Build March 21, 2019. Something changed in Moose updater and cloud. Can now get to most recent Moose in one update, not multi restarts. March 22, 2019 PluginUpdater gets Make Zip button and unchecked boxes to exclude plugins from cloud.

Previous Build March 14, 2019. More events for showing Updating progress. Plugin Updater improved ( Manifest format change. Updater keeps track of all files. ). Authentication logic better retry. IoT better re-try. Newer Azure functions with better logger. Moose3D can recover from OS locked files. March 15, 2019 handles Styles and VoiceRules in Moose Updates.

Previous Build March 3, 2019. Got OnUpdate entry point, and Resources.Settings.Remove(), and can use Resources.Settings.SetValue() to create a new value, thus providing a way to update settings using Javascript. Got new plugin Uploader?

Previous Build Feb 26, 2019. Received Update-Upload-for-Plugins App. My Plugin updates go to cloud, users get to download those updates.

Previous Build Feb 6, 2019: Update mechanisms and Update plugin. Except for plugins, everything else can be updated. Feb 9, improved progress bar.

Coder moved back to Tennessee in January.

Previous Build Dec 18, 2018.   Geolocation STORED using ipstack.com API.  Websockets has added security.

Previous Build Dec 16, 2018.  New Azure SDK, bug loading references to it in IoT DLL. Tested ipstack geolocate, Set up Admin website on Azure and tested Admin login.

Previous Build Nov 29, 2018. Code-analysis errors fixed. Moose3D shader code into assembly, other Moose3D errors fixed. System. to Device.GetCountryName(). All plugin files now UTF-8. Fixed Plugin.Stream.Name. Moose.exe coded to Exit upon receiving command from our future Admin panel on cloud.

Previous Build Nov 6, 2018. Streams upgraded to plugin, so it can be translated. The alert for delayed Moose3D.exe startup has been fixed, perhaps eliminated. Fixed/Eliminated SHH noise when quitting.

Previous Build Nov 1, 2018. Azure coding change, added Azure Direct Method to IoT, upon login at Office, it detects if I left the Moose running at home, and automatically tells Home Moose.exe to exit. This prevents file conflicts when running from the same Dropbox. Moved Auto-Save off main thread to plugins thread, hoping speech delays (affecting perceived lip-sync) will be less.

Previous Build Oct 25,2018. In hopes of reducing garbage collection churn during startup, Ivan removed all the “tags” definitions”, which was apparently A LOT of code to change, taking days of tedious hard work. This gives up the lofty idea of translating my actual Settings.xml files into other languages. So Chinese modders will see that the original language was English.

Previous Build Oct 16, 2018. Recoded using Azure Functions v2 with changes in Azure code and Moose.exe. Got Cortana’s Eve voice. Certificate changes for using IoT functions. Fixed problem after Oct 9th Windows update, made Moose.exe prefer to load C++ redistributables from local files. Improved TTS communications between C to C++, C++ to C#. Weather plugin got its API credentials onto the cloud. Got events “SpeakStarted” and “SpeakCompleted” for making Pastels.js stop animating. System.GetCountryName(), System.GetCountryCode(), System.GetCountryLongCode(), System.GetLanguageName(), System.GetLanguageCode(), System.GetLanguageShortCode(). Got SayName filtering disabled for the Goodbye phrase. Got Plugin.Pause() and Plugin.Resume() and Plugin.IsPaused(field). Fixed Shutdown function to always work, even if Run is paused.

Previous Build Oct 2, 2018. Ivan tested v2 Azure Functions, verified it works, but won’t incorporate it into main build until a Visual Studio updates comes for it. He DID merge some builds into one. Got One_Core and regular voices onto a unified list, worries to test on a 32bit PC. Got Cloud.IsAuthorized() for Translate, WebHooks, Settings, IoT. Replaced synchronous User.CheckLogin() with asynchronous callback API.CheckLogin( function(authenticated)) {}.

Previous Build Sept 23, 2018. Ivan found a bug in the Azure SDK, it’s re-trying automatically after my VPN causes a timeout, but the re-try doesn’t have a time-out handler correctly. Ivan did a work-around. This build still has extra logging going on. Got 2 kinds of sign-out.

Previous Build Sept 19, 2018. Can now access One_Core Voices, but not yet ALL voices combined. Test Build, logs but hasn’t solved the crashes when my VPN is on. New Azure functions DLL. Main entry point Async.

Previous Build August 26, 2018. Translate plugin completed to use cloud-hidden API secret. Got a more generally-extendable framework for cloud API secrets and calling APIs, so future work on other plugins should go faster. The Keep Settings button no longer clears the User.everything, but Sign-Out sadly, does.

Previous Build August 22, 2018. Renamed functions to License.Accept() and License.IsAccepted(). Fixed New User Reset with UserInfo. Translate and Weather plugins now have secrets on cloud, but those plugins are not fully javascript fixed yet.

Previous Build August 16, 2018 Got Events.OnEvent(“Authorized”,OnAuthorized). Most libraries were changed. Got License.AcceptedLicense(); and License.IsLicenseAccepted() which are available in .js but not .html.

Previous Build August 2, 2018 <Authorizer>s accumulating fixed.

Previous Build July 31, 2018: Cloud.GetSocialProvider() and User.CheckLogin(). Cloud.EnableCloudSettings() and Cloud.DisableCloudSettings(). Re-signed all DLLs. Saves Azure tokens for re-login, for multiple PCs (home/office/etc) of same user, and automatically re-login unless 30 days of inactivity. (This is a great feature.)

Previous Build July 22, 2018: cleaned-up error reporting, add centralized threading for all Azure API requests and Plugins’ XmlHttpRequests. Using new .NET 4.7.1. Redid dynamic loading of DLLs. Azure SDK caused a linking mess, cleaned up. Webhooks user_id will be more secure only in JSON (no longer visible in URL). Automatic re-login next session.

Previous Build July 9, 2018 Fixed a few bugs in build from 2 days ago. Got Facebook, Twitter and Microsoft,Amazon, Google logins. Azure messages using IoT/WebSockets will automatically be discarded after 48 hours.

Previous Build July 7, 2018 Almost completed switch to using Azure. But Moose is not back to AWS capabilities yet. Compiled in new Visual Studio with all new libraries. Fixed sometimes too-loud initial audio. Cloud API functions now have must-be-logged-in security.

Previous Build June 17, 2018. Partly switched from AWS to Azure, implemented Azure social media login.

Previous Build May 24, 2018: Got

  • document.getElementById(‘TestingBackground’).src = View.LoadImage(localFilename or URL)
  • document.getElementById(“testBack”).style.backgroundImage = ‘url(‘ + View.LoadImage(“bluepic.jpg”) + ‘)’;

( This automatically adds in mime type stuff like “data:image;base64″+theBase64). Got better plugin window size saving.

Previous Build May 22, 2018. Added a ‘script’ parameter for these 3 functions: theHTML = Web.GetHTML(), theHash = WebGetHTMLImageHash(), and new theBase64 = Web.GetHTMLImage(). This base64 is VERY USEFUL for doing this: document.getElementById(“image”).src = “data:image/bmp;base64,” + theBase64; Also added logging to look for main loop behavior-generator thread delay, to investigate times when 3D moose seems to freeze until the mouse moves. Removed an alert/error if a file-busy happens when auto-saving or shutdown.

New Build May 20, 2018 Discovered limits of # of open WebBrowsers, prevented a certain error message. Got Web.GetHTML and Web.GetHTMLImageHash with added parameters for delay and image sizes.

Previous Build May 16, 2018. Fixed problem of windowframe buttons sometimes needing 2 clicks. Got offscreen rendering of URLs for scraping in Webpages plugin, but not working as needed yet.

Previous Build May 9, 2018. Writing-to-file of Settings.xml of plugins given protection against becoming corrupted by a bad setting. Pushover plugin removed. Wording of New User reset dialog improved. Home menu option added to systray menu.

Previous Build May 2, 2018. Installed security certificates on halls.md and breast-cancer.ca. AWS released new SDK “.Net Core 2.0 for lambda”, had 2 memory leaks to fix. Many compile errors to fix. Gives oauth_request_token and oauth_access_token. Avoids using database, so much cheaper. AWS changed WebSockets timeout to 20min instead of 30min, so we were having high database usage for re-logins. Fixed. AWS began charging for Websockets connection time, and we’ve realized a need to switch from AWS to Azure. There was also a callback URL bug that was fixed, related to AWS use. Facebook changed recentCalenly, our login was being treated as “mobile” and forced us to re-login at every restart, now fixed. Got error reporting in JSON when using Twitter.Search, Twitter.GetTweets, etc. Got Twitter login for user authentication (haven’t tested it yet). Twitter API used by Twitter plugin is now sending requests to AWS first, where the application secret is appended. Changed to use Facebook graph API of v2.12. Generic login so Moose can accept all Oauth providers.

New Build May 3,2018. Fixed timeout callback of XmlHttpRequest for Feeds plugin. Got Moose.ClosePluginView(‘Login’) and Moose.IsViewOpened(‘Research’). Fixed bug of Refreshing a View would cause OnOpen function to fire again, with a parameter from a previous call to OnOpen.

Previous Build April 15, 2018. Got improved Twitter functions, long length, language, recent, count.

Previous Build April 10, 2018. Got Twitter functions for the Twitter plugin.

Previous Build April 3, 2018. Got JS.GetSyntaxError();, which is very useful for testing a webpage scraping script prior to executing it. Fixed a minor problem with Success sounds on Up-Down-Up gestures.

New Build March 27, 2018. Changed Security.Hash() so that string comparisons will work. Got Moose.EnableWiggleSuccessSound(), Moose.DisableWiggleSuccessSound(), Moose.EnableWiggleFailureSound(), Moose.DisableWiggleFailureSound(). Got Plugin.RanLateDueToSleep (true/false). Added Naudio, and a FFT from Accord. Fixed a hard-to-find bug, a keep-alive timer for AWS, was triggering the wrong thread. This fixed the problem of Moose.exe “going to sleep” for 6 minutes at a time in evenings. Scene.xml has added protection to not get wiped out from a crash.

Previous Build March 20, 2018. AWS changed to be single-threaded. WebSockets sometimes was being dropped by AWS, sometimes send bad data, Moose coded to detect and re-connect. Got Security.Hash(theString,64) for use in Webpages plugin to compare for changes. Changed interval of silence between speaking, lengthens if lots of talk in last 2 minutes. Moose.exe coded protection against overflow of messages incoming from AWS or elsewhere. Made sure OnWebHook gets called AFTER Hello runs.

Previous Build March 6, 2018. Up-Down-Up gestures send Event to Run whatever the Wiggle plugin specifies. C# functions for Moose.EnableShhingGesture(), Moose.DisableShhingGesture(); Moose.EnableWiggleGesture(), Moose.DisableWiggleGesture(); Moose.EnableWhistleWiggleGame(), Moose.DisableWhistleWiggleGame(). Moose.EnableGamePoints(), Moose.DisableGamePoints().

Previous Build Mar 3, 2018. Moose.Shh(), Moose.ClearSayQueue(), Security.Encrypt(), Security.Decrypt()

Previous Build Feb 27,2018. Finished single-threading plugins. Startups finish before Runs.

Previous Build Feb 21, 2018. VoiceRules working again, fixed a few visemes for David & Zira. Closed caption now sent word by word. Single-threaded the plugins and added plugin timing diagnostics. Gestures Shhh work properly again.

Previous Build Feb 14, 2018 Moose.Say now truncates to 600 characters. MMF sets aside 1/3 space for behavior commands, lets 2/3 hold Closed Caption images.

Previous Build Feb 9, 2018. Now sending closed caption images on MMF before speaking. Added C# setting for slight 20ms delay on lip sync motions. Tolerates 2000 words (but future will truncate to 600.

Previous Build Feb 1, 2018. Moved FacebookAppId into C#, allowing Home plugin to be improved. Can now check login status User.IsAuthenticated periodically. Using OnAuthenticated entry point.

Previous Build Jan 24, 2018. C# dialog buttons perfected, resizable window, ‘New User Detected’ event received in all plugins. Capped Say queue at 4, move excess to Buffer. Flood prevention limit of 7 arrive on Say queue. Empty Moose.Say(”) doesn’t error anymore.

Previous Build Jan 22, 2018. C# dialogs now use fancier buttons, similar to .html style.

Previous Build Jan 17, 2018. C# dialogs can now have linebreaks.

Previous build Jan 12, 2018. Moose.exe C# at startup decides if New User, Seen-before User, and Maybe-new-uncertain, and shows C# dialogs accordingly.

Some time off, Christmas to New Years, then Sick (flu) asked for a week, turned into 1.5 week, resumed work Jan 11.

Previous build Dec 26, 2017. Fixed broken Green Error dialogs. Created new .html entry point OnOpen – function() {}. Used OnOpen in UserInfo.js to signal new user. Added line# of javascript error to Green Error dialogs. Reduced wrappers when passing info between .js, .html, and C#.

Previous build Dec 20, 2017. Plugins close and restart well now, fixed entry points like OnWebHook, exports, etc. C# knows better when it’s a new user based on Facebook info, sends event to UserInfo plugin. Removed ‘steven’ folder and shifted subfolders upward. Special-case code sends new user event to a closed UserInfo plugin view.

Some time off after catching a cold. Some time off related to mother, napping into long sleeps.

Previous build Nov 28, 2017. Fixed a problem when using cloud saving of settings from ShutDown() function when using Cloud=”True”.

Previous build Nov 22, 2017. Plugins are auto-detected, can make new by copy,paste,edit. (All settings about the plugin are now stored within the plugin settings). Fixed Voice.SetVolume(). Removed unused Strings.xml files from plugins.

Previous build Nov 15, 2017. Prevented Scene.xml from becoming corrupted during saving. Got Moose.IsCornerJumpingEnabled (true/false) and Prevented Moose from continuous jumping around the corners.

Previous build Nov 10, 2017. A big clean-up of code, so Quitting is improved. Now it closes all pending XMLHttpRequests, Events, setTimouts and Export function calls. Solved a JINT problem by using some private variables in JINT, ( it was losing all global variables when just 1 JINT thread is forced to close). Upgraded to latest version of JINT. Reduced plugins from using 4 threads, to just one per thread, which saves A LOT of memory usage. The Moose has become much more quickly responding, so it is executing javascript much faster. Now it speaks Goodbye when quitting.

Previous Build Oct 30, 2017. Got a Moose3D that fixed making WebMoose recordings. (which allowed me to record a lot of jokes, now with anti-aliased quality.)

Delays from: “moved to Florida”, “margin call”, “visiting family”, “adjusting schedule”, and lots of “code cleanup” while coding the clean shutdown of the Moose.

Previous Build Oct 2, 2017. Got Resources.Settings.GetLength(‘Safe’,’Strings’); and Ivan did improvements to Cognito tokens expiring. He apparently made minor changes to UserInfo plugin.

Previous Build Sept 22, 2017. Cloud saving of settings finally completed. Plugin.Run() from HTML script no longer uses the main UI thread. All Settings are now escaped to XML standards before saving, which might cause problems for newline character. Shufflers were re-worked and index saved. Cloud.SendKillCommand() ready for testing.

Previous Build August 13, 2017. Got a lot of background work on saving settings to the cloud. Partial readiness for remote Kill 2nd copy of same user_id Moose on a different PC. Cloud.SendKillCommand(). Partial work on ideas for cloud saving of Shufflers, with an API. Stopped asking “Save Changes?” at quitting.

Previous Build August 5, 2017. Got cloud function to supply a token for using Microsoft Cognitive services (bot framework, LUIS), and Ivan code WebSockets in Chat.js for using Microsoft’s bot framework.

Previous Build July 25, 2017. Fixed User.Age calculation, but not available yet in .js files. Got: User-specific cloud storage of API keys and secrets, Auto-startup control of delay times , Open file manager Startup folder, WPA microphone app.

Previous Build: July 24,2017. Mouse-tracking was re-written with more direct-from-hardware, giving much better speed, and stopping a lot of context-switching that was slowing down movements of sliding Notification windows and javascript animations. And hopefully fixed Ivans problem and letting gestures work for him.

Previous Build: July 15,2017. Got better threading to <script>’s running in HTML windows, so my heavy javascript CPU-usage for background color gradients animating, foreground text animating, does not slow down the mouse, as much as before. Side-Effect: gestures need changing. Fixed: all windows back to normal without bouncing.

Previous Build: July 11, 2017. Notifications window moves smoother and bounces as requested. But problems: choppy hiding. All windows bounce by mistake.

Previous Build: July 2, 2017. Fixed problem of Cognito token expiring, but/and also it does a soft reset of Facebook’s token too.

Previous Build: June 23, 2017. Fixed to limit active connections to AWS to just 2. Got Events.OnEvent(‘SlideStarted’) and ‘SlideEnded’ for smoothing the Notifications motions.

Older Build: June 8, 2017 Got Timer.setTimeout in .js files. Some incomplete exploration of Toast window movements.

Older build: May 25, 2017. Got Lambda webhook code converted into compiled C#. Fixed AWS blocking the Moose after a while. Got <include src=”@file:MoreCode.html”><include>

This post was created July 2, 2015. Build details prior to May 2017 were not saved. Ivan has been coding since 2013.

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