Galaxy Communicator Documentation:
Toplevel Index
The Galaxy Communicator software infrastructure
is a distributed, message-based, hub-and-spoke infrastructure optimized
for constructing spoken dialogue systems. The Galaxy Communicator infrastructure
is an extension and evolution of the distributed infrastructure for the
MIT
Galaxy system, and is being developed and maintained by the
MITRE Corporation under the aegis of the DARPA
Communicator program. The Galaxy Communicator infrastructure is available
under a liberal open source license from the Galaxy
Communicator Sourceforge site. This is version 3.3 of the Galaxy Communicator
distribution.
This documentation is divided into four
parts:
-
a tutorial, which
will introduce you to the fundamentals of the Galaxy Communicator infrastructure
and teach you enough to get started;
-
a set of advanced
topics, which describe the more complex capabilities of the infrastructure;
-
a reference section,
which provides additional details about the basic and advanced topics;
and
-
an administrative
section, which deals with installing and upgrading the infrastructure.
Before you begin, please read the introduction
and overview, which will help you decide whether the Galaxy Communicator
infrastructure can help you.
Getting help
There are two primary ways of getting help
with Galaxy Communicator. First, there are public
mailing lists for Galaxy Communicator which you can subscribe to. Second,
you can send a message to bugs-darpacomm@linus.mitre.org.
Please do not send messages directly to the individual developers; it's
easier for us to track problems and respond promptly if you use the mailing
lists or the bug queue.
Tutorial
If you intend to run the examples in the tutorial
rather than simply read it, make sure that the Galaxy Communicator distribution
has been installed so that the tutorial
can be run.
Please note that the tutorial currently
only runs on Unix, and that it assumes familiarity with the Unix command
line.
Advanced topics
These topics are also presented in tutorial
style, where possible.
Reference
-
Frequently asked
questions
-
The Hub and server
executables
-
Frame and object
reference
-
Building a
Communicator-compliant server
-
Program file
reference
-
Logging reference
-
Broker
reference
-
The
structure of a server
-
Reserved
frame keys in Galaxy Communicator
-
API indexes
-
Glossary
-
Examples
-
Basic
server example: double
Exemplifies the basics of creating a server,
declaring servers and message signatures, sending new messages to the Hub,
raising and handling errors, and defining server and connection initialization
functions, in C, Python, Java and Allegro Common Lisp. Also exemplifies
using command line argument parsing, scriptless interaction, run-time script
error checking, logging, listener-in-Hub functionality, and how to use
continuations.
-
Audio
and brokering
Exemplifies creating and managing broker
connections in C, Python, Java and Allegro Common Lisp. Also exemplifies
interacting with the MITRE broker packaging utilities.
-
Alternative
main loops
Exemplifies how to write Communicator-compliant
servers using a non-Communicator main loop.
-
Binary
objects for audio and data
Exemplifies how to use binary (8-bit)
data for audio in frames (instead of brokering) and for opaque encoding
of arbitrary objects (including MITRE support).
-
Using
non-MIT makefiles
Exemplifies how to compile Communicator-compliant
servers without using the MIT makefile templates.
-
Running
a multiple-connection server
Illustrates how to run multiple Hubs against
the same server.
-
MIT executables and facilities
-
MITRE
utilities
-
MITRE tools
-
MITRE
toy travel demo reference
-
Programming language bindings
Administration
All bug reports and requests for help should
be sent to bugs-darpacomm@linus.mitre.org.
Please do not contact members of the Communicator team directly.
Please send comments and suggestions to:
bugs-darpacomm@linus.mitre.org
Last updated January 4, 2002.
Copyright (c) 1998 - 2002
The MITRE
Corporation
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED