Simple AIML Editor

Adeena Mignogna has written a new AIML editor, simply called, "Simple AIML Editor". Adeena said she got a little frustrated with the choices out there to manage her AIML
file content, so she wrote a new AIML editor.

The SAE is the latest development in the evolution of spreadsheet-style AIML editors like GaitoBotEditor and the Ai-Dealer AIML Spreadsheet editor. The SAE has simplified the interface and reduced the number of operations to a few, common botmaster tasks.

One of the challenges in managing AIML is that, although the AIML is in XML format, the data is a hybrid of highly structured, row-oriented fields (file name, pattern, that, topic, pattern, template) combined with hierarchical XML data in the template. The large amount of row-oriented data makes it hard to edit AIML with off-the-shelf XML editors. The spreadsheet seems to be the best metaphor to manage the large number of AIML categories found in convincing A.I. bots. Then other tools, at minimun a text editor, such as provided by the SAE, are required to edit the AIML template-side responses.

The SAE also allows the botmaster to load an XML schema to check for valid AIML. The editor supports file character encodings utf-8 and iso-8859-1. The editor also includes a "comment manager" to help the botmaster store comments and copyright statements at the head of each AIML file.

The editor is a C# application written for Windows. The program has been tested on both Windows XP and Vista machines and it seems to run fine on both of them.

Adeena would appreciate any feedback on the application and would definitely like to know if anyone experiences any problems with it.

The Simple AIML Editor can be found here:
http://riotsw.com/sae.html