Microsoft Agent Software Development Kit and Design Tools (Microsoft Professional Editions) [Paperback]

Microsoft Press (Author), Microsoft Corporation (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 1997 | Series: Microsoft Professional Editions

With this exciting all-in-one kit, developers can extend and enhance existing user interfaces with interactive personalities, which offer the user advanced speech recognition. This is the most convenient way for programmers to add the power of animated interfaces to their applications--and to their arsenal of programming techniques. The CD-ROM contains the complete Microsoft Agent Software Development Kit (SDK).

Product Details

• Paperback: 200 pages
• Publisher: Microsoft Press (November 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1572317205
• ISBN-13: 978-1572317208
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 7.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,130,564 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Reference Only, December 18, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Microsoft Agent Software Development Kit and Design Tools (Microsoft Professional Editions) (Paperback)

This book will not teach you to use the MS Agent API. It simply documents it. Further, the entire content of this book is available on Microsoft's website(a fact which I was unaware of when purchasing the book). Even worse, the book is out of date with the advent of the newest release of the API(which has some good improvements). Worst of all, if you're a C/C++/Java developer using COM/ActiveX, this book is only marginally useful as a reference, as the majority of code is in VB format(leaving out important information like typing.....a trend I hope MS reverses). Save your money; go to the website.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars worthless, December 25, 1999

By 

lee rodgers (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Microsoft Agent Software Development Kit and Design Tools (Microsoft Professional Editions) (Paperback)

the author of the book doesn't seem to know the agent technology at all. none of the so called examples will work. it is another pure marketing piece from microsoft to cover the fact that microsoft knows nothing about agent technology. dont waste your money.

3.0 out of 5 stars Fills in the blanks, not JavaScript oriented, October 19, 2007

By 

D. McCormick "DPM" (Seattle, WA ,USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Microsoft Agent Software Development Kit and Design Tools (Microsoft Professional Editions) (Paperback)

This is basically a printed version of the Agent 2.0 SDK that can be accessed from Microsoft MSDN. I like the book format to read offline. Many may not find this necessary.

I was able to find answers to some of my questions on objects, events, properties and methods. I am developing in JavaScript. The examples are in VBScript or VB 6. Not a difficult transition if you have some other examples to work from.

More examples would have helped a lot.

The CD that was enclosed had formatting errors. The Micosoft KB acknowledged this a provided a replacement procedure.

Microsoft Agent is a great technology. It has been put on the back burner by Misrosoft for a variety of reasons.

Since it is only supported in Internet Explorer, many developers have lost interest. Firefox users can add an "IE Tab" for IE use.

Finding Technical information is an exploration process. I found that there are a couple of dozen strong sites on the web. Simple to complex. Lite use of Agent Technology to comprehensive commercial Avatar sites.

A good starting point for discovering the use of Agents is [...]. They offer a scripting helper MASH that created code for web pages. They have created several VB6 products. I learned a lot to complement this publication by reading their code.

Another publication with a more comprehensive treatment is needed. For now, this title fills in a lot of blanks. I would recommend it. The only copies I found were used.