# Hello and Goodbye

You may recall that in setting up Angela's ActorStates in the previous chapter we defined two different ActorStates for her while she's out in the Jetway: one (angelaAssistingState) for when Angela is assisting the other passengers, and the other (angelaTalkingState) for when Angela is actually talking with the player character out on the Jetway. So far, however, we've provided no mechanism for switching between these two states. We've located a QueryTopic in angelaTalkingState, but as things stand at the moment it will never be activated because nothing we've done so far will ever cause Angela to go into the angelaTalkingState.

The two different states do nevertheless serve a purpose. Engaging someone in conversation may well result in a change of state from what they were doing before. When Angela is in angelaAssistingState she's dealing with other passengers. When she's in angelaTalkingState her attention is focused on the player character. Once the player character has finished speaking with her, she'll return her attention to the other passengers; in other words she should go back into the angelaAssistingState.

These state transitions model what may well happen in real life when we start and end a conversation. Our conversation partner will stop whatever he or she was doing before to talk with us, and resume doing it (or else start doing something else, such as leaving the room) when we've finished. To mark the boundaries between states we normally use some form of greeting protocols, like saying hello and goodbye, partly to attract the attention of the other person, perhaps, but also to mark the beginning and end of the conversation, both as a matter of politeness and social convention, and for the practical purpose of ensuring that the conversation partners know when to 'switch states'. There may be some occasions when it's appropriate to begin and end a conversation abruptly, but on many occasions it would seem rather odd, if not quite impolite, to do so (although the formula employed may not be an explicit 'hello' or 'goodbye'; in England, for example, either 'Excuse me' or commenting on the weather is regarded as an acceptable way to open a conversation with a stranger).

In adv3Lite, these greeting protocols can be modelled with a HelloTopic to start the conversation and a ByeTopic to end it. Neither of these special types of TopicEntry (or their subtypes) causes the actor to switch state automatically unless you instruct it to, but if you do switch states the rule is this: both types of greeting TopicEntry must be located either directly in the Actor or in the ActorState the actor is in at the point at which the Hello or Goodbye occurs. This means that if there is a switch of state, the HelloTopic should be located in the ActorState the actor is in immediately prior to the conversation, while the ByeTopic should be in the state the actor is in while conversing. To make a HelloTopic or ByeTopic switch states you define its changeToState property to point to the ActorState you want it to change to.

To see how this works in practice, let's add a HelloTopic that switches Angela to the angelaTalkingState when the player character starts addressing her on the Jetway. The following definition should be placed immediately after that of the angelaAssistingState object:

    ++ HelloTopic, StopEventList
        [
            '<q>Excuse me, might I have a word?</q> you say.\b
            {The subj angela} turns to you with a fixed smile, no doubt mentally
            preparing herself for another barrage of complaints. <q>Yes; how can I
            help?</q> she replies. ',

            '<q>Might I have another word?</q> you ask.\b
            <q>Yes?</q> she replies, turning to you just a little warily. '
        ]

        changeToState = angelaTalkingState
    ;

Here we've combined the HelloTopic with a StopEventList to vary the greeting used on the first and subsequent occasions. Note that this HelloTopic will be triggered whether the player types a conversational command like ASK ANGELA ABOUT FLIGHT DEPARTURES or whether s/he types an explicit greeting like TALK TO ANGELA. What happens next will differ in the two cases, though. If the player types a conversational command like ASK ANGELA ABOUT FLIGHT DEPARTURES, this will be dealt with immediately after the greeting exchange. If the player types TALK TO ANGELA a list of suggested conversation topics will be displayed immediately after the exchange of greetings. If we wanted a different exchange of greetings in the first case (where the player doesn't explicitly ask for it), we could define a separate ImpHelloTopic (implicit HelloTopic) to deal with it, but we hardly need one here.

To end the conversation we can define a ByeTopic in much the same way, except that the ByeTopic needs to be located in the angelaTalkingState and to define changeToState = angelaAssistingState to ensure that Angela switches back to her former ActorState at the end of the conversation:

    ++ ByeTopic
        "<q>Well, cheerio for now then,</q> you say.\b
        <q>Goodbye,</q> she replies with a brisk nod, before turning to yet another
        importuning displaced passenger anxious for her attention. "

        changeToState = angelaAssistingState
    ;

As we've defined it this ByeTopic will be triggered however the player character ends the conversation, whether via an explicit BYE command or simply if the player character walks away. It may be that we'd rather the latter case was handled a bit differently, in which case we can define a separate LeaveByeTopic to handle it:

    ++ LeaveByeTopic
        "{The subj angela} looks momentarily taken aback at your somewhat abrupt
        departure, but quickly turns back to the other passengers clamouring for
        her attention. "

        changeToState = angelaAssistingState
    ;

That covers most of what you need to know about Greeting Protocols in adv3Lite, but for the full story you can consult the section on Hello and Goodbye in the adv3Lite Library Manual.

adv3Lite Library Tutorial
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