User:Tancre/2/hackpact/Clippy

Clippy (Clippit)

Historical Background

Clippy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bhjNvSSuLM

Existing Projects

ClippyJS

Most famous project online with Clippy. It allows adding an Assistant to your web page.

• https://www.smore.com/clippy-js
  
• https://github.com/smore-inc/clippy.js

Clippy prank

Project for windows. Every 60 seconds Clippy appears on your desktop to basically bother you with stupid phrases. No animations only text.

• http://rjlpranks.com/pranks/clippy/

Clippy on iOS and macOS

• iOS > https://github.com/hbang/WritingALetter
• macOS > https://github.com/Clipy/Clipy

ClippyVS

Clippy on Visual Studio. https://github.com/tanathos/ClippyVS

Unpacking the software

Where to start?

> I wanted to work on the original code but I couldn't find it. Microsoft never published it.

> I tried to work on Clippy prank, which is based on Windows, but after using 7zip to extract the .exe I got stuck. The extracted files have strange extensions (ADATA, ASPAK, IDATA ...) or no extension at all. When I tried to open them I noticed the code is encoded and I've no idea how to work with it. (I searched a bit and it seems like I should get some .msi file from the .exe).

> The only accessible project I can work on is ClippyJS. It is the most famous project available online and can be interesting to play with it and make a website.
Furthermore, it is stored on Github allowing me to work on both sides of my hackpact #1
(How did they make it if the original code is not available?)

 git clone https://github.com/smore-inc/clippy.js

Methodology

• Overview of the repository + available data
• Pass through readable files (txt, md, ...)
• Pass through other folders + guess the usage of the files
• Built a website with Clippy + description of the interactions
• Analysis of the main code + description
• Edit the code

At each step, I will try to write down some thoughts that eventually could lead me to a new phase of the hackpact.

Overview

For a general overview, I used the command tree -h to recursively list the directory and the size of each file.

• The command tree can print an XML file with the argument '-X' and a JSON file with the argument '-Y', this would allow generating a data visualization of the directory. Probably I can use it with D3.js. >> Git Stalker
• The overview through listing the files in the directory can be also achieved non-recursively with ls or recursively by using the option ls -R (ls -hlR to get more details on the files)

Files

• README.md > description + usage + greetings
• MIT-LICENSE > free license + restrictions + property of Microsoft

• [build] > contains clippy files (css, js, js.min), I guess to build Clippy and its actions and give him an initial position in the webpage.
• [agents] > contains other agents, but there is again a folder for Clippy, this time with a png (probably the sprite animation), audio files (why in JS?), and a JS called agent (probably the object agent)
• [src] > it seems the main folder, and there are again both clippy.css and agent.js
  • [images] > 2 png files (I cant understand for what)