Disclaimer
This is the webpage of the DFKI Internet Agents API.
The code available here is provided as-is, with no guarantee whatsoever. Use it at your own risk.
The code is distributed under the GPL, i.e. use it, modify it, pass it on (always including the source code) and mail me (endres-at-cs.uni-sb.de) interesting additions/modifications. This is not an official DFKI project, so please do not expect the usual DFKI cutting edge technologies here. It is mainly meant as a teaching example.

Important facts (i.e. don't ask frequently)
This API is a simple toolkit for building internet agents. It contains means for accessing search engines, web pages and images. It includes a simplified re-implementation of my 1999 masters thesis "Personal Picture Finder" (PPF).
In order to use the class Google (which is necessary in the current PPF implementation) you need the google web APIs and your personal registration key form google. See http://www.google.com/apis/ for details.
The DFKI Internet Agents API is also used for the new implementation of the Mensabot "Schmackofatz" of the Saarland University. The code of this application is not included yet.

How To... ?
How to start the PPF?
Have a current Java version installed on your system. Download the Google Web APIs from http://www.google.com/apis/ and put it in your CLASSPATH. Register for your personal key to use the Google Web APIs. Put that key as first line in a file called "googlekey.txt". Downlaod the DFKI Internet Agents API (see below) and put it in the same directory as the googlekey.txt file (or vice versa). Start the Picturefinder either with java -jar iagentapi.jar or doubleclick on iagentapi.jar (depending on the configuration of the system).

Known problems and future work
There are some well-known problems with the current implementation, e.g. there is no need to point out something to me that I already mention in the following list. Of course you are more than welcome to fix those things and mail me your code.

• The GUI of the PPF definitely needs some visualizations in the control panel.
• All accesses to the internet should be changed to java.nio (non-blocking I/O).
• In order to speed things up, the PPF should be multithreaded. This is not a trivial task, so please don't try it unless you know what you are doing. It is very simple to create tons of threads, but the cleaning up could get pretty tricky.
• Links and images in the PPF GUI should be clickable.
• A menubar with settings etc. for the PPF GUI would be nice.
• Using a javax.swing.JTabbedPane on the right side, the GUI could handle several searches, or at least: search results should be shown only if they match the current search.
• The PPF checks in a method isPortrait() among other things the compression of a GIF file. The compression is estimated by multiplying width,height, and colordepth of an image and comparing it to the actual file size. The result here might be misleading in the case of an animated gif. This could be fixed by implementing a method "isAnimated" and extending the filters respectively.
• Checking for wrong (e.g. non-HTML) formats in the class Webpage is not optimal yet.
• The constructor of class Tag is ridiculously long.
• The PPF has some methods (e.g. for extracting all image links from a webpage) that are not too specific for the application but could be reused in other agents. Those should be moved outside the ppf package in a utilities package.
• Somebody should write a nice documentation.

Download / Links
API
view javadoc / download javadoc
Google Web API
Prof. Wahlster's Lecture on internet agents, WS 2003 (german)
Mensa-Bot Schmackofatz

"Staff"
The current implementation was programmed by Christoph Endres with help from Thomas Kleinbauer and Michael Schneider.