1. Creating a new conversation
From the landing page localhost/coney click on Create button or go directly to the link localhost/coney/create.
The image below shows the first screen the users see when they open the editor.
In the main window user can create the conversational survey by adding and connecting blocks in order to build an acyclic graph representing the survey. There, both the content and the connections between the questions can be defined. The blue block represents the starting node of the conversation.
The conversation can be saved by clicking on the icon highlighted in red in the figure above. A pop-up window will open and there the user can define the title and the language of the conversation. Once saved, the title will appear on the top bar of the window.
The side bar contains other actions that can be performed. Hereafter a list of all the items:
The "Save As" functionality can be used to create a new conversation starting from an existing one to reuse existing survey structure and content. The conversation will be cloned and the copied version can be further modified and adapted.
A conversation is made up of a set of connected blocks in the form of an acyclic graph. Therefore, to create a conversation you have to add new blocks and create connections between them. To add a new block right click on the main windows and select the type of block you want to add. You can chose among three main types of blocks: questions, answers and talk. Each block has a text area in which the textual content can be added.
Go to section 1.a. Block types for a detail expanation of all the block types.
As regards the connections between blocks, each block has two dots that represent the input (left) and output (right) connection. To create a new connection left-click on the big dot on the right side of the block from which the connection will start and then click on the dot on the left side of the block to be connected.
Go to section 1.b. Rules for connecting blocks for more details on how blocks can be connected.
A conversation can be in 3 different status:
- Saved: the conversation can be edited and previewed via the editor interface, but can’t be sent out to users
- Published: the survey can be sent out to users and no further modifications are allowed. A published conversation can be unpublished to make it no more available to users
- Unpublished: conversation can’t be neither administered nor modified. Unpublished function is used when the conversation should not be proposed to users anymore. Once unpublished the conversation can be published again exactly as it was before, saved as a new conversation and then modified or deleted.
Before publishing a conversation it is recommended to test it by previewing the chat in the editor to check what will be sent to final compilers. By clicking on the “Preview” function in the side bar (highlighted in red in the image below) a pop up window with the chat will be opened.
If a conversation already published requires some changes, the only way to modify it is to clone the conversation with the "Save As" functionality. But be careful that the cloned conversation is a different survey and so data collected with the cloned survey will not be merged with the data already collected by the original one.
To publish the conversation click on the green button “publish” in the top right corner of the editor interface. A published conversation can be unpublished by clicking on the "unpublished" button that will appear in place of the "publish" button.