The AI Engine

(*) is for anything that NEEDS to be there.
IE: My dog eats (*) [catches "my dog eats beans", "my dog eats quickly", etc]

* is for something that CAN, but not always.
IE: What * are you doing [catches "what the heck are you doing", "what exactly are you doing", or (most importantly) "what are you doing"]

Right...but the reason we assume that (postkey) will work with "keyphrase: my name is"
is that there will always be a postkey. I think that's the cause of the confusion here. If someone says "My name is Mike", and you have a "my name is" keyphrase, one would think "Mike" would be the postkey.

Sometimes it does work though...that's what confuses me...does it work or not? Hmm.

I now you can download you're bot script and edit it of-line, and I know that you can't chat of-line yet. But are there any other chatterbots that I could download and implant my bot's "mind" in to?
I want to do this so I can chat to zara when i am using my laptop (wich is not net ready)

Maybe it would catch "My name is Mike," but it could also get snagged up on "I won't tell you what my name is." I think that's the biggest reason you'd need the (*).

Mortuus--
No, not at the moment.

would someone please explain to me the uses of * and (*) I am not sure I fully grasp the concept. Thanks

Check out the Book of AI. That explains * and (*) as well as a multitude of other things.

I'm still working on the concept too , but here's what I know:

A * is used in keyphrases where you don't know if someone will put a word there or not. Ex:

keyphrase: I * like

Would catch the phrases "I like dogs" or "I really like dogs" or "I do not like dogs".

(*) is used when you want to be certain someone puts at least one word in the space where the (*) is. Ex:

keyphrase: I (*) like dogs

Would catch "I really like dogs" or "I do not like dogs", but NOT "I like dogs".

Yep.
* is for when there CAN be something,
(*) is for when there HAS to be something.

Just a tip, try to avoid using keyphrases such as "i * like" since it offers someone to get the same response for two completely opposite phrases. As an alternative, try splitting it up into these two keyphrases:

i (really|) like

and

i (really|) (do not|would not) like

Or as an alternative for that last one, you could do

i (really|) (do|would) not like

It does the same thing, but just demonstrating there is more than one way to skin a bot.