CSChatBot

CSChatBot is a bot framework for .NET devs looking to build a Telegram Bot

• Fully Modular - Build your modules quickly and simply
• Dynamic Database - Modules can easily modify / change the database schema
• Simple to use - even comes with a module template that you can install into Visual Studio

Requirements

• This solution is built in VS2017, though modules can be built in any version of VS
• This is a native .NET application, not dotnet core, so must run on Windows - I plan to move to core soon

My overall goal with CSChatBot was to provide a fast, simple solution for other developers who didn't completely understand how Telegram Bot API works. - Para

Setup

You can either download a release build, or clone the repo locally and compile yourself. When you start the bot, it will guide you through some basic setup, like getting your bot token (from BotFather) and asking for any needed API keys.

Any modules you would like to use will need to be placed in the Addon Modules directory: root/Addon Modules/XKCD.dll for example.

Building your own module

There is a module template available in the releases. You can import than into VS, or just use the ModuleTemplate project included in the source.

Basic setup

If you choose to create your own project, rather than using the template, you will need to install the Telegram.Bot.Core library from Nuget

Install-Package Telegram.Bot.Core -Pre

In addition to this, you will also need to reference some of the libraries from the source:

• DB
• Logger
• ModuleFramework

You primary module class must have the Module attribute, as well as a few basic information variables:

[Module(Author = "My Name", Name = "MyModule", Version = "1.0")]

The constructor for this class must also accept the arguments as shown below:

public MyModule(Instance db, Setting settings, TelegramBotClient bot)

There are a couple attributes available to register your commands with the bot - CallbackCommand and ChatCommand. You can check the TestModule in CSChatBot project for examples. The Triggers variable will bot what the bot watches for - you can have multiple triggers for one command.

Again, Please look at the sample modules included.

Group Settings

This is a new feature, and allows for dynamically adding / setting group configuration. You'll need to use the DB extensions to get the group, then you can get / set the setting you want. It also allows for int, bool, and string types. The last argument is the default value. If the field does not exist in the chatgroup table, it will be created with the default value.

var g = myDbInstance.GetGroupById(<groupid>)
var someBool = g.GetSetting<bool>("SomeBool", myDbInstance, false);
var someInt = g.GetSetting<int>("SomeInt", myDbInstance, 0);
var someString = g.GetSetting<string>("SomeString", myDbInstance, "");

Setting a group setting is very similar:

var someBool = true;
var someInt = 5;
g.SetSetting<bool>("SomeBool", myDbInstance, false, someBool);
var success = g.SetSetting<int>("SomeInt", myDbInstance, 0, someInt);

Chat Commands, Responses, and Inline Mode

All methods in your module should be constructed as such:

[ChatCommand(Triggers = new[] { "test" }, DontSearchInline = true, HelpText = "This is a sample command")]
public static CommandResponse Test(CommandEventArgs args)
{
    //do something
    var length = args.Message.Text.Length;
    //return message
    return new CommandResponse($"Message: {args.Message.Text}\nLength: {length}");
}

Triggers are the text a user can call the command with, both inline and in chat, using /command or !command. HelpText will show up when the user is looking through available modules, or when using inline searching.

There are a few other variables in the Attributes you can use:

Keep in mind, if you don't specify one of the Inline mode hiding methods, the command WILL be run anytime a user types the bot name. If you have a command that might be API limited (like weather stuff), it would be a good idea to use DontSearchInline

As of commit #397d1529, CommandResponse can now also return a thumbnail and some more information. If the user doesn't enter the command directly (@botname ), they will get the command and HelpText in the results:

If they type the command in inline mode (@botname steam), they will get more information in the result:

Callback Commands and Menus

You can send inline button menus easily with the Menu object. A quick example:

var menu = new Menu
{
    Columns = 2,
    Buttons = new[] {new InlineButton("My Text", "trigger", "some data"), new InlineButton("Grey Wolf Website", url: "http://github.com/GreyWolfDev") }
};

This will create two side by side buttons. The first button will call the CallbackCommand with the trigger "trigger" and pass it "some data", while the second one will open github. Let's take a look at the CallbackCommand

[CallbackCommand(Trigger = "trigger", HelpText = "Some Command")]
public static CommandResponse SampleCommand(CallbackEventArgs args)
{
    return new CommandResponse($"You pressed a button!  The data behind it was: {args.Parameters}");
}

In the menu above, when the user clicks the first button, the menu will go away and they will be sent the text "You pressed a button! The data behind it was: some data"

Modules

There are a few modules included with CSChatBot