Adds an easy to use Telegram Bot API wrapper.

Installation

meteor add benjick:telegram-bot

Usage

First of all, follow the instructions at https://core.telegram.org/bots go get your authkey.

Now you can either set the environment variable TELEGRAM_TOKEN to your token or you can run TelegramBot.token = 'MY_TOKEN_HERE' on startup.

Now you can add listeners and listen for incoming webHooks.

API

TelegramBot.addListener(command, callback, type = text)

Add a command which should be listened for by the server. If this command is found the callback will be called. The callback takes three arguments:

• command - the command parsed to an array (see Telegram.parseCommandString)
• username - username of the sender as a string
• original - the original object sent from Telegram

See examples below

If you set type to anything else than 'text' (default value) in type command has no effect and that function will run every time you get something with that type (for example document (getting files) or voice (voice recordings)). Full list of available types

TelegramBot.start();

Starts polling the Telegram-servers

TelegramBot.stop();

Stops polling

TelegramBot.poll();

Does the actual request to Telegrams server with the method getUpdates and sets the offset so we can mark the messages as read

TelegramBot.parsePollResult(data);

Parses the result from the polling and executes callbacks from addListener

TelegramBot.requestUrl(method);

Creates an URL which is GETable with baseUrl + token + method

TelegramBot.method(method, object);

Call a Telegram Bot API method. Full spec at https://core.telegram.org/bots/api#available-methods

Check if the auth token is correct:

TelegramBot.method(getMe)

TelegramBot.send(message, chatId, markdown, reply_markup, replyCallback);

Without the last 3 optional parameters, it is equivalent to TelegramBot.method('sendMessage', { chat_id: chatId, text: message }).

Additional optional parameters:

• markdown (optional): whether the message should be parsed with Markdown syntax
• reply_markup (optional): used to send custom (inline) keyboards
• replyCallback (optional): used to evaluate the result of a custom (inline) keyboard

TelegramBot.triggers = []

Array containing all the added listeners and their callbacks

TelegramBot.parseCommandString(msg)

Takes the incoming message, strips the @botname out if any (used in channels with multiple bots) and returns an array where every key represents a command or argument.

For example:

var msg = "/test@thisbot is fun";
msg = TelegramBot.parseCommandString(msg);
console.log(msg); // [ '/test', 'is', 'fun' ]

This means you can get the arguments in a nice way. This is done when a webHook is received.

TelegramBot.startConversation(username, chat_id, callback, init_vars)

Starts a conversation with a specific user in a specific chat. callback method is called whenever the user replies to this conversation. The callback method takes 3 parameters: username, message, chat_id.

The init_vars argument is to allow you to use custom variables in your conversation,illustrated below with stage, first_message, and second_message.

For example:

TelegramBot.startConversation(username, chat_id, function(username, message, chat_id) {
    var obj = _.find(TelegramBot.conversations[chat_id], obj => obj.username == username);
    console.log('Conversation Status: ' + obj);
    switch(obj.stage) {
        case 0:
            TelegramBot.send('You have first responded with: ' + message + '\nWhat else do you want to say?', chat_id);
            obj.first_message = message;
            obj.stage++;
            break;

        case 1:
            TelegramBot.send('You then said: ' + message, chat_id);
            obj.second_message = message;
            TelegramBot.endConversation(username, chat_id);
            break;
    }
}, {stage: 0, first_message: "", second_message: ""} );

A full example of conversation handling is given below in the Examples section.

TelegramBot.endConversation(username, chat_id)

Used to end a conversation session.

TelegramBot.setCatchAllText(enabled, callback)

Allows you to set a method to capture all text messages that have not been otherwise registered with a trigger or an active conversation.

The boolean first argument, enabled, allows you to register/de-register the catchAll.

The callback will receive 2 arguments: the username and the entire Message object. No return value is needed - you will need to call your own TelegramBot.send method if you wish to reply with a message.

Here is a basic example which just repeats everything the user has typed and formats it into Markdown:

TelegramBot.setCatchAllText(true, function(username, message) {
    TelegramBot.send("Markdown-flavored Message:\n" + message.text, message.chat.id, true);
});

Note that the Telegram Bot API does not embrace user-formatted code blocks in `backticks`

A few examples

if(Meteor.isServer) {
	Meteor.startup(function() {
	// set our token
	TelegramBot.token = '123456:ABC-DEF1234ghIkl-zyx57W2v1u123ew11';
	TelegramBot.start(); // start the bot
	// add a listener for '/test'
	TelegramBot.addListener('/test', function(command) {
		// command will contain the entire command in an array where command[0] is the command.
		// In this case '/test'. Each argument will follow.
		if(!command[1]) { // if no arguments
			return false
			// if you return false the bot wont answer
		}
		// command[1] will be the first argument, command[2] the second etc
		// below the bot will reply with 'test: hi' if you sent him /test hi
		return "test: " + command[1]
		});
	});
}

// You can also get the username via the second argument
TelegramBot.addListener('/hi', function(command, username) {
	return "hi @" + username
})

Listing all commands:

TelegramBot.addListener('/help', function(command) {
	var msg = "I have the following commands loaded:\n";
	TelegramBot.triggers.text.forEach(function (post) {
	msg = msg + "- " + post.command + "\n";
	});
	return msg;
});

Example using other types than the default

TelegramBot.addListener('incoming_document', function(c, u, o) {
	TelegramBot.send('Got a file with ID ' + o.document.file_id, o.chat.id);
	var file = TelegramBot.method('getFile', {
		file_id: o.document.file_id
	}).result.file_path;
	// Don't do this in production because it will expose your Telegram Bot's API key
	TelegramBot.send('Download the file at https://api.telegram.org/file/bot' + TelegramBot.token + '/' + file, o.chat.id);
}, 'document');

Overriding listeners

You can do what you want in the callback for the listener really. For example call another method instead of sendMessage

TelegramBot.addListener('/geo', function(command, username, original) {
	TelegramBot.method('sendLocation',{
		chat_id: original.chat.id,
		latitude: 59.329323,
		longitude: 18.068581
	});
});

Conversations

You can monitor all incoming chat messages from a user using conversations.

Below is a basic example showing how a Bot can ask for 3 responses and print them out. The conversation is initiated by the user using /start.

TelegramBot.addListener('/start', function(command, username, messageraw) {
    TelegramBot.startConversation(username, messageraw.chat.id, function(username, message, chat_id) {
        var obj = _.find(TelegramBot.conversations[chat_id], obj => obj.username == username);
        switch(obj.stage) {
            case 0:
                obj.personName = message;
                TelegramBot.send('Cool. What\'s your height?', chat_id);
                obj.stage++;
                break;

            case 1:
                obj.personHeight = message;
                // Sample markdown support - name will be bold
                TelegramBot.send('Nice. What do you work as, *' + obj.personName + '*?', chat_id, true);
                obj.stage++;
                break;

            case 2:
                obj.personJob = message;
                TelegramBot.send('Nice to meet you, ' + obj.personHeight + '-tall ' + obj.personJob + ' ' + obj.personName + '!', chat_id);
                break;
        }
        console.log('Conversation Status: ' + obj);
    }, {stage: 0, personName: "", personHeight: "", personJob: ""} );
    // The return in this listener will be the first prompt
    return "Hey, what's your name?";
});

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Changelogs

Version 1.3.0 (Thanks @elie222)

1. Added the ability to use inline keyboards (with callback support)
2. Cleaned up code - now using ES6 arrow functions
3. Bug fix in parsePollResult

Version 1.2.2 (Thanks @zenador)

1. Updated to support Telegram Bot API 2.0
   • Fixed bug with bot commands not being recognised as text messages (and hence not getting handled) with the addition of entities field to the message object

Version 1.2.1

1. In line with Conversations support, added a Catch-all method for unhandled texts
   • TelegramBot.setCatchAllText()

Version 1.2.0

1. Adds basic Conversations support
   • TelegramBot.startConversation()
   • TelegramBot.endConversation()
2. Added check to prevent duplicate poll updates