This is a bot for the Telegram messaging app using their bot platform. The code is open-source and consequently anybody could set up an own instance of the bot. To learn how to do so, see this section. The official hosted version is available as @PayPalMeBot. This bot uses the telegram-node-bot framework.
This bot helps people requesting money from friends more easily by generating and sending PayPal.me links. It works with inline mode from any chat, assumed both partners have a PayPal account.
In order to host this bot on your own, you need a few things.
- Server to run the bot on (since the bot uses the long polling method to get updates instead of the web-hook one, you don't need HTTPS certificates or ports to be exposed)
- Node.js (preferbly at the latest version)
- A bot token, which you get from registering a new bot to the @BotFather
To configure your bot, clone this repository and then edit constants.js file.
_TOKEN: the token you got from the BotFatherBOT_NAME: the bot's name, e.g. "PayPalMeBot" in my caseFILE_PATH_STORAGE: the path of a json file where to persist data to, e.g../data/store.jsonIMPORTANT: Don't forget to create that file, doing (e.g.)touch ./data/store.json
$ npm startMIT @ Ferdinand Mütsch