Outputs 2
Advanced sending and editing messages.
Sending Messages
Up until now we have seen how to use the default response to send an output. However it is sometimes a bit inconvenient to use the response for producing an output. Also the output is always sent in the same channel in which the custom command is running. To solve these issues and offer more flexibility in terms of producing outputs there are specific output actions.
sendMessage
sendMessage
This is the most basic and simple form of an output action. The general syntax for sendMessage
action is :
The channel_id
is the ID of the channel in which the message is to be sent. For sending the message in the same channel as the one in which the custom command is running, channel_id
can be set to nil
.
message_to_be_sent
denotes the output that is to be sent as a message.In this chapter we will deal with only simple textual output (strings).
It is important to note that sendMessage
function by itself is an task type action , that is it does not produce a meaningful/usable output by itself. It simply directs the bot to send the content that is passed to it in a separate message from the custom command's default response message.
Example 1 :
{{sendMessage nil "Hello World"}}
Output:
Explanation :
As discussed earlier, the sendMessage
action here simply sends the string as output message in the same channel as the one in which the custom command is running.
Example 2 :
This is the response message{{sendMessage nil "This is a separate message"}}!
Output :\
Explanation :
As discussed earlier, the sendMessage
function sends a separate message as output which is different from the custom command's default response message. The sendMessage
function being an task type action producing no meaningful output is also shown in the above example. That is the reason why the !
appears directly after message
in the response message although if you look at the original code the sendMessage
function was placed between them.
sendMessageNoEscape
sendMessageNoEscape
As we have already mentioned earlier in case of response, certain mentions such as role mentions, @everyone
and @here
are escaped by default. This is also valid for sendMessage
function as well. However if you want these mentions to be not escaped you should use sendMessageNoescape
function. It is important to note that unlike response, using mention based functions such as mentionHere
does not create a mention with sendMessage
function. You must use sendMessageNoEscape
for these special mentions to work. Also, just like sendMessage
, sendMessageNoEscape
is a purely action based function producing no meaningful/usable output.
Example :
Output :
Explanation :
In the above example, as already discussed sendMessage
function never produces a special mention no matter how the special mention is produced. The third output belongs to the sendMessageNoEscape
function which produces a mention.
sendMessageRetID
and sendMessageNoEscapeRetID
sendMessageRetID
and sendMessageNoEscapeRetID
These actions are very similar to their counterparts sendMessage
and sendMessageNoEscape
except that they also output the ID of the discord message posted by them during execution. Hence these two actions both perform and action and produce an output placing them under the third category of actions. This is especially useful for editing messages. The ID output by them can be simply captured by any variable just like any other action which produces an output for later use.
Example :
Output :
Explanation :
The execution order is as follows - initially the first sendMessage
function is executed and posts a message Yag is cool
. It outputs it's message ID which becomes a part of the response since it is not captured by a variable. Then, the second sendMessage
function is executed and posts the second message I know!
. The ID of this message is captured by a variable $ID later used for forming the response. At the end of program execution, response is posted as a separate message.
Note : These actions output an ID only if the bot was successful in posting a message. If it was unable to post an output, due to bot lacking permissions or invalid channel id passed, it produces no meaningful output just like sendMessage
.
The output in these cases is simply an empty string "" which corresponds to the zero value of String datatype! Interestingly, all pure action based actions also output an empty string.
Editing Messages
We have seen how to send messages. Editing messages is an almost similar except it additionally requires you to also specify the ID of the message to edit. It is important to note that bots can only edit messages sent by the bot itself.
editMessage
editMessage
This action is very similar to the sendMessage
function and just requires and additional message ID argument. The syntax is :
The channel_id
is the ID of the channel in which the message to be edited exists and message_id
is the ID of the message to be edited. new_message
contains the new output or modification. In this chapter we will deal with only simple textual output (strings).
Example :
Explanation :
In the above snippet, bot first sends a message : Yag is ...
. Since sendMessageRetID
function is used, the ID of the message posted by the bot is also output by the action and stored in a variable $ID. Notice the usage of a new action called sleep
. sleep
function makes the bot wait without performing any action for a given amount in seconds(maximum cumulative 60 seconds of sleep per CC). In this case, {{sleep 1}}
instructs the bot to not perform any action for 1 second. After that the message posted earlier is edited by using the editMessage
function. Notice that editMessage
function requires both the ID of the channel and the message itself to be edited. In the above case the channel id is nil
since it refers to the same channel in which the CC is executed. The message id is stored in the variable $ID. The final edited output is : Yag is ... very nice
.
editMessageNoEscape
editMessageNoEscape
editMessageNoEscape
is very similar to the sendMessageNoEscape
function and simply requited the message id as an additional argument. Similar to sendMessage
, editMessage
function always suppresses/escapes all special mentions in message content (role mentions or @here or @everyone). Escape as usual means that the output will not create any pings or highlight. In order for special mentions to work, editMessageNoEscape
must be used.
Example :
Output :
Initial Message sent by sendMessageNoEscapeRetID
After first edit by editMessage
After second edit by editMessageNoEscape
Explanation :
The first message is send used sendMessageNoEscape
and hence produces an @everyone
mention. It also outputs the ID of the message posted which is stored in variable $ID. Using this message ID, and with nil
as channel ID, editMessage
performs the first edit to the message after 1 second (due to {{sleep 1}}
. editMessage
function escapes all special mentions and hence the @everyone
appears as plain text. After another 1 second, editMessageNoEscape
re-edits the message producing the @everyone
again.
Example Codes
Example 1
Following is a simple announce command.
Explanation :
Above example represents a simple "announce" command. It accepts two arguments, the first being the channel (ID/Mention) of the channel to send message to and the second is the string which consists of all text passed after the first argument. Note that we use sendMessageNoEscape
here rather than simple sendMessage
because announcements often have certain special mentions which we do not intend to escape here.
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