Embot: A Simple Campfire Bot

Embot is a simple bot for 37signals' Campfire chat application. Embot can connect to a specific room and start listening for incomming messages. Each message will be parsed on to a series of message handlers until one of them reacts upon the message and writes something back to the chat room.

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Built-in Message Handlers

Embot comes with a couple of message handlers to go:

Bash.org Quote Fetcher

Whenever you want to have a random quote from Bash.org, simply type embot bash or embot bash random into the chat and Embot will then go fetch a quote and paste it into the chat.

You can also get a quote with a specific topic, by issuing the following command: embot bash [your desired search term] and Embot will retrieve the first quote from that search.

Google Define Search

Did someone just say a weird acronym or word you haven't heard before? Embot can help you with a definition by issuing a Google define:xxx query and send it back to the chat. To get a definition from Embot, issue this command: embot define [whatever you want to know about].

The Greeter

The Greeter will welcome users who enter the chat and greet back, when somebody writes a message that begins with hi|hey|hello|yo embot

Google Image Finder

Want to see a picture of fail? write embot image fail. Or what about a picture of Pedobear? write embot image pedobear.

Warning: This message handler is very addictive and can decrease employee productivity with up to 60%!

Random Quote Fetcher

If you feel the need for some inspiration, type embot quote and get a random quote from quotationspage.com.

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Setting Up And Running Embot

To use Embot in your Campfire account, you need to fill out some information so Embot knows where to connect and with what user. Open embot.rb and fill out the constants with correct information:

• CAMPFIRE_SUBDOMAIN: The subdomain where your campfire account is located (xxxx.campfirenow.com)
• CAMPFIRE_TOKEN: The API Authentication token of the user, you want Embot to connect as
• CAMPFIRE_USER_ID: The numeric ID of the user Embot will connect as. This is used to filter out messages that come from Embot itself
• CAMPFIRE_ROOM: The name of the chat room you want Embot to join

When everything has been typed in, simply open the terminal and go to the directory where Embot is located and type ruby embot.rb.

Gem Dependencies

Embot uses the Tinder gem to interact with Campfire. Install Tinder by typing gem install tinder in the terminal.

Most message handlers in Embot makes use of the Nokogiri gem to scrape content from websites. Install Nokogiri by typing gem install nokogiri in the terminal.

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Creating Your Own Message Handlers

Creating your own message handlers for Embot is pretty straigh-forward, if you know the Ruby language of course. ;)

Here are the steps to create a message handler:

• Create a new .rb file in the lib/embot/messagehandler folder
• Create a new class in the Embot::MessageHandler module that inherits from Embot::MessageHandler::Base class (see example code further down)
• Implement a method called process which takes one parameter called message (will be an instance of Embot::Message class)
• Return a message with one of speak, paste, play or tweet methods if you want the message handler to react to the given message.
• If you don't want to react to the given message, simply return nil
• require your new message handler at the top of the embot.rb file (require './lib/embot/messagehandler/example.rb')
• Register and instance of your message handler in the @message_handlers array in lib/embot.rb file

Example Message Handler File

This example message handler will write "Hey, watch your mouth!" if it sees a message that contain the word "fuck"

module Embot
  module MessageHandler
    class Example < Base
      def process(message)
        return speak("Hey, watch your mouth!") if message.body.include? 'fuck'

        nil
      end
    end
  end
end

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Disclaimer

This code was hacked together in a weekend where I needed something to code in order to practice my Ruby coding skills. I haven't put much thought into the code architecture and as I am still on the path to move from PHP to Ruby, it might not be the most beautiful Ruby code you have ever seen, but please don't hesitate to give me advice on improvements or more Ruby-like ways if doing stuff! :)