vikasind2 / botcast

Telegram Broadcasting Bot

BotCast - Telegram Broadcasting Bot

• Setup
• Configuration
• Running

BotCast is a Telegram bot that can be use to broadcast an input in various channels.

It helps if you spend a lot of time copy/pasting the same information in various groups/channels.

You can use this bot by sending it, for example, an interesting link. It'll answer your with an inline keyboard with the possible destination where you'd want to broadcast this interesting link.

It reduces multiple copy/paste in a simple inline keyboard.

It'll also save a csv file containing the history of the interaction with this bot.

Setup

yarn install
cp config.js.sample config.js

Configuration

Tokens

You must create a .env file and setup your tokens.

For example:

TELEGRAM_TOKEN=233429842:dwdwedkjewfowfeoeifjwfjwfe
SLACK_TOKEN=kdiru-23832749873492834-34889327498320234987283749893d329828

• To create a Telegram Token, create a new bot with @BotFather
• To create a Slack Token, connect to your Legacy Token page

config.js

config.js file must be filled with your informations.

• config.owner : your telegram login, you'll be the only one able to speak to your bot
• config.backup_file : path to your csv backup file

config.connectors

You can setup broadcast connectors in config.js.

• text : text that will be displayed on the inline keyboard
• callback_data : unique id for this connector, it will be saved in the backup file
• broadcast_method : method used to broadcast this message, only telegram available at the moment
• chat_id : if broadcast_method = telegram, this variable is used to select the channel where the message will be sent
• row : row position on the inline keyboard

Telegram chat_id

If you need to configure a Telegram broadcast_method, you will need the chat_id corresponding to the channel where you want to broadcast your information.

To get this id, invite your bot in the selected channel, then send this comment in the channel: /get_id

The bot will answer with the channel chat_id and you can fill this information in your config.js file.

Running

Create your bot on Telegram

1. Add @BotFather in your Telegram contact list
2. Create a new bot with command: /newbot
3. Give it a name and an username
4. @BotFather will give you a token to access the HTTP API

Fill config

1. Create a .env file at the root of your BotCast code
2. Fill it with the previous token like this:

TELEGRAM_TOKEN=@BotFather_given_token

3. Edit config.js owner with your Telegram username

Start the bot

You can now start the bot with this command in BotCast root path: yarn start

Add Telegram broadcast channel

1. Invite the bot to a channel you'd like to broadcast to
2. When the bot is added to this channel, type this command inside the channel: /get_id
3. The bot will answer you with an integer, it's the chat_id of this channel
4. Fill the config.js connectors section with a new connector:

{
  text: 'my favorite channel',
  callback_data: 'broadcast_to_favorite_channel',
  broadcast_method: 'telegram',
  chat_id: replace_with_correct_chat_id,
  row: 0
}

5. You must restart the bot process

Add Slack broadcast channel

1. Create an incoming webhook for the channel you want to broadcast to: incoming webhook integration
2. Fill the config.js connectors section with a new connector:

{
  text: 'my favorite channel',
  callback_data: 'broadcast_to_favorite_channel',
  broadcast_method: 'slack',
  web_hook: ' https://hooks.slack.com/services/YOUR_CUSTOM_WEBHOOK_URL',
  channel: '#channel_where_to_broadcast_to',
  bot_name: 'bot username',
  row: 0
}

3. You must restart the bot process

Add Discord broadcast channel

1. Create a bot with access to your Discord server, and get the token: Creating a discord bot & getting a token
2. Get the channel_id of the channel you want to broadcast to in the url of your web browser when you are connecting to this channel: https://discordapp.com/channels/1234567890
3. Fill the config.js connectors section with a new connector:

{
  text: 'my favorite channel',
  callback_data: 'broadcast_to_favorite_channel',
  broadcast_method: 'discord',
  token: 'YOUR_BOT_TOKEN',
  channel_id: '1234567890',
  row: 0
}

4. You must restart the bot process