Creating Multi response responders

[madslyng]

I've been working on an implimentation using Margiebot, for automating tasks for my teams. I'm wondering if it has been considered how Margiebot could be extended to have a variant of responders, that doesn't only allow a single response.

A use case I have:

• Send a request to the bot, that will take some time to complete
• Bot sends a reply that it is working on the response.
• After the task is completed, it sends another response.

I implemented this exact functionality myself, and it's very possible. Here's a snapshot from the constructor of a custom responder that only responds to messages from me. When the bot is fully online, it sends me a DM :

public MasterResponder(string masterName, Bot botRef)
        {
            _masterName = masterName;
            TimerHelper.SetTimeout(async () =>
            {
                while (botRef.ConnectedHubs == null) ;
                await botRef.Say(new BotMessage()
                {
                    Text = "hello master.",
                    ChatHub = botRef.ConnectedDMs.Where(x => x.Name == "@" + _masterName).Single()
                });
            }, 5000);
        }

where TimerHelper is a little utility class that mimic's javascript's setTimeout():

    public static class TimerHelper
    {
        public static IDisposable SetTimeout(Action method, int delayInMilliseconds)
        {
            System.Timers.Timer timer = new System.Timers.Timer(delayInMilliseconds);
            timer.Elapsed += (source, e) =>
            {
                method();
            };
            timer.AutoReset = false;
            timer.Enabled = true;
            timer.Start();
            return timer as IDisposable;
        }
}

[madslyng]

I see, so you use this inside a normal responder, correct ?

Yes, correct. I just passed the Bot reference to the constructor (in this
case).
You could broadcast a message from a background thread from any responder,
provided you have a reference to the Bot

On Wed, Oct 28, 2015 at 10:03 AM, Steffen Sun Lyng <notifications@github.com

wrote:

I see, so you use this inside a normal responder, correct ?

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub
#6 (comment).

[madslyng]

Okay, thanks a lot for the information.

[jammerware]

This is an interesting idea. I'll think about this when I have time and see if I can come up with a clean way to do add architectural support for this.