gesslar/mud-feeds-to-discord

Directory monitor for uploading news information to a Discord channel.

mud-feeds-to-discord

This application monitors a directory for JSON files to post to a Discord channel.

When this application is started, it will find all files in the WATCH_DIR and attempt to broadcast the messages contained within those files to the channel specified by the DISCORD_UPDATE_CHANNEL_ID.

This application also monitors the WATCH_DIR for any new files being added and does the same as above.

If there are any errors, the application will schedule a retry after RETRY_TIMEOUT milliseconds.

Once a file has been successfully processed and posted, the file will be removed.

Setup

Step 1

1. Visit the Developer's portal and create a new application. Record the Client ID, you will need it for the next bit
2. Click Bot on the left
3. Click Reset Token and record the Token for later use
4. Visit https://discordapp.com/oauth2/authorize?client_id=XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX&scope=bot where XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX is your Client ID from #1 above
5. Authorize and add your bot to your server

Step 2

Get the ID for the channel you wish to post to by right-clicking on the channel and clicking Copy ID

Step 3

Create a .env file in the root of the Node.js directory to house the following variables

WATCH_DIR=/home/gesslar/feeds/
DISCORD_TOKEN=XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX.XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
DISCORD_UPDATE_CHANNEL_ID=XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
RETRY_TIMEOUT=5000

Step 4

Write a command to write files to the directory in which the Node.js app is watching.

JSON file format

The files must be in JSON format and must include the following properties

• title - this will appear on the first line
• content - this will be the meat of the message
• author - optional - the name of the organisation/individual posting the message

Sample Command to Write to Discord

// /cmds/wiz/_discord.c
// Post updates to the Discord server
//
// Created:     2020/05/12: Gesslar
// Last Change: 2020/05/12: Gesslar
//
// 2020/05/12: Gesslar - Created

inherit STD_CMD ;

int cmd_discord(string str)
{
    object tp = this_player();
    string title = "Update for " + ctime( time() );

    if(!str)
    {
        tp->tell("Enter a title or press enter for default ("+title+")\nTitle (q to quit): ");
        input_to("get_title", tp, title);
    }

    return 1;
}

void get_title(string input, object tp, string title)
{
    string file;

    if(input == "q" || input == "x")
    {
        tp->tell("You cancel the Discord update.\n");
        return ;
    }

    if(!input || input == "")
    {
        tp->tell("Using title: " + title + "\n\n");
        tp->tell("Enter the message you would like to send to Discord.\n");
        tp->tell("Enter only a single . on a blank line to cancel.\n");
    } else {
        title = input;
        tp->tell("Using title: " + title + "\n\n");
        tp->tell("Enter the message you would like to send to Discord.\n");
        tp->tell("Enter only a single . on a blank line to cancel.\n");
    }

    file = temp_file("discord", tp);
    tp->set_edit_filename(file);
    tp->edit(file, "finish_edit", this_object(), ([ "tp" : tp, "file" : file, "title" : title ]));
}

void finish_edit(mapping args)
{
    object tp    = args["tp"];
    string file  = args["file"];
    string title = args["title"];
    string mess, json;

    if(!file_exists(file))
    {
        tp->tell("You cancel the Discord update.\n");
        return ;
    }

    mess = read_file(file);

    if(!strlen(mess))
    {
        tp->tell("You cancel the Discord update.\n");
        return ;
    }

    rm(file);
    tp->set_edit_filename("");

    json = json_encode( ([ "title" : title, "content" : mess ]) );

    file = sprintf("/open/data/discord/discord-%d", time());

    write_file(file, json + "\n");
    tp->tell(
        "The following file has been created: " + file + "\n" +
        "Bearing the following information:\n" +
        sprintf("%O\n", json) + "\n"
    );
}