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Put the station on a chat platform

By the end of this page the station has a bot on Telegram, Discord or Slack. Anybody in the chats you choose can ask it what is on air with /now and ask for a record with /request, it can post each record to a channel as it goes to air, and your own chat account can skip a record or take the station off the air.

Plugins says what each of the three chat plugins does and why none of them needs a public address.

You need a station on air with music, signed in as an operator, and an account on the platform with the right to add a bot: to a Telegram group, a Discord server, or a Slack workspace. The station does not have to be reachable from the internet. It asks Telegram for messages, and holds a connection open to Discord and Slack.

The steps are the same for each platform except the first. Do them once per platform you want.

1. Make the bot​

Each plugin's settings open with a note saying how. In short:

On Telegram (the note is Making a bot):

  1. Open a chat with @BotFather in Telegram and send /newbot.
  2. Follow its steps. It answers with a token that looks like 123456789:AA…. Keep it to yourself: it is the bot's password.
  3. To have the bot answer in a group, add it to the group. Leave BotFather's privacy mode on if you want it to hear only commands there rather than every message.

On Discord (the note is Making a bot):

  1. In the Discord Developer Portal, create an application and open its Bot page.
  2. Reset the token and copy it.
  3. On the same page, turn on the Message Content Intent. Without it the station cannot read a command typed as text.
  4. Under OAuth2, pick the bot and applications.commands scopes, with the Send Messages and Read Message History permissions, and open the link it makes to add the bot to your server.

You do not register any slash commands: the station does that itself each time the plugin starts.

On Slack (the note is Making an app):

Slack will not let an app register its own slash commands, so they come in an app manifest. Follow Setting up Slack, which has the manifest to paste and the three steps after it. You come away with two tokens: the Bot User OAuth Token (starting xoxb-) and an App-Level Token with the connections:write scope (starting xapp-). Invite the app to each channel it should answer or announce in.

2. Turn on the plugin​

Open Settings → Plugins and open Telegram, Discord or Slack.

  1. Switch it on. The first time, the station asks Enable Telegram? (or Discord, or Slack) and explains that a plugin is trusted code. Press Enable Telegram to go on.
  2. Paste the token into Bot token. On Slack, paste the second token into App-level token as well.
  3. Leave Answer direct messages on for now. It decides whether the bot answers anybody who writes to it one to one, and linking your own account in step 6 needs it.
  4. Press Save configuration.

Saving restarts the plugin with the new settings, so there is nothing else to restart. You should see the plugin's status turn to Active. Send the bot /now in a direct message: it answers with what is on air, such as Now playing on Dead Air: Teardrop by Massive Attack (Mezzanine).

3. Choose where it answers​

A bot only answers in the groups or channels you list. Anywhere else it stays quiet, and on Discord and Slack a slash command there is answered with "The station is not listening in this channel.", which only the person who typed it sees.

The field is Groups to answer in on Telegram and Channels to answer in on Discord and Slack. It takes ids, one per line. To find one:

  • Any platform: say /now to the bot in the group or channel. The station does not answer, but it writes a line to the plugin's log the first time somebody there speaks to it, saying the group or channel is not on the list and giving its id. Open the plugin's page, look under Logs (press Refresh if the line is not there yet), and copy the id.
  • Discord: turn on Developer Mode in Discord's own settings, then right-click the channel and choose Copy Channel ID. It is a long number such as 1234567890123456789.
  • Slack: the id is at the bottom of the channel's About tab, such as C0123456789.

A Telegram group id is a negative number, such as -1001234567890.

Paste the ids into the field and press Save configuration.

4. Choose where it announces​

To have the station post each record as it goes to air, fill in Chats to announce in on Telegram or Channels to announce in on Discord and Slack, one per line:

  • Telegram: a group id, or a channel's @name. For a channel, add the bot to it as an administrator first.
  • Discord: a channel id. The bot has to be able to send messages there.
  • Slack: a channel id, with the app invited to the channel.

Save. Leave the field empty and the station only speaks when spoken to.

You should see a line such as Now playing on Dead Air: Teardrop by Massive Attack (Mezzanine) in each chat as the next record starts. Only records are announced: the station talking between them is not.

5. Ask for a record​

In a direct message, or in a group or channel you listed, send /request followed by a title, an artist or both:

/request teardrop massive attack

When there is one clear match the station takes the request at once and says so, for example "Your request is in" or "Got it". When several records match it asks "Which one did you mean?" with up to three buttons; press one. Later it tells you what became of the request: placed, aired, or turned down and why.

To dedicate it, add for, a name, a colon and a message:

/request teardrop for Sam: happy birthday

The presenter says the dedication in their own words just before the record. A chat request follows the same rules as one from the app or a party: one waiting at a time per person, a wait between requests, and nothing that has played recently.

/help lists everything the bot answers to.

Anybody can use /now and /request. The operator commands, /skip, /offair and /onair, only work from a chat account linked to a station account that is allowed to run the station.

  1. In the console, open Settings → Sign-in and security. Under Your account, find Chat accounts and press Link a chat account.
  2. The card shows a command under Send this to the station's bot, such as /link 4F7K2QHM. Copy it.
  3. Send it to the bot in a direct message, not a group. The code works once, for ten minutes.

The bot answers "Linked." and the card lists the account as your name on that platform. From then on:

  • /skip skips what is playing.
  • /offair takes the station off the air.
  • /onair puts it back on the air where it stopped.

These run as your station account, so they can do only what you can do in the console, and they stop working the moment your account loses that right. Send /unlink to the bot, or press Unlink on the card, to undo it.

If it goes wrong​

  • The plugin says Misconfigured or Failed. Its settings are incomplete or were refused. The plugin's page shows Last error, and the Logs card says more.
  • Discord: "Discord refused the Message Content Intent." Turn on the Message Content Intent under Privileged Gateway Intents on the bot's page in the Developer Portal, then press Save configuration again. The plugin waits for a save before it tries again.
  • Discord: "Discord did not accept the bot token." Reset the token on the Bot page, paste the new one and save.
  • The bot answers in a direct message but ignores a group or channel. The group or channel is not listed, or the id is wrong. Step 3 shows how to read the id from the plugin's log.
  • "The station is not listening in this channel." The same cause: list the channel.
  • The bot says nothing at all in a Telegram group. Commands are answered there; anything else is ignored on purpose, because people in a group are talking to each other. Try /now.
  • Nothing is announced. The record has to start after you saved. Check the announce field, that the bot is an administrator of a Telegram channel, and that the Slack app was invited to the channel.
  • "That code does not work." A code lasts ten minutes and works once. Press New code on the card and send the new one.
  • "Link codes only work in a direct message to me." You sent it in a group, so everybody there has seen it and it is used up. Get a new code and send it one to one.
  • "Only a station operator can do that." Your chat account is not linked, or your station account cannot run the station. Link it as in step 6.
  • The bot does not answer direct messages. Answer direct messages is off. Turn it on to link an account, then off again if you want a private station.

Next​

  • Throw a party for requests from people in the room, with no chat account at all.
  • Plugins for what else the station can be connected to.