Creating a bot

This package comes with a management command (namely createtgbot) to create new bots. Each bot will be an app in your Django project.

This app created for a new bot you create will be a simple bot that responds to all messages by Hello.

Step by step guide

  1. Create a bot in Telegram using BotFather and receive your API token
  2. Open the Django project with django-tgbot installed in it

  3. Enter this command in the command line (terminal / cmd): 

    python manage.py createtgbot

  4. Enter your API token: 

    > python manage.py createtgbot
Enter the bot token (retrieved from BotFather): <YOUR_TOKEN>
Setting up @BotDevTestBot ...

  5. Enter the URL your Django project is deployed on. If your project is not deployed yet and is not accessible, press Enter to skip. (If you have not deployed yet and want to test your bot, you can use services like Ngrok to do so)

    Enter the url of this project to set the webhook (Press Enter to skip): https://URL.com
Bot webhook will be set to https://URL.com/botdevtestbot/update/. Do you confirm? (Y/N): y
Webhook was successfully set.

  6. A new app will be created in your Django project. Add this app to your INSTALLED_APPS

  7. Include this new app's urls in your project urls as described in the output of the above command
  8. Update the database:
    python manage.py migrate

Your bot is created! If you have set the webhook correctly you can now send messages to your bot and it responds all messages with Hello!.

Overview of the process: 

> python manage.py createtgbot
Enter the bot token (retrieved from BotFather): 521093911:AAEe6X-KTJHO98tK2skJLsYJsE7NRpjL8Ic
Setting up @BotDevTestBot ...
Enter the url of this project to set the webhook (Press Enter to skip): https://URL.com
Bot webhook will be set to https://URL.com/botdevtestbot/update/. Do you confirm? (Y/N): y
Webhook was successfully set.
Successfully created bot Test Bot(@botdevtestbot).
Next steps:
    1. Add 'botdevtestbot' to INSTALLED_APPS in project settings
    2. Add `from botdevtestbot import urls as botdevtestbot_urls` to project urls file
    3. Add `path('botdevtestbot/', include(botdevtestbot_urls))` to project urls' urlpatterns
    4. `python manage.py migrate`
Enjoy!

This app contains 3 models, inherited from base models in the package and the migration file is included in the app. You only need to migrate.

Handling Telegram bots does not require much use of views and urls. A simple url and a view has been created for your bot in this app and you do not need to add anything else. However, you may add any urls or views in order to extend the functionality of your bot (e.g. adding a custom admin panel).

There will be 2 other files in your bot's app: processors.py and bot.py. The first one is where you will put most of your code and it will be the core processing unit of your bot. The latter is an interface for working with the Bot API.

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