TDLightTelegramBots/HOWTO.md

So, you just wanna program your own Telegram bot with @rubenlagus library TelegramBots? Then I'm going to show you how to start ;)

Table of Contents

Preperations
Let's code!
FAQ
      1. How to get picture?
      2. How to send photos?
      3. How to use custom keyboards?
      4. How can I compile my project?

## Preperations First you need to download the latest .jar from the Release site [here](https://github.com/rubenlagus/TelegramBots/releases). You can choose between Jar with or without dependencies. If you don't know which one to choose, we recommend to download the full jar with all dependencies ;)

Next, you need to integrate it into your project.

Create a new project for your bot, in the example below we are showing you how to do it in eclipse. But of course, you are free to code in whatever IDE you want ;)

If you don't know how to include a external .jar into your Eclipse project, maybe this video is helpful for you

You can use it with Maven or Gradle directly from Central repository, just this to your pom.xml file:

    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.telegram</groupId>
        <artifactId>telegrambots</artifactId>
        <version>2.4</version>
    </dependency>

You can also find it in a different repository, just in case, search here.

## Let's code! Create a new class that extends one of the following

TelegramLongPollingBot -> bot is asking Telegram servers continuously if new updates are available

TelegramWebhookBot -> our bot is "called" from Telegram servers when updates are available

TelegramLongPollingCommandBot -> simply like TelegramLongPollingBot, but based around the idea of Commands

Due to the fact that the TelegramLongPollingBot is a little bit less complicated than the others, we are going to work with him in this example.

Extend TelegramLongPollingBot with one of your own classes. If we want that the bot can work normally, we must implement the following methods: getBotUsername():String, getBotToken():String and onUpdateReceived(update: Update)

The first two methods are really easy to implement. Just create a new class that contains all the information for the bot (username, token and maybe in the future some database information)

At the end it could look like this:

public class BotConfig {
    public static final String BOT_USERNAME = "echoBot";
    public static final String BOT_TOKEN = "{you secret bot token that you got from BotFather}";
}

After it, return these static variables like this one:

@Override
public String getBotToken() {
    return BotConfig.BOT_TOKEN;
}

The last method could look like this:

@Override
public void onUpdateReceived(Update update) {
    //check if the update has a message
    if(update.hasMessage()){
        Message message = update.getMessage();

        //check if the message has text. it could also contain for example a location ( message.hasLocation() )
        if(message.hasText()){
            //create an object that contains the information to send back the message
            SendMessage sendMessageRequest = new SendMessage();
            sendMessageRequest.setChatId(message.getChatId().toString()); //who should get from the message the sender that sent it.
            sendMessageRequest.setText("you said: " + message.getText());
            try {
                sendMessage(sendMessageRequest); //at the end, so some magic and send the message ;)
            } catch (TelegramApiException e) {
            //do some error handling
            }
        }
    }
}

The principle is rather easy, we have an update, we see that it contains a text -> we create a Send*** object, fill it up with all necessary infos (user/chatId, text) and fire it up

If you want to send also other types of media (such as photos or audio), then check out our FAQ at the end if this HOWTO. Also please check out the TelegramBotsExample repo. It contains useful information on how to use the lib from @rubenlagus.

If you have questions that are not handled here or in the example repo, than feel free to open a new Issue :P In any case, you can reach us at our Telegram group chat ;)

But to be in context: our bot is not ready, yet. It lacks a way to tell the library that we have a super cool new UpdateHandler written, you remember? 😏

public static void main(String[] args) {
    TelegramBotsApi telegramBotsApi = new TelegramBotsApi();
    try {
        telegramBotsApi.registerBot(new MyProjectHandler());
    } catch (TelegramApiException e) {
        BotLogger.error(LOGTAG, e);
    }
}

## FAQ

Question: How to get a picture?
Answer: A onUpdateReceived() Method that just downloads every Photo that users send to the bot could look like this:

@Override
public void onUpdateReceived(Update update) {
   //check if the update has a message
   if (update.hasMessage()) {
       Message message = update.getMessage();
       //check if we got some photos
       if (message.getPhoto() != null) {
           /*
            * Just save our received photos in a list. At this point, we do not really have the photos. We have just their id.
            * And with their id's we can download them from Telegram servers
            */
           for (int i = 0; i < photos.size(); i++) {
               GetFile getFileRequest = new GetFile();
               getFileRequest.setFileId(photos.get(i).getFileId());
               try {

                   //we send a request with our fileId to get our filePath.
                   File file = getFile(getFileRequest);

                   /*
                    * After that, we can now start to save them on our local machine.
                    * Please have a look on the API specification, on how to download the files with their filepaths you just got in the code above
                    * https://core.telegram.org/bots/api#file
                    *
                    * Just replace <file_path> with File.getFilePath();
                    */

                   // In this example, we just print here the filePaths
                   System.out.println(file.getFilePath());
               } catch (TelegramApiException e) {
                   //TODO: so some error handling
               }
           }
       }
   }
}

Question: How to send photos?
Answer:

@Override
public void onUpdateReceived(Update update) {
   //check if the update has a message
   if(update.hasMessage()){
       Message message = update.getMessage();
       //check if the message has text. it could also contain for example a location ( message.hasLocation() )
       if(message.hasText()){
           if(message.getText().equals("/wiki")){
               SendPhoto sendPhotoRequest = new SendPhoto();
               sendPhotoRequest.setChatId(message.getChatId().toString());
               //path: String,                     photoName: String
               sendPhotoRequest.setNewPhoto("/home/marcel/Downloads/potd_wikipedia.jpg", "Good Friday.jpg"); //
               try {
                   sendPhoto(sendPhotoRequest);
               } catch (TelegramApiException e) {
                   /*
                    * Do some error handling
                    * e.printStackTrace();
                    */
               }
           }
       }
   }
}

This method uploads the photo every time the user send the bot /wiki. Telegram stores the files we upload on their server. And if next time someone wants to retrieve THE SAME photo we uploaded some time ago, you should use instead of SendPhoto.setNewPhoto() the SendPhoto.setPhoto() method. This method has just one parameter, file_id.

Question: How to use custom keyboards?
Answer: You can look at the source code for @Weatherbot in the TelegramBotsExample repo. It should contain all necessary information about using custom keyboards.

Question: How can I compile my project? Answer: This is just one way, how you can compile it (here with maven). The example below below is compiling the TelegramBotsExample repo. [](https://asciinema.org/a/4np9i2u9onuitkg287ism23kj)