Botpress Webchat

This channel is a customizable web chat that can be:

• Embedded on any website
• Used as a Standalone full-screen chat

Installation

yarn add @botpress/channel-web

Supported messages (Work in progress)

⭐ See the full list of supported messages

Example

'#text': data => [
    {
      on: 'webchat',
      typing: true,
      text: data.text,
      markdown: true
    }
]

typing (optional)

Can be true to use natural typing speed (based on characters length) or can also be a natural time string (parsed by ms module).

markdown (optional)

Can be true to render the text as markdown format. This allows you to include links, bold and italic text.

web-style (optional)

web-style (optional) will pass the arguments as DOM style properties. This allows you to customize how specific messages look.

web-style: {
  color: "rgb(24, 1, 187)",
  borderLeft: "2px solid rgb(11, 8, 162)",
  padding: "10px",
  fontWeight: "600",
  fontSize: "20px",
  fontFamily: "'Lato', sans-serif" }

quick_replies (optional)

Array of string, with the <PAYLOAD> Text format.

quick_replies: data.choices.map(choice => `<${choice.payload}> ${choice.text}`)

content.yml

welcome:
  - text: Hello, world!
    typing: 250ms
    form:
      title: Survey
      id: survey
      elements:
        - input:
            label: Email
            placeholder: Your email
            name: email
            subtype: email
            required: true
        - textarea:
            label: Text
            placeholder: Your text
            name: text
            maxlength: 100
            minlength: 2

It's look's like a usually web form. After submitted, you can handle this event with botpress.hear method. For example:

bp.hear({ type: 'form', formId: 'survey' }, (event, next) => {
  // Your code
})

You can always catch formId in the hear function, because Id is not an option in the form element. You choose a value to go with your id keys.

welcome:
  - text: "Welcome"
    typing: 250ms
    form:
      title: welcome
      id: welcome
      ...
      ...


form-email:
  - text: Provide me your email
    form:
      title: Email
      id: email
      ...
      ...
#

in your bp.hear function

bp.hear({type:'form',formId:'welcome'},(event,next))=> {} // welcome content
bp.hear({type:'form',formId:'email'},(event,next))=> {} // form-email content

Form Elements

input

Has next attributes: label, name, placeholder, subtype, required, maxlength, minlength, which works like a same attributes in html5 (subtype is a same as type in html5)

textarea

Has a same attributes like input, but has no subtype attribute

select

Has a same attributes like textarea, but has no maxlength and minlength attributes, and has options attribute, which contain an option elements.

Example:

- select:
    label: Select one item
    name: select
    placeholder: Select one option
    options:
      - option:
          label: "Hindu (Indian) vegetarian"
          value: "hindu"
      - option:
          label: "Strict vegan"
          value: "vegan"
      - option:
          label: "Kosher"
          value: "kosher"
      - option:
          label: "Just put it in a burrito"
          value: "burrito"

elements (required)

Array of element objects

element.title (required)

String

element.picture (optional)

String (URL)

element.subtitle (optional)

String

element.buttons (optional)

Object | { url: 'string', title: 'string' }

settings (optional)

Settings to pass the react-slick component

Using it as Standalone (full-screen)

In your index.js file, add this:

const config = {
  botName: '<<REPLACE>>',
  botAvatarUrl: '<<REPLACE BY URL>>',
  botConvoTitle: '<<REPLACE>>',
  botConvoDescription: '<<REPLACE>>',
  backgroundColor: '#ffffff',
  textColorOnBackground: '#666666',
  foregroundColor: '#000000',
  textColorOnForeground: '#ffffff'
}

bp.createShortlink('chat', '/lite', {
  m: 'channel-web',
  v: 'fullscreen',
  options: JSON.stringify({ config: config })
})

Now your bot is available at the following url: <BOT_URL>/s/chat, e.g. http://localhost:3000/s/chat.

This URL is public (no authentication required) so you can share it we other people.

Using it as Embedded (on website)

To embedded the web interface to a website, you simply need to add this script at the end of the <body> tag. Don't forget to set the host correctly to match the public hostname of your bot.

<script src="<host>/api/channel-web/inject.js"></script>
<script>window.botpressWebChat.init({ host: '<host>' })</script>

Customize the look and feel

You can customize look and feel of the web chat by passing additional keys to init method like this:

window.botpressWebChat.init({
  host: '<host>',
  botName: 'Bot', // Name of your bot
  botAvatarUrl: null, // Default avatar url of the image (e.g. 'https://avatars3.githubusercontent.com/u/1315508?v=4&s=400' )
  botConvoTitle: 'Technical Support', // Title of the first conversation with the bot
  botConvoDescription: '',
  backgroundColor: '#ffffff', // Color of the background
  textColorOnBackground: '#666666', // Color of the text on the background
  foregroundColor: '#0176ff', // Element background color (header, composer, button..)
  textColorOnForeground: '#ffffff' // Element text color (header, composer, button..)
})

You can also use window.botpressWebChat.configure method to modify web chat options after it's initialized.

Page –> Bot interractions

You can open/close sidebar programmatically by calling window.botpressWebChat.sendEvent with { type: 'show' } or { type: 'hide' }.

Configuring file uploads

A configuration file (botpress-platform-webchat.config.yml) has been created at the root of your bot when you installed the module. You can change these values to set up S3 integration.

uploadsUseS3: true
#uploadsS3Bucket: bucket-name
#uploadsS3Region: eu-west-1
#uploadsS3AWSAccessKey: your-aws-key-name
#uploadsS3AWSAccessSecret: secret-key