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Add member nickname

In this section, the main goal is to include the member's nickname in your Bot's response. But first, you'll change the command your Bot looks for.

1. Update the command​

  1. Open the src/example.ts file.

  2. Locate the line that defines the prefix.

  3. Change it from /echo to /announce

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    const prefix: string = "/announce ";

  4. Build and run your Bot to verify that it now responds to /announce.

2. Add nickname​

  1. Import UserGuid from "@rootsdk/server-bot".

  2. In the onMessage function, add a line of code that retrieves the userId property of the evt object. The userId is of type UserGuid so you'll need to add it to your imports.

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    const userId: UserGuid = evt.userId;

  3. Modify the code to include the userId in the response message. You can use string concatenation on the UserGuid object.

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    const response: string = userId + " said " + incomingText;
    const createMessageRequest: ChannelMessageCreateRequest = { channelId: evt.channelId, content: response };

  4. Run the Bot to test your work.

  5. Notice that the userId isn't useful to community members. The Root API lets you exchange the userId for a CommunityMember object that contains the member's nickname. This will be much more useful for members to see than the userId. Complete the implementation of the following function to get the nickname.

    // add CommunityMember and CommunityMemberGetRequest to your imports

    async function getMemberNickname(userId: UserGuid): Promise<string> {
      // TODO: Create a CommunityMemberGetRequest object containing the userId

      // TODO: Call the async method rootServer.community.communityMember.get() to retrieve a CommunityMember object

      // TODO: Extract and return the nickname property.
    }
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    async function getMemberNickname(userId: UserGuid): Promise<string> {
      const request: CommunityMemberGetRequest = { userId: userId };

      const member: CommunityMember = await rootServer.community.communityMembers.get(request);

      return member.nickname;
    }

  6. Modify your response to include the nickname instead of the userId.

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    const userId: UserGuid = evt.userId;
    const nickname: string = await getMemberNickname(userId);
    const response: string = nickname + " said " + incomingText;
    const createMessageRequest: ChannelMessageCreateRequest = { channelId: evt.channelId, content: response };

  7. Run the Bot to test your work. You should see a human-readable name for the member.

3. Format the nickname as a mention​

A mention is a Root-specific link that lets other members easily interact with that member. The format is root://user/userId.

  1. Use the following code to format the member's nickname as a mention:

    const mention = "[@" + nickname + "](root://user/" + evt.userId + ")";

  2. Replace the nickname with the mention in your response.

  3. Run the Bot to test your work. Select the mention in the Root native client to see the functionality it enables.