Facebook attachment are not present using conve.extractResponses()

[KarlisJ]

I have conversation in messenger bot where I ask series of question including to send an image and share your location.

bot.createConversation(message, function(err, convo){
    convo.addMessage('Series of questions', 'default');
    convo.addQuestion('Category', function(response, convo){
        convo.next();
    },{key: 'cat'}, 'default');

    convo.addQuestion('Subategory', function(response, convo){
        convo.next();
    },{key: 'subcat'}, 'default');

    convo.addQuestion('image', function(response, convo){
        console.log('lets inspect image respone: ', response);
        convo.next();
    },{key: 'image'}, 'default');

    convo.addQuestion('description', function(response, convo){
        convo.next();
    },{key: 'desc'}, 'default');

    convo.addQuestion({
        text:"Please share your location:",
        quick_replies:[{
            "content_type":"location",
        }]
    }, function(response, convo){
               console.log('lets inspect location respone: ', response);
        convo.next();
    },{key: 'location'}, 'default');

    convo.activate();

    convo.on('end', function(convo) {
        if (convo.successful()) {
            var user = convo.context.user;
            var data = convo.extractResponses();
            console.log('Lests see data: ', data);
        }
    });
});

I receive full object in callback for addQuestion() - I can access the payload and validate it. However, when I try to extractResponses()both imageand location are empty strings.

Is it supposed to be like that?

I managed little workaround for image:

convo.addQuestion('image', function(response, convo){
    response.text = response.attachments[0].payload.url;
    convo.next();
},{key: 'image'}, 'default');

but it would not work for location or if user sent more then one image.

Really dont get if this is an issue or that just how botkit does - extractResponses() return only text property. I would hate if I had to save data to database several times during single conversation.

[KarlisJ]

Ok, here is how I handle this:

convo.addQuestion({
    text:"Please share your location:",
    quick_replies:[{
        "content_type":"location",
    }]
}, function(response, convo){
    var obj = {
        lat: response.attachments[0].payload.coordinates.lat,
        lon: response.attachments[0].payload.coordinates.long
    }
    response.text = JSON.stringify(obj);
    convo.next();
},{key: 'location'}, 'default');

And then get those values:

convo.on('end', function(convo) {
    if (convo.successful()) {
        var data = convo.extractResponses();
        data.location = JSON.parse(data.location);
           // Save to database
        }
});

This works and I will use the same for multiple image attachments as well. My question still stands - is this expected?

[jonchurch]

This is a great hack! We should probably update the capture function to do as you suggest, capture more than just text. Feel free to submit a PR if you'd like!

Currently, yes, only text responses are stored. You can see it starting here in CoreBot.js.

[KarlisJ]

Well I am going a bit further right now. Dont know if I am overcomplicating things or its my luck of experience as developer but I found my bots structure quite complicated.

What I found usefull was to simply pass convo object to my model, automate usefull data extraction and save. The key word is "automate extraction". convo.extracResponses() returns all responses including "has_image" and so on. So it is hard to automate it.

So now I do even uglyer hack - i start my conversation withconvo.data = {}and later store any information in there like this convo.data.image = ....

What is nice in this approach is that I can use middleware to already preprocess messages with attachments as I want and then in conversation I just do something like this

If(response.type === 'image'){
   convo.data.image = response.data;
}

where response.data is preprocessed into middleware as object of my liking to save in database.

I then have single helper function in my model (outside af models api) called extractData(convo)

In this approach I dont use convo.extractResponses() but I found it good to have extractResponse('key')to know if something special needs to be done to data before interaction with db.

It is a bit ugly. Propably should make a function convo.addData() and convo.extractData(). Currently I am under presure with works but as I see botkit as must have tool for my next big idea, I will eventually work on cleaner code and share with community.

[peterswimm]

Not sure if this is still relevant post pipeline release, thoughts?