The Problem

Current use of facebook chat bots, works by sending a text command. Unfortunately it's not enough intuitive. The workaround are buttons, which help with some UX problems.

How it works

After sending an url, facebook gets informations about website by searching meta tags. These meta tags are a way to express what a given website is about. This is called prefetching.

For example, if you send an url to website, which looks like this:
``html








`

You will get this card. As you see, it has title and description.
Chat Buttons handles these meta informations which goes to facebook and handles if button has been clicked.

Installing

> NOTE: To use buttons, you will need to have a public server.

To install Chat Buttons, run in terminal:
`bash
$ npm install fb-chat-api-buttons
`

Quick start

`ts
const express = require("express");
const login = require("facebook-chat-api");
const { ChatButtons } = require("fb-chat-api-buttons");

let botCredentials = { email: "email", password: "password" };

const app = new express();
const buttons = new ChatButtons({
app: app,
endpoint: "http://www.example.com:3000/callback"
});

login(botCredentials, (err, api) => {
buttons.setApi(api);

api.listen((err, message) => {
if (message.body === "test") {
buttons.send(
{
id: "hello-there",
title: "I'm a button",
description: "Click to get a message.",
onClick: (btn, threadID) => {
api.sendMessage({ body: "Hello there!" }, threadID);
}
},
message.threadID
);
}
});
});

app.listen(3000, () => {
console.log("Listening on 3000!");
});
`

Documentation

* ChatButtons
* ChatButtons.setApi
* ChatButtons.send
* IOptions
* IButton

Class ChatButtons

new ChatButtons(options: IOptions)

Example:
`ts
const app = new express();
const buttons = new ChatButtons({
app: app,
endpoint: "http://www.example.com:3000/callback"
});
`

ChatButtons.setApi

Arguments:
* api: any

Example:
`ts
login(botCredentials, (err, api) => {
buttons.setApi(api);
});
`

ChatButtons.send

Arguments:
* btn: IButton
* threadID: string

Example:
`ts
buttons.send(
{
id: "btn-id",
title: "Title",
description: "Description",
onClick: (btn, id) => {
api.sendMessage({ body: "Hello world!" }, id);
}
},
threadID
);

`

IOptions

`ts
interface {
app: Application; // Express application
path?: string;
endpoint: string;
api?: any;
}
`

IButton

`ts
interface {
id?: string;
metadata?: any;
title: string;
description?: string;
image?: string;
onClick?: IButtonCallback;
}
``