README.rdoc

Not Vark.com¶ ↑

Prototype for asking questions on a site, having it go out to an external messaging system, and getting the responses back to the user who asked the question.

Video demo: www.viddler.com/explore/remitaylor/videos/32/

NOTE: This isn’t 100% working, as Jabber::Simple doesn’t like to support multiple connections to the same GTalk server. If the code were ported to use xmpp4r, it should work fine.

This uses GTalk as the externam messaging system.

Usage¶ ↑

Run notvark.rb (Sinatra application) and be sure to set the following environment variables:

USER

the GTalk bot username

PASS

the password for the GTalk bot

HOST

the path to the web server, eg. localhost:4567/

To set the recipients (the people who will be IM’d when a question is submitted), edit notvark.rb.

When you submit a question, you should receive an IM, eg.

“Q5: What is your favorite color?”

To reply with an answer, reply with something like:

“A5: Blue”

The A needs to match the Q.

For questions to be processed, you need to be running the answer_daemon.rb in the background.

Installation and Running¶ ↑

sudo gem install shotgun sinatra haml xmpp4r-simple httparty # and the datamapper gems

shotgun config.ru

answer_daemon.rb

#! /usr/bin/env ruby
require File.dirname(__FILE__) + '/notvark'
system "clear"
puts "Answer Daemon"
TheGTalkBot.listen_for_answers

config.ru

require File.dirname(__FILE__) + '/notvark'

dev_db = "sqlite3://#{ File.expand_path(File.dirname(__FILE__) + 'notvark.sqlite3') }"

DataMapper.setup :default, ENV['DATABASE_URL'] || dev_db
DataMapper.auto_upgrade!

run Sinatra::Application

notvark.rb

%w( rubygems sinatra haml xmpp4r-simple httparty 
    dm-core dm-validations dm-timestamps dm-aggregates ).each {|lib| require lib }

# GTalk bot that:
# - can IM posted questions to a list of GTalk users
# - can sit and watch GTalk for answers to questions
class GTalkBot
  attr_accessor :recipients

  def initialize username, password, host
    raise "You need to specify USER and PASS environment variables to initialize GTalk Bot" unless username and password
    raise "You need to specify a HOST that we will use to make requests to the Web API" unless host
    @messenger = Jabber::Simple.new username, password
    @host      = host
  end

  def listen_for_answers
    while true
      @messenger.received_messages do |msg| # .from, .body
        if msg.body =~ /[aA](\d+):(.*)/
          begin
            question_id = $1
            answer      = $2.strip
            HTTParty.post File.join(@host, "/#{ question_id }"), :body => { :answer => answer }
            puts "Posted answer for question #{ question_id }: #{ answer }"
          rescue Exception => ex
            puts "Something blew up: #{ ex.inspect }"
          end
        else
          puts "don't know how to respond to message: #{ msg.inspect }"
        end
      end  
      sleep 2  
    end
  end

  def send_question question
    recipients.each do |recipient|
      @messenger.deliver recipient, "Q#{ question.id }: #{ question.text }"
    end
  end
end

# initialize bot
TheGTalkBot = GTalkBot.new ENV['USER'], ENV['PASS'], ENV['HOST']
TheGTalkBot.recipients = ['YOUR-ACCOUNT@gmail.com']

# Represents a question that has been asked.
# Once created, it tells the GTalk bot to IM this question to everyone.
class Question
  include DataMapper::Resource

  property :id,   Serial
  property :text, Text, :nullable => false, :lazy => false

  has n, :answers

  after :create, :send_to_gtalk

  def send_to_gtalk
    TheGTalkBot.send_question self
  end
end

# Represents an answer to a Question.
class Answer
  include DataMapper::Resource

  property :id,          Serial
  property :question_id, Integer, :nullable => false
  property :text,        Text,    :nullable => false, :lazy => false

  belongs_to :question
end

# Home page.  Allows you to create questions!
get '/' do
  haml :index
end

# Make a new question.
post '/' do
  @question = Question.create :text => params[:question]
  redirect "/#{ @question.id }"
end

get '/add_recipient/:email' do
  TheGTalkBot.recipients << params[:email]
  "Added #{ params[:email] } to recipient list for questions"
end

# Get the status of a question.
get '/:question_id' do
  @question = Question.get params[:question_id]
  haml :question
end

# Post a response to a question.
post '/:question_id' do
  @question = Question.get params[:question_id]
  @question.answers.create :text => params[:answer]
end

get '/stylesheets/application.css' do
  content_type 'text/css'
  sass :stylesheet
end

__END__


@@ index
%form{ :action => '/', :method => 'post' }
  %textarea{ :name => 'question' }
  %input{ :type => 'submit', :value => 'Ask this question!' }


@@ question
%h2
  Q:
  &= @question.text.inspect

- if @question.answers.any?
  %ul
    - for answer in @question.answers
      %li&= answer.text
- else
  %p Waiting for answers ...


@@ layout
!!! XML
!!!
%html
  %head
    %title Not Vark
    %link{ :rel => 'stylesheet', :type => 'text/css', :href => '/stylesheets/application.css' }
  %body
    %h1 Not Vark
    = yield


@@ stylesheet

textarea
  :width 300px
  :height 75px

input
  :display block