As described in the Telegram Bot API (https://core.telegram.org/bots#6-botfather), this is the manual procedure needed in order to get the necessary information.
- On a Telegram client open a chat with BotFather.
- Send `/newbot` to BotFather and fill in all the needed information. The authentication token that is given will be needed in the next steps.
2. Create the destination chat
- Open a chat with your new Bot and send any message to it. The next step will not work unless you send a message to your bot first.
3. Get the chatID
- Open a browser and invoke `https://api.telegram.org/bot<token>/getUpdates` (where `<token>` is the authentication token previously obtained)
- Look at the JSON result to find the value of `id`: that's the chatID.
Note that if using a Telegram group chat, the group chatIDs are prefixed with a dash that must be included in the config (e.g. `-22334455`).
If this does not work for you (the JSON response may be empty), or you want to send to *more* than one recipient (= another chatID), the alternative is to contact (= open a chat with) a Telegram bot to respond with the chatID.
There's a number of them such as `@myidbot` or `@chatid_echo_bot` - open a chat, eventually tap `/start` and it will return the chatID you're looking for.
Another option is `@getidsbot` which gives you much more information.
Note bots may work or not at any time so eventually you need to try another one.
4. Test the bot
- Open this URL in your web browser, replacing <token> with the authentication token and <chatId> with the chatId:
**Notice:** By default your bot will only receive messages that either start with the '/' symbol or mention the bot by username (or if you talk to it directly).
However, if you add your bot to a group you must either talk to BotFather and send the command "/setprivacy" and then disable it or you give admin rights to your bot in that group.
Otherwise you will not be able to receive those messages.
| lastMessageText | String | The last received message |
| lastMessageURL | String | The URL of the last received message content |
| lastMessageDate | DateTime | The date of the last received message (UTC) |
| lastMessageName | String | The full name of the sender of the last received message |
| lastMessageUsername | String | The username of the sender of the last received message |
| chatId | String | The id of the chat of the last received message |
| replyId | String | The id of the reply which was passed to sendTelegram() as replyId argument. This id can be used to have an unambiguous assignment of the users reply to the message which was sent by the bot |
All channels are read-only.
Either `lastMessageText` or `lastMessageURL` are populated for a given message.
If the message did contain text, the content is written to `lastMessageText`.
If the message did contain an audio, photo, video or voice, the URL to retrieve that content can be found in `lastMessageURL`.
val telegramAction = getActions("telegram","telegram:telegramBot:<uid>")
```
where uid is the Thing UID of the Telegram thing (not the chat id!).
Once this action instance is retrieved, you can invoke the `sendTelegram' method on it:
```
telegramAction.sendTelegram("Hello world!")
```
The following actions are supported.
Each of the actions returns true on success or false on failure.
### Actions to send messages to all configured chats
These actions will send a message to all chat ids configured for this bot.
| Action | Description |
|----------------------------|--------------|
| sendTelegram(String message) | Sends a message. |
| sendTelegram(String format, Object... args) | Sends a formatted message (See https://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/api/java/util/Formatter.html for more information).
| sendTelegramQuery(String message, String replyId, String... buttons) | Sends a question to the user that can be answered via the defined buttons. The replyId can be freely choosen and is sent back with the answer. Then, the id is required to identify what question has been answered (e.g. in case of multiple open questions). The final result looks like this: . |
| sendTelegramAnswer(String replyId, String message) | Sends a message after the user has answered a question. You should *always* call this method after you received an answer. It will remove buttons from the specific question and will also stop the progress bar displayed at the client side. If no message is necessary, just pass `null` here. |
| sendTelegramPhoto(String photoURL, String caption) | Sends a picture. Can be one of the URL formats, see the Note below, or a base64 encoded image (simple base64 data or data URI scheme). |
| sendTelegramPhoto(String photoURL, String caption, String username, String password) | Sends a picture which is downloaded from a username/password protected http/https address. |
rule "Send telegram with base64 image and caption"
when
Item Light_GF_Living_Table changed
then
val telegramAction = getActions("telegram","telegram:telegramBot:2b155b22")
// image as base64 string
var String base64Image = "iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAEAAAABACAMAAACdt4HsAAAAS1BMVEUAAABAQEA9QUc7P0Y0OD88QEY+QUhmaW7c3N3w8PBlaG0+QUjb29w5PUU3O0G+vsigoas6P0WfoKo4O0I9QUdkZ2w9Qkg+QkkkSUnT3FKbAAAAGXRSTlMACJbx//CV9v//9pT/7Ur//+z/SfD2kpMHrnfDaAAAAGhJREFUeAHt1bUBAzAMRFGZmcL7LxpOalN5r/evLIlgGwBgXMhxSjP64sa6cdYH+hLWzYiKvqSbI4kQeEt5PlBealsMFIkAAgi8HNriOLcjduLTafWwBB9n3p8v/+Ma1Mxxvd4IAGCzB4xDPuBRkEZiAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC"
telegramAction.sendTelegramPhoto(base64Image, "battery of motion sensor is empty")
// image as base64 string in data URI scheme
var String base64ImageDataURI = "data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAEAAAABACAMAAACdt4HsAAAAS1BMVEUAAABAQEA9QUc7P0Y0OD88QEY+QUhmaW7c3N3w8PBlaG0+QUjb29w5PUU3O0G+vsigoas6P0WfoKo4O0I9QUdkZ2w9Qkg+QkkkSUnT3FKbAAAAGXRSTlMACJbx//CV9v//9pT/7Ur//+z/SfD2kpMHrnfDaAAAAGhJREFUeAHt1bUBAzAMRFGZmcL7LxpOalN5r/evLIlgGwBgXMhxSjP64sa6cdYH+hLWzYiKvqSbI4kQeEt5PlBealsMFIkAAgi8HNriOLcjduLTafWwBB9n3p8v/+Ma1Mxxvd4IAGCzB4xDPuBRkEZiAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC"
telegramAction.sendTelegramPhoto(base64ImageDataURI, "battery of motion sensor is empty")
end
```
To send an image that resides on the local computer file system:
telegram.rules
```java
rule "Send telegram with local image and caption"
when
Item Light_GF_Living_Table changed
then
val telegramAction = getActions("telegram","telegram:telegramBot:2b155b22")
telegramAction.sendTelegramPhoto("file://C:/mypicture.jpg", "sent from openHAB")
end
```
To send an image based on an Image Item:
telegram.rules
```java
rule "Send telegram with Image Item image and caption"
when
Item Webcam_Image changed
then
val telegramAction = getActions("telegram","telegram:telegramBot:2b155b22")
telegramAction.sendTelegramPhoto(Webcam_Image.state.toFullString, "sent from openHAB")
val telegramAction = getActions("telegram","telegram:telegramBot:2b155b22")
telegramAction.sendTelegramQuery("No one is at home, but some lights are still on. Do you want me to turn off the lights?", "Reply_Lights", "Yes", "No")
end
rule "Reply handler for lights"
when
Item telegramReplyId received update Reply_Lights
then
val telegramAction = getActions("telegram","telegram:telegramBot:2b155b22")
if (telegramMessage.state.toString == "Yes")
{
gLights.sendCommand(OFF)
telegramAction.sendTelegramAnswer(telegramReplyId.state.toString, "Ok, lights are *off* now.")
}
else
{
telegramAction.sendTelegramAnswer(telegramReplyId.state.toString, "Ok, I'll leave them *on*.")
