ASCII Slack Bot - Stardance

Ship #2

@Mario on ASCII Slack Bot · about 1 month ago

ASCII Slack bot with a couple of improvements. I made some changes based on feedback I received following this project’s first ship. The bot can now create 10 pre-defined ASCII images as well as ASCII art of any subject the user chooses through the use of an API. The /ascii-text command can now handle multi-word pieces of text and use fonts that are longer than one word through the use of double quotes. Additionally, the bot should be easier to use for users thanks to the welcome message printed when they first join the Slack channel. Any additional suggestions for improvements are welcome.

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@Mario on ASCII Slack Bot · about 1 month ago

26m 37s logged

Another issue mentioned in the reviews was that some users struggled to figure out how to use the bot. Looking at the failed commands they attempted, it seemed that first-time users weren’t sure what commands were available. To address this, I added a welcome message that appears whenever someone joins a Slack channel containing the bot, directing them to the help command if they need it.

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@Mario on ASCII Slack Bot · about 1 month ago

4h 59m 28s logged

I took a look at the feedback I got on this project’s first ship. Some of the reviews mentioned how limited the draw feature was, so I implemented Claude Sonnet 5 through an API to generate images if the user provides an unknown subject as an argument. Unfortunately, the AI isn’t all that great at ASCII art, so it is probably best if only used for very simple subjects. I also decided to expand the predefined subjects from 4 to 10.

Ship #1

@Mario on ASCII Slack Bot · about 2 months ago

A silly little Slack bot that allows users to create ASCII images and text with simple commands. The bot can produce ASCII art images of Shrek, Garfield, Bluey, and Pikachu. It can also create ASCII text of any normal text with no whitespace and in any single-word font found at https://asciified.thelicato.io/. It also has a help command to help users use the different commands.

The Install link only works for the Hack Club Slack workspace.

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@Mario on ASCII Slack Bot · about 2 months ago

2h 37m 44s logged

I’ve been working on trying to make the bot available for anyone to use in any Slack workspace. I tried to accomplish this without a domain because I didn’t want to pay for one, and I wasn’t aware of the free options available. Even though only 2 and a half hours are being logged from the occasional edits I’ve had to make in VS Code, I spent at least 4 hours on top of that working through this, mostly on the terminal. I’ve applied for the GitHub Student Developer Pack, which will hopefully allow me to obtain a domain and make this process much easier.

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@Mario on ASCII Slack Bot · 2 months ago

1h 22m 18s logged

I got the bot working 24/7 using nest. I had some trouble figuring out how to update the bot so that it would use the latest version 24/7, but I figured it out eventually. Also added both Bluey and Pikachu as drawable characters and implemented the asciified API to add ASCII text.

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@Mario on ASCII Slack Bot · 2 months ago

2h 6m 49s logged

The main functionality of my bot is finished. I will be working on getting it to be live 24/7. Also looking for suggestions as to what to add next