The past two articles have been about setting up a botframework bot in Skype and comparing the various Skype clients to see how it’s rendered. In this short article we’ll have a look at configuring the Web Chat client.
Web Chat client is enabled by default when you register your bot:
If you click “edit” next to Web Chat, you’re taken to the configuration page:
In this article we’re going to investigate the various response types available to us in the botframework to develop a more rich conversational experience.
Luckily you’re not limited to plain text in a bot conversation; we’re able to embed images, add attachments, give headers and subheaders, add a button or link, tap events for various areas, as well as use markdown to format the main text content.
If you’re not already familiar with Markdown, then get on the case! It means you can very easily write HTML by using a shorthand syntax which can easily be converted to HTML.
I’ve been using it for many years for blogging and general documentation; using pandoc you can even convert markdown to PDF or a Word Doc. Using remark.js or the more recent Marp you can use it to easily create PowerPoint-like presentations
Botframework messages support using this syntax to make the responses more rich. Of course, for this to work, the attached service needs to know how to render the response (and I’ll get on to this later)
At //Build 2016 Microsoft unleashed something known as the Bot Framework; a set of three products to help you build conversational bots and connect them with services, like Slack, Skype, and even Email and SMS.
The Bot Framework has a number of components including the Developer Portal, Bot Builder, and the Bot Directory:
In this article I’m going to take you through the process of creating, deploying, and configuring your own Skype bot.
