Telegram bot get responses

Question

How can I make my bot receives responses without using force_reply? something like botFather does?

Let say I've sent message to user like this:

bot.sendMessage(chatId, 'What is your name?', { parse_mode: 'HTML' });

Now how do I get user response?

Answer 1

Without the help of force_reply, you'll need to write some custom logic. I've implemented this in my custom bots like so:

1. Send question to user bot.sendMessage() and remember the ID
2. Wait for a message bot.on('message')
3. Check if we're waiting for on a reply from this user
4. Reply accordingly

// Create bot
const TelegramBot = require('node-telegram-bot-api');
const bot = new TelegramBot('XXXXXXXX:AAEibBwftjTEKuYd9d2X0ACeyyzTk4DLe60', {
    polling: true
});

// List of id's we're waiting for
const wait = [];

// Hardcoded chat id
const chatId = 1234567;

// Ask and add to wait list
bot.sendMessage(chatId, 'What is your name?', { parse_mode: 'HTML' });
wait.push(chatId);

// On message
bot.on('message', (msg) => {

    // Check we're waiting on this user
    if (wait.includes(msg.chat.id)) {

        // Send reply
        bot.sendMessage(chatId, 'Your name: ' + msg.text );

        // Remove from wait list
        wait.splice(wait.indexOf(msg.chat.id), 1);
    } else {

        // Normal message; notify user
        bot.sendMessage(chatId, 'Hi! I\'m not expecting a reply from you! How can I help?');
    }
});

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Note: This is just an example! The code can be extended to include multiple checks, and possibly states to see what message the user is replying on.