Is there a way to x-callback from Telegram to another app?

Question

I am creating a Telegram bot and need to x-callback to another application.

This is my x-callback that opens VLC and streams a video. It works fine when I use it in Siri Shortcuts or in Safari. But I need it to work on Telegram chat conversation.

vlc-x-callback://x-callback-url/stream?url=https://sample-videos.com/video123/mp4/720/big_buck_bunny_720p_1mb.mp4

When I send it as raw text it obviously doesn't recognize it as a valid url and does nothing. I have tried to format it Markdown, MarkdownV2 and HTML styles but none works. I've also tried InlineKeyboardButton giving it the text and url but it throws a BadRequest error

telegram.error.BadRequest: Inline keyboard button url is invalid

Is there any workaround to x-callback from Telegram to another app?

My question is implementation independent, but here is my code using python-telegram-bot

from telegram import Update, ParseMode, InlineKeyboardButton, InlineKeyboardMarkup
from telegram.ext import CommandHandler, CallbackContext, Updater


my_x_callback = 'vlc-x-callback://x-callback-url/stream?url=https://sample-videos.com/video123/mp4/720/big_buck_bunny_720p_1mb.mp4'

def test(update: Update, context: CallbackContext):
    update.message.reply_text(my_x_callback)
    update.message.reply_text(f'[Play it on VLC]({my_x_callback})', parse_mode=ParseMode.MARKDOWN)
    update.message.reply_text(f'[Play it on VLC]({my_x_callback})', parse_mode=ParseMode.MARKDOWN_V2)
    update.message.reply_text(f'<a href="{my_x_callback}">Play it on VLC</a>', parse_mode=ParseMode.HTML)
    button = InlineKeyboardButton('Play it on VLC', url=my_x_callback)
    update.message.reply_text(
        'Testing InlineKeyboard',
        reply_markup=InlineKeyboardMarkup([[button]])
    )

if __name__ == '__main__':
    updater = Updater('TOKEN')
    updater.dispatcher.add_handler(CommandHandler('test', test))
    updater.start_polling()
    updater.idle()

I think you need to encode the url inside the containing url. — Ptit Xav, Sep 26 '21 at 07:09
You should revoke your bot token. Otherwise anyone can use it. — CallMeStag, Sep 26 '21 at 20:24

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 26 '21 at 20:32

0

I had a similar use case once where I wanted to use mailto: links. My workaround is to create a website URL that points to the mailto: link. I.e. flow is:

Generate mailto link depending on users request
Generate https:// url that points to the link - in my case that's done via a self-hosted YOURLS instance
used that generated URL either for an inline buttton or as text link.

answered Sep 26 '21 at 20:32

CallMeStag

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When you says self-hosted YOURLS instance, you mean deploy it on my own server? I don't have a server right now. I think YOURLS project is too big for my requirement – vbastianpc Sep 28 '21 at 03:12
yes, that's what I meant. But you ofc don't *have* to self-host anything. You just need a way to generate https URL that point to the `vlc-x-callback://` callbacks programatically. – CallMeStag Sep 28 '21 at 05:09

Is there a way to x-callback from Telegram to another app?

1 Answers1