[Pro] Dynalist Telegram Bot

🌟Features
#1

I’m not exactly sure how to sort this idea out, as it can get a bit messy and confusing.

Basically, it’d be cool to have a bot in which you could search for your content and produce a link to it, and add points to existing documents from the bot.

So if I have an inline bot with an onscreen keyboard and callback functions:

  1. I would type @Dynalist Bot Hello World!
  2. I would wait for results to load above the text box, and then could choose from Hello World! 1 Hello World!!_ or _Hello World!!!.
  3. Upon having selected the desired document, I could choose to either Get Link or Add to Document
  4. If I wanted to add something, I would click the latter option and then type /dynalist This is a text-based document.

Then whatever else had the /dynalist command would add it to that document.

If I wanted to switch whatever document that I was contributing to, then I could use the inline call (typing @dynalist_bot) again.

I’m not sure if the command is needed, as I do not know a lot about how the bots work.

ETA: Underscores to fix the spacing issues.

3 Likes
#2

Hmm… this seems useful for GTD-style dumping, which I currently do on Google Keep, then transfer to Dynalist on my computer. Two questions:

Were you also thinking of having a /display command to view the contents of that list?

On what platform were you envisioning such a bot? I’m thinking of Facebook Messenger Bots. Maybe also over email.

Edit: I see Telegram the app also has bots. I’d been taking ‘telegram’ to mean like ‘textual’ or something!

2 Likes
#3

Sounds good, and it can extend to the bots in other messaging apps (e.g. Facebook Messenger, Kik).

The feature really depends on having an API for the common actions you mentioned, like inserting a list or viewing a list. Maybe we should open a separate thread for API.

Also I’m not sure if the timing is right. Personally I’ve never really used bots except for playing with Cleverbot (that probably doesn’t count here :smile:); is now or soon a good time for this feature? I guess what I’m trying to say is that while bots are novel and cool and shiny, I don’t perceive it to be nearly as mainstream as Email (relevant post: Send email to add items to Dynalist). Correct me if I’m wrong! I have no idea how popular bots are right now.

#4

I’m not much interested in bots myself, but the API would be great for so much more.

3 Likes
#5

Yeah, we’re thinking of opening a new board/category for developers when we’re close to making an API. :slight_smile:

2 Likes
#6

Ah, that’s a good way to put it. I guess if Google Keep was faster (either in speed or steps that it took to add something to a note), I would use it more often.

No, because the list might be too long. Unless the bot were to just show show a couple of bullet points at a time, which would make sense. But generating a link to open it would make more sense to me.

That’s a good point. The way that I see it is that messengers are popular and are used a lot, and bots are an extension set of feature that the messengers can provide. With Telegram’s bots, you can use them anywhere, so it’s not limited to a 1-1 conversation. You’re right in that they’re probably not mainstream yet, but the messengers are.