Index¶
Welcome to the Nio-Bot Documentation
What is NioBot?¶
NioBot (also referred to as nio-bot, or niobot) is a python library built on the matrix-nio matrix sdk library (guess where we got our name from), which builds on an already powerful, extensive framework, to provide a super simple, easy-to-use matrix bot client.
Traditionally, making bots with matrix-nio isn't massively difficult - it was just time
consuming, with a lot of boiler plate, and often times a rushed lack of redundancy.
In turn, making your own bot in base nio would end up with you making your own little
in-house specialised framework, which not only is a lot of work to make and maintain, but
usually ends up not being very flexible.
NioBot aims to solve this problem by providing a framework that is both easy to use, and flexible enough to be used in a variety of situations.
Also, Matrix and Matrix clients can be daunting to new users, and NioBot aims to make it easier for new users to get into Matrix, and to make it easier for them to make their own bots.
Creation background and motivations
I (nex) personally come from a discord bot development background, and am used to using discord.py (now py-cord),
and jumping over to matrix gave me a strong whiplash feeling.
In fact, it felt so different that I gave up twice making bots.
This is actually my second public matrix bot framework, with the predecessor being called matrix.py
(which is no longer available, and was never really finished).
I decided to make this framework because I wanted to be able to have a single central framework that I could use for automating my account and also making some bots in, and thus NioBot was born.
NioBot actually first started off as a fork of my now dead in-house framework I made ad-hoc for a bot at the time, borrowing a lot of code from it. However, as time has gone on, I've added so much more, including encryption support, images, and more.
NioBot is designed to have a similar feel to py-cord, while still being true to the `matrix-nio`` library.
As a matter of fact, I've personally contributed to both py-cord and matrix-nio, so you can rest assured
that I know how both of these libraries work, and can get the most out of their feature set.
Interested? Carry on reading!
Features¶
- A powerful commands framework (Modules, aliases, checks, easy extensibility)
- A flexible event system
- Simple end-to-end encryption
- Automatic markdown rendering when sending/editing messages
- Super simple to use Attachments system
- Very customisable monolithic client instance
- A simple, easy-to-use CLI tool for some on-the-go tasks
- And more to come
Support¶
You can join our Matrix room for support if you are unable to find your answer in these docs.
Don't forget to look at the guides!
Installing¶
From PyPi¶
The package is nio-bot, and can be installed with
pip install nio-bot[e2ee,cli].
From github releases¶
If you are unable to use PyPi for whatever reason, python wheels and source distributions are available in all github releases.
Just go to the releases page, and download the latest release.
You can then pip install <wheel file>.
From source¶
If you want to get bleeding edge features, or simply build from source, you can use git. For example:
(replace @master with @branch-name or @tag-name for a specific branch or tag.)
CLI¶
The niobot package comes with a CLI tool, which can be used to create templates, get access tokens, resolve
homeservers, and more (in the future).
You can install the cli tool with the cli extra. The command itself is niocli.
Version information¶
Version information is found in the __version__.py file, which is created while installing the package.
Logging¶
Logging is done using the logging module. The logger is named niobot.<module>. For example:
import logging
import niobot
logging.basicConfig(level=logging.INFO)
bot = niobot.NioBot(...)
bot.run(...)
This will now output a bunch of logs to your console, which you can use to debug your bot.