Blog

Announcement and thoughts about the future of InstructBot.

Published: 2020-10-02 by Omsad

With the release of version 3.0 of InstructBot and the migration of the landing page website to a content management system, Umbraco, I'm looking to migrate the portal website to the CMS, as well as make some enhancements.

One of the enhancements I would like is to store the images (and pages if possible) on my CDN. This would require automating the upload of everything there through their API, creating sized pictures etc... as required.

That would increase the load speed of the website by having the images closer to the users. For example I currently do this for the installer, you can see all the data centres it at for America and Europe and how busy they are below, darker is busier.

InstructBot blog post showing the location of all the data centres in use for the installer in Europe and America.

I also want to migrate the authentication part of the InstructBot API to the CMS so it can tie it all together nicely and I can build enhancement off that at a later date.

Currently however I have to weigh up my desire for these changes against implementing improvements for version 3.1 of InstructBot and updates to the bot are winning.

So if you are an Umbraco developer or know of one please, join the InstructBot discord and DM me or e-mail me at omsad@instructbot.co.uk.

Published: 2020-08-29 by Omsad

Version 3.0 of InstructBot comes with a bunch of new features an overview of which is listed below. For a more in depth look into the changes please see the support pages.

Applications

Applications allow you to define settings and profiles used per application. For example you can have different mouse configuration and target windows per application. This allows you to switch between games quickly without needing to re-target InstructBot.

As well as allowing you to define multiple applications InstructBot will try and update the application it targets automatically (if configured to do so), so you don't need to change anything as the active window changes.

To see more about active application targeting, see here.

Commands

Types

There are two new command types: External Command and Text Command.

External Command

Allows you to trigger a third party application with InstructBot passing it the required arguments.

Text Command

Allows you to output text into chat.

Enhancements

In general most commands have been enhanced with the following options.

Cooldowns

The ability to set a global cooldown and / or user cooldown. For more information on cooldown see here.

Help

The ability to configure the help command the command appears within it. You can see more information on the help command in each command type.

Queue

The queue the command is executed within. For more information on queues see here.

Sound Effects

The play sound commands to play at the start or end of the command.

Help Command

The help command replaces the help options from version 2 of InstructBot. It allows you to output text on how commands can be triggered.

Input Command

The renamed action commands have the common improvements to commands, a revised way of updating an absolute mouse movement command and a new repeat action.

Swap Mouse Button Command

The swap mouse button command have the common improvements to commands and a new pulsing effect which will trigger the mouse swap on and off when enabled.

Timeout Command

The timeout commands have been merged into one command from version 2 but allowing multiple duration. It also allows more fine grade control upon whom is timed out.

Console

The console screen shows you chat, activities and users. It will also show when commands are run and any warning which occur as InstructBot runs them.

You can configure it to highlight certain users, or users groups (moderators or VIPs).

InstructBot showing an example of the console screen.

Notifications

There have been updates to the notifications InstructBot sends as it runs allowing you more fine control of what InstructBot sends into chat. To see more about configuring the notification see here.

Processing

The processing screen replaces the commands window. You can see the list of commands which are queued, existing or completed. Quickly see whom triggered it, where is came from and if the user paid for it using bits, points, etc...

InstructBot showing an example of the processing screen.

Rewards

Accumulator

The accumulator screen allows you to reward chat for cheers or donations which don't trigger commands. When a total you decide is reached the accumulator is triggered distributing uses of commands.

To see more about configuring the accumulator see here.

Discounts

The discount screen allows you to set a global and / or tier based discount for command. When discounts are enabled the prices in the help command will be adjusted for the type of user triggering the command.

InstructBot showing an example of the discounts screen.

To see more about configuring the discounts see here.

Subscriptions

The subscriptions screen allows you to reward chat for each subscription which occurs. Depending upon the tier you can gift different commands to the triggering user and / or other users in chat.

To see more about c

Profiles

Profiles are used to organise commands into groups, which can be enabled and disable easily or allow you different command sets for different applications. To see more about profiles seeĀ here.

Timeline

onfiguring the subscriptions see here.

The timeline screen shows you statistic of the selected period. From average viewer count, active viewer count, to how the commands run relate to the interaction within your stream.

Currently limited in scope, as more data is collected I hope to be able to make suggestions about command costs which will increase interaction based upon anonymous usage statistics of streamer of similar size.

InstructBot showing an example of the timeline screen.