leetcode-reminder-bot

Setup

Forking and cloning

Fork the repository (https://help.github.com/en/github/getting-started-with-github/fork-a-repo). A fork is a personal copy of the repository.

Go to your repositories and clone your fork of this repository (https://help.github.com/en/github/creating-cloning-and-archiving-repositories/cloning-a-repository). Cloning is synonymous with downloading in this context.

Configuring the Facebook API

Navigate to the root directory for the project, leetcode-reminder-bot. Create a copy of secret_example.yaml called secret.yaml.

Page Access Token

1. Navigate to https://developers.facebook.com/.
2. Go to My Apps (top-right) and click on Leetcode Reminder Bot.
3. On the left panel under Products, click on Messenger and then Settings.
4. Now focusing on the center of the page, scroll down to the section titled Access Tokens.
5. Hit Generate Token. In secret.yaml, for PAGE_ACCESS_TOKEN: Get_From_FB_API replace Get_From_FB_API with the token. Don't close this page, we'll return to it shortly.

ngrok Part 1 / 2

1. Download ngrok from https://ngrok.com/download.
2. Open a separate terminal window and navigate to where the ngrok program is. Run ./ngrok http 5000, which will run ngrok continuously. We'll return to this after the next section.

Run them jewels fast, run them, run them jewels fast

We're going to fucking it run it now.

1. Make sure you have Python 3.6.8 installed.
2. Go back to the root of the directory.
3. Run pip3 install -r requirements.txt to install the requirements.
4. Run python3 app.py.

Leave it running in the background

ngrok Part 2 / 2

1. In secret.yaml, for VERIFY_TOKEN: Made_Up_Phrase_You_Set_In_The_FB_API_When_You_Set_Your_Endpoint, replace the filler string with some made up token, e.g. AndrewLiIsBetterThanAndrewDing.
2. Go back to the terminal running ngrok. The output should expose a URL, for example Forwarding http://d59cf242.ngrok.io -> http://localhost:5000. COPY THE HTTPS URL NOT THE HTTP URL (they're basically identical but only https will work).
3. Go back to the FB Dev page you were on. Directly below the Access Tokens section should be the Webhooks section.
4. Hit Edit URL and paste your exposed URL, such as https://dbf2d510.ngrok.io into the Callback URL field. In the Verify Token field, paste the token you mae up earlier. Save.

What's happening here is you're exposing an IP, which should be 5000 (remember http://localhost:5000 from the ngrok output?) by default, for external access, however this is IP is local and can only be used internally on your computer. ngrok forwards or maps that IP to a random URL owned by their company, such as http://d59cf242.ngrok.io, which can be accessed externally by people, such as Facebook.

Setting Up the Database

We need a database to store our users.

Homebrew

Navigate to https://brew.sh/ and read about Homebrew, I'm too lazy to explain it lol. Follow the installation steps in a new terminal window. We need this to install some shit.

Postgresql

Postgres, psql, postgresql, or whatever the fuck you want to call it is a kind of database management system, similar to MySQL for example. Run brew install postgresql to install it.

Bash Aliases

What is an alias? If you find yourself typing the same long ass command a million times, you can make an alias that runs the command, which saves you time. For example, alias run-that-shit='python3 main.py --arg1 flag1 --arg2 flag2 --arg420 flag420' means you can run run-that-shit instead of python3 main.py --arg1 flag1 --arg2 flag2 --arg420 flag420. Time. Saved.

Use emacs or vi to edit your ~/.bashrc file to contain the following lines:

alias psql-start='pg_ctl -D /usr/local/var/postgres start'
alias psql-stop='pg_ctl -D /usr/local/var/postgres stop'

Run psql-start to start postgres. It runs in the backgorund until you run psql-stop.

Docker

In a nutshell, have you ever run something your personal laptop and had it work and then had it fail on a school lab machine because of a different operating system? docker allows us to run a "containerized environment", which means you can specify the operating system and versions of technology you are using, ensuring that the same code works across different machines.

1. Run brew install docker docker-compose docker-machine xhyve docker-machine-driver-xhyve to install docker and friends.
2. Install Docker Desktop from here: https://www.docker.com/products/docker-desktop.
3. Run Docker Desktop (probably just called Docker in your applications) and wait for its status to change to "Running" which can monitored from the drop down from clicking on the whale on the OS X task bar.

Configuring PSQL

1. Open a new terminal window and navigate to leetcode-reminder-bot/pg.
2. Run docker-compose up -d. This uses the docker-compose.yaml file to create a new container running a PSQL image specified to run version 10 on port 5433 with username admin and password password. This is only available locally, so it's not a security threat.
3. Run ./seed-db.sh to create the appropriate columns and rows in the database.
4. Download http://www.psequel.com/. To connect to the database, Host should be localhost, User should be admin, Password should be password. Database should be postgres. Port should be 5433 Use SSLand Use SSH Tunneling should both be unchecked. Connect and take a look around.

Testing

Open Facebook messenger from your phone. You can't do it from the desktop version because you're an admin for the page and if you try to message the page, it just logs you in as the page. Message Leetcode Reminder Bot from your phone.

Saving changes

Run git add . to add to current commit.

Run git commit -m "message describing change here" to stage change.

Run git push to push changes to GitHub.

Holy shit we're done. Finish my side-project now, Leah!