User ID in send middleware with the Web adapter

[cbouvard]

When using a send middleware with the Web adapter, the user ID is not available in the message object during a conversation (i.e. Dialog).
For instance, the middleware (bot, message, next) => { console.log(message); next(); } displays these data for a bot message:

{ type: 'message',
  text: 'typed!',
  inputHint: 'acceptingInput',
  channelData: {} }

A possible solution consists in extracting the user ID for the convo vars in the function makeOutgoing(dc, line, vars)
of conversation.ts:

// copy user and channel from vars (for Web adapter)
if (!outgoing.user && vars.user) {
    outgoing.user = vars.user;
}

Then the message user can be leverage in the send middleware 🎉

{ type: 'message',
  text: 'typed!',
  inputHint: 'acceptingInput',
  channelData: {},
  user: '7a247882-bdab-c853-7175-f97d3978d663' // <= Yes!
}

Moreover, when a message is sent with bot.reply or bot.say, the user ID is not present in the traditional (legacy?) messager.user.

{ type: 'message',
  text: 'Echo: pizza',
  // ...
  recipient: { id: '7a247882-bdab-c853-7175-f97d3978d663' },
  // ...
  user: '7a247882-bdab-c853-7175-f97d3978d663', // <= It would be great to have this
  // ...
}

It could be great to add it in the function ensureMessageFormat(message) of botworker.ts:

const activity = {
    type: message.type || 'message',
    text: message.text,
    // ...
    user: message.recipient && message.recipient.id, 
    // ...
};

Can these points be integrated in a future release of Botkit?
How can i make myself useful to the code?

Thanks,
Chris

Context:

• Botkit version: 4.10.0
• Messaging Platform: Web (botbuilder-adapter-web in version 1.0.9)
• Node version: v10.15.1
• Os: MacOS

[benbrown]

Can you please send these in as a pull request? And can you include some test cases when you do?

[cbouvard]

Hi @benbrown!

I have just submitted the related tiny PR.

Finally I did not add user to the activity object in botworker.ts, to respect the Activity type. But the recipient field can be leverage in a send middleware to get the user.

So, with this fix, a send middleware like this can be done:

(bot, message, next) => {
    if (message && message.type === 'message') {
        const user =
            message.user ||
            (message.recipient && message.recipient.id);
        
        // => Store here the bot message for the given user
    }
    next();
}

[stale]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.

[cbouvard]

Hey!

I have just added a comment to the related PR (#2043) in order to remove the stale flag.

The code is working nicely in my chatbots powered by Botkit 🚀

I hope the next release of Botkit will integrate this PR.

Cheers,
Chris

[stale]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.

[cbouvard]

🆙 I still hope the next release of Botkit will integrate the related PR (#2043)...

[stale]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.