Botframework-sdk: How to use Dialog.onBegin

[loretoparisi]

I would like to send a default message at begining of the dialog, before the user types anything, so I was using something like

// on dialog begin
      self.dialog.onBegin(function (session, args, next) {
          if (!session.userData.firstRun) {
              // Send the user through the first run experience
              session.userData.firstRun = true;
              session.beginDialog('/');
              session.send( self.getLocalizedString('RESPONSE_BEGIN_WELCOME','RESPONSE_BEGIN_WELCOME') );
          } else {
              next();
          }
      });

The problem is that the dialog.onBegin starts only after the user types in something (or a simple \r\n), while my aim was just to print a default welcome message everytime a user join the bot session.

[krazylearner]

i have the same question

[Stevenic]

By before they type anything do you mean when the user is added to a conversation? We have events for that and you can configure the welcome message to send as a parameter on the BotConnectorBot.

[loretoparisi]

@Stevenic yes exactly, I do like

// begin actions
// on dialog begin
      self.dialog.onBegin(function (session, args, next) {
          if (!session.userData.firstRun) {
              // Send the user through the first run experience
              session.userData.firstRun = true;
              session.beginDialog('/');
              //session.send( self.getLocalizedString('RESPONSE_BEGIN_WELCOME','RESPONSE_BEGIN_WELCOME') );
          } else {
              next();
          }
      });

// default actions
self.dialog.onDefault(
        [waterfallsOnDefaultStep1, waterfallsOnDefaultStep2]
}
// add dialog model
self.bot.add('/', self.dialog);

So when the bot starts (using LUIS model), it does nothing then waiting stdin. As soon as I type in something or carriage return, the onBegin will do session.send.
So I guess, I have to intercept some new event as you explained.

[Stevenic]

So the only way to automatically send a welcome message right now (before the user types) is by configuring a static one. See below for an example of this.

var bot = new builder.BotConnectorBot({ 
    appId: process.env.BOTFRAMEWORK_APPID, 
    appSecret: process.env.BOTFRAMEWORK_APPSECRET,
    groupWelcomeMessage: 'Group Welcome Message Works!',
    userWelcomeMessage: 'User Welcome Message Works!',
    goodbyeMessage: 'Goodbye Message Works!' 
});

[loretoparisi]

@Stevenic will this works with TexBot as well?

bot = new BotBuilder.TextBot();

[Stevenic]

No... TextBot doesn't understand greetings. I could potentially make that work

[McGern]

Hi,
Is there an example of this scenario using the newer UniversalBot and ChatConnector?

Jarrod