An easy-to-use Discord soundboard bot. BYO audio files and quip away!
The purpose of the DisQuip Bot project is to provide a simple
sound board bot that is easy to install, configure, and run. After
installation, simply create a directory structure with your own quips
(audio files) and run the bot! Then, head on over to your favorite
Discord server, and punch in commands like !aoe3 11
and the bot
will play the corresponding quip for you into your voice channel.
Head on over to Contents to get started.
I found myself wishing I could easily play taunts from the Age of Empires video games while playing other games with my friends. So, I built out a prototype that went by the name of "AOE Taunt Board." It was a hit, so I figured I'd make a publicly distributable version for you, the reader!
Depending on your personal level of computer literacy, installation takes ~10-60 minutes.
Please follow the directions below before moving forward.
- Create a new directory called
disquip-bot
in your home directory. On Windows, that's typicallyC:\Users\<youruser>\disquip-bot
. To keep these directions simple, this directory will be referred to as~/disquip-bot
going forward. - Download disquip.ini and place it in
~/disquip-bot
. Later, in Configuration we'll be modifying this file. - Create a new directory called
audio_files
underneath~/disquip-bot
. This is where we'll be placing our quips later on (Audio Files).
TL;DR:
- Python >= 3.6
- FFmpeg
- (For Linux, Mac should be similar):
libff-dev
,libnacl-dev
,python-dev
- (For Windows only): 7zip
- (For Windows only, OPTIONAL): Notepad++
DisQuip Bot should be operating system agnostic, but to date has only been tested on Windows (I know, gross.) and Linux (specifically, on a Debian-like distribution).
DisQuip Bot is a Python program and thus requires that you install Python. Specifically, ensure you are running a version of Python >= 3.6. Before going any further take a moment to download Python and then install it.
For Windows users: later we'll be downloaded a compressed .7z
archive that we'll need to extract. For extraction, we'll use 7zip.
Please download and install.
Refer to the FFmpeg website and/or discord.py's installation instructions if the directions here are inadequate.
Mac
Sorry, I don't have a Mac. Feel free to send me a pull request with Mac directions!
Linux (Debian)
apt-get update apt-get install ffmpeg libffi-dev libnacl-dev python3-dev
Windows
Fortunately, helpful folks like Gyan Doshi exist and provide pre-built FFmpeg distributions. Installing is as simple as:
- Download the appropriate build from gyan.dev. I've successfully used the git-essentials FFmpeg build. You can find other builds at FFmpeg or build it yourself from source code.
- Extract the downloaded
.7z
archive to~/disquip-bot/ffmpeg
using 7zip. For me, that looks like:- Navigate to the
Downloads
folder (TypicallyC:\Users\<your user>\Downloads
- Right click the downloaded
.7z
file (it'll be named likeffmpeg-2020-10-11-git-7ea4bcff7b-essentials_build.7z
) - Hover over
7-zip
, and selectingExtract files...
. - In the pop-up:
- Change
Extract to:
entry to~/disquip-bot/ffmpeg
, replacing~
with your full file system path. - Uncheck the checkbox directly below the
Extract to
box. - Check the
Eliminate duplication of root folder
box. - Click
OK
.
- Change
- Navigate to the
After following the directions above, you should have one sub-folder in
~/disquip-bot/ffmpeg
named something like
ffmpeg-2020-10-11-git-7ea4bcff7b-essentials_build
. Within that
sub-folder should be directories called bin
, doc
, and
presets
. There will also be a pair of files called LICENSE
and
README
.
Later on in Configuration, you'll need the full file system path to
ffmpeg.exe
in the bin
directory.
After you've installed Python, we'll be configuring what's known as a virtual environment to install Python dependencies as well as the DisQuip Bot. Here are directions for Windows (similar on Mac/Linux):
- Start a Command Prompt (shortcut:
Win + R
keys, typecmd
, hitEnter
key). - Change directories to your
~/disquip-bot
directory using thecd
command. This should work:cd %USERPROFILE%\disquip-bot
. - Run the command
py -3 -m venv venv
to create a virtual environment directory calledvenv
in~/disquip-bot
. If you have multiple versions of Python 3.x installed, you can specifypy -3.8
, for example. - Activate the virtual environment by running the command
venv\Scripts\activate.bat
. Your command line should now be prefixed with "(venv)". - Python installs packages with a tool called
pip
. Update it by running:python -m pip install --upgrade pip
. - Install the DisQuip Bot and its dependencies by running
python -m pip install disquip-bot
.
As mentioned in the second sentence of this document, this project is a
"bring your own audio files" project. If you've followed the directions,
you should have a directory called audio_files
in your
~/disquip-bot
directory. Within that audio_files
directory
there must be subdirectories that contain audio files. An example
structure might look like:
-- audio_files: ------ AgeOfEmpires1 ---------- 01 Yes.mp3 ---------- 02 No.mp3 ------ MontyPython ---------- I fart in your general direction.wav ---------- Bleed on me.wav ---------- Weirdo.wav
How this structure is set up has meaning. To explain via example,
assuming commands are prefixed with an exclamation mark (!
):
There will be two available commands, !AgeOfEmpires1
and
!MontyPython
(case insensitive). You can define Aliases for
shorter names. The !AgeOfEmpires1
command can accept 1 of 2 possible
arguments, "1," or "2". A quip command would look like
!AgeOfEmpires1 2
, which would stream "02 No.mp3" into your current
voice channel.
Similarly, the !MontyPython
command can accept 1 of 3 arguments,
"1," "2," or "3." The files are sorted alphanumerically, so
!MontyPython 1
would stream Bleed on me.wav
into your
current audio channel.
It's worth noting that the names of the audio files, excluding their
file extensions (e.g., .mp3
), will be used in creating Help
messages. So, the more descriptive, the better!
The internet is full of audio files that are available to you for no cost. For example, myinstants.com has all sorts of files. You can also easily make your own using your PC's microphone. Also, FFmpeg is a very powerful tool that you could use to create clips. Want nearly 1,000 community-sourced quips from 1998? Head on over to Age of Empires Heaven.
If you love Age Of Empires here are a few suggestions:
- Age of Empires 2 on Steam: I found the taunts in
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Age2HD\resources\en\sound\taunt
. - Age of Empires 3 on Steam: I found the taunts in
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Age Of Empires 3\bin\Sound\taunts
- Age of Empires 1: A tad more work, and the gain is rather
minimal. If you're dedicated, read on:
- Subscribe to the "Age of Empires 1 Taunt Pack" on the Steam Workshop.
- The mod will download automatically in Steam.
- Check the logs at
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Age2HD\Logs\2020.10.03-0839.59
(the ultimate file name will of course be different). - You should find a
Mod
text file. Open it up. - Find where the mod was installed. For me it was at
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\workshop\content\221380\927865693
. - Go there, and dig in:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\workshop\content\221380\137168612\resources\en\sound\taunt
. - Copy the taunt files to your Age of Empires directory. Perhaps
aoe1
to keep it short?
It took me more time than I had hoped to figure this out, so hopefully these directions save you some time. We need to Create a Discord Application and then Add the Bot to Servers.
- For starters, you of course need to have a Discord account.
- Navigate to the Discord applications site.
- Click on
New Application
- OPTIONAL: If you'd like, add a custom icon in the
APP ICON
area. Perhaps a snip-and-sketch of your favorite game? - Click on the
Bot
tab in the left-handSETTINGS
area. - Click the
Add Bot
button. - In the pop-up window, click on
Yes, do it!
.
Don't close that web browser or tab! Stay right where you are and move on to Add the Bot to Servers.
Scroll down to the bottom of the OAuth2
tab for the application you
made in Create a Discord Application. In the SCOPES
area check
the bot
box.
The DisQuip bot only needs the following permissions: - TEXT PERMISSIONS: "Send Messages" - VOICE PERMISSIONS: "Connect" and "Speak"
Scroll down to the BOT PERMISSIONS
area and click the appropriate
boxes corresponding the permissions listed above.
Finally, click on the Copy
button in the SCOPES
area. Paste
the link into a new tab in your web browser. You'll need to login to
Discord. A pop-up will appear and you'll need to select a server from
the ADD BOT TO:
drop-down and then click Continue
. Click
Authorize
and then prove you aren't a robot yourself.
If you've followed all the steps in this section, your bot now should have permissions to listen to and send text messages as well as send audio messages into a voice channel.
Don't close your web browser just yet! Keep that tab open and continue to Configuration.
All the necessary configuration parameters for DisQuip Bot are defined
in disquip.ini
, which you should have downloaded during the
Preliminaries. Rather than list every configuration
option here, they're all listed in disquip.ini
. Open that file with
your favorite text editor (I strongly recommend Notepad++ if you're
using Windows so that you can get syntax highlighting) and update the
file according to your installation. Please read the entire file. Don't
forget to hit "save" when you're done! :)
Here are a couple areas worth discussion explicitly:
Remember when I asked you to keep your tab open from the Discord applications
site? Here's where you'll use it. In the Bot
tab, find the are where
it says TOKEN
. Click the Copy
button to copy your token to the
clipboard. Use the copied value to update the api_token
field in
disquip.ini
. Don't forget to save the file.
It's nice to have descriptive directory names like "monty_python" or
"AgeOfEmpires1" but that can be cumbersome to type for a quick quip.
To alleviate this, the DisQuip Bot supports aliases for commands. Check
out the [aliases]
section of disquip.ini
After you've performed all the installation and configuration steps above, you're ready to run!
- Using a command prompt, change directories to
~/disquip-bot
:cd %USERPROFILE%\disquip-bot
(Windows);cd ~/disquip-bot
(Mac/Linux). - Activate your virtual environment:
venv\Scripts\activate.bat
(Windows);source venv/bin/activate
(Mac/Linux). - Execute the command
disquip-bot
to fire it up.
When you're done, simply kill the command window you have running or
use Ctrl + C
to stop the program.
The DisQuip bot does not dynamically detect changes to audio files or configurations. After making a change, simply stop the bot and start it again to pick up any changes.
The bot will listen to all the text channels of the server(s) you added
it to and look for messages that start with the cmd_prefix
defined
in disquip.ini
. This defaults to the exclamation mark (!
).
The DisQuip Bot will automagically join the voice channel you're currently in once it receives a valid command. Note that DisQuip Bot can only be in one voice channel per server at any given time.
Start exploring!
Assuming your command prefix is !
, simply type !help
into a
text channel the bot has access to. It'll respond with a listing of
available commands and some other helpful information.
Rather than running the DisQuip Bot on the same machine you're using to chat and play games, you may want to host it on a server. This will preserve resources on your local machine and allow the DisQuip Bot to stay online even when you aren't.
The service
directory in this repository has one sample
implementation for running the DisQuip Bot as a service on a
Raspberry Pi 3 Model B running the Raspbian GNU/Linux 9 (stretch)
operating system. The directions there should apply to many different
flavors of Linux. If you'd like to get started, check out
service/README.rst
.
Add new "lucky" command. Like "search," but plays the first found quip into the audio channel.
- Fix bug in search limiting. D'Oh!
- Ensure backwards compatibility. D'Oh!
- See notes for
1.1.6
Please use 1.1.7!
Add configurable maximum number of results for search (introduced in
1.1.5
), defaults to 20.Drop all support for Docker. You can find directions related to Docker by viewing this repository at v1.1.4. If you can live without the search introduced in
1.1.5
, you can still pull the image for1.1.4
:docker pull blthayer/disquip-bot:v1.1.4
Adding two methods to filter help:
- Please use 1.1.7!
- A global
search
command (alias:s
) - Adding the ability to filter help for a given command like
!help a1 | pattern
Addressed minor issue with random command when the caller was not in a voice channel.
Fixes a compatibility issue with Python 3.6 that was introduced in
v1.1.2
.
- New "disconnect" command: #13
- Removed nuisance logging if normalized files already existed: #16
- Adding automated Docker image builds: #14
- Adding cron job example to service: #17
Thanks to Will Ross for this one. Major logging improvements throughout the DisQuip Bot.
- Backwards incompatible change:
disquip.ini
now requires apre_normalize
field in the[disquip]
section. - By default, all audio files will first be pre-normalized to a peak amplitude of 0 dB. This is accomplished using ffmpeg-normalize.
- New
random
command!.