This is Tilly... a printer bot that'll print messages from slack onto till roll thermal paper for posterity/evidence for your team.

• Project Log

Usage

1. Follow the Setup instructions below to get API tokens and the service running
2. Add @tilly (or whatever you named your integration) to the room
3. 'React' to a message with the :printer: emoji and the printer will do its thing

Known Issues

• Adding @tilly to a private channel seems to change the internal id so older messages can't be found as the channel ID doesn't exist..?
• @mentions are showing internal ID values rather than friendly names

TODO

• Print message based on emoji event
• Have some basic interaction to help people find out more about Tilly
• Write better documentation about the build
  • Tilly - The Slack Printer
• Support command line configuration for printer endpoint/token
• Include real usernames when message includes @mentions
  • Some nasty regex and user-directory lookups required; might fail on long-running app
• Print avatar/emoji characters inline in message
• Show images for
  • Giphy embeds - First frame, sometimes breaks
  • Uploaded images/photos - Files dont get associated with channels for some reason
  • Unfurled links - Youtube/websites etc
• Better installation solution using bundler or similar

Building The Hardware

Find out more on my Hackaday.io project page - (Tilly - The Slack Printer)[https://hackaday.io/project/21191-tilly-the-slack-printer]

Heres a working prototype before she got her lovely case.

Parts List

1. Raspberry Pi
2. Thermal Printer
   • Mine is TTY only, but USB should work if you change PRINTER_TTY
3. Power cables 5v/2A for the printer as well as USB / ethernet etc
4. Googly Eyes - Optional

Building

1. Pop the TTY connection onto pins 6,8,10 (GND,GPIO14, GPIO15)
2. Thats about it...

The Software

Prepare

1. Create a new Custom Bot integration
   • Can't use a 'App Bot' account as the channels.history API is not accessible and as tilly can be added to any room and interact with messages in the past this is a required permission.
2. Connect up printer and power everything up

Install

git clone https://github.com/warmfusion/Tilly-The-Printerbot.git tilly
cd tilly
./install.sh

If you are using jessie, or a systemd managed operating system, a systemd unit file has been included for your convenience.

Simply follow the instructions below to ensure that your Tilly Printer Bot will start automatically when your RPi is booted up for hands free operation.

cp printerbot.service /etc/systemd/system/
systemctl daemon-reload              # Tell systemd that theres a new service in town
systemctl enable printerbot.service  # Ensure it starts on boot
systemctl start printerbot           # Start it up for now

# Check service output with
journalctl -u printerbot

Execute

1. echo "SLACK_AUTH_TOKEN=YOURTOKEN" > /etc/default/tillyprinterbot
2. systemctl restart printerbot # Or SLACK_AUTH_TOKEN=xxxx ruby printerBot.rb
3. Add @tilly (or whatever you named your integration) to rooms
4. React to a message with the :printer: emoji and the printer will do its thing