Sunday, May 29, 2011

Tutorial to setup Supybot for the easy-to-confuse like me.

Supybot is an awesome and feature rich IRC bot in Python. Today I was setting one up to replace my defunct eggdrop XvORTOR who died with Shellium I revivated it! :D.

The documentation however is a mess of poo that is all over the place including the wayback machine (no one feels like retrieving it and making it available?) which times out 1 out of 3 times. So I am going to make a retard-proof tutorial on how to install Supybot, for the easy-to-confuse/ADHD people like me who get easily confused/overwhelmed, hopefully avoiding a lot of people lots of frustration, hair pulling, broken screens/keyboards, death wishes and a very bad mood.

Supybot is outdated. Like 2009 outdated. Not a big deal, but people at #supybot on freenode have updated/enhanced it under the name of "Gribble". However their whole repo/wiki thing is a mess and the damn download link is a pain in the ass to find so here it is :

- Next you will need to install Python. Supybot does not run on Python 3.x, only on 2.4 and above

- Install Python.

XP & Vista : Right-click My Computer > Properties >Advanced > Environment variables
Windows 7 : Right-click My Computer > Properties > Advanced system settings > Advanced > Environment variables

In the "User variables for xxxxxxxxxxx" box :
If PATH is not there, click "New".
-> Variable name : PATH
-> Variable value : %PATH%;C:\Python27

If PATH is there, select it and click "Edit" :
-> At the end of Variable value, add ";C:\Python27" without quotes.

This is assuming your system drive letter is C and that the version of Python you use is 2.7. If your version of Python is 2.6, then you should replace Python27 with Python26, same if Python 2.8 ever comes out. You should then write Python28.

TL;DR : fill this appropriately :

You're probably better off reading.

What we just did will allow you to just type "python" in cmd to launch the python interpretor. That makes things much more simple.

- Unzip the Supybot/Gribble archive somewhere.
- Right-click on the folder while holding shift and select "Open command window here".
- While you're at it, open the INSTALL file and take a look if there is something from this tutorial that you don't understand.
- Type "python setup.py install" without quotes.
- Type "python scripts\supybot-wizard"
- Do what they say.

Now you are at the point where you have to add all the plugins that you want. Click here for a list of all the default plugins Supybot has along with their description. It was first included in this entry, but then I thought it was long and significant enough to deserve its own entry.

Once you have added all the plugins that you want, you are ready to launch your bot!
However, we're going to make the process of launching it a bit more automated.

The config file of your bot should be in your supybot directory (the one you unzipped) as nicknameofyourbot.conf.

Open this directory and in the window, Right click > New > Text document.
Rename the text document to "Start bot.bat" instead of "New document.txt". Windows will ask you whether you really want to change the extension of the document, blah blah blah, click "Yes".
Right click on the .bat file and select "Edit".
In the document, enter this : "python scripts\supybot nameofyourconfigfile.conf" without quotes and save it.

Now the only thing you have to do is to double click this bat file to launch your bot. :)

Here are very useful links for your supybot :
Supybot handbook
Supybot resources : Links, plugins, and more

Don't forget they have a channel! #supybgot on irc.freenode.com!

3 comments:

  1. Nice tutorial, if I ever need it, it'd be nice to read the whole post, lol :D

    ReplyDelete
  2. i broke my bot.. it all of a suddon says theres a server port missing when its written right there ... irc.esper.net:6667.. then it says that im missing the port

    ReplyDelete