Eggdrop Autoscripts

Since it’s inception, users have needed to load a Tcl script into Eggdrop by downloading a Tcl file, editing the file to customize settings, and then sourceing that file in the config file. In v1.10, the Autoscripts system was added to make this process a little more user-friendly. The autoscripts system helps by:

  • Centralizing commonly-used scripts in a single location

  • Allowing scripts to be downloaded via the partyline

  • Allowing script settings to be configured via the partyline

  • Allowing user-written scripts to be managed by the autoscripts system

  • Providing a documented API to write autoscripts-compatible scripts

Autoscripts usage

To view available autoscript commands, type .autoscript on the partyline. This will open up a special Eggdrop console that doesn’t require you to prefix commands with a ‘.’ . The following sub-commands are available for use with script:

remote

This command will list scripts hosted on the Eggdrop website that are available to be downloaded and installed on your Eggdrop.

fetch <script>

This command will download the specified script from the Eggdrop website and place it into the autoscript/ directory.

list

This command will list scripts locallt present in the autoscripts/ directory, available to be configured and loaded.

config <script>

This command will list settings available for configuration for the provided script.

set <script> <setting>

This command will set setting for script to the provided value. To activate this change, use the load command.

load <script>

This command will activate the script for use. You can also use this command to reload a script after modifying a script variable.

unload <script>

This command will prevent the script from being loaded the next time Eggdrop starts. To fully unload a script, Eggdrop must be restarted!

clean <script>

This command will delete the script from the filesystem. After running this command, you will have to re-download and re-configure the script if you wish to use it again.

update [script]

If no script is specified, this command checks if there any downloaded script has a newer version available. If a script is specified, autoscript will fetch and install the updated script.

Autoscripts File Structure

An autoscripts package requires (minimum) two files: the Tcl script, and a json manifest file.

Tcl File

Nothing new or novel here; this is where your Tcl code goes. The one change to this file is that any setting intended should now be located in the manifest.json file, not the Tcl script file. All variables will be added to the global namespace. For this reason, we suggest wrapping a custom autoscript inside a namespace eval <scriptname> {} statement as an autoscript best practice, which will lessen the chance of a variable name colliding with a variable from a separate script.

Manifest.json

Every autoscripts package must have a manifest.json file. This file contains metadata for the script such as version and description information, as well as the user-configurable settings for use with th script. A simple example of a manifest.json file is as follows:

{
  "schema": 1,
  "name": "woobie",
  "version_major": 1,
  "version_minor": 0,
  "description": "An example script to help developers write autoscript packages",
  "long_description": "This is an example script to help understand the autoscript system. Yeah, it doesn't really do anything, but that's besides the point. It could, and that should be enough for anyone"
  "config": {
    "loaded": 0,
    "udef": {
       "myflag": {
          "type": "flag",
          "description": "Activate the script on <channel> by doing"
       },
       "mystr1": {
          "type": "str",
          "description": "Flood limit, modify the channel value for this doing",
          "value": "{10:6}"
       },
       "mystr2": {
          "type": "str",
          "description": "Change that with",
          "value": "Just my string"
       }
       "myint1": {
          "type": "int",
          "description": "Number of allowed kicks, could be change with",
          "value": 4
       }
    },
    "requires": "tls",
    "vars": {
      "woobie_dict": {
        "description": "A setting that accepts a dict as a value",
        "value": "{quiet q}"
      },
      "woobie_setting": {
        "description": "A normal setting to enable or disable something",
        "value": "1"
      },
      "woobie_string": {
        "description": "A setting taking a string, like a filename or something",
        "value": "woobie"
      },
      "woobie(array)": {
        "description": "A setting that is set as an array",
        "value":"another string"
      }
    }
  }
}

schema

The schema version of autoscript (currently 1)

name

The name of the script. Must match the script name (if the script is foo.tcl, then this must be foo)

version_major

The major version integer (ie, 1 for 1.6)

version_minor

The minor version integer (ie, 6 for 1.6)

description

A one-line summary of what the script does. This will be shown when available scripts are listed on the partyline via .script list.

long_description

A longer description of what the script does, similar to a README. This will be shown when a script is viewed via .script config.

config-loaded

Whether this script is currently loaded or not. It should be default set to 0.

config-udef-<varname>-type

Type of the user-defined channel setting, could be flag, str or int.

config-udef-<varname>-description

Description of user-defined channel setting used by the script. The description is appended with “ .chanset <channel> <varname> value” in case of int or str, and with “ .channel <channel> +<varname>” when flag

config-udef-<varname>-value

Default value of user-defined channel setting used by the script. This is displayed when configuration settings are displayed to the user on the partyline.

config-requires

Any Tcl package required for use by the script, such as tls, http, json, etc.

config-vars-<varname>

A setting intended to be modified by the user. The ‘description’ field should describe what the setting does, and the ‘value’ field stores the current value. These settings are displayed when the configuration settings are displayed to the user on the partyline.

config-vars-<varname>-description

A description of the setting, displayed in the configuration listing for the script.

config-vars-<varname>-value

The value the setting is set to

File placement

Autoscript files are stored in the autoscript directory. The path structure is eggdrop/autoscript/<scriptname>/[script files]. If the autoscript fetch command is used, a .tgz file will be downloaded and extracted to the proper location automatically. If you wish to manually add a script, create a directory with the same name as the script, and then place the script and manifest files inside the directory. The directory name must exactly match the script name (without the .tcl extension)! If the Tcl script to be loaded is called myscript_goodversion_specialfeature.tcl, then the directory must also called myscript_goodversion_specialfeature.

Development hints

  • An autoscript should not require a user to manually open the script in an editor for any reason. Design your script as such!

  • Use user defined channel flags to enable/disable a script for a particular channel, they’re easy!

  • Don’t use global statements. Based on the manifest, variables are created by autoscript in the global namespace before the script is loaded. Instead of the global command, use the variable command to access a global variable inside a proc. And because Tcl is awesome, each variable must be declared on its own line, not all on a single line like you can do with global. Sorry!

  • While we’re talking about variables… make them unique to prevent collisions! We recommend prefixing the script name in front of a variable, such as myscript_setting or ms_setting. Alternatively, you can wrap your autoscript inside a namespace eval <scriptname> {} statement, which create a private namespace for your script to operate within.

Tcl Commands

The autoscripts Tcl script adds three new commands for use with Tcl scripts:

egg_loaded

Description: lists all scripts currently loaded via the autoscripts system

Returns: A Tcl list of script names currently loaded via autoscripts

egg_unloaded

Description: lists all scripts downloaded to the local machine via the autoscripts system but not currently loaded by Eggdrop

Returns: A Tcl list of script names downloaded but not currently loaded via autoscripts

egg_all

Description: lists all script downloaded to the localm machine via the autoscripts system, regardless if they are running or not

Returns: A Tcl list of all script namees download via autoscripts