Link to a specific conversation thread in Google Hangouts Chat

Use Google Hangouts Chat Bot services, hosted on Apps Script to identify a specific conversation thread.

Link to a specific conversation thread in Google Hangouts Chat
Link to a specific conversation thread in Google Hangouts Chat
It always baffles me to know how you may not be the first person to have faced a particular challenge and that tens (if not hundreds) may've already reported similar grievances.

this was oddly a scenario where after i'd devised a solution, i stumbled upon a conversation that described the exact problem and an even more precise solution.
thank you, stack exchange!

enter: getThreadID

Description

a google hangouts chat "bot" hosted on apps script, that returns a url of the conversation when invoked on a particular thread.

getThreadID

Prior reading

  • google apps script bot - if you're not already familiar on how to host a hangouts chat bot on apps script, this would be an ideal place to start
  • publishing bots - you'd also need to familiarise yourself with the different steps involved in actually publishing the bot, once you've adopted the code
    (my two cents: just follow the instructions 🤓)

Codebase

you can access the entire script on my github repository here.

/**
 * Responds to a MESSAGE event in Hangouts Chat.
 *
 * @param {Object} event the event object from Hangouts Chat
 */
function onMessage(event) {
  var thread = event.message.thread.name;
  var threadRegex = /(spaces\/)(.*)(\/threads\/)(.*)/;
  var spaceID = threadRegex.exec(thread)[2]
  var threadID = threadRegex.exec(thread)[4]
  var message = "Thread ID: " + threadID + "\nThread URL: https://chat.google.com/room/" + spaceID + "/" + threadID;
  return { "text": message };
}

/**
 * Responds to an ADDED_TO_SPACE event in Hangouts Chat.
 *
 * @param {Object} event the event object from Hangouts Chat
 */
function onAddToSpace(event) {
  var message = "";
  message = "Thank you for adding me to *" + event.space.displayName + "*. \nYou can now use `@getThreadID` command to get the URL of a specific conversation.";
  if (event.message) {
    var thread = event.message.thread.name;
    var threadRegex = /(spaces\/)(.*)(\/threads\/)(.*)/;
    var spaceID = threadRegex.exec(thread)[2]
    var threadID = threadRegex.exec(thread)[4]  
    message = "Thank you for adding me to " + event.space.displayName + "\n" + "Thread ID: " + threadID + "\nThread URL: https://chat.google.com/room/" + spaceID + "/" + threadID;
  }
  return { "text": message };
}
getThreadID.gs

Result

getThreadID - result
getThreadID - result