Passel Public Version

This is the public version of the passel discord bot. You can use the provided code and instructions to run the bot by yourself and use in your own server.

Why passel is being removed

First of all, thank you for using the passel bot. The bot has been active for over 2 years, and I greately apprecitate those who have added and used the bot in their servers. Due to Discord's changing rules, I will not be able to host the passel public bot anymore.

You can still use the bot by hosting it on your own by following the steps below. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me via the discord support server.

Feel free to fork this repo and create your own bot by adding more features, or using this code in another bot you may already have. Click for the discord python API.

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About

Passel is a discord bot that manages the number of pins in a server. Discord has a pin limit of 50 pins per channel. However, with passel, that limit can be bypassed. The following readme will explain how the bot works and how to add and set up the bot in a server.

How it works

The bot works by unpinning one message and sending it to a different channel during setup. There are 2 modes the bot can be set up in.

Mode 1: In mode 1, the most recent pinned message gets sent to a pins archive channel of your choice. This means that the most recent pin wont be viewable in the pins tab, but will be visible in the pins archive channel that you chose during setup

Mode 2: In mode 2, the oldest pinned message gets sent to a pins archive channel of your choice. This means that the most recent pin will be viewable in the pins tab, and the oldest pin will be unpinned and put into the pins archive channel

Also, any channel that has 50 pins should have one message unpinned, and then repin that 1 message after the bot is setup.

Please keep in mind that the bot only pins messages that REACH and EXCEED the limit of 50 pins per channel in discord.

If you want to pin ALL messages, use the sendall feature, follow instructions below to set up

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Setup

Note: There will be a setup video uploaded by August 1 2022 so that you can follow the video step by step as well as having the instructions below to follow.

Set up consists of the 3 following sections. Please follow each section carefully, if you run into issues reach out via the discord support server. It would be easy to do this setup if you are the server owner or have administrator permissions. You MUST do the setup on a laptop or computer.

1. Create a Discord bot in the developer portal

You must first create a discord bot account in the discord developer portal.

1. log in to the portal using your discord account
2. click on new application
3. give the bot a name, you can name it anything you want, does not have to be passel
4. optional: under settings > general information, add a profile photo for the bot
5. optional: under settings > general information, add a description for the bot
6. under settings > bot, click on add bot, click on "yes, do it!"
7. click on reset token, when you see the token copy it and store in a safe place. DO NOT EVER post this token anywhere. If you do go back to the portal and reset the token and update it the main.py file in the section below. The token should look something like this MTAwMTg3MDk1OTUzNzU2NTc1Ng.GZ6ikH.C_NRQfjO2oB1otGsRJZz5cpTRhKrIZ6twRnI4M, a random generation of characters.
8. uncheck PUBLIC BOT and REQUIRES OAUTH2 CODE GRANT
9. under Privileged Gateway Intents, check PRESENCE INTENT, SERVER MEMBERS INTENT, and MESSAGE CONTENT INTENT
10. save your changes
11. under BOT PERMISSIONS, check Administrator, the first one.

The page should look like this:

Add the created bot to your server

You are complete with creating the bot, now you need to add it to your server.

1. click on the OAuth2 arrow in the side bar, then click on URL generator
2. under scopes select bot
3. you should see a new menu, under bot permissions, select Administrator
4. then copy paste the invite link into a browser and invite the bot

You are done with this part. Please move onto the next section below.

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2. Edit the main.py file

This section, you will be editing the python code to fit your server's needs. There are 2 deployment methods available to use. Choose out of the following to best fit your needs/experience:

1. heroku CLI - Download the source code and upload a personal repo to heroku. Requires the use of a terminal program and text editor. Not recomeneded for visual learners and inexperienced beginners. Requires a manual deployment for every change.
2. GitHub Diff - Can make all edits online. All changes are automatically detected and deployed. Sets up the project in a manner that will allow you to continue making changes to your hearts content, and perform pull requests for improvements on Passel Bot.

Setup for heroku CLI

1. Click on this link.
2. Click on the green Code button, then click on Download ZIP
3. Unzip the file, and open the unzipped folder.
4. Open the main.py file. You might need to install an editor like text edit to open the file.

Setup for GitHub Diff

1. Click on this link to begin the fork process to your account.
2. Follow the fork instructions on your account.
3. Optional Create a release branch on your forked repo.

2.a. Once you open the File there are 5 places you MUST edit, and one place you may optionally edit.

When you open the file, you will see the python code. This section may be a bit overwhelming for anyone experienceing code for the first time. Please follow the steps carefully so you can do this easily.

MUST DO THIS BEFORE PROCEEDING

1. on your discord account, go to settings
2. then, on the side bar click on advanced
3. check Developer mode so its green

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If you observe the main.py file, you notice that there are lines that start with #. If you look closer there are lines that start with # TODO. There are a total of 6 # TODO statements. The first # TODO is optional, the remaining 5 are REQUIRED.

2.a.i) optional edit

1. This is the first # TODO statement which says

# TODO change command here if you want to use another command, replace p. with anything you want inside the single ('') quotes

If you want to change the bot command from p. (for example p.settings) to something else like =, replace the p. to = so the bot responds when you type =settings.

The p. can be replaced with anything that is 1 character or multiple characters. Normally for discord bots, do not replace this with anything that is more than 2 characters.

2.a.ii) MUST edit

1. The second # TODO says

# TODO change mode to 1 or 2 here

Change the mode of the bot herre, by replacing the 1 in mode = 1 to the mode you want. If you want mode 1, you can leave this as is, if you want mode 2, change mode = 1 to mode = 2

Modes:

Mode 1: In mode 1, the most recent pinned message gets sent to a pins archive channel of your choice. This means that the most recent pin wont be viewable in the pins tab, but will be visible in the pins archive channel that you chose during setup

Mode 2: In mode 2, the oldest pinned message gets sent to a pins archive channel of your choice. This means that the most recent pin will be viewable in the pins tab, and the oldest pin will be unpinned and put into the pins archive channel

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2. The third # TODO statement says

# TODO

sendall is set to 0 by default, change to 1 if you want

the bot to send all pinned messages to the pins channel

The sendall feature means that every pinned message (instead of the 50th pinned message) is sent to the pins channel which you will set up in the next step. Change sendall = 0 to sendall = 1 if you want the bot to send all pins to the pins channel

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3. The fourth # TODO statement says

# TODO

# replace the 0 with the pins channel ID for your sever

1. If you do not have a channel where you want to forward your pinned messages, create one.
2. In the sidebar of your discord server where the channels are listed right click on the channel and click on COPY ID.
3. replace the 0 in pins_channel = 0 to the channel ID you copied. After copying it should look something like this pins_channel = 947931203858726952 (obviously, the sequence of numbers for the pins channel in your server will be different from the example).
4. please try to not delete the channel in the future if you want the bot to work

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4. The fifth # TODO statement says

# TODO

# add any black listed channel IDs as a list separated by a comma (,)

# a good idea is to add admin channels to this

Blacklisting means that pinned messages in those channels will not be sent to the pins channel. For example, if you have a mod channel, #mod-general, and if you do not want extra pinned messages from that channel being sent to #pins, copy the #mod-general ID andd put it in the [ ]

If you want to add blacklisted channels, copy their IDs and put them inside the [ ] sepearated by commas ,.

Adding one channel should look like: blacklisted_channels = [926958717696634901]

More than one channel should look like: blacklisted_channels = [926958717696634901, 972685609040748584, 840372439824334888]

Obviously, the sequence of numbers for the channels in your server will be different from the examples.

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If you plan on using GitHub Deployment, go to step 6

5. For the sixth # TODO statement, scroll all the way to the bottom. It should say

# TODO Replace TOKEN with the token from discord developer portal

The Bot token you got from the first step and saved in a safe space should be used here. Copy the token and replace the words TOKEN with the token inside the quotes, DO NOT DELETE THE QUOTES ON BOTH ENDS.

It should look something like client.run('MTAwMTg3MDk1OTUzNzU2NTc1Ng.GZ6ikH.C_NRQfjO2oB1otGsRJZz5cpTRhKrIZ6twRnI4M')

Obviously, your token will be different from the one in the example.

If the token is posted anywhere online, your server may be in danger, please reset the token in the bot and update in the file and follow the steps in "Changing settings in the future after hosting" to update the hosting agent described in the section below.

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6. GitHub Deployment Only, Set up your environment variable and uncomment 2 lines of code.

On your heroku app, click on the settings tab. You can then scroll down to a section named "Config Vars".

Click on the button, Show Config Vars. You should now see 2 text boxes. One labeled KEY and the other VALUE

In the KEY box, type in the word TOKEN. In the value box paste in your client token you copied from the discord bot settings. Then click add. Refresh your page and click Show Config Vars once again to make sure your environment variable has been set.

Now in main.py look for the following 2 lines of code:

#import os

#client.run(os.environ.get('TOKEN'))

Remove the # on both lines so the line is uncommented.

Now find the line:

client.run('TOKEN')

Add a # comment the line so it looks like #client.run('TOKEN')

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3. Host the bot on heroku for free

Hosting is typically expensive, there are multiple ways to host for free. You can either use the method I describe below or another one you find online. For this method you need a credit card, but you will not be charged anything, it is only used for verifying your heroku account.

Using Heroku to host your bot is complicated. You will need to use the command line/terminal feature on your laptop or computer to use this. If you need help reach out or allow an expereinced member of your team to do this.

Set up your heroku app for hosting

1. go to https://id.heroku.com/login
2. create a new account and sign up, for primary development language select python.
3. Verify your email and set a password. Set a complicated password for safety and note the password in a safe area.
4. Log in with your password and click accept
5. Click on create new app
6. add an app name, keep it simple
7. choose a region, US works well most of the time
8. Go to the Deploy tab

Deploy using heroku CLI

1. Use the heroku CLI to deploy, the heroku page shows steps on how to use the heroku CLI. You will need to run the heroku CLI commands on your windows command line or your mac terminal depending on your operating system. Do not copy paste the $ sign. You must do the heroku CLI and github commands inside the repoistory of where you downloaded the bot.
2. go to the heroku portal and click on resources, then toggle the worker python main.py on. To do this, click on the edit button then toggle on and click confirm.
3. Once you deploy successfully, you should see the bot online in your discord server with a green active bubble on the bot's profile.
4. click on more in the top right of the heroku portal, then click on view logs, you should also see your bot deployed successfully here.
5. After following the steps above, please set up 2FA if you add a credit card to your account so your accound is extra protected Follow this link to set up 2FA.

Deploying using Github Diff

1. Click the option GitHub
2. Connect your GitHub account to heroku
3. For the section "App Connected to GitHub", select the forked repo you just created.
4. For the section "Automatic Deploys", select the branch you want to use for deployments: main or if you created it release
5. Wait for the app to finish building and deploy (check the activity tab or view logs)
6. Go to the heroku portal and click on resources, then toggle the worker python main.py on. To do this, click on the edit button then toggle on and click confirm.
7. After following the steps above, please set up 2FA if you add a credit card to your account so your accound is extra protected Follow this link to set up 2FA.

Once this is setup, every change you make to the selected branch in your forked repo will trigger a new build and deployment on heroku.

Verifying your heroku account

If you want your bot to be online all the time, YOU MUST verify your account by providing a credit card.

By default, heroku gives you 555 hours free per month. This means that if want your bot to run 24x7 you will be able to host the bot for about 23 days per month before you run out of the 555 hours.

To get 450 more hours for free without any additional charge, you have to add a credit card to your account. To date, you will not be charged by heroku. To avoid getting charged do not create any more heroku apps per account other than the discord bot.

Also enable 2FA, in case of a data leak, your account, password, and credit card details will be protected with 2FA

Follow these steps to verify your account and get 450 hours free of charge.

1. click on the user icon in the top corner, then click on Account Settings
2. click on billing
3. click add credit card
4. you should be all set!

If you can use the bot now, you have successfully set up the bot and heroku account (with 2FA hopefully)! If you have any issues reach out in the support server or watch the setup video.

DO NOT DELETE ANY OF THE FILES YOU USED FROM YOUR COMPUTER, THIS WILL MAKE IT EASIER FOR ANY FUTURE CHANGES OR ISSUES YOU OCCUR.

4. Changing settings in the future after hosting

To change any settings, you have to edit the file on your computer first then re-deploy to heroku.

1. edit any changes you want in the main.py file.
2. redeploy to heroku using the deploy commands on the heroku dashboard page for your app. use only the following commands:

heroku login

cd into the directory where you saved your files.

git add .

git commit -am "make it better"

git push heroku master

Thats it!

NOTE: heroku resets all apps once every 24 hours, the bot may be down for a minute or two during this time. Do not worry, the bot will come back online after a minute or two.

Thank you for using the code, if you need any help at all please reach out on the support server.

I hope that the tutorial was informative and easy to follow.

hyppytyynytyydytys#1010