ConfigParser

So one of our big bugs at the hackfest turned out to be a very simple fix. We were saving a config file using ConfigParser. Transbot was saving IRC channels with the pound symbol(#) still prefixed to it. What we didn't realize is that ConfigParser later reads these lines as a comment and ignores them. Needless to say we were relieved when we realized what was causing our headaches.

Hackfest recap

Last Friday's hackfest was a great success. Even though I was late due to work, Mark and I managed to get a ton of work done. Our timeline shows how many commits we did. We fixed the bugs in our config file setup as well as fully implementing our in-channel commands. At this point I think we have the majority of our major features in place. We're going to look into turning this into an RPM tomorrow. I was hoping to have lmacken's help but he's on vacation right now. We're going to forge ahead and see if we can get this on our own. Hopefully next week will be only fixing some bugs. I'd like to see something I can proudly call Transbot v1.0 by the end of the quarter.

Transbot Todo list this weekend

So we're getting close to our first packaged version of Transbot. I want to get a few things down before then.

1. In channel commands: add/remove channel, change language, better help text, report bad translations.

2. Bot needs to handle incorrect language acronyms. It currently crashes if asked to translate to a language that doesn't exist.

3. We need to use a standard .ini config system instead of our custom .conf. This will standardize the configuration file and make it easier code-wise.

I think we can get this done this weekend and prepare for launching an rpm next week.

Transbot: Testing

Transbot is up and running this week for testing!!!

We are looking for community testing and feedback. For complete information regarding how to help please check out our wiki.

Here's how you can contribute:

1. Join the testing channels. #transbot-test-en is in English. #transbot-test-es is in Spanish and #transbot-test-rand is designed to allow users to change the language to anything. To set the language in a channel simply type ".xx" where xx is the two letter language acronym. You only need to type this once. Afterwards you can simply send messages and they will automatically be translated.

2. Try to break the bot. Feel free to play around with phrases you think will not be translated well. We want to see how well the bot can withstand abuse. Please don't hold back :-)

3. Give us feedback. You can contact us at tjr1351@rit.edu and mrt8449@rit.edu. You can also file bug reports here.