big text

BIG TEXT is a Slack command (/big) that you can use to generate images with large text and send them to your coworkers.

example

/big BIG TEXT  is a Slack command (`/big`) that you can use to generate images with large text and send them to your coworkers.

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Installation

To install to your Slack visit the website for the app

Developers

This project uses Serverless framework and is split across the following Lambda functions:

• the /generate handler
• the big Lambda
• the oauth2 callback Lambda
• the /events handler

Generate

This function services an HTTP endpoint that Slack calls when slash commands are invoked. Its jobs are to (a) verify that it is indeed Slack who is making the request, (b) dispatch the request to the appropriate handler for it (asynchronously) and (c) return a 200 to Slack as soon as it can.

big

This function creates the big text image based on the text provided in the original slash command. It then checks the database to see if we have an access token for the caller.

If we do have an access token, the function sends the image on their behalf to the channel where /big was originally invoked. If we don't, we use the response_url from the original invocation to ask the caller to authorize us to send messages on their behalf.

Adding New Scripts

The /big Slack command randomly chooses from a library of hand-crafted, chef's kiss worthy ImageMagick scripts for creating large text on backgrounds. To add one, add a shell script to the scripts directory.

Image scripts will be called with these arguments:

• $1 text file containing the big text argument
• $2 path of directory containing bundled fonts
• $3 path to where image should be written

Then, in the commands.py file, add the name of your script (sans .sh file extension) to the IMAGE_SCRIPTS list.

If your script needs custom fonts or other resources, they will need to be placed in the (.gitignored) fonts/ directory prior to deploying.

oauth2 callback

This is a very boring function that's only used during the initial installation of the app or when a user needs to authorize the app to post its images as them. It receives a code from Slack and exchanges it for user or bot tokens which it then persists.

deploying

Deploying this requires a variables.yml file with the following:

ACM_CERTIFICATE_ID: ""
ROUTE_53_HOSTED_ZONE_ID: ""
S3_BUCKET_NAME: ""
WEB_APP_URL: ""
API_BASE_URL: ""
EDGE_LAMBDA_ARN: ""
CERTIFICATE_NAME: ""