oTree chat.
Project description
Chat rooms for oTree so that participants can communicate with each other.
This is an early beta version and subject to changes/improvements!
Installation
(Assuming you already have an oTree project.)
pip install -U otreechatIn your project root, next to settings.py, create a file routing.py containing this:
from otree.channels.routing import channel_routing
import otreechat.routing
channel_routing += otreechat.routing.channel_routingIn settings.py:
Set CHANNEL_ROUTING = 'routing.channel_routing' (this is the dotted path to your channel_routing variable in routing.py).
Add 'otreechat' to INSTALLED_APPS, e.g. INSTALLED_APPS = ['otree', 'otreechat']
Then run otree resetdb.
Usage
Basic usage
Add this to the top of your template:
{% load otreechat %}Then wherever you want a chatbox in the template, use:
{% chat %}This will make a chat room among players in the same Group, where each player’s nickname is displayed as “Player 1”, “Player 2”, etc. (based on the player’s id_in_group).
Customizing the nickname and chat room members
You can pass optional parameters channel and/or nickname like this:
{% chat nickname=mynickname channel=mychannel %}Nickname
nickname is the nickname that will be displayed for that user in the chat. A typical usage would be {% chat nickname=player.role %}.
Channel
channel is the chat room’s ID, meaning that if 2 players have the same channel, they can chat with each other. channel is not displayed in the user interface; it’s just used internally. Its default value is group.id, meaning all players in the group can chat together. You can use channel to instead scope the chat to the current page or sub-division of a group, etc. (see examples below). Regardless of the value of the channel argument, the chat will at least be scoped to players in the same session and the same app.
Example: chat by role
Here’s an example where instead of communication within a group, we have communication between groups based on role, e.g. all buyers can talk with each other, and all sellers can talk with each other.
class Player(BasePlayer):
def role(self):
if self.id_in_group == 1:
return 'Seller'
else:
return 'Buyer'
def channel_nickname(self):
return 'Group {} {}'.format(self.group.id_in_subsession, self.role())Then in the template:
{% chat nickname=player.channel_nickname channel=player.role %}Example: chat across rounds
If you need players to chat with players who are currently in a different round of the game, you can do:
{% chat channel=group.id_in_subsession %}Example: chat between all groups in all rounds
If you want everyone in the session to freely chat with each other, just do:
{% chat channel=1 %}(The number 1 is not significant; all that matters is that it’s the same for everyone.)
Styling
To customize the style, just include some CSS after the {% chat %} element, e.g.:
{% chat %}
<style>
.otree-chat .messages {
height: 400px;
}
.otree-chat .nickname {
color: #0000FF;
font-weight: bold;
}
</style>You can also customize the appearance by putting it inside a <div> and styling that parent <div>. For example, to set the width:
<div style="width: 400px">
{% chat nickname=player.chat_nickname channel=chat.channel %}
</div>Multiple chats on a page
You can have multiple {% chat %} boxes on each page, so that a player can be in multiple channels simultaneously.
For example, this code enables 1:1 chat with every other player in the group.
class Player(BasePlayer):
def chat_nickname(self):
return 'Player {}'.format(self.id_in_group)
def chats(self):
channels = []
for other in self.get_others_in_group():
if other.id_in_group < self.id_in_group:
lower_id, higher_id = other.id_in_group, self.id_in_group
else:
lower_id, higher_id = self.id_in_group, other.id_in_group
channels.append({
# make a name for the channel that is the same for all
# channel members. That's why we order it (lower, higher)
'channel': '{}-{}-{}'.format(self.group.id, lower_id, higher_id),
'label': 'Chat with {}'.format(other.chat_nickname())
})
return channels{% for chat in player.chats %}
<h4>{{ chat.label }}</h4>
{% chat nickname=player.chat_nickname channel=chat.channel %}
{% endfor %}Exporting CSV of chat logs
Create a file urls.py in your project (same folder as settings.py), with these contents:
from django.conf.urls import url
from otree.urls import urlpatterns
import otreechat.views
urlpatterns.append(url(r'^export_chat/$', otreechat.views.export))Then add this to settings.py:
ROOT_URLCONF = 'urls'Then, your chat data will be downloadable from the url /export_chat, e.g. http://localhost:8000/export_chat.
Upgrading
pip install -U otreechatFeedback
Please send any feedback/opinions to chris@otree.org, for example to suggest an improvement to the widget’s appearance.
Notes
Remember to put otreechat in your requirements_base.txt so you can use it on the server, etc.
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