A useful code for letting any user join the topics created by a particular user

[square-foot]

Hi
I was playing around with databag and I loved the concept. I have some suggestions that could probably improve its use. (There is a suggestion I had made several months back, but that may be an esoteric suggestion) I think it is an excellent system which should see wider usage.

But before that, I wanted to share a useful piece of code that I wrote in Javascript that I think can help others. When a new user joins, he is facing a largely blank screen with no idea what to do next. So I wrote this utility to allow to join a list of topics previously made by another user.

The Javascript I used is the one used on the server side of Pocketbase (another excellent system) but I think it is
quite easily adaptable for other types of Javascript (Nodejs, etc) This code will find out the list of topics made by a particular user (in my case 'adminchat' and then adds the new user to one of the topics of 'adminchat'.

Only those topics which has a "Subject" can be used here. The handle (i.e. username) of the user who wants to use should at least send a connection request to 'adminchat'.

I did not have much access to the API. I tried importing the .oa3 file (there is a small bug in the format which I had to remove) into Postman and I got a rough idea. But I could figure out what was going on based on the inspection of the browser console when playing around with Databag.

I don't think there is any security risks in the way Databag carries out its tasks but the API calls are quite unusual (or maybe I have misunderstood some and by some luck all this seems to work)

Hope this is useful to others. I will make my suggestions in another section of these discussions. Hope Databag is used widely! All the best.

//userhandle and topicname comes from query string variables to this code
//utils.send(...) function is for sending HTTP requests available in a separate utils.js module. It is like the JS 'fetch(...)' function but synchronous
//'adminchat' is the name of the user who has created the topics, so we first login as that user as the first step
//bcode is the variable that has the Base64 of username:password (needed to do a login) 

//The user who wants to join a topic should at least have sent a connection request to the 'adminchat' user

const postLoginUrl = "https://<REDACTEDDOMAIN>/account/apps?appName=Databag"
const getListingUrl  = "https://<REDACTEDDOMAIN>/account/listing"
const getTopicsUrl = "https://<REDACTEDDOMAIN>/content/channels?agent=<APPTOKEN>"
const getCardsUrl = "https://<REDACTEDDOMAIN>/contact/cards?agent=<APPTOKEN>"
const getTokenUrl = "https://<REDACTEDDOMAIN>/contact/cards/<USERID>/detail?agent=<APPTOKEN>"
const putStatusConnectingUrl = "https://<REDACTEDDOMAIN>/contact/cards/<USERID>/status?agent=<APPTOKEN>" //with body as "\"connecting\""
const getUserJsonUrl = "https://<REDACTEDDOMAIN>/contact/cards/<USERID>/openMessage?agent=<APPTOKEN>"
const getUserDetailUrl = "https://<REDACTEDDOMAIN>/contact/cards/<USERID>/detail?agent=<APPTOKEN>"
const putUserJsonUrl = "https://<REDACTEDDOMAIN>/contact/openMessage" //with body from above 
const putUserConnectedUrl = "https://<REDACTEDDOMAIN>/contact/cards/<USERID>/status?agent=<APPTOKEN>&token=<TOKEN>&viewRevision=1&articleRevision=1&channelRevision=8&profileRevision=1"
const putUserIntoTopicUrl = "https://<REDACTEDDOMAIN>/content/channels/<TOPICID>/cards/<USERID>?agent=<APPTOKEN>"


let ans = utils.send(postLoginUrl,"POST",{"Authorization":`Basic ${bcode}`});
const appToken = ans.json.appToken
console.log("AppToken after login "+JSON.stringify(appToken));

let userguid
ans = utils.send(getListingUrl,"GET");
const listing = ans.json
listing.forEach((element) => {
    if(element.handle == userhandle){ 
        userguid = element.guid
      }
  });


let Msg = "Getting ..."; //for debug

let msg = "";

ans = utils.send(getTopicsUrl.replace('<APPTOKEN>',appToken),"GET");
const topics = ans.json
let topicid
topics.forEach(element => {
      if(element.data != null){
        let d = JSON.parse(element.data.channelDetail.data)
        if(d.subject == topicname){
            Msg += "Found topic "+d.subject
            topicid = element.id
            if(element.data.channelDetail.members.indexOf(userguid) != -1){
                msg = "User has already joined the topic"
                
            }
         }
       }
});

if (msg != ''){
    return c.json(200,{success: false,"Msg": msg })
}

if(!topicid){
     return c.json(200,{success: false,"Msg": "Topic not available" })
}

ans = utils.send(getCardsUrl.replace('<APPTOKEN>',appToken),"GET");
const cards = ans.json
let userid,connecteduserid 
cards.forEach(element => {
    if(element.data != null){
        if(element.data.cardProfile.handle == userhandle)
             {
                Msg += " ... user found ... status was: "+element.data.cardDetail.status

                if(element.data.cardDetail.status == "connected")
                     {
                        Msg += "... user is connected ... ID: "+element.id
                        connecteduserid = element.id
                     }
             }    
        if(element.data.cardDetail.status == "pending")
             {
                Msg += "... user is pending ... ID: "+element.id
                userid = element.id
             }
    }    
})

if(userid){
        ans = utils.send(getTokenUrl.replace('<APPTOKEN>',appToken).replace('<USERID>',userid),"GET");
        Msg += "["+ans.raw +"]"

        ans = utils.send(putStatusConnectingUrl.replace('<APPTOKEN>',appToken).replace('<USERID>',userid),"PUT",{"Content-Type": "application/json"},"\"connecting\""); 
        Msg += "[" +ans.raw +"]" 

        ans = utils.send(getUserJsonUrl.replace('<APPTOKEN>',appToken).replace('<USERID>',userid),"GET");
        Msg += "["+ ans.raw+"]" 

        Msg += "Got the JSON returned by openMessage... "
        let interimJson = ans.raw 

        ans = utils.send(getUserDetailUrl.replace('<APPTOKEN>',appToken).replace('<USERID>',userid),"GET");
        Msg += "Got the user detail...["+ans.raw+"]"

        ans = utils.send(putUserJsonUrl.replace('<APPTOKEN>',appToken).replace('<USERID>',userid),"PUT",
                {"Content-Type": "text/plain","referer": "https://<REDACTEDDOMAIN>"},interimJson); 
        Msg += "hope this came...["
        Msg += ans.raw
        Msg += "] ... kinda done..."

        let theToken = ans.json.token

        ans = utils.send(putUserConnectedUrl.replace('<APPTOKEN>',appToken).replace('<USERID>',userid).replace('<TOKEN>',theToken),"PUT",
                    {"Content-Type": "text/plain","referer": "https://<REDACTEDDOMAIN>"},"\"connected\"");

        connecteduserid = userid; //Now the userid is indeed connected! (or better be!!)
        msg += "Connected user. "
}

if(connecteduserid){
    ans = utils.send(putUserIntoTopicUrl.replace('<APPTOKEN>',appToken).replace('<TOPICID>',topicid).replace('<USERID>',connecteduserid),"PUT",
                {"Content-Type": "text/plain","referer": "https://<REDACTEDDOMAIN>"});
    Msg += "Added user into topic... ["+ans.raw+"]"
    msg += "Added user to selected topic."
} else {
    return c.json(200,{success: false,"Msg": 'Could not get a proper connected user' })

}
return c.json(200,{success: true,"Msg": msg }) //change msg to Msg for debug messages