Hello, friends! Everything you spend in social network Vkontakte has a lot of time, and the actions that you perform with the mouse are often the same - send a message, turn on another track, close the pop-up window, and so on.
In this article, we will figure out what Vkontakte can do using various combinations of buttons on the keyboard. At first it will be unusual, but over time it will come to automatism and send a message or add new record on the wall in seconds.
We will talk about hot keys - these are various combinations of keyboard buttons that perform certain actions. In some programs, the buttons can be assigned commands on their own, or in the menu items opposite each line, you can see which keys do what.
There are not so many hot keys on Vkontakte, but few people know about them either. Although they are quite convenient to use, since they correspond to the most frequently performed actions.
If you are adding a new entry to the wall, then, instead of the "Submit" button, you can use the following combinations:
Ctrl+Enter - add a post to the wall;
Enter - move the cursor to newline.
Sending comments and messages
To add a comment to a photo, note, video, and more, or send a message to another user, instead of the "Send" button, use the following keys:
Enter - send a message;
Shift+Enter - line break;
Ctrl+Enter - send message;
Enter - line break.
You can choose which combination is more convenient for you. To do this, hover over the “Send” button (in comments) or on the arrow image (in messages), and then in the pop-up window that appears, mark the option that suits you with a marker.
For those who like to communicate a lot and correspond simultaneously with several users, instead of constantly clicking the mouse, when choosing the desired dialogue, you can use the keys:
Instead of #, press the number that corresponds to the number of the desired dialogue. Use the numbers located between the F1 - F12 buttons and the letters on the keyboard.
For example, to open a conversation, as shown in the screenshot below, I press the Ctrl + 3 combination on the keyboard.
View photos in full screen mode
Like to watch photos of friends or any other users, then you can do it in full screen mode so that the photo opens in full screen. To do this, open the photo for viewing, and then click:
You can scroll through the images using the left/right arrows. If you want, check the box "Slide show" and choose the time after which the photos will change. In the upper right corner it will be shown which photo of the total number is being viewed. To exit full-screen mode, you can click the cross at the top right or the ESC key on your keyboard.
Listening to music
If you do not have a standard keyboard, but an extended, compact or laptop keyboard, then it probably has buttons:
Play/Pause;
Next entry;
Previous entry.
They can be used to pause, stop or select another Vkontakte track. The only caveat, to play the first song, use the mouse, and then use the hot keys.
If on an extended or multimedia keyboard, these buttons are located separately, then on laptops or on a compact keyboard, they can be located on the same arrow buttons or on numeric keypad. Therefore, to use them, you need to press the Fn button.
If you need to rewind the track, then holding the right / left arrows will allow you to rewind the record forward / backward, respectively.
A big plus of using hotkeys when listening to Vkontakte music: if you have a Vkontakte page open in a separate browser tab and music is playing, but you are on another tab, then hotkeys can still be used. That is, to switch the track or press pause, you do not need to open a tab with Vkontakte.
You can use the keys for music in almost all popular browsers: Chrome, Yandex, Opera. But those users who have installed Mozilla Firefox, are deprived of such an opportunity, since these buttons do not work in it.
If you need to add several objects at once to a post or message, then you do not need to constantly open the add window and click "Attach". Open a window with a photo, music or video, hold Ctrl and select what you need:
Hold Ctrl.
For example, I will add music to the record on the wall. Click "Add Audio Recording". When the next window opens, you need to hold down Ctrl and select songs - in front of each I click "Attach". Instead of "Attach" the word "cancel" appears.
And all the selected songs are attached to the created record.
As in the case of music, if you have installed Mozilla browser Firefox, then selecting multiple objects in the described way will not work.
Close a window
Vkontakte, when you view photos or products, some menu items and more open in separate windows. And each time you need to click on a small cross in the upper right corner. It's not very convenient. To close such windows, you can use the button:
Zoom in/zoom out the page
If the font of the Vkontakte page is too small for you, and I would like not to read it, but to read calmly incoming messages and news entries, then you can increase it. You can also reduce the font and scale of the page as a whole. For this, the following combinations are used:
Ctrl and + or - sign on the keyboard;
Ctrl and scrolling the mouse wheel up/down.
The Ctrl + 0 combination will help restore the original page format, that is, 100%.
We already wrote about it, read the article by clicking on the link.
The fact that the page scale has been changed is indicated by a magnifying glass or a number with the specified scale: 120%, 175%, and so on, on the right in the address bar.
As you can see, there are not very many hot keys on Vkontakte. But their use will also help make the task easier for those who are used to performing maximum actions using the keyboard. If you know any other combinations, leave them in the comments.
In Vkontakte, for convenience, you can use special key combinations - hot keys, for sending messages, watching videos, photos, publishing posts, etc. Consider which key combinations are most often used.
When sending messages
To move to a new line in a text field, use the combination .
In order to send a message to the addressee, you need to use the key Enter.
Or, by clicking on the arrow to the right, select another key combination:
- to send a message
Enter- to break a line
When posting to the wall
To move to a new line in a post or in a comment to a post, use the key Enter.
In order to post or leave a comment on it, use or .
When switching between dialogs
For the convenience of managing dialogs in Vkontakte, there is an option to use keyboard shortcuts Ctrl+number(from 1 to 0).
On the right there is a window of personal correspondence, which you can change with ease. Maximum amount dialogues is limited to ten. In order to write to other users, select the dialogue with the mouse.
When viewing photos
To make it easier to view images, you can use full screen mode. To do this, select the key combination Alt+Enter or Ctrl+Enter .
Alt+Enter or Esc .
When watching a video
Rewinding the video is done using the arrow keys. The rewind segments are about seven seconds long.
Pressing the space bar pauses the video or continues playing it.
To exit full screen mode, use Alt+Enter or Esc.
When scrolling the page
To scroll down the page use Page Down or end .
To scroll the page up - Page Up or Home .
The VKontakte social network introduced the ability to connect keyboards to chat bots to simplify navigation and speed up communication with subscribers. Now the user can choose one of the predefined interaction options and ask a question of interest - and the bot will return with an answer.
How to add a new feature?
For the buttons to work, you must click on "Enable API for bots" in the settings of community messages. Team "VKontakte" released detailed documentation for this feature.
Where to look?
New buttons can be tested:
- in the official Comedy Club community;
- with the "Maxim" bot, which converts text into an audio message;
- with Callback API Bot tracking updates in selected communities.
What to expect in the next updates of VKontakte?
The developers promise to soon add support for chatbots in conversations. It is reported that any of their functions can be used without interrupting the dialogue and the need to forward messages from bots to friends.
Chatbots are gaining popularity among messenger users for their accessibility and ease of interaction. Another Russian technology company Just AI at the end of May 2018 is a constructor of embedded chatbots that understand natural language. And those who want to create their own bot for VKontakte can familiarize themselves with.
Learn more about what this feature is
It is nothing but a chatbot. To automate the operation of the buttons, they must be associated with a keyword newsletter subscription. Specify on the button keyword(or a phrase), then clicking on it will automatically subscribe to the mailing list and send the message. Or another action that you set in the auto funnel.
How did I do it?
Pre-created a new subscription topic for free lessons and in the settings I set the key phrase for subscribing to this newsletter - "I want lessons."
When a person enters this key phrase in a dialogue with my community, he automatically subscribes to this newsletter (topic) and receives lessons. These lessons come in the first automatic mailing message right away. Then, after 2 days, a second message arrives, where I ask if the person has looked at the lessons, how they are for him, if there are any questions, and I also offer to receive the full course and an additional gift at a discount. Automessages in Gamayun are configured in the "Autofunnel" section. I wrote more about the auto funnel
On one I wrote the text “No, thank you” - if the subscriber pressed this button, then in the community messages I saw that he was not interested.
If a person clicked on the “I want lessons” button, he automatically subscribed to the lessons and immediately received a message with a link. And I segmented the people who are interested in it, and then used the auto funnel.
So far, the keyboard function is available only when sending mailing lists manually, but they promised to implement it in auto funnels soon.
According to test results
In principle, everything went well, as I had planned. There were some hiccups - when the user clicked on the "I want lessons" button, the message with the lessons came with some delay, somewhere faster, somewhere longer.
When a person clicked on the “No, thanks” button, I saw this message in my community dialogs, looked through the profiles of these people. Someone just turned out to be not interested in this topic, but the target person. There were also several people whose profiles I saw that, in principle, we were not on the way - and unsubscribed them so as not to annoy them with my mailing lists.
If a person has not opened the correspondence for a long time, and I managed to send other messages during this time, then the keyboard continues to hang under the chat until you click on it (at the same time, it is important to check the “Hide when pressed” checkbox in the keyboard settings). Consequently, the message has already risen higher, and not everyone understood what exactly these buttons refer to
In general, the function works as it should - the keyboard performs the function of a chat bot and a subscription by a key phrase, thereby allowing you to segment active audience and make a more targeted auto-chain for the interest of people.
Let's take a look at the steps on how to set up a subscription by key and associate it with a keyboard
First, let's create a subscription topic and add a keyword.(this may be one word) for automatic subscription. To do this, go to the Gamayun application through the button in the group, go to the "Mailouts" - "Themes" tab. Click "Create Theme".
Specify the title and description of the topic. For example, I will create a theme "Gift for activity".
The created topic can be made invisible in the mailing application. Then they will be able to subscribe to it only by a keyword or by a link that you provide. To hide visibility, click on the eye icon and it will become crossed out.
You can also add an autosubscribe keyword to an already created topic by simply clicking on the pencil to edit it.
Now for the newly created theme set the first auto-message after subscription. So that when you click on the button - I want a gift, a person immediately receives this gift. This is done in the "Auto Funnel" tab.
In the first field, select the created theme, then click "Create Script".
Click on the pencil to edit the block.
Create a new action in the block - Send a message.
We write our message. For example, I will have a link to a gift. You can substitute the subscriber name variable in the message for a personalized message. Click "Save".
In the same way, you can continue the auto-chain of messages by creating new blocks and linking them together. To communicate, you need to go to the previous block, add the "Delayed call" action and specify the time after which the next block (action) in the funnel will be performed.
Now let's associate our keyword with the keyboard and check the autosubscription.
We select a topic (a group of subscribers) on which we want to make a newsletter. You can select multiple topics at the same time. If you do not select any, the newsletter will be sent to all your subscribers. For example, I choose a test group that I created purely for myself, in which I am the only subscriber. I also recommend that you do this for initial testing.
I am writing a message where I propose to receive a gift.
By the way, another novelty is the ability to disable link previews (that is, a picture that is pulled up by a link in a message). This is not always appropriate. This was introduced due to the fact that when adding an unsubscribe link, a clickable image was pulled up, which attracted all the attention. Now this can be turned off.
Here it is important for the very first time to go to the link indicated in the hints and enable the features of bots in the settings, otherwise the keyboard will not work!
Also, check the box "Hide the keyboard when pressed" - this means that when you click on the button, it will disappear.
You can add one or more buttons by clicking on the plus sign. To change the color of the button and the text on it, just click on it with the mouse.
For example, I will make two buttons - blue and green. On one I will write the key phrase “I want a gift”, and on the second “No, thank you” (after all, there should always be a choice).
This is what this message looks like with a keyboard in a subscriber's personal account.
I click on the "I want a gift" button and I immediately receive it. That is, there was an auto-subscription to the topic, and the funnel was activated. That's how it works.
By the way, this can also be used like this - for example, we subscribe to one mailing list, and unsubscribe from another. To do this, simply add the appropriate action to the first block of the auto funnel.
You can also add several buttons (4-5) to segment subscribers into different topics (according to their preferences). That is, to conduct a survey ...
You can watch the visual lesson to the article:
Thank you for your attention and I will be glad to your comments!
Sincerely, Victoria Karpova
New functionality for VK bots - quick response buttons or keyboard.
IMPORTANT! More recent version of the article
Our team of "bot painters" immediately became interested in this innovation and began to study the official API to tell you and show you detailed instructions to create a bot using the keyboard. In the course of this article, you will get a bot, whose work you can see in our group GameTips in VK. You can also join the VK community conversation, where they can help you with a problem that has arisen.
Create and set up a community
After creating a community in VK, follow this path:
"Community Management" → "Messages" and turn on community dialogs. Now in the "Settings for Bot" submenu, enable "Bot Features" and the "Get Started" button.
We will write using Callback api (sends each action in the community separately to the server). Therefore, it should also be configured. Go to
“Community Management” → “Working with API”. For the bot to work, you need to register an access key. Click "Create Key" and select the necessary access rights, this bot only needs the rights to messages. We confirm the phone number and save the access key somewhere. Now go to the Callback API tab. Enter your server name and select latest version API(on this moment it is 5.80, and it is with it that the bot presented below will work 100%). In the "Types of requests" tab, select only incoming messages.
Server Tuning
Now you will need a server to host your bot. you can use free hosting, for example 000webhost.
If you use cheap/free hosting, then cURL will most likely be disabled on them (you will not be able to send media files to the bot, only text), and it cannot be enabled. Everything is fine with 000webhost, you can use it. If you have your own server or a good one bought, then you need to connect cURL for the bot from our example to work properly.
How the Callback API and keyboard work
I will spend brief digression how everything works. The callback API sends any event that occurs in a JSON group to your server. Full list events can be viewed in the “Callback API” tab → “Event types”. This is how the JSON request looks like when the user sends a message, in this case he clicked on the button:
("type":"message_new","object":("date":1529668584,"from_id":89846036,"id":1522,"out":1,"peer_id":89846036,"text":"Gold fish","conversation_message_id":305,"fwd_messages":,"important":false,"random_id":0,"attachments":,"payload":"(\"animals\":\"Goldfish\")" ,"is_hidden":false),"group_id":101461081)
There are several interesting fields that can be processed: user id, message text (text), payload of the button (payload).
Messages are sent to the user using the method messages.send. If you send a keyboard, then after all standard parameters you add parameter keyboard which contains json of buttons, this is what it looks like:
Keyboard: ( "one_time": false, "buttons": [ [( "action": ( "type": "text", "payload": "(\"button\": \"1\")", " label": "Red" ), "color": "negative" ), ( "action": ( "type": "text", "payload": "(\"button\": \"2\")" , "label": "Green" ), "color": "positive" )]
Working with the library
For the bot to work, we use a self-written PHP library. (If the link does not work, then here is the archive) you can find the documentation for the library and download the library itself. Here is a short listing ready-made functions to write a bot, look for more details at the link above. If you want to know about changes in the library, then write at least one message to our bot in VK, through which we will notify you of changes.
$vk = new vk_api(vk_key, version_api) — bot initialization. Parameters: community key (vk_key), API version (version_api).
sendMessage(id, text) - function for sending messages to the user. Parameters: user id(id), message text(text).
sendImage(id, patch) is a function to send images. Parameters: user id (id), path to the image (patch).
sendButton(id, text, buttons, one_time) — function for sending a message with buttons. Parameters: user id (id), message text (cannot be empty) (text), array with buttons (buttons), optional one_time parameter, false by default, if set to true, the keyboard will hide after pressing any button.
request(method, array_arguments) is a universal function for working with methods. Parameters: method is the name of the method from the official api, array_arguments is an array of parameters.
sendOK() - Beta function. Used instead of echo "ok", it helps in cases where the script runs for a long time, and the bot starts repeating messages several times.
IMPORTANT: if you use this function, you will not see any error output. During debug, replace with echo "ok"
Full bot code in PHP
Now let's move on to the actual code, where almost every line is commented.
This code is supported on PHP 5.6+
In the CONFIG block, specify your community access key, server confirmation key, and the API version of your choice.
"Fish"], "What are they?", "blue"]; //Code for the "Fish" button const BTN_BACK = [["command" => "start"], "<< Назад", "red"]; // Код кнопки "<< Назад" const BTN_SALMON = [["animals" =>"Pink_salmon"], "Pink salmon", "white"]; // Code for the "Pink salmon" button const BTN_GOLDFISH = [["animals" => "Goldfish"], "Goldfish", "blue"]; // Code for the "Goldfish" button const BTN_PLOTVA = [["animals" => "Plotva"], "Roach", "green"]; // Code for the "Roach" button $vk = new vk_api(VK_KEY, VERSION); // creating an instance of the api class, accepting the api key and version $data = json_decode(file_get_contents("php://input")); //Receives and decodes JSON coming from VK if ($data->type == "confirmation") ( //If vk asks for a key exit(ACCESS_KEY); //End the script by sending the key ) $vk->sendOK(); //Tell vk we received a callback if (isset($data->type) and $data->type == "message_new") ( //Check if this is a message from a user $id = $data->object- >from_id; //Get the id of the user who wrote the message $message = $data->object->text; if (isset($data->object->peer_id)) $peer_id = $data->object->peer_id; // Get the peer_id of the chat where the message came from else $peer_id = $id; if (isset($data->object->payload))( //get the payload $payload = json_decode($data->object->payload, True ); ) else ( $payload = null; ) if (isset($payload["command"]) or mb_strtolower($message) == "start") ( //If the start button is pressed or<< назад $vk->sendButton($peer_id, "Do you want to see the fish?", []); //Send the button to the user ) else ( if ($payload != null) ( // if payload exists switch ($payload["animals"]) ( //See what's in the payload buttons case "Fish": //If it's a Fish $vk->sendButton($peer_id, "Here you go, choose", [ //Send buttons to user , ]); break; case "Pink_salmon": //If it's Pink salmon $vk->sendMessage($peer_id, "Keep your pink salmon!"); //send the message $vk->sendImage($peer_id, "img/pink_salmon.jpg"); //send the picture break; case "Goldfish": //If it's a Goldfish $vk->sendMessage( $peer_id, "She will grant your wishes..."); $vk->sendImage($peer_id, "img/goldfish.jpg"); break; case "Plotva": //If it's a Roach $vk->sendMessage( $peer_id, "Oops, looks like the picture got mixed up)"); $vk->sendImage($peer_id, "img/plotva.jpg"); break; default: break; ) ) ) ) ?>
Now you know how the code works, and you can customize it for yourself.
Let's start!
Upload your script and library to the server. Now go to the settings in the Callback API tab, enter the path to your script in the address field and click confirm. If you did everything right, a green check mark will appear next to the address.
FAQ:
Question: Nothing works at all!
Answer: It means they screwed up somewhere. Re-read the article carefully again, and check if you have done everything. Any step to the left can lead to an error...
Question: Everything works for me, but pictures are not sent.
Answer: Check if you have added the img folder with images. Also, you may be using a server where cURL is not supported.
Question: I changed the version to 5.78 or whatever. Nothing works for me.
Answer: Use other api versions than 5.80 at your own risk. For example, on version 5.78, other variable names come from VK (for example, instead of object-> text, object-> body goes), so the script crashes. Look for all api changes
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