Introduction

AskBox is a simple web widget that enables users to ask questions about page content. AskBox presents itself as a small icon on the bottom right of the page, and when clicked opens up a panel that prompts the user for their Slack username and their message. When the user finishes their message, it will be posted on the configured Slack channel, along with a link to the page they are on. If the user had selected text before opening the panel, that information will also be added to the URL, and clicking that modified link will re-highlight the user's selected text.

Installing

1. To install AskBox, simply copy the contents into the static folder of your web application. It is important that the folder structure be preserved as is.

2. On your page template (or on each page that you want AskBox to appear), simply import the javascript askbox.js. Be sure to specify the following required config options are query parameters:

   • slackurl: the incoming webhook URL for Slack.
   • channel: the Slack channel or user who should get messaged. Be sure to include the # or @ prefix.
   • restrict: (optional) a selector that describes portions that should be made selectable (ex: .askable). If you do not want to make the entire page selectable, set restrict to false. The default is to restrict marking selections to elements with the class .askable.

<script src="js/askbox.js?channel=%23app-help&slackurl=https%3A%2F%2Fhooks.slack.com%2Fservices%2Fxxxxxxx%2Fxxxxx%2Fxxxxxxxxxxx">

** NOTE **: don't forget to URL encode the config options