NAME

spread-revolutionary-date - Spread date and time from Revolutionary
(Republican) Calendar

VERSION

version 0.45

DESCRIPTION

spread-revolutionary-date is a Free Software
<https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html> that spreads the current
date, expressed in the French Revolutionary calendar
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Republican_calendar>, to various
social networks: Mastodon <https://mastodon.social/>, Bluesky
<https://bsky.app/>, Twitter <https://twitter.com/>, the Liberachat
<https://libera.chat/> and Freenode <https://freenode.net/> Internet
Relay Chat networks.

Moreover, you can easily extend these defaults targets with any desired
one, see "EXTENDING TO NEW TARGETS", and even spread something else
than the revolutionary date, see "msgmaker" option and "EXTENDING TO
NEW MESSAGE MAKERS".

The French Revolutionary calendar, also called Republican calendar, was
introduced during the French Revolution
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Revolution>, and used from late
1793 to 1805, and also during the Paris Commune
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Commune> in 1871. This was an
attempt to get rid of religious and royalist references found in
Gregorian calendar when naming measures of Time. Months were given new
names based on nature, each day of the year, instead of being named
after an associated saint, had a unique name associated with the rural
economy: agricultural tools, common animals, grains, pastures, trees,
roots, flowers, fruits, plants, and minerals. But this was also an
attempt to give more rational in measuring Time, basing measures on
decimal system. Instead of weeks, each month was divided into exactly 3
dÃ©cades, that is ten days; days were divided into ten hours; hours into
100 minutes; and minutes into 100 seconds.

You must have a registered account on each of the targets you want to
spread the revolutionary date. And you must get credentials for
spread-revolutionary-date to post on Mastodon, Bluesky and Twitter, and
also for IA generated messages with Gemini message maker. Finally, you
have to configure spread-revolutionary-date to use these credentials,
see "CONFIGURATION" and "COMMAND LINE PARAMETERS" below.

The revolutionary date and time is computed thanks to the
DateTime::Calendar::FrenchRevolutionary Perl module, by Jean Forget.

USAGE

# Just execute the script in your shell
# to spread current date to configured accounts
# to Bluesky, Twitter, Mastodon, Freenode and Liberachat:
$ spread-revolutionary-date

# Or, since this script does nothing but calling
# the L<App::SpreadRevolutionaryDate> Perl module,
# use this one-liner:
$ perl -MApp::SpreadRevolutionaryDate \
-e 'App::SpreadRevolutionaryDate->new->spread;'

# Test spreading to Mastodon only:
$ spread-revolutionary-date \
--targets=Mastodon --test

# Test spreading to Twitter only in English:
$ spread-revolutionary-date \
--targets=Twitter \
--test \
--locale en

# Spread acab time to Twitter and Liberachat
# explicit channels
$ spread-revolutionary-date \
--targets=Twitter \
--targets=Liberachat \
--liberachat_channels='#revolution' \
--liberachat_channels='#acab' \
--revolutionarydate_acab

# Prompt user for a message to spread to Mastodon
$ spread-revolutionary-date \
--targets=Mastodon \
--msgmaker=UserPrompt

# Spread message as command line parameter to
# Mastodon, Bluesky, Twitter, Liberachat and Freenode
$ spread-revolutionary-date \
--msgmaker=UserPrompt \
--promptuser_default

# Spread message and image as command line parameter to
# Mastodon and Bluesky
$ spread-revolutionary-date \
--msgmaker=UserPrompt \
--targets=Mastodon \
--targets=Bluesky \
--promptuser_default \
'This is my message to the world'
--promptuser_img_path= \
/my/path/to/image.png
--promptuser_img_alt= \
'Alternative text for image'

# Spread message and image form web as command line parameter to
# Mastodon and Bluesky
$ spread-revolutionary-date \
--msgmaker=UserPrompt \
--targets=Mastodon \
--targets=Bluesky \
--promptuser_default \
'This is my message to the world'
--promptuser_img_url= \
'https://example.com/imgs/my_image.jgp'
--promptuser_img_alt

# Spread TÃ©lÃ©chat date of the day on Mastodon and BlueSky
$ spread-revolutionary-date \
--msgmaker=Telechat \
--targets=Mastodon \
--targets=Bluesky

# Spread Gemini generating an illustrated joke on Mastodon
# NB: usually prompts are defined in configuration file along
# with api_key, while --gemini-process is passed on command line
# to choose which prompt to process
$ spread-revolutionary-date \
--targets=Mastodon \
--msgmaker=Gemini \
--gemini_api_key=ApiKey \
--gemini_process=MacronJokeColuche \
--gemini_prompt 'MacronJokeColuche=Invente-moi une blague \
dans le style de Coluche sur Emmanuel Macron. Pas besoin \
de dire "D\'accord, voici une blague" ou "Bien sÃ»r, \
voici une blague dans le style de Coluche sur Emmanuel \
Macron" avant la blague.' \
--gemini_img_path "MacronJokeColuche='/my/path/to/image.png'" \
--gemini_img_alt "MacronJokeColuche='Caricature de Coluche \
disant : Â« Câ€™est lâ€™histoire dâ€™un mecâ€¦ Â» avec une caricature \
de macron'" \

# Spread Gemini searching for real time weather on Mastodon
# NB: usually prompts are defined in configuration file along
# with api_key, while --gemini-process is passed on command line
# to choose which prompt to process
$ spread-revolutionary-date \
--targets=Mastodon \
--msgmaker=Gemini \
--gemini_api_key=ApiKey \
--gemini_process=MeteoParis \
--gemini_prompt 'MeteoParis=Quelle est la mÃ©tÃ©o aujourd\'hui \
Ã Paris, avec la tempÃ©rature, selon meteo-paris.com, ne devine \
pas, va chercher l\'information.' \
--gemini_search "MeteoParis=1"

# Spread Gemini generating a list of celebrities with an url
# prepended by an introdution on Mastodon
# NB: usually prompts are defined in configuration file along
# with api_key, while --gemini-process is passed on command line
# to choose which prompt to process
$ spread-revolutionary-date \
--targets=Mastodon \
--msgmaker=Gemini \
--gemini_api_key=ApiKey \
--gemini_process=FamousBirthday \
--gemini_prompt 'FamousBirthday=Which famous people \
have their birthday on $month_name $day? Give a list of up \
to 6 people, then after the list give the unformatted URL of \
the Wikipedia page of only one of them, no comments and no need \
for an introduction like "Here are some famous people".' \
--gemini_intro 'FamousBirthday=Famous people born on $month_name \
$day for better or for worse:'

CONFIGURATION

Once again: you have to configure spread-revolutionary-date with
credentials for registered account on each of the desired targets and
also for Gemini message maker, so it can spread the revolutionary date
or an IA generated message on behalf of these accounts.

Configuration options may also be specified as command line parameters,
see "COMMAND LINE PARAMETERS" below, which take precedence on options
of the configuration file.

The configuration file should lie on
~/.config/spread-revolutionary-date/spread-revolutionary-date.conf or
~/.spread-revolutionary-date.conf. In case a file is found on both
paths, the second one is ignored. The configuration file should use the
popular INI file format <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/INI_file>. A
sample configuration file can be found in this distribution at
etc/sample-spread-revolutionary-date.conf.

General options

These options should appear outside of any section of the configuration
file.

targets

This option can be specified multiple times, with values as strings. It
explicitly defines targets where the revolutionary date should be
spread to. Any value set for this option should be a valid target: any
of the five default targets (Mastodon, Bluesky, Twitter, Liberachat, or
Freenode) or some new target if you have extended this application (see
"EXTENDING TO NEW TARGETS"). If this option is not defined, the
revolutionary date is spread on all five default targets: Mastodon,
Bluesky, Twitter, Liberachat, or Freenode.

msgmaker

This option can only be specified once, with a value as string. Spreads
a message computed by the class defined by the value of this option,
defaults to RevolutionaryDate. The Value (case sensitive) of this
option should correspond to an existing
App::SpreadRevolutionaryDate::MsgMaker::Value class consuming
App::SpreadRevolutionaryDate::MsgMaker role. Message makers values
pre-defined in this distribution are RevolutionaryDate, which spreads
the revolutionary date; PromptUser, which prompts the user for the
message to be spread (with confirmation); Telechat, which spreads the
date of the day similar to the Belgian-French TV show 'TÃ©lÃ©chat" on the
1980's; and Gemini which prompts Gemini AI to generate a message. See
"EXTENDING TO NEW MESSAGE MAKERS" for details on using a new value for
this option.

locale

This option can only be specified once, with a value as string. Spreads
with chosen language. As of App::SpreadRevolutionaryDate 0.11 locale is
limited to 'fr', 'en', 'it' or 'es' for RevolutionaryDate and 'fr',
'en', 'it', 'es' or 'de' otherwise. Defaults to 'fr' for
RevolutionaryDate and Gemini, and to 'en' for <PromptUser>. Locale is
forced to 'fr' for Telechat since only french-spokers can understand
the TV show. To add more languages see "INTERNATIONALIZATION AND
LOCALIZATION".

test

This boolean option takes no value, either it is defined or not. If
defined, do not actually spread the revolutionary date, just print it
on standard output for Mastodon, Bluesky and Twitter, and send it on
configured test channels for Liberachat and Freenode (see
"test_channels" below).

Mastodon options

These options are credentials for spread-revolutionary-date to spread
on a Mastodon account. You have to get them from your Mastodon instance
API account <https://mstdn.fr/settings/applications> with write scope.
Note that Mastodon is a decentralized network with multiple instances,
the previous link is for mstdn.fr instance, please replace url with
your preferred instance. They should be defined in the [mastodon]
section of the configuration file.

instance

This option can only be specified once, with a value as string: the
domain name of your instance, eg: mastodon.social, mstdn.fr, etc.

client_id

This option can only be specified once, with a value as string: your
Mastodon Client key for this application.

client_secret

This option can only be specified once, with a value as string: your
Mastodon Client secret for this application.

access_token

This option can only be specified once, with a value as string: your
Mastodon Access token for this application.

Bluesky options

These options are credentials for spread-revolutionary-date to spread
on a Bluesky account. You have to get them from your Bluesky account
<https://bsky.app/>. They should be defined in the [bluesky] section of
the configuration file.

identifier

This option can only be specified once, with a value as string: your
Bluesky identifier (ending with .bsky.social by default).

password

This option can only be specified once, with a value as string: your
Bluesky password. You can define a special password for this
application, in order to not use your main Bluesky password in your
Bluesky account settings <https://bsky.app/settings/app-passwords>.

Twitter options

These options are credentials for spread-revolutionary-date to spread
on a Twitter account. You have to get them from your Twitter API
account <https://apps.twitter.com/> with write access level. They
should be defined in the [twitter] section of the configuration file.

consumer_key

This option can only be specified once, with a value as string: your
Twitter Consumer API key for this application.

consumer_secret

This option can only be specified once, with a value as string: your
Twitter Consumer API secret key for this application.

access_token

This option can only be specified once, with a value as string: your
Twitter Access token for this application.

access_token_secret

This option can only be specified once, with a value as string: your
Twitter Access token secret for this application.

Liberachat options

The first two options are credentials for spread-revolutionary-date to
spread on a Liberachat account. See
https://libera.chat/guides/registration to find out how to register an
account on Liberachat. They should be defined in the [liberachat]
section of the configuration file.

nickname

This option can only be specified once, with a value as string: your
Liberachat nickname.

password

This option can only be specified once, with a value as string: your
Liberachat password.

channels

This option can be specified multiple times, with values as strings.
spread-revolutionary-date will spread on every channel specified with
this option. This option should be specified at least one time if
"test" option is not set. It is ignored if "test" option is set.

test_channels

Freenode options

The first two options are credentials for spread-revolutionary-date to
spread on a Freenode account. See
https://freenode.net/kb/answer/registration to find out how to register
an account on Freenode. They should be defined in the [freenode]
section of the configuration file.

nickname

This option can only be specified once, with a value as string: your
Freenode nickname.

password

This option can only be specified once, with a value as string: your
Freenode password.

channels

test_channels

RevolutionaryDate options

These options change the way revolutionary date is computed when
"msgmaker" option is RevolutionaryDate. They should be defined in the
[revolutionarydate] section of the configuration file.

acab

This boolean option takes no value, either it is defined or not,
defaults to false. If defined, instead of spreading the current date
and time, pretend that decimal time is 1:31:20 (which corresponds to
03:08:56 UTC, 04:08:56 Paris winter time, or 05:08:56 Paris summer
time, in sexagesimal scale used by common Anglo-Babylonian Time).

wikipedia_link

This boolean option takes no value, either it is defined or not,
defaults to true. If defined, a link to the wikipedia page, in language
defined by the locale option, corresponding to the feast of the day, is
added to the date to be spread.

PromptUser options

If "msgmaker" option is PromptUser, instead of spreading the
revolutionary date, prompts the user (with confirmation) for the
message to be spread, with a default value (if user enters nothing when
prompted).

default

This option can only be specified once, with a value as string. If
default option is set, the user is not prompted and this default
message is spread. If default option is not defined, the default
message is 'Goodbye old world, hello revolutionary worlds' if the user
enters nothing when prompted. The default option should be defined in
the [PromptUser] section of the configuration file. It is only used if
"msgmaker" option is PromptUser.

img_path (for PromptUser)

This option can only be specified once, with a value as string valued
by a path to an image file on local disk. The img_path option should be
defined in the [PromptUser] section of the configuration file. It is
only used if "msgmaker" option is PromptUser.

img_alt (for PromptUser)

This option can only be specified once, with a value as string valued
by an alternative text to an image file specified by img_path or
img_url options. The img_alt option should be defined in the
[PromptUser] section of the configuration file. It is only used if
"msgmaker" option is PromptUser.

img_url (for PromptUser)

This option can only be specified once, with a value as string valued
by an external url to a remote image. The img_url option should be
defined in the [PromptUser] section of the configuration file. It is
only used if "msgmaker" option is PromptUser.

Gemini options

If "msgmaker" option is Gemini, instead of spreading the revolutionary
date, requests Gemini AI to generate a text from a prompt.

api_key

This option can only be specified once, with a value as string: your
Gemini API key. You have to get it following instructions on
https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/api-key. The api_key option
should be defined in the [Gemini] section of the configuration file. It
is only used if "msgmaker" option is Gemini.

process

This option can only be specified once, with a value as string, telling
which "prompt" and other options below should be send to Gemini AI. The
process option should be defined in the [Gemini] section of the
configuration file. It is only used if "msgmaker" option is Gemini.

prompt

This option can be specified for several prompts, each one with a key
as a string, valued by the string configured for "process" options
above, and a value as string valued by the prompt to send to Gemini AI.
The prompt option should be defined in the [Gemini] section of the
configuration file. It is only used if "msgmaker" option is Gemini.

intro

This option can be specified for several prompts, each one with a key
as a string, valued by the string configured for "process" options
above, and a value as string to prepend to Gemini answer. The intro
option should be defined in the [Gemini] section of the configuration
file. It is only used if "msgmaker" option is Gemini.

This option can be specified for several prompts, each one with a key
as a string, valued by the string configured for "process" options
above, and a true value, telling Gemini AI to use grounded sources
(inline supporting links) and Google Search suggestions. The search
option should be defined in the [Gemini] section of the configuration
file. It is only used if "msgmaker" option is Gemini.

img_path (for Gemini)

This option can be specified for several prompts, each one with a key
as a string, valued by the string configured for "process" options
above, and a value as string valued by a path to an image file on local
disk. The img_path option should be defined in the [Gemini] section of
the configuration file. It is only used if "msgmaker" option is Gemini.

img_alt (for Gemini)

This option can be specified for several prompts, each one with a key
as a string, valued by the string configured for "process" options
above, and a value as string valued by an alternative text to an image
file specified by img_path or img_url options. The img_alt option
should be defined in the [Gemini] section of the configuration file. It
is only used if "msgmaker" option is Gemini.

img_url (for Gemini)

This option can be specified for several prompts, each one with a key
as a string, valued by the string configured for "process" options
above, and a value as string valued by an external url to a remote
image. The img_url option should be defined in the [Gemini] section of
the configuration file. It is only used if "msgmaker" option is Gemini.

COMMAND LINE PARAMETERS

Any command line parameter, other than the first three ones below,
takes precedence on the corresponding option specified on the
confiuration file, see "CONFIGURATION" above.

Command line only parameters

--conf=<file> | -c <file>

Use <file> path as configuration file, instead of the default ones, see
"CONFIGURATION" above.

--version | -v

Prints out the version of spread-revolutionary-date.

--help | -h | -?

Prints out help with command line parameters.

General parameters

--targets=<target> | -tg <target>

Same as "targets" configuration option above.

--msgmaker=<MsgMakerClass> | -mm <MsgMakerClass>

Same as "msgmaker" configuration option above.

--locale=<fr|en|it|es> | -l <fr|en|it|es>

Same as "locale" configuration option above.

--test | --no | -n

Same as "test" configuration option above.

Mastodon parameters

These parameters specify credentials for spread-revolutionary-date to
spread on a Mastodon account. You have to get them from your Mastodon
instance API account <https://mstdn.fr/settings/applications> with
write scope. Note that Mastodon is a decentralized network with
multiple instances, the previous link is for mstdn.fr instance, please
replace url with your preferred instance.

--mastodon_instance=<instance> | -mi <instance>

Same as "instance" configuration option above.

--mastodon_client_id=<id> | -mci <id>

Same as "client_id" configuration option above.

--mastodon_client_secret)<secret> | -mcs <secret>

Same as "client_secret" configuration option above.

--mastodon_access_token=<token> | -mat <token>

Same as "access_token" configuration option above.

Bluesky parameters

These parameters specify credentials for spread-revolutionary-date to
spread on a Bluesky account. You have to get them from your Bluesky
account <https://bsky.app/>.

--bluesky_identifier=<identifier> | -bi <identifier>

Same as "identifier" configuration option above.

--bluesky_password=<password> | -bp <password>

Same as "password" configuration option above.

Twitter parameters

These parameters specify credentials for spread-revolutionary-date to
spread on a Twitter account. You have to get them from your Twitter API
account <https://apps.twitter.com/> with write access level.

--twitter_consumer_key=<key> | -tck <key>

Same as "consumer_key" configuration option above.

--twitter_consumer_secret=<secret> | -tcs <secret>

Same as "consumer_secret" configuration option above.

--twitter_access_token=<token> | -tat <token>

Same as "access_token" configuration option above.

--twitter_access_token_secret=<token secret> | -tats <token secret>

Same as "access_token_secret" configuration option above.

Liberachat parameters

The first two parameters are credentials for spread-revolutionary-date
to spread on a Liberachat account. See
https://libera.chat/guides/registration to find out how to register an
account on Liberachat.

--liberachat_nickname=<nick> | -ln <nick>

Same as "nickname" configuration option above.

--liberachat_password=<passwd> | -lp <passwd>

Same as "password" configuration option above.

--liberachat_channels=<channel> | -lc <channel>

Same as "channels" configuration option above.

--liberachat_test_channels=<channel> | -ltc <channel>

Same as "test_channels" configuration option above.

Freenode parameters

The first two parameters are credentials for spread-revolutionary-date
to spread on a Freenode account. See
https://freenode.net/kb/answer/registration to find out how to register
an account on Freenode.

--freenode_nickname=<nick> | -fn <nick>

Same as "nickname" configuration option above.

--freenode_password=<passwd> | -fp <passwd>

Same as "password" configuration option above.

--freenode_channels=<channel> | -fc <channel>

Same as "channels" configuration option above.

--freenode_test_channels=<channel> | -ftc <channel>

Same as "test_channels" configuration option above.

RevolutionaryDate parameters

--revolutionarydate_acab | -ra

Same as "acab" configuration option above.

--revolutionarydate_wikipedia_link

Same as "wikipedia_link" configuration option above.

PromptUser parameters

--promptuser_default <msg> | -pud <msg>

Same as "default" configuration option above.

--promptuser_img_path <path/to/image/file> | -pui </path/to/image/file>

Same as "img_path (for PromptUser)" configuration option above.

--promptuser_img_alt <alternative text> | -pua <alternative text>

Same as "img_alt (for PromptUser)" configuration option above.

--promptuser_img_url <img_url> | -puu <img_url>

Same as "img_url" (for PromptUser) configuration option above.

Gemini parameters

--gemini_api_key <api key> | -ga <api key>

Same as "api_key" configuration option above.

--gemini_process <SomePrompt> | -g <SomePrompt>

Same as "process" configuration option above.

--gemini_prompt "<SomePrompt>=<my prompt string>" | -gp "<SomePrompt>=<my
prompt string>"

Same as "process" configuration option above.

--gemini_intro "<SomePrompt>=<intro msg>" | -gi "<SomePrompt>=<intro
msg>"

Same as "process" configuration option above.

--gemini_search "<SomePrompt>=1" | -gs "<SomePrompt>=1"

Same as "process" configuration option above.

--gemini_img_path "<SomePrompt>=<path/to/image/file>" | -gip
"<SomePrompt>=</path/to/image/file>"

Same as "img_path (for Gemini)" configuration option above.

--gemini_img_alt "<SomePrompt>=<alternative text>" | -gia
"<SomePrompt>=<alternative text>"

Same as "img_alt (for Gemini)" configuration option above.

--gemini_img_url "<SomePrompt>=<img_url>" | -giu "<SomePrompt>=<img_url>"

Same as "img_url (for Gemini)" configuration option above.

EXTENDING TO NEW TARGETS

Starting from version 0.07, this distribution takes advantage of Moose,
the postmodern object system for Perl 5, allowing to easily extend
spread-revolutionary-date to other targets than the default ones
(Mastondon, Bluesky, Twitter, Liberachat and Freenode.

To add a new target, you should write a new class in the
App::SpreadRevolutionaryDate::Target:: namespace (that is: the class
should be App::SpreadRevolutionaryDate::Target::Mytarget for a new
Mytarget target), that consumes the
App::SpreadRevolutionaryDate::Target role. See "DESCRIPTION" in
App::SpreadRevolutionaryDate::Target for a comprehensive description of
this role.

The name of the target should be added as a value of the "targets"
option.

Such a target class is actually just a wrapper. Usually a target has to
use an existing specific worker module (which can be a Moose class or
not) to perform the actual work of posting a message according the
specific target protocol, after having complied with any potential
required authentication. Such authentication should be carried on by
the constructor or, along with posting, by the required spread method
of the target class.

To perform authentication and to post a message, there is a strong
likelihood that the new target requires specific parameters (e.g.:
tokens, keys, account name, password, channels, etc.). These parameters
should be defined as required attributes of the target class. Values
for such attributes should be set in the configuration file, inside a
section named after the target in lower case ([mytarget]), or as
command line parameters prefixed with the name of the target in lower
case, followed by an underscore (--mytarget_myparam).

Should you extend spread-revolutionary-date to a new target, we advise
you to have a look on how default targets are implemented:
App::SpreadRevolutionaryDate::Target::Bluesky with
App::SpreadRevolutionaryDate::Target::Mastodon with Mastodon::Client
worker, App::SpreadRevolutionaryDate::BlueskyLite worker, and
App::SpreadRevolutionaryDate::Target::Twitter with Twitter::API worker.
Mastodon and Twitter are using OAuth2 protocol <https://oauth.net/2/>
to perform authentication. The other default targets,
<App::SpreadRevolutionaryDate::Target::Liberachat> and
App::SpreadRevolutionaryDate::Target::Freenode, use a chatbot
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chatbot>:
App::SpreadRevolutionaryDate::Target::Liberachat::Bot and
App::SpreadRevolutionaryDate::Target::Freenode::Bot, subclassing
Bot::BasicBot worker. You can also see a very simple example with a
test file provided in this distribution at t/new_target.t, which just
prints out the revolutionary date on the standard output using core
module IO::Handle.

Starting from version 0.39, you may have noticed that Mastodon and
Bluesky targets can now spread not only a text message, but also an
image, with an alternative text for accessibily purpose. If the
alternative text is not provided, it is set with the name of the image
file. This is used by Telechat message maker, to post an image of
Groucha, the presenter of TÃ©lÃ©chat, and by PromptUser and Gemini to
send either an image file on local disk or an external image on the
web.

This feature is not available now for IRC targets, Liberachat and
Freenode, since theses targets are mostly for text messages.

Also, we do not plan to extend this feature to Twitter target, since we
recommand to not use this social network for political reasons.

Starting from version 0.45, Mastodon and Bluesky classes have a
max_lenght attribute (set to 300 for Mastodon and set to 250 for
Bluesky), which is used to split a longer message into a thread of
multiple posts. Again, we do not plan to extend this feature to Twitter
target, since we recommand to not use this social network for political
reasons.

EXTENDING TO NEW MESSAGE MAKERS

It is even easier to spread whatever you want instead of the
revolutionary date. You should write a new class in the
App::SpreadRevolutionaryDate::MsgMaker:: namespace (that is: the class
should be App::SpreadRevolutionaryDate::MsgMaker::MyMsgMaker for a new
MyMsgMaker message maker), that consumes the
App::SpreadRevolutionaryDate::MsgMaker role. See "DESCRIPTION" in
App::SpreadRevolutionaryDate::MsgMaker for a comprehensive description
of this role.

The name of the message maker should be set as a value of the
"msgmaker" option.

Such a message maker class is actually just a wrapper. Usually a
message maker has to use an existing specific module (which can be a
Moose class or not) to craft the message.
App::SpreadRevolutionaryDate::MsgMaker::RevolutionaryDate uses
DateTime::Calendar::FrenchRevolutionary, while
App::SpreadRevolutionaryDate::MsgMaker::PromptUser is based on
IO::Prompt::Hooked and App::SpreadRevolutionaryDate::MsgMaker::Gemini
just uses LWP to request Gemini server. You may need for example LWP to
extract the message from a fetched web page or service, or XML::Feed to
build it from a RSS <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS> feed, or DBI to
retrieve it from a database, or nothing at all to spread a fixed
message, etc.

If your new message maker class needs specific parameters (other than
locale, which comes with App::SpreadRevolutionaryDate::MsgMaker role),
they should be defined as attributes of this class. Values for such
attributes should be set in the configuration file, inside a section
named after the message maker in lower case ([mymsgmaker]), or as
command line parameters prefixed with the name of the message maker in
lower case, followed by an underscore (--mymsgmaker_myparam).

Have a look to App::SpreadRevolutionaryDate::MsgMaker::PromptUser or
App::SpreadRevolutionaryDate::MsgMaker::Telechat classes, they show
simple examples on how to extend spread-revolutionary-date to a new
message maker.

Gemini message maker

From version 0.45, a new message maker is included which requests
Gemini AI. This allows to extend spread-revolutionary-date just by
configuring a few options. The most practical way to configure these
options is to prepare everything by setting all "Gemini options" in the
configuration file, except "process" to pickup the prompt at execution
time by using the --gemini_process <ThisPrompt> command line parameter.

This way, you can setup different prompts in your configuration file.
Here is an example with 4 different prompts configured:

[Gemini]
# See https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/api-key
api_key = 'GEMINI_API_KEY'
prompt FamousBirthday = 'Which famous people have their birthday on $month_name $day? Give a list of up to 6 people, then after the list give the unformatted URL of the Wikipedia page of only one of them, no comments and no need for an introduction like "Here are some famous people".'
intro FamousBirthday = 'FamousBirthday=Famous people born on $month_name $day for better or for worse:'

prompt MacronJokeColuche = 'Invente-moi une blague dans le style de Coluche sur Emmanuel Macron. Pas besoin de dire "D\'accord, voici une blague" ou "Bien sÃ»r, voici une blague dans le style de Coluche sur Emmanuel Macron" avant la blague.'
img_path MacronJokeColuche = '/usr/local/share/perl/5.32.1/auto/share/dist/App-SpreadRevolutionaryDate/images/coluche_macron.png'
img_alt MacronJokeColuche = 'Caricature de Coluche disant : Â« Câ€™est lâ€™histoire dâ€™un mecâ€¦ Â» avec une caricature de macron'

prompt BlanquiRevival = 'Invente-moi un dicton rÃ©volutionnaire dans le style d\'Auguste Blanqui. Ne fais pas d\'introduction.'
img_url BlanquiRevival = 'https://example.com/imgs/my_image.jgp'

prompt MeteoParis = 'Quelle est la mÃ©tÃ©o aujourd\'hui Ã Paris, avec la tempÃ©rature, selon meteo-paris.com, ne devine pas, va chercher l\'information.'
search MeteoParis = 1

and, then choose the prompt to use at execution time, like:

$ spread-revolutionary-date --msgmaker=Gemini --gemini_process=FamousBirthday --locale=en
$ spread-revolutionary-date --msgmaker=Gemini --gemini_process=MacronJokeColuche
$ spread-revolutionary-date --msgmaker=Gemini --gemini_process=BlanquiRevival
$ spread-revolutionary-date --msgmaker=Gemini --gemini_process=MeteoParis

These examples show how you can tweak your message to be spread. Let's
review all these options:

First, you have to define credentials to use the Gemini API, by
defining the "api_key" option. For this you need to get a Gemini API
key, by following instructions on
https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/api-key.

Then for each prompt, you have to choose an identifier, which is one
word in camel case, like FamousBirthday, MacronJokeColuche,
BlanquiRevival or MeteoParis. This prompt identifier should be the
value of the --gemini_process <ThisPrompt> command line parameter.

All other options are relative to one particular prompt, and therefore
prefixed with the corresponding identifier. Under the hood, these
options are hashes keyed with prompt identifiers:

"prompt"

This is the option where you can define your prompt. It is advised to
test this prompt to have Gemini answer as you wish. For instance,
Gemini often start its answers to your prompt by: â€œSure, here is
â€˜what you've asked forâ€™, and you wouldn't want to spread this
introduction in your message. In this case, you should write your
prompt instructing Gemini to not include any introduction.

You can test your prompt with interactive form to Gemini at
https://gemini.google.com/app or with spread-revolutionary-date with
options --test and --targets=Mastodon for example.

The spread message will be Gemini answer, optionally prepended with a
configured introduction (see bellow), and ending with hashtags
#IAGenerated #PromptIdentifier.

Prompts often need to mention informations relative to today, such as
the FamousBirthday example below, or it could be that you wanna ask
Gemni for today's weather, or traffic jams occuring the same day of
the week as today, etc. As a syntactic sugar, you can insert in
"prompt" option, any variable prefixed with a dollar sign ($) which
correspond to a method of DateTime module applied to DateTime-now()>
object, and it will be replaced by the result of this method in the
prompt sent to Gemini. For example, in the FamousBirthday example
below, if run on June 21st, the prompt sent to Gemini would be:

'Which famous people have their birthday on June 21? Give a list of up to 6 people, then after the list give the unformatted URL of the Wikipedia page of only one of them, no comments and no need for an introduction like "Here are some famous people".'

You should be careful that such variables are not interpreted by the
Shell before calling spread-revolutionary-date, specially if
specified as command line parameters. You can prevent such
intepretation by the Shell by enclosing the option in single quotes,
like the examples above.

"intro"

You may want that the spread message to start with your own
introducing words before displaying Gemini answer. You can specify
this with the "intro" option.

Likewise, this option use the same syntactic sugar relative to
methods of DateTime module. For example, the message spread on June
21st by the FamousBirthday example bellow, would be something like

Famous people born on June 21 for better or for worse:
First Name
Second Name
Third Name
Fourth Name
Fifth Name
Sixth Name

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Name
#IAGenerated #FamousBirthday

"search"

Gemini answer is based on data that have been used to train the AI.
But sometimes you want accurate answers grounded on some real time
searches. In this case, you should specify the "search" option with a
true value, and Gemini answers will be grounded on grounded sources
(inline supporting links) and Google Search suggestions.

This is used in the MeteoParis example bellow, to have Gemini search
for today's weather in Paris from meteo-paris.com website.

"img_path"

This option allows to add a local image on the spread message.

"img_alt"

This option specifies an alternative text to an image added on the
spread message. If unset, the alternative text will be the name of
the file specified in "img_path" or "img_url" options.

"img_url"

This option allows to add a remote image on the spread message.

Finally, one word of localization: you don't need it, since Gemini will
answer in the language you've used in your prompt. Or you can ask in
your prompt to be answered in another language, like:

prompt FamousBirthday = 'Which famous people have their birthday on $month_name $day? Give a list of up to 6 people, then after the list give the unformatted URL of the Wikipedia page of only one of them, no comments and no need for an introduction like "Here are some famous people" or "Hier sind 6 berÃ¼hmte PersÃ¶nlichkeiten,". Answer in German, please!.'

The only place where you should be concerned by localization is when
you define an introduction to be prepended to Gemini answer. Since it
is a configured static string, it should be written in the desired
language, like:

intro FamousBirthday = 'FamousBirthday=BerÃ¼hmte Personen, die am $day $month_name geboren wurden, im Guten wie im Schlechten:'

Also, if you use some syntactic sugars relative to methods of DateTime
module that are localizable, like month_name, you should use the
"locale" option to have it translated in the desired language.

And now you are ready to spread whatever your like, with just some
configuration tweaks!

Be aware that Gemini, like any other AI, has no concept of truth. It
can only give formally probable answers, based on its training data. So
do not ask somehing where truth mattersâ€¦ Also, all data you're sending
to Gemini are assumed to not be private anymore and could be used by
Google for any purpose! And finally, keep in mind that each request to
Gemini AI consumes a huge amount of resources, which is detrimental to
the environment.

INTERNATIONALIZATION AND LOCALIZATION

Starting from version 0.11, this distribution uses the widespread
internationalization and localization system gettext
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gettext>, commonly used for writing
multilingual programs. See GNU gettext documentation
<https://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/gettext.html> for details. From
the point of view of a translator, this is rather simple.

Translators can find a portable object template
po/App-SpreadRevolutionaryDate.pot which includes all translatable
strings used by spread-revolutionary-date (but not translations of
days, months, feasts used in the French Revolutionary Calendar, see
below). They can copy this template to a portable object file of their
language and translate strings of this file. For example, a German
translator would work on po/de.po. All strings to be translated are
laid down in lines beginning with msgid keyword, and translations
should go on the next line beginning with keyword msgstr. E.g.:

msgid "Please, enter message to spread"

A German translator would have to replace the next line:

msgstr ""

by:

msgstr "Bitte geben Sie die Nachricht zu verbreiten ein"

When the string to be translated includes some words in curly braces,
these words are actually named variables and should be left as is in
the translation. E.g.:

msgid "or {abort} to abort"
msgstr "oder {abort}, um abzubrechen"

And that's it! As of version 0.11 of spread-revolutionary-date, there
is only about a dozen of strings to translate, mainly for PromptUser
message maker. But with the possibility to extend to other message
makers, you may need more and more strings to be translated.

Translating days, months and feasts used in the RevolutionaryDate
message maker do not use the gettext system. Mainly because it uses
DateTime::Calendar::FrenchRevolutionary which proposes French and
English translations in dedicated Perl modules.
spread-revolutionary-date keeps the same way for translating
expressions used in the French revolutionary calendar, but, thanks to
Moose::Role
App::SpreadRevolutionaryDate::MsgMaker::RevolutionaryDate::Locale,
translatable nominal groups have been isolated from other Perl code.
Their translations lie in a consuming class in the
App::SpreadRevolutionaryDate::MsgMaker::RevolutionaryDate::Locale::
namespace for each translated language. These classes are named after
the two-letter (ISO 639-1 <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_639-1>) or
three-letter (ISO 639-2 <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_639-2> and
ISO 639-3 <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_639-3>) lowercase
abbreviation of the corresponding language. For example, a German
translator would work on
App::SpreadRevolutionaryDate::MsgMaker::RevolutionaryDate::Locale::de
class.

Just copy the French class (from
lib/App/SpreadRevolutionaryDate/MsgMaker/RevolutionaryDate/Locale/fr.pm
file) into the desired language, change the name of the class and
replace every French string. E.g.: the names of the months should be
replace in:

has '+months' => (
default => sub {[
'VendÃ©miaire', 'Brumaire', 'Frimaire',
'NivÃ´se', 'PluviÃ´se', 'VentÃ´se',
'Germinal', 'FlorÃ©al', 'Prairial',
'Messidor', 'Thermidor', 'Fructidor',
'jour complÃ©mentaire',
]},
);

by names in German:

has '+months' => (
default => sub {[
'Herbstmonat', 'Nebelmonat', 'Reifmonat',
'Schneemonat', 'Regenmonat', 'Windmonat',
'Keimmonat', 'BlÃ¼tenmonat', 'Wiesenmonat',
'Erntemonat', 'Hitzemonat', 'Fruchtmonat',
'ErgÃ¤nzungstage',
]},
);

Feasts include a special trick, because they can be used in sentences
like this is feast name day or c'est le jour de la feast name.
Depending on the language, it could then be prefixed or suffixed: in
English it is suffixed by day, whereas in French it is prefixed by
jour de la . Prefixes are translated as an array of strings, while the
suffix is translated in a single string. The reason is that in
languages where the feast of the day is prefixed, the prefix often
depends on the gender or the number of the noun used for the feast, or
whereas this noun starts by a vowel, and other factors depending on the
language. Therefore, each translation of the feast of each day should
starts with a digit specifying the index (starting from 0) in the
translated array of prefixes to use for this word. E.g.: with prefixes
translated by ['jour du ', 'jour de la ', "jour de l'", 'jour des '],
some feast can be translated by '1carotte', '2amaranthe', '0panais'
(because you say: jour de la carotte, with prefix number 1, jour de
l'amaranthe, with prefix number 2, and jour du panais, with prefix
number 0). If the language does not use any prefix before the feast of
the day, each translation for the feast of the day should start with 0,
and the array of prefixes should include an empty string as its single
element. If the language does not use a suffix after the feast of the
day, the translation of the sufix should be an empty string.

Note also that any space in the name of the feast of the day should be
replaced by an underscore (_).

Finally, these translation classes include a mapping between the feast
of the day and the wikipedia entry for this word. This is useful when
the feast of the day corresponds to an ambiguous entry, or a different
word, in wikipedia. If the wikipedia entry is the same as the feast of
the day, you can omit it. If the wikipedia entry is different from the
feast of the day, you should add a line in the appropriate group of
mappings for the considered month (groups of mappings are numbered from
1 to 13). In the left part of this new mapping you should use the feast
of the day as you have translated it, but without the number indicating
the prefix and with spaces, not underscores. And in the right part of
this new mapping, you should use the wikipedia entry, i.e. the end of
the wikipedia url. E.g.:

has '+wikipedia_entries' => (
default => sub {{
2 => {
'water chestnut' => 'Water_caltrop',
},
8 => {
'hoe' => 'Hoe_(tool)',
},
}},
);

Because of the trick on prefix and suffix for feasts and the needed
mapping for wikipedia entries, using the gettext system would be quite
difficult. It wouldn't be an issue for translating names of months or
days. But for consistency reasons, I'd rather group all these
translations used in the French Revolutionary Calendar in the same
translation class. Nevertheless, I'm open to find solutions if you
think it would be easier to translate everything with the gettext
system.