Posting Trello Cards from a Running UE4 Game

This tutorial will give a step-by-step guide for creating Trello cards from inside a running Unreal Engine 4 project. While you can use this for just about anything you can think of, I personally use this as a way for my players to post bugs from inside the game. If you're not familiar with Trello, I highly suggest you check it out. It's a great tool for project management and organization. It should go without saying, but you're going to need an account on Trello in order to make any progress here.

I also want to mention at this point that this will be a C++ tutorial. Without some form of additional plug-in or other engine modification, you can't make the needed HTTP Request calls. Also, setting this up will assuming you know how to add input mappings and have worked with Widgets a bit.

Note: This was created UE4 4.17.

This article was originally published at Ding! Games.

We're going to start simple, but I'll talk about a few ideas for adding in some variance toward the bottom.

Part I: Trello

We're going to start by going through some steps to authorize access to your Trello account and get the information we need in order to post new cards onto the board of your choice. In the end, we're looking to make an HTTP request to Trello that looks something like this (the italicized parts surrounded by {} are what you'll end up replacing with your own values).

https://api.trello.com/1/cards?key={Your+key}&token={yourtoken}&name={New+card+name}&desc={New+card+description}&idLavels={Label}&idList={list}

Step 1: Key

The first thing to do is generate a key with your Trello account. This will let you start to get the rest of the required items. While logged into Trello, go to the following link:

https://trello.com/app-key

Step 2: Token

The next step is to authorize write access. Copy the below address, but replace {Your+Key} with the key you got from Step 1 (make sure you take out the {} as well).

https://trello.com/1/authorize?key={Your+Key}&scope=read%2Cwrite&name=My+Application&expiration=never&response_type=token

Step 3: Board Id

Now you need to get the id of the actual board you want your cards to get posted to. Use the following link (no modifications needed):

https://trello.com/1/members/me/boards?fields=name

Exactly how this looks will depend on which Web Browser you're using. For example, Chrome will just spit out all of the text without organizing it at all, while Firefox will sort and color the data for you. Either one is fine, just look for the long string of alpha-numeric characters right after the name of the board you're specifically looking for.

This id isn't actually needed in the HTTP request line, but you need it to get the next two ids...

Step 4: List

Next up, the list within the board you want the cards to post to. As before copy the below, but replace the board id with the id you got from Step 3.

https://api.trello.com/1/boards/{board+id}/lists

Again, how it breaks it out will be determined by what Web Browser you're using. This is where using something like Firefox will make it a lot easier to pick out the exact one you're looking for. This time, the id (not the pos) you need is before the name of the list you want to post to. Also, make sure you don't inadvertently copy the board id again.

Just one more...

Step 5: Label

Last, but not least, is the label you want put on the card itself when it gets posted. This should be getting familiar, replace the board id in the address with your own.

https://api.trello.com/1/boards/{board+id}/labels

As with step 4, this can be a bit messy if your browser doesn't break it out for you, but you should be getting the hang of it by name. Grab the id (first entry per set) for the color you want your bards to post as.

Okay, hopefully you copied all those ids down somewhere, because you're going to need them for the next part, actually writing out the code.

Part II: C++ Code

Now that we've got all of the various ids that we need, it's time to dive into doing some code.

Step 1: HTTP Module

First up, we need to make a small edit to the build file, and include the HTTP module.

public class Zeus : ModuleRules
{
	public Zeus(ReadOnlyTargetRules Target) : base(Target)
	{
		PublicDependencyModuleNames.AddRange(new string[] { "Core", "CoreUObject", "Engine", "InputCore", "HTTP" });

		PrivateDependencyModuleNames.AddRange(new string[] {  });
	}
}

Step 2: Header Definition

Now, on to the actual implementation. I added my logic in the Game Mode, but you can actually put it just about anywhere you want. I'm also going to show a very simplistic setup, although I'll give some ideas on how to expand upon it at the bottom.

#pragma once

#include "ZeusFunctionLibrary.h"
#include "StandardPlayerController.h"
#include "Http.h"

#include "GameFramework/GameMode.h"
#include "ZeusGameMode.generated.h"

UCLASS()
class ZEUS_API AZeusGameMode : public AGameMode
{
	GENERATED_BODY()
	
public:
	AZeusGameMode();
	
	/** Used to report a bug */
	UFUNCTION(BlueprintCallable, Category = "Trello")
	void ReportBug(FString Name, FString Description);

	UFUNCTION(BlueprintImplementableEvent, Category = "Trello")
	void ReportBugComplete(bool bWasSuccessful);

private:
	void OnReportBugComplete(FHttpRequestPtr Request, FHttpResponsePtr Response, bool bWasSuccessful);
	
};

There are three functions defined in the above code:

Now to the best part, submitting the card!

Step 3: Implementation

Here's the code:

#include "Zeus.h"
#include "ZeusGameMode.h"

const FString TrelloCards = "https://api.trello.com/1/cards?";

const FString Key = "1234567890abcdefghijklmnopqrstuv";
const FString Token = "123456789abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz123456789abcdefghijklmnopqrst";
const FString Label = "123456789abcdefghijklmno";
const FString List = "123456789abcdefghijklmno";

AZeusGameMode::AZeusGameMode()
{
	// Nothing extra needed in the constructor for this
}

void AZeusGameMode::ReportBug(FString Name, FString Description)
{
	TSharedRef Request = FHttpModule::Get().CreateRequest();
	Request->SetVerb("POST");

	//Replace all the spaces with +
	Name = Name.Replace(TEXT(" "), TEXT("+"));
	Description = Description.Replace(TEXT(" "), TEXT("+"));
	
	//Construct the HTTP url
	FString URL = TrelloCards +
		"key=" + Key +
		"&token=" + Token +
		"&name=" + Name +
		"&desc=" + Description + "+(V:+" + UZeusFunctionLibrary::GetProjectVersion() + ")" +
		"&idList=" + List +
		"&idLabels=" + Label;

	// Set the built URL
	Request->SetURL(URL);
	// Bind OnReportBugComplete() to be called once the request is complete
	Request->OnProcessRequestComplete().BindUObject(this, &AZeusGameMode::OnReportBugComplete);
	// Process the request
	Request->ProcessRequest();
}

void AZeusGameMode::OnReportBugComplete(FHttpRequestPtr Request, FHttpResponsePtr Response, bool bWasSuccessful)
{
	// Calls up to a Blueprint implemented event
	ReportBugComplete(bWasSuccessful);
}

All of the logic takes place in the ReportBug function, essentially going through the following steps:

That's it for the code level. This alone gives you a good bit of freedom for what to do, but I'll show you a simple implementation at the Blueprint level next.

Phase 3: Blueprints

Step 1: Widget

First, lets build out our Widget that the player will actually use to input their bug:

I was looking for functional when I threw this together, not pretty. It's an extremely simplistic Widget, with some texts boxes for the user to input a title and description of the bug, and then either Submit, or Cancel.

The buttons have the following attached to their respective OnClick() events:

Submit:

Cancel:

Step 2: Input Mapping

Under project Settings->Input, we want to add an action mapping to start of this whole series of events:

Step 3: Report Bug Event

Last, but not least, we need to fill out the logic for when the user actually presses F12. I put this in the Blueprinted version of my Player Controller, but you can put this in anything that receives user input:

A couple of things to note here is that I automatically take a screenshot and pause the game. Neither or required, but I find both to be handy.

Conclusion

And there you have it! While running, you should now be able to press F12, create a bug report and submit it to Trello, where it should appear almost instantly.

Now, as I mentioned earlier, this is a rather straightforward approach that has the potential for expansion. For example, as it stands, the Board, List and Labels are currently hard coded values, meaning that you always post to the same place with the same label marking it. You could expand upon that by putting in a drop-down for the play to choose how critical of a bug they found, passing that as a variable down to the ReportBug() method (such as in the form of an enum), which you could then use to select which label gets attached.

You could also let the player submit recommendations or feedback in addition to bug reports, which could result in the cards being posted to a different list, or completely different board. The variations are endless, but ultimately, anything that lets the player quickly provide some form of feedback without having to leave the game or do something else is ideal.

Hopefully you don't have any trouble getting any of the above implemented, but if you do, please feel free to post your questions, and I'll see what I can do.

Best of luck!

Shawn

Shawn is the Designer/Developer at Ding! Games. They are currently working on a game code-named Zeus, a RPG Action/Puzzle game. For more great articles or to get the latest news bout game development, visit them at their site.