Set time of Activity.Typing animation

Question

I'm trying to create some animation during the time when I fetch the data from a server. "Typing" activity seems to be reasonable but it works only for ~4 seconds :

Activity reply = activity.CreateReply();
reply.Type = ActivityTypes.Typing;
reply.Text = null;
ConnectorClient connector = new ConnectorClient(new Uri(activity.ServiceUrl));
await connector.Conversations.ReplyToActivityAsync(reply);

I was trying to do async listening:

while (!_fetchEnded)
{
   await connector.Conversations.ReplyToActivityAsync(reply);
   Thread.Sleep(3000);
}

But bot it creates laggy behaviour. Is there a possibility to set the duration of "typing" activity or another way around to prevent turning the typing on and off?

Answer 1

Typing is displayed only a few seconds by default. You can force the display typing indicator longer by sending again typing events at a lower frequency.

Implementation example, where it will send events every 2 seconds, for 30 seconds max:

public async Task<HttpResponseMessage> Post([FromBody]Microsoft.Bot.Connector.Activity activity, CancellationToken token)
{
    // Send Typing messages
    var typingCancellation = new CancellationTokenSource(TimeSpan.FromSeconds(30));
    var typingTask = SendTypingActivityUntilCancellation(activity, TimeSpan.FromSeconds(2), typingCancellation.Token);

    try
    {
        // Activity treatment
        if (activity.Type == ActivityTypes.Message)
        {
            // ...
        }
        else if (activity.Type == ActivityTypes.Event && activity.ChannelId == ChannelEnum.directline.ToString())
        {
            // ...
        }

        typingCancellation.Cancel();
        await typingTask;
        return Request.CreateResponse(HttpStatusCode.OK);
    }
    catch (Exception e)
    {
        typingCancellation.Cancel();
        await typingTask;
        return Request.CreateResponse(HttpStatusCode.InternalServerError);
    }
}

public async Task SendTypingActivityUntilCancellation(Activity activity, TimeSpan period, CancellationToken cancellationtoken)
{
    try
    {
        var connector = new ConnectorClient(new Uri(activity.ServiceUrl));
        Activity isTypingReply = activity.CreateReply();
        isTypingReply.Type = ActivityTypes.Typing;

        do
        {
            if (cancellationtoken.IsCancellationRequested == false)
            {
                await connector.Conversations.ReplyToActivityAsync(isTypingReply);
            }

            // Check again if token has not been canceled during the reply delay
            if (cancellationtoken.IsCancellationRequested == false)
            {
                await Task.Delay(period);
            }
        }
        while (cancellationtoken.IsCancellationRequested == false);
    }
    catch (OperationCanceledException)
    {
        //nothing to do.
    }
}