Discord Bot Tutorial#7Getting User Input with a Modal (Python Example)

📌 Previous part in the series: Discord Bot Tutorial #6 - Implementing a Dropdown (Select Menu)

Hi there! This is Mojangcam 😎

Last time, we learned how to neatly fit multiple choices into a dropdown (Select Menu), right? But buttons and dropdowns both make users pick from preset choices. So what do you do when users need to type their own text freely?

This time, we're going to build a Modal that does exactly that! A modal is a popup input form that appears in the middle of the screen when a user runs a command. It's used almost anywhere "the user has to type something themselves": support requests, suggestion boxes, nickname registration, report forms, and more. It's much cleaner than making people type long messages in the chat, and you can collect several fields at once!

📌 What You Need

• Python 3.8 or later
• discord.py latest 2.x version (Modals are supported starting from 2.0)
• A bot token + the bot already invited to your server (see Part 1 of the series)

pip install -U discord.py

Here's how to check your version:

pip show discord.py

If it shows something like Version: 2.x (2.x or later), you're good! Modals are a feature supported starting from discord.py 2.0, so they won't work on 1.x.

📌 Step 1 - Creating the Modal Class

The core of a modal is the discord.ui.Modal class. You subclass it, define the input fields (TextInput), and write what happens when the user submits it (on_submit).

import discord
from discord.ext import commands

class SuggestModal(discord.ui.Modal, title="Suggestion Box 📮"):
    # Short single-line input field
    subject = discord.ui.TextInput(
        label="Subject",
        placeholder="Enter a title for your suggestion",
        max_length=50,
    )

    # Long multi-line input field
    content = discord.ui.TextInput(
        label="Details",
        style=discord.TextStyle.long,
        placeholder="Feel free to write out all the details!",
        required=True,
        max_length=500,
    )

    async def on_submit(self, interaction: discord.Interaction):
        await interaction.response.send_message(
            f"✅ Your suggestion has been received!\n**Subject:** {self.subject.value}\n**Details:** {self.content.value}",
            ephemeral=True,
        )

Let's break it down piece by piece 💡

• title : the big title shown at the very top of the modal popup. You pass it when defining the class, like discord.ui.Modal, title="...".
• TextInput : a single actual input field. When you declare them as class variables, they show up on screen in order from top to bottom. (You can put up to 5 in one modal.)
• label : the name tag shown above the input field.
• style : you can choose discord.TextStyle.short (default, single line) or discord.TextStyle.long (multiple lines).
• placeholder : the gray hint text shown when nothing has been typed yet.
• required / max_length : whether the field is required, and the maximum number of characters. With required=False, the form can be submitted with the field left empty.
• on_submit : the function that runs when the user presses the "Submit" button. You get the entered value with self.입력칸이름.value, where the middle part is the name of your input field.

💡 Here, ephemeral=True is the option to reply with a "message only you can see". It's perfect for replies that shouldn't be visible to others, like suggestions or reports!

📌 Step 2 - Opening the Modal with a Slash Command

Buttons and dropdowns were sent inside a View, but modals don't need a View! Instead, you open them directly with interaction.response.send_modal().

intents = discord.Intents.default()
bot = commands.Bot(command_prefix="!", intents=intents)

@bot.event
async def on_ready():
    await bot.tree.sync()
    print(f"✅ {bot.user} logged in!")

@bot.tree.command(name="건의하기", description="Leave a suggestion for the server!")
async def suggest(interaction: discord.Interaction):
    await interaction.response.send_modal(SuggestModal())

The key point is that send_modal() has to be the first response. Once you've already responded with something like interaction.response.send_message(), you can't open a modal anymore. That's why you usually open the modal right away as soon as the slash command is used.

📌 Step 3 - Adding Error Handling (Optional)

Adding on_error makes things safer in case something goes wrong while the modal is being submitted.

async def on_error(self, interaction: discord.Interaction, error: Exception):
    await interaction.response.send_message(
        "⚠️ Something went wrong while processing. Please try again in a moment.", ephemeral=True
    )
    print(error)

Just put this function inside the SuggestModal class above, below on_submit, at the same indentation level.

📌 Full Code (Copy-Paste OK)

# discord.py 2.x / Python 3.8+
import discord
from discord.ext import commands

class SuggestModal(discord.ui.Modal, title="Suggestion Box 📮"):
    subject = discord.ui.TextInput(
        label="Subject",
        placeholder="Enter a title for your suggestion",
        max_length=50,
    )
    content = discord.ui.TextInput(
        label="Details",
        style=discord.TextStyle.long,
        placeholder="Feel free to write out all the details!",
        required=True,
        max_length=500,
    )

    async def on_submit(self, interaction: discord.Interaction):
        await interaction.response.send_message(
            f"✅ Your suggestion has been received!\n**Subject:** {self.subject.value}\n**Details:** {self.content.value}",
            ephemeral=True,
        )

    async def on_error(self, interaction: discord.Interaction, error: Exception):
        await interaction.response.send_message(
            "⚠️ Something went wrong while processing. Please try again in a moment.", ephemeral=True
        )
        print(error)

intents = discord.Intents.default()
bot = commands.Bot(command_prefix="!", intents=intents)

@bot.event
async def on_ready():
    await bot.tree.sync()
    print(f"✅ {bot.user} logged in!")

@bot.tree.command(name="건의하기", description="Leave a suggestion for the server!")
async def suggest(interaction: discord.Interaction):
    await interaction.response.send_modal(SuggestModal())

bot.run("YOUR_BOT_TOKEN")

📌 Result

When you type /건의하기 (suggest), a "Suggestion Box" popup appears in the middle of the screen with two fields: Subject and Details. Fill them in and press Submit, and you'll get a "Your suggestion has been received!" message that only you can see.

💡 Bonus: if you want to send the submitted content to an admin channel, find that channel inside on_submit and send it as an embed. That gives you a real "suggestion box bot"!

async def on_submit(self, interaction: discord.Interaction):
    log_channel = interaction.guild.get_channel(관리자채널_ID)
    embed = discord.Embed(title=f"📮 New suggestion: {self.subject.value}", description=self.content.value)
    embed.set_footer(text=f"From: {interaction.user}")
    await log_channel.send(embed=embed)
    await interaction.response.send_message("✅ Your suggestion has been received!", ephemeral=True)

📌 Common Errors

1. InteractionResponded: This interaction has already been responded to

You get this error when you call send_modal() on an interaction that has already been responded to. A modal must always be opened as the first response. Once you've sent a different response, for example in a button callback, you can't open a modal.

2. The modal won't show up because it has 6 or more input fields

A single modal can only hold up to 5 TextInput fields. If you need to collect more, split the content and design it as multiple steps.

3. AttributeError: 'str' object has no attribute 'value'

When reading an input value, you have to add .value, like self.subject.value instead of self.subject, to get the actual text. If you forget .value, you get the TextInput object itself.

📌 Wrapping Up

Today we learned how to get text input directly from users with a Modal! Going from buttons → dropdowns → modals, we've now covered almost all of Discord's interactive UI 🙌 In the next part, we'll cover how to make embeds look great by adding images and fields. Stay tuned!

📚 Discord Bot Tutorial Series #4 Sending Embeds with Slash Commands #5 Implementing Button Interactions #6 Implementing a Dropdown (Select Menu) #7 Getting User Input with a Modal ← You are here!