Botframework-sdk: Text format (encoding) for chatting with Skype clients

Created on 9 Oct 2016 · 3Comments · Source: microsoft/botframework-sdk

I am trying to use Microsoft Bot Connector API - v3.0 for creating the bot for Skype.

Incoming messages could be either in HTML encoding (so, I should use HttpUtility.HtmlDecode(...) to process them properly) or not. And, there are no any properties or methods in activity object, that could explain, either I should decode the message, or not. So, for the exact message I can't understand, how to process it.
For example, the message
http://www.com <<'>>
appears in the bot as
<a href="http://www.com">http://www.com</a> <<'>>
but the message
<<'>>
appears in the bot as
<<'>>

The bigger problem is a format of outgoing messages. For example, my bot has to send the following message:
http://ux.ua UX
http://ex.ua <body>
When I send it without encoding (as is), the message doesn't reach the client.
When I send it after using HttpUtility.HtmlEncode(...), the message reaches the client, but it appears, as
http://ux.ua UX
http://ex.ua <body>

Unfortunately, the result of the following code:
await _connector.Conversations.ReplyToActivityAsync(message);
the same in both cases (it is null), so my bot can't even determine if the message has reached the client.

Source

akakoychenko

Most helpful comment

How do we set the TextFormat with the node js library?

akanieski on 4 Nov 2016

👍4

All 3 comments

From https://docs.botframework.com/en-us/csharp/builder/sdkreference/activities.html
TextFormat Property
Each message has an optional TextFormat property which represents how to interpret the Text property.
plain The text should be treated as raw text and no formatting applied at all
markdown The text should be treated as markdown formatting (DEFAULT)
xml The text is simple XML markup (subset of HTML) Skype Only

XML
Skype supports a subset of HTML tags it calls XML Markup (sometimes referred to as XMM).
The tags that are supported are:
Style Markdown Description Example
Bold text make the text bold text
Italic text make the text italic text
Underline text Mark a line as underline text
Strikethrough ~~text~~ make the text strikethrough text
link bing create a hyperlink with title bing