Botframework-sdk: [Skype for Business] Bot responses appear in Times font on Windows

[tangochris]

Bot Info

This issue applies to all SFB bots built on the Tangowork platform, but we'll provide the bot info for one of our test environments:

• Bot handle: bobsheetz
• App ID: 0046d486-6b93-49b0-9047-02c6dd535994
• SDK Platform: Node.js
• SDK Version: 3.11.0
• Active Channels: Skype, Skype for Business, Slack
• Deployment Environment: EC2 on AWS

Issue Description

We are implementing a Skype for Business chatbot at the head office of an 80,000-employee organization.

All bot responses appear in the Times font. This affects Windows only, not Mac.

Code Example

We've tried sending as text, markdown, and XML, with the same results.

// Markdown code

session.send(new Message(session).textFormat('markdown').text('test'));

// Plain text code

session.send(new Message(session).textFormat('plain').text('<b>test</b>'));

// XML code

session.send(new Message(session).textFormat('xml').text('<b>test</b>'));

Reproduction Steps

1. Get a bot to respond to your input on Skype for Business, Windows 7 or Windows Server 2012 R2
2. Notice the font of the utterance vs the font of the response

Expected Behavior

1. We expect the font of the response to match the font of the utterance.
2. We expect the font of the response to look the same as a message sent from any other user
3. We expect that the only situation a unique font should be used is if we were actually sending font information (which we are not)

Actual Results

The font of the response is in Times / Times New Roman. It does not match the utterance. No font information was sent by the bot: it's just plain text.

This issue may not bother developers, but it is a BIG DEAL for people working in design / communications / PR.

This issue does not affect SFB on Mac or iOS.

See screenshots:

[JasonSowers]

This is well outside the scope of this forum as it is a Skype for business issue. I pinged the S4B team, but there is nothing the bot framework team can do for this. Maybe they can offer some help.

[nwhitmont]

Please contact Tangowork support for questions about Tangowork bots.

[tangochris]

@nwhitmont I am Tangowork. I was just trying to say that this issue affects a dozen of our bots, not just one, but I gave you a single App ID.

The issue is either:

1. Bot Framework is sending font information / formatting instructions, when none has been specified in code OR
2. Skype for Business is messed up somehow, in which case it would be helpful if you could forward this to the SFB team, as I don't have access to them.

This is affecting other people's Skype for Business bots too: see these screenshots from #3119 and #2943:

Bot response in Times font:

Another bot response in Times font:

[amehta3000]

@intranetchris any resolution on your end? We are seeing the same issues from PC to Mac, along with other SFB formatting inconsistencies between platforms using markdown and/or html.

[tangochris]

@amehta3000 No, no resolution. We're just resigned to waiting for SFB to be replaced by Teams.

If you can figure out how to contact the SFB team, let me know. I can't find any similar forum for reporting bugs.

[ctshivakumar]

Any resolution on Bot responses appear in Times font ? We are seeing the same issues in skype for business bot.

[mmalaiarasan-conga]

+1, Facing the same issue.

[gongbf]

+1 Facing the same issue , any links or update related to this issue pls ?

[gongbf]

@nwhitmont Hi sir , my bot is build on Azure bot service and I have this issue too . Could you pls provide a way to contact S4B support channel or do you have any ideas about it ?

[mrgorzny]

+1 Same here. We're using MS Bot framework for different channels and the problem only appears with Skype for Business.

[EricDahlvang]

Has anyone on this thread tried manually setting the font using html? http://blog.greenl.ee/2012/01/29/sending-formatted-ims-ucma-application/

[amehta3000]

You can, but is doesn't work cross platform. Will render in a PC, but OSX
won't necc recognize it or vice versa. Bot framework still recommends using
Markdown as it wasn't intentionally designed for HTML support like that.

On Wed, Apr 4, 2018 at 5:17 PM, Eric Dahlvang [e-mail]
wrote:

Has anyone on this thread tried manually setting the font using html?
http://blog.greenl.ee/2012/01/29/sending-formatted-ims-ucma-application/

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[tangochris]

@EricDahlvang We tried. We found we can get HTML to work on Windows, but it messes up Mac: either the HTML itself is output, or nothing is output at all.

To me, what is strangest is that the Times font is uniquely applied to bots. I don't understand why the formatting rules that are applied to normal user-to-user conversation are not also applied to bots.

[tinakashyap]

we are also facing the same issue. It seems like MS has kept Times/Times New Roman font as the default. It looks odd and affects UX

[sgellock]

Thank you for opening an issue against the Bot Framework SDK v3. As part of the Bot Framework v4 release, we’ve moved all v3 work to a new repo located at https://github.com/microsoft/botbuilder-v3. We will continue to support and offer maintenance updates to v3 via this new repo.

From now on, https://github.com/microsoft/botbuilder repo will be used as hub, with pointers to all the different SDK languages, tools and samples repos.

As part of this restructuring, we are closing all tickets in this repo.

For defects or feature requests, please create a new issue in the new Bot Framework v3 repo found here:
https://github.com/microsoft/botbuilder-v3/issues

For Azure Bot Service Channel specific defects or feature requests (e.g. Facebook, Twilio, Teams, Slack, etc.), please create a new issue in the new Bot Framework Channel repo found here:
https://github.com/microsoft/botframework-services/issues

For product behavior, how-to, or general understanding questions, please use Stackoverflow.
https://stackoverflow.com/search?q=bot+framework

Thank you.

The Bot Framework Team