Posting to a Feed

To post a feed item, build an instance of ConnectApi.FeedItemInput and set its body to an instance of MessageBodyInput. MessageBodyInput contains the data necessary to post @mentions and other rich text.

This code parses out @-mentions from user-provided text and converts the text into a ConnectApi.FeedItemInput that's ready to post.

[code apex] public class FeedBodyParser { // use to extract the user id as a group // Put in double backslashes into regex because Apex doesn't recognize that its a regex // actual regex is @\[[^\]]{4,}\]\(contact:(\w{15,18})\) public static final String MENTIONGROUPPATTERN = '@\\[[^\\]]{4,}\\]\\(user:(\\w{15,18})\\)'; // use to extract the entire mention format public static final String MENTIONPATTERN = '@\\[[^\\]]{4,}\\]\\(user:\\w{15,18}\\)'; public class postTooLargeException extends Exception {} // used to store mentions extracted from the post public class Mention { public Integer groupStart { get; set; } public Integer groupEnd { get; set; } public String text { get; set; } } // parse post text into a list of Mentions public static List extractAllMentions(String post) { Pattern pat = Pattern.compile(MENTIONPATTERN); Matcher matcher = pat.matcher(post); List mentions = new List(); while(matcher.find()) { Mention mention = new Mention(); mention.text = matcher.group(); // text of matched mention mention.groupStart = matcher.start(); // position in string where mention starts mention.groupEnd = matcher.end() ; // position after the last char of the mention mentions.add(mention); } return mentions; } // parse the post body, placing @mentions and text into the passed in // segments list. Works with both feed items and comments - just pass in the // segments that are assigned to the appropriate object. public static void buildSegments(String postText, List segments) { List mentions = extractAllMentions(postText); if (mentions.size() > 0) { System.debug('mention[0]' + mentions[0]); // the cursor is the char position inside post Integer cursor = 0; for (Mention mention: mentions) { // cursor is maintained at the beginning of a mention or text segment by moving it one char past the current // mention at every iteration of this loop. if (mention.groupStart > cursor) { // there is text between where the cursor is and the start of this mention so store the text first. // we know there is text (and we're not at end of string) because there's a mention with a start point to the right // of the cursor. ConnectApi.TextSegmentInput textSegment = new ConnectApi.TextSegmentInput(); textSegment.text = postText.subString(cursor, mention.groupStart); segments.add(textSegment); } // next, store the mention ConnectApi.MentionSegmentInput mentionSegment = new ConnectApi.MentionSegmentInput(); String temptxt = parseOneMention(mention.text); mentionSegment.id = parseOneMention(mention.text); segments.add(mentionSegment); cursor = mention.groupEnd; // move cursor 1 char past where this mention ended } // After the last mention, there may be a text segment if (cursor < postText.length()) { ConnectApi.TextSegmentInput textSegment = new ConnectApi.TextSegmentInput(); textSegment.text = postText.subString(cursor, postText.length()); segments.add(textSegment); } } else { // no mentions in the post, just store the whole post as a text segment. ConnectApi.TextSegmentInput textSegment = new ConnectApi.TextSegmentInput(); textSegment.text = postText; segments.add(textSegment); } } // parse the user id out of a string that has one mention in it and return it. public static String parseOneMention(String mentionStr) { Pattern pat = Pattern.compile(MENTIONGROUPPATTERN); Matcher matcher = pat.matcher(mentionStr); matcher.find(); return matcher.group(1); } // returns a corresponding FeedItemInput which can be used to post a new feed item public static ConnectApi.FeedItemInput convertToFeedItemInput(String postText) { // failsafe - postText size should be controlled by browser. if (postText.length() > 2000) { throw new postTooLargeException('post too large'); } ConnectApi.FeedItemInput feedItemInput = new ConnectApi.FeedItemInput(); feedItemInput.body = new ConnectApi.MessageBodyInput(); buildSegments(postText, feedItemInput.body.messageSegments); return feedItemInput; } } [/code] Use the following code with a VisualForce page that makes use of jquery-mentions formatting for the text that gets passed in as feedItemText for each of the methods. [code apex] global class FeedItemPoster { global static ConnectApi.FeedItem postTextFeedItem(String feedItemText) { ConnectApi.FeedItemInput feedItemInput = FeedBodyParser.convertToFeedItemInput(feedItemText); return ConnectApi.ChatterFeeds.postFeedItem(null, ConnectApi.FeedType.News, 'me', feedItemInput, null); } global static ConnectApi.FeedItem postFileFeedItem(String feedItemText, Blob fileBlob, String title, String description, String filename) { ConnectApi.FeedItemInput feedItemInput = FeedBodyParser.convertToFeedItemInput(feedItemText); // file attachment ConnectApi.NewFileAttachmentInput fileIn = new ConnectApi.NewFileAttachmentInput(); fileIn.title = title; // user-given "name" is set using the title fileIn.description = description; feedItemInput.attachment = fileIn; ConnectApi.BinaryInput feedBinary = new ConnectApi.BinaryInput(fileBlob, null, filename); return ConnectApi.ChatterFeeds.postFeedItem(null, ConnectApi.FeedType.News, 'me', feedItemInput, feedBinary); } global ConnectApi.FeedItem postLinkFeedItem(String feedItemText, String linkName, String linkUrl) { ConnectApi.FeedItemInput feedItemInput = FeedBodyParser.convertToFeedItemInput(feedItemText); ConnectApi.LinkAttachmentInput linkIn = new ConnectApi.LinkAttachmentInput(); linkIn.urlName = linkName; linkIn.url = linkUrl; feedItemInput.attachment = linkIn; return ConnectApi.ChatterFeeds.postFeedItem(null, ConnectApi.FeedType.News, 'me', feedItemInput, null); } } [/code]

Connect in Apex Pilot

Source code:

Overview

View Helper Classes

Getting a Feed

VisualForce for Displaying a Feed

Posting to a Feed