Examples /

Message Formatting

Format bot's text messages using parse modes.

Telegram allows you to format your messages and make them look better. By providing 'parse_mode' option while sending messages, your bot can also do this.

As usual, import the main `Bot` class from grammY.

import { Bot } from "https://deno.land/x/grammy@v1.11.0/mod.ts";

Next step: create an instance of the bot using your Bot Token.

const bot = new Bot("BOT_TOKEN");

Lets say a bold hello to the user, when they use the `/start` command. We're using "MarkdownV2" parse mode for it.

bot.command("start", async (ctx) => {
  await ctx.reply("*Hello there\!*", {
    parse_mode: "MarkdownV2",
  });
});

There is also the HTML parse mode. Lets design a help message using the HTML mode.

bot.command("help", async (ctx) => {
  await ctx.reply(
    "<b>Help</b>\n" +
      "I can show you ID of the current chat. Just send /id!\n\n" +
      `This chat's ID is: <code>${ctx.chat.id}</code>`,
    { parse_mode: "HTML" },
  );
});

There is also Markdown V1. This only exists for backward compatibility. You shouldn't be using this for your bot. But for demonstration purposes:

bot.command("id", async (ctx) => {
  await ctx.reply("`" + ctx.chat.id + "`", {
    parse_mode: "Markdown",
  });
});

Make the bot online.

bot.start();

Now you know how to make your bot's messages look cooler in chats. Check out the additional resources below for more information related to message formatting. grammY also has an official parse mode plugin which makes your code much cleaner and simplify the work. We'll look into that in a different chapter.

Run this example locally using the Deno CLI:

deno run --allow-net https://yex.deno.dev/message-formatting.ts

Additional resources:

Commands Inline Keyboards