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Introduction

FlockML is an XML based markup language used to show rich text messages and attachments in Flock.

<flockml>Hello <strong>foobar</strong>, Welcome to <a href="https://flock.co/">Flock!</a></flockml>

Its salient features are:

Renders natively on both desktop and mobile
Inspired by HTML, so you will be familiar with many FlockML's elements already
Elements for actions specific to Flock, like linking to a user or triggering actions like opening a widget

Elements

flockml

The root element for FlockML. Any FlockML document that doesn't have <flockml> as its root is considered invalid.

Example
`<flockml>Hello World</flockml>`

a

The anchor element <a> defines a hyperlink. Clicking on this opens a URL in the browser.

Example	Rendered
<a href="">Hello World</a>	Hello World

Attributes

Name	Required	Description
`href`	Yes	The URL to link to

em

The emphasis element  is used to emphasise text and is typically italicized.

Example	Rendered
<em>Hello World</em>	Hello World

i

The italics element  is used to italicize text.

Example	Rendered
<i>Hello World</i>	Hello World

strong

The strong element  gives text strong importance, and is typically displayed in bold.

Example	Rendered
<strong>Hello World</strong>	Hello World

b

The bold element  is used to display text in bold.

Example	Rendered
<b>Hello World</b>	Hello World

u

The underline element  renders text with an underline.

Example	Rendered
<u>Hello World</u>	Hello World

br

The line break element   produces a line break in text (carriage-return).

Example

Rendered

Hello<br/>World

Hello

World

user

This element can be used to link to a Flock user.

Example	Rendered
<user userId="u:guid">FirstName LastName</user>	FirstName LastName

Attributes

Name	Required	Description
`userId`	Yes	Should be a user identifier.

If the Flock client knows the user's name, it will ignore any text content inside. Otherwise, it will display the text content if present.
If the Flock client doesn't know the user's name, and no text content is provided, it will display "Unknown User".

action

The action element allows an app to trigger a client action. The associated event is client.flockmlAction.

Example
click <action id="act1" type="openWidget" url="<url>" desktopType="sidebar" mobileType="modal">here</action> to launch a widget.

Attributes

Name Required Description

type

Yes

The type of action to trigger. Should be one of:

openWidget
openBrowser
sendEvent

id No An identifier for the action. It is included in the payload for client.flockmlAction as the actionId attribute.

If type is openWidget, the following attributes should also be provided:

Name	Required	Description
`url`	Yes	The widget URL
`desktopType`	Yes	The type of widget in desktop. Should be either `modal` or `sidebar`. Defaults to `modal`.
`mobileType`	Yes	The type of widget in mobile. If provided, it should be set to `modal`.

If type is openBrowser, the following attributes should be provided:

Name	Required	Description
`url`	Yes	The URL to open
`sendContext`	No	Whether to send context to the URL or not. Should be either `true` or `false`. Default value is `false`.

If type is sendEvent, no other attribute needs to be provided.