Entity Advanced Templating

The templateparameter in the render() function of the entity Service is an ExtensionML string used to render entities. To render a static object or an iFrame, you can use advanced templating.

For a full ExtensionML reference, continue here:

Message Format - ExtensionML

Template and Data

You can create a reusable template that leverages the values in the data object for the specific object. When using the data for these attributes, the template uses the id attribute on the tag to specify which member of the data object holds these attributes.

For example, the template and data below could be used to display a link within a Symphony message:

<!-- A <text> primitive must be used to inject 
     text objects from the JSON data into the template -->
<messageml>
  <a id="url"><text id="text"></a>
</messageml>

{
  url: "https://www.symphony.com",
  text: "Symphony website"
}

Flow Control Tags

Use the following flow control tags to support entities that have conditional logic or recursive data:

Tag	Description
<if>	Use this tag to conditionally use the enclosing template. This tag must include an id attribute. If there is data at the key specified by the id, then the enclosing template will be used, otherwise it will be skipped.
<if:last>	Use this tag within an iteration to conditionally use the enclosing template. If the current iteration is the last item in the iterated list, the enclosing template will be used.
<if:not-last>	Use this tag within an iteration to conditionally use the enclosing template. If the current iteration is not last item in the iterated list, the enclosing template will be used. This is useful to add commas between items in a list, without adding one to the last item.
<iterate>	Use this tag to loop through the items in an array. The template between the opening and closing <iterate> tag will be used for each item in the array. The data for the template will reference the data in current the list item. This tag must include an id attribute. This must be the key to an array in the data object.

Interactivity Tags

Use the following tags to have interactivity on messages by implementing methods that are called to execute business logic:

Tag	Description
<action>	Use this tag to enable clicks on entities. For more information on how to use the action tag, refer to Using Actions.

Using Actions

The following steps show examples on how to use actions.

1. Add the <action> tag to an entity template.

<entity id="survey-voting-template" class="template">
    <card id="card">
        <h3>How did you like today's <text id="type"/> from <text id="venue"/>?</h3>
        <p>
            Please provide feedback by clicking one of the stars below to rate the meal.
        </p>
        <p>
            <action id="onestar"/>
            <action id="twostars"/>
            <action id="threestars"/>
            <action id="fourstars"/>
            <action id="fivestars"/>
        </p>
        <p>
            Voting ends at <text id="end"/>
        </p>
    </card>
</entity>

1. The data field of the entity must have objects that match the actions ids. For these objects, we can provide an icon, a label and a service name for the action.

 onestar: {
                icon: 'icon_url',
                label: '',
                service: serviceName,
                data: {}
              }

1. Implement an action method for the service of the entity renderer. This method will be called once the <action> tag is clicked.

action: function(data){
    console.log(data);
        }