List of helpers in the library

Our library is mainly a bridge between your application and Telegram Bot API.
However, to simplify your life, we also provide a set of additional helpers methods and services, listed below.

For more advanced features, you can look at high-level bot frameworks constructed around our library

Message and format helpers

• message.MessageLink(): Returns the t.me/... link to this message, or null if the message was not in a Supergroup or Channel
• message.IsServiceMessage: Detect service messages vs content messages
• message.ToMarkdown() to convert the message to Markdown format (Not recommended)
• message.ToHtml() to convert the message to HTML format (Recommended)
• Markdown.Escape() to escape reserved Markdown characters in a string
• HtmlText.Escape() to escape reserved HTML characters in a string
• HtmlText.ToPlain() to convert HTML string to plain text (removing tags)
• HtmlText.PlainLength() to get the number of characters of plain text from HTML
• HtmlText.Truncate() to truncate HTML string to a number of plain-text characters (while preserving the formatting)
• bot.SendHtml() to send HTML-formatted messages, with support for sending photos/videos and keyboards from one string

Easier information

• chat.ToString() & user.ToString() to easily print/log information about the chat/user
• ChatMember has properties IsAdmin and IsInChat to simplify testing if the user is an admin or currently inside the chat
• ChatMember has property ExpireDate (generic equivalent for UntilDate subclass properties)
• ChatMemberRestricted has a property IsMuted to quickly determine if the user cannot send any type of message

Updates

• bot.DropPendingUpdates() to clear the pending updates queue
• Update.AllTypes is a constant array containing all UpdateTypes, usable with GetUpdates/SetWebhook
• bot.OnMessage / bot.OnUpdate events to easily subscribe to messages or updates (these automatically start a background task to poll for updates)

Telegram files

• bot.GetInfoAndDownloadFile to get file information and download it in a single call
• TelegramBotClient.GetFileIdType(fileId) to determine the type of object stored behind a FileId (photo, video, etc)

Simplified constructors and implicit conversions

We've added easier ways to construct various instances from other types, especially when passing arguments to methods:

• ChatPermissions(bool) and ChatAdministratorRights(bool) constructors to set all Can* fields to the specified value
• ReactionType from an emoji (string) or a customEmojiId (long)
• ReplyParameters from a messageId (int), or a Message class, so you can pass these directly for the replyParameters: argument
• LinkPreviewOptions from a bool where true means to disable the preview
• LinkPreviewOptions from a string URL to show preview for this link
• LabeledPrice from tuple (string label, long amount)
• BotCommand from tuple (string command, string description)
• BotCommandScope has several static methods to construct scopes
• InputFile from a string (fileId or URL), or a Stream, or a received media file, or null

Examples:

await bot.RestrictChatMember(chatId, userId, new ChatPermissions(true)); // unmute
await bot.SetMessageReaction(msg.Chat, msg.Id, ["👍"]);
await bot.SendMessage(msg.Chat, "Visit t.me/tgbots_dotnet", replyParameters: msg, linkPreviewOptions: true);
await bot.SendInvoice(chatId, "Product", "Description", "ProductID", "XTR", [("Price", 500)]);
await Bot.SetMyCommands([("/start", "Start the bot"), ("/privacy", "Privacy policy")], BotCommandScope.AllPrivateChats());
await bot.SendPhoto(msg.Chat, "https://picsum.photos/310/200.jpg");
await bot.SendVideo(msg.Chat, msg.Video, "Sending your video back");

Reply Markup

Keyboards can be easily constructed by passing directly the following type of objects for the replyMarkup: parameter:

Additionally, InlineKeyboardButton can be implicitly constructed from a tuple (string text, string callbackOrUrl) for Callback or Url buttons

await bot.SendMessage(msg.Chat, "Visit our website", replyMarkup: InlineKeyboardButton.WithUrl("Click here", "https://telegrambots.github.io/book/"));
await bot.SendMessage(botOwnerId, $"Annoying user: {msg.From}", replyMarkup: new InlineKeyboardButton[]
    { ("Ban him", $"BAN {msg.From.Id}"), ("Mute him", $"MUTE {msg.From.Id}") });
await bot.SendMessage(msg.Chat, "Keyboard buttons:", replyMarkup: new string[] { "MENU", "INFO", "LANGUAGE" });

Constructing dynamically

ReplyKeyboardMarkup & InlineKeyboardMarkup have methods to help you construct keyboards dynamically:

var replyMarkup = new InlineKeyboardMarkup()
    .AddButton(InlineKeyboardButton.WithUrl("Link to Repository", "https://github.com/TelegramBots/Telegram.Bot"))
    .AddNewRow().AddButton("callback").AddButton("caption", "data")
    .AddNewRow("with", "three", "buttons")
    .AddNewRow().AddButtons("A", "B", InlineKeyboardButton.WithSwitchInlineQueryCurrentChat("switch"));

And you can use new ReplyKeyboardMarkup(true) to resize the reply keyboard.

Mini-App and Login widget validation

• AuthHelpers.ParseValidateData should be used to confirm the authenticity of data received along Telegram's Mini-Apps or the Login Widget javascript requests