Working with Feeds and Feed Items

How the Salesforce UI Displays Feed Items

To give customers a consistent view of feed items and to give developers an easy way to create UI, the Salesforce UI uses one layout to display every feed item, regardless of the feed item type. The layout always contains the same elements and the elements are always in the same position; only the content of the layout elements changes. If you stick to this structure, you won’t have to create a unique layout for every feed item type.

These are the feed item layout elements:

1. Actor (ConnectApi.FeedItem.actor)—A photo or icon of the creator of the feed item. (You can override the creator at the feed item type level. For example, the dashboard snapshot feed item type shows the dashboard as the creator.)
2. Preamble (ConnectApi.FeedItem.preamble)—Provides context. The same feed item can have a different preamble depending on who posted it and where. For example, Gordon posted this feed item to his profile. If he then shared it to a group, the preamble of the feed item in the group feed would be “Gordon Johnson (originally posted by Gordon Johnson)” and the “originally posted” text would link to the feed item on Gordon’s profile.
3. Body (ConnectApi.FeedItem.body)—All feed items have a body, but the body can be null, which is the case when the user doesn’t provide text for the feed item. Because the body can be null you can’t use it as the default case for rendering text. Instead, use the text property of the feed item’s preamble, which always contains a value.
4. Auxiliary Body (ConnectApi.FeedItem.attachment)—The visualization of the attachment. There are multiple attachment types. For example, for a link post, the attachment is the link and name, for a poll, it’s the poll data. In Chatter in Apex, the attachment types are subclasses of ConnectApi.FeedItemAttachment. In Chatter REST API, the attachment types are exposed as response bodies with the name Feed Item Attachment: Name, for example, Feed Item Attachment: Link and Feed Item Attachment: Poll. Make sure your code has a default case that doesn’t display an auxiliary body if it doesn’t recognize the attachment type.
5. Created By Timestamp (ConnectApi.FeedItem.relativeCreatedDate)—The date and time when the feed item was posted. If the feed item is less then two days old, the date and time are formatted as a relative, localized string, for example, “17m ago” or “Yesterday”. Otherwise, the date and time are formatted as an absolute, localized string.

Here’s another example of a feed item in the Salesforce UI. This feed item’s auxiliary body contains a poll:

Feed Item Visibility

Feed Types

1/chatter/feeds/news/userId
2/chatter/feeds/topics/topicId

1ConnectApi.FeedItemPage newsFeedItemPage = 
2   ConnectApi.ChatterFeeds.getFeedItemsFromFeed(null, 
3     ConnectApi.FeedType.News, 'me');
4
5ConnectApi.FeedItemPage topicsFeedItemPage = 
6   ConnectApi.ChatterFeeds.getFeedItemsFromFeed(null, 
7     ConnectApi.FeedType.Topics, '0TOD00000000dUg');

To get a filter feed, call ConnectApi.ChatterFeeds.getFeedItemsFromFilterFeed. To get a favorites feed, call ConnectApi.ChatterFavorites.getFeedItems.

Posting a Feed Item

When you post a feed item, you’re creating a child of a standard or custom object. For Chatter REST API, specify the parent object in the userId or recordId section of the resource. For Chatter in Apex, specify the parent object in the in the userId or recordId argument.

The parent property of the posted feed item contains information about the parent object.

Getting Feed Items from a Feed

Getting feed items from a feed is similar, but not identical, for each feed type.