# Templating

To take advantage of Chatter to its fullest, the message template syntax should be understood. Most add-ons will allow you to write custom messages. For example, you may wish to reference the player's name or substitute the current date & time.

### Syntax

A token is a fixed name that is replaced with its actual value. In order to prevent unintentional replacements, we wrap the token name with `${` and `}`.

{% hint style="info" %}
You can find the available tokens along with the config entry!
{% endhint %}

For example, say we are allowed to substitute the player's name into our message, and the token name is described as `player`. We can just add `${player}` anywhere in our message!

If a token accepts formatting arguments, we can add them after a colon, e.g. `${token:format here}`.

### Types

#### Plain Text

There is nothing fancy here, just use `${token}`.

#### Duration

By default, a duration token of `${duration}` will use words. However, you can customise the format, e.g.

```javascript
${duration:m' minutes 's.SSS' seconds'} // 107 minutes 59.251 seconds
```

| Symbol | Meaning         | Examples      |
| ------ | --------------- | ------------- |
| y      | years           | 0             |
| M      | months          | 0             |
| d      | days            | 1             |
| H      | hours           | 17            |
| m      | minutes         | 30            |
| s      | seconds         | 59            |
| S      | milliseconds    | 314           |
| '      | escape for text | 'custom text' |

{% hint style="info" %}
You can find the full list of duration patterns [here](https://commons.apache.org/proper/commons-lang/apidocs/org/apache/commons/lang3/time/DurationFormatUtils.html).
{% endhint %}

#### Date & Time

To use a date & time token, you'll **need to** specify the format, e.g.

```javascript
${datetime:d. MMMM yyyy h':'mm a} // 27. March 2021 2:14 PM
```

| Symbol | Meaning                    | Examples      |
| ------ | -------------------------- | ------------- |
| yyyy   | year-of-era                | 2004          |
| yy     | year-of-era                | 04            |
| MMMM   | month-of-year              | July          |
| MMM    | month-of-year              | Jul           |
| MM     | month-of-year              | 07            |
| M      | month-of-year              | 7             |
| dd     | day-of-month               | 04            |
| d      | day-of-month               | 4             |
| EEEE   | day-of-week                | Tuesday       |
| EEE    | day-of-week                | Tue           |
| ee     | day-of-week                | 02            |
| e      | day-of-week                | 2             |
| a      | am-pm-of-day               | PM            |
| hh     | clock-hour-of-am-pm (1-12) | 08            |
| h      | clock-hour-of-am-pm (1-12) | 8             |
| HH     | hour-of-day (0-23)         | 00            |
| H      | hour-of-day (0-23)         | 0             |
| mm     | minute-of-hour             | 02            |
| m      | minute-of-hour             | 2             |
| ss     | second-of-minute           | 07            |
| s      | second-of-minute           | 7             |
| SSS    | fraction-of-second         | 878           |
| SS     | fraction-of-second         | 88            |
| S      | fraction-of-second         | 9             |
| '      | escape for text            | 'custom text' |
| ''     | single-quote               | '             |

{% hint style="info" %}
You can find the full list of date patterns [here](https://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/api/java/time/format/DateTimeFormatter.html#patterns).
{% endhint %}


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