How to include preview images in Telegram bot responses?

Other Questions Telegram bot
1 
Hey everyone! I'm working on a PHP Telegram bot and I'm stuck on something. Right now, my bot replies to messages using the `replyWithMessage` method. Here's what my code looks like:

```php
$this->replyWithMessage(['text' => $item['description'] . "\n\n" . $link]);

This works fine for text, but I want to make my bot responses more eye-catching. Is there a way to add a preview image before the text in the response? I’ve looked through the documentation but couldn’t find anything clear about this. Has anyone done this before? Any tips or code examples would be super helpful! Thanks in advance for your help!

2

hey, try sendPhoto instead of replyWithMessage. it’s simple:

$bot->sendPhoto([
‘chat_id’ => $chatId,
‘photo’ => ‘http://example.com/image.jpg’,
‘caption’ => $item[‘description’] . ‘\n\n’ . $link
]);

check that ur image url is valid. good luck!

3

I’ve actually implemented this feature in one of my Telegram bots recently. Instead of using replyWithMessage, you’ll want to use the sendPhoto method. This allows you to send an image along with a caption.

Here’s a basic example of how you can modify your code:

$bot->sendPhoto([
    'chat_id' => $chatId,
    'photo' => 'https://example.com/your-image.jpg',
    'caption' => $item['description'] . '\n\n' . $link
]);

Make sure the ‘photo’ URL is direct and publicly accessible. You can also use file_id or file resource instead of a URL.

One thing to note: the caption has a limit of 1024 characters. If your description is longer, you might need to send the image first, then follow up with a separate text message.

Hope this helps! Let me know if you run into any issues implementing it.

4

I’ve found that using the sendPhoto method works well for including preview images in Telegram bot responses. Here’s a simple approach:

$bot->sendPhoto([
‘chat_id’ => $chat_id,
‘photo’ => new InputFile(‘/path/to/image.jpg’),
‘caption’ => $item[‘description’] . “\n\n” . $link,
‘parse_mode’ => ‘HTML’
]);

This sends an image with your description and link as the caption. Remember to keep the caption under 1024 characters. If you need more text, send a separate message after the photo.

For dynamic images, you can use InputFile::create($url) instead of a local file path. Just ensure your image URLs are direct and accessible.