SharePoint social feed - how to get mentions

The article on MSDN is good starting point [1]. It shows example on how to get feed manager, make asynchronous call and retrieve newsfeed.

Instead of retrieving newsfeed, let's retrieve mentions. For this use getMentions() method[2].

In original code, while iterating, all non-normal threads were ignored. Here instead, only thread type 3 will be used [3].

Original code retrieved Text property from Thread [4]. For mentions, that would always render something like "Mentioned by John Doe". We need to go deeper in thread's properties to get actual mention text. See code example below.

Another challenge is to get URL of story. I could not find this in documentation, but was able to reverse engineer this property from raw object.

var url = thread.$2c_1;

In the end, text and url were pushed into array, so I can work with it in later and display for user in any form that is convenient.

        var mentionsArray = [];

        var mentionsCount;

        // Ensure that the SP.UserProfiles.js file is loaded before the custom code runs.

        SP.SOD.executeOrDelayUntilScriptLoaded(GetFeeds, 'SP.UserProfiles.js');

        // Declare global variables.

        var clientContext;

        var feedManager;

        var mentionsFeed;

        function GetFeeds() {

            // Initialize the current client context and the SocialFeedManager instance.

            clientContext = SP.ClientContext.get_current();

            feedManager = new SP.Social.SocialFeedManager(clientContext);

            // Set parameters for the feed content that you want to retrieve.

            var feedOptions = new SP.Social.SocialFeedOptions();

            feedOptions.set_maxThreadCount(10); // default is 20

            // Change the sort order to optimize the Timeline feed results.

            feedOptions.set_sortOrder(SP.Social.SocialFeedSortOrder.byCreatedTime);

            mentionsFeed = feedManager.getMentions(false, feedOptions);     //do not clear unread mentions

            clientContext.load(feedManager);

            clientContext.executeQueryAsync(CallIterateFunctionForFeeds, RequestFailed);

        }

       function CallIterateFunctionForFeeds() {

            IterateThroughFeed(mentionsFeed);

            // Later mentionsArray will be boud by using Knockout.js ;)

            var viewModel = new AppViewModel();

            ko.applyBindings(viewModel);

        }

        function IterateThroughFeed(feed) {

            var feedOwner = feedManager.get_owner().get_name();

            // Iterate through the array of threads in the feed.

            var threads = feed.get_threads();

            mentionsCount = feed.get_unreadMentionCount();

            for (var i = 0; i < threads.length ; i++) {

                var thread = threads[i];

                var actors = thread.get_actors();

                // Use mentions. (SocialThreadType.mentionReference)

                if (thread.get_threadType() == 3) {

                    // Get the root post's author, content, and number of replies.

                    var post = thread.get_rootPost();

                    var authorName = actors[post.get_authorIndex()].get_name();

                    var postContent = post.get_text();

                    var postReference = thread.get_postReference();

                    var referencedPost = postReference.get_post();

                    var mentionText = referencedPost.get_text();

                    var url = thread.$2c_1;         //reverse engineered this name

                    mentionsArray.push({ text: postContent + " " + mentionText, url: url });

                }

            }

        }

        function RequestFailed(sender, args) {

            //not implemented

        }

MSDN Articles:

[1] Retrieve social feeds by using the SharePoint 2013 JavaScript object model http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj164025.aspx#bkmk_GetFeeds

[2] SP.Social.SocialFeedManager.getMentions Method http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj679814.aspx

[3] SocialThreadType enumeration http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj679736.aspx

[4] SocialThread object http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj679762.aspx