Methods, apparatuses and computer program products for formatting messages in a messaging user interface within a group-based communication system

A computer-implemented method comprising:

• applying a structured format to an input string based at least in part on a structured format trigger in the input string to generate a structured message object in a group-based communication interface associated with a group-based communication system;
• in response to the structured message object being posted to a virtual environment of the group-based communication system, parsing the structured message object to extract a plain text message object, the plain text message object comprising one or more characters corresponding to plain text commands indicating the structured format for the structured message object;
• and
• transmitting the plain text message object to a group-based communication server for storage in a database by the group-based communication system.

A computer program product comprising at least one non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having computer-readable program code portions stored therein, the computer-readable program code portions configured to at least:

• apply a structured format to an input string based at least in part on a structured format trigger in the input string to generate a structured message object in a group-based communication interface associated with a group-based communication system;
• in response to the structured message object being posted to a virtual environment of the group-based communication system, parse the structured message object to extract a plain text message object, the plain text message object comprising one or more characters corresponding to plain text commands indicating the structured format for the structured message object;
• and
• transmit the plain text message object to a group-based communication server for storage in a database by the group-based communication system.