Get Started with Agora Chat UIKit for Web

Overview

agora-chat-uikit is a UI component library based on the Chat SDK. It provides common UI components, module components containing the chat business logic, and container components, allowing users to customize the UI using the renderX methods. agora-chat-uikit provides a UIKitProvider for data management. The UIKitProvider automatically listens for Chat SDK events to modify data for UI updates. Developers can use the library to quickly build custom instant messaging applications based on actual business requirements.

Technical principles

Agora Chat UIKit consists of three parts: UI components, mobx store for data management, and chat SDK. UI components include container components, compound components module, and pure UI components. These components at different levels are accessible to the public. Users can reference any of these components to build their own applications. UIKit uses mobx to manage global data, and users can reference the rootStore to get all the data and the action methods for data manipulation. UIKit integrates the chat SDK and interacts with the server through the Chat SDK.

Functions

The agora-chat-uikit repository provides the following functions:

• Implements automatic layout to match the width and height of the container.
• Sends and receives messages, displays messages, shows the unread message count, and clears messages. The text, image, file, emoji, and audio messages are supported.
• Searches for and deletes conversations.
• Customizes UI styles.

The agora-chat-uikit library provides the following functions:

• Automatic layout to match the width and height of the container;
• Send and receive messages, message display, message unread count, clear messages, message types include: (text, picture, file, expression, audio, video message);
• Search for and delete conversation.
• Customize the UI.

module	function	description
Conversation List
	Display conversation information	Display information such as avatars, nicknames, last message, unread message count etc. of the conversation
	Delete conversation	Deletes the conversation from the conversation list
Chat
	Message sender	Support to send text, emoji, picture, file, voice
	Display message	Single or group chat message display, including profile avatar, nickname, message content, time, sent status, and read status. Message types include text, picture, video, file, and voice
	Operate on messages	Including editing, deleting, replying, recalling, translating, selecting, reacting, threading, and other operations on messages

Prerequisites

In order to follow the procedure in this page, you must have:

• React 16.8.0 or later
• React DOM 16.8.0 or later
• A valid Agora account.
• A valid Agora project with an App Key.

Compatible browsers

Browser	Supported Version
IE	11 or later
Edge	43 or later
Firefox	10 or later
Chrome	54 or later
Safari	11 or later

Project setup

1. Create a Web Chat UIKit project

# Install a CLI tool.
npm install create-react-app
# Create an my-app project.
npx create-react-app my-app
cd my-app

The project directory.

├── package.json
├── public # The static directory of Webpack.
│ ├── favicon.ico
│ ├── index.html # The default single-page app.
│ └── manifest.json
├── src
│ ├── App.css # The CSS of the app's root component.
│ ├── App.js # The app component code.
│ ├── App.test.js
│ ├── index.css # The style of the startup file.
│ ├── index.js # The startup file.
│ ├── logo.svg
│ └── serviceWorker.js
└── yarn.lock

2. Integrate the Web Chat UIKit

Install the Web Chat UIKit

• To install the Web Chat UIKit with npm, run the following command:

npm install agora-chat-uikit --save

• To Install Agora chat UIKit for Web with Yarn, run the following command:

yarn add agora-chat-uikit

Build the application using the agora-chat-uikit component

Import agora-chat-uikit into your code.

// App.js
import React, { Component, useEffect } from "react";
import {
  Provider,
  Chat,
  ConversationList,
  useClient,
  rootStore,
} from "agora-chat-uikit";
import "agora-chat-uikit/style.css";

const appKey = "you app key"; // your appKey
const user = ""; // your user ID
const agoraToken = ""; // agora chat token

const conversation = {
  chatType: "singleChat", // 'singleChat' || 'groupChat'
  conversationId: "agora", // target user id or group id
  name: "Agora", // target user nickname or group name
  lastMessage: {},
};
const ChatApp = () => {
  const client = useClient();
  useEffect(() => {
    client &&
      client
        .open({
          user,
          agoraToken,
        })
        .then((res) => {
          console.log("get token success", res);
          // create a conversation
          rootStore.conversationStore.addConversation(conversation);
        });
  }, [client]);

  return (
    <div>
      <div>
        <ConversationList />
      </div>
      <div>
        <Chat />
      </div>
    </div>
  );
};

class App extends Component {
  render() {
    return (
      <Provider
        initConfig={{
          appKey,
        }}
      >
        <ChatApp />
      </Provider>
    );
  }
}

export default App;

Run the project and send your first message

npm run start

Now, you can see your app in the browser.

In the default App Key situation, for the convenience of quick experience, we support several types of message distribution by default. After clicking to select a member, enter your first message and send it.

Note

If a custom App Key is used, no contact is available by default and you need to first add contacts or join a group.

Agora provides an open source AgoraChat UIKit web project on GitHub, where you can clone and run the project or reference the logic to create a project that integrates agora-chat-uikit.

• How to get agora chat token
• URL for Agora Chat UIKit Web source code
• URL for Agora chat application using agora-chat-uikit

Component

agora-chat-uikit provides the following components:

• Container components: UIKitProvider, Chat, and ConversationList.

• Module components: BaseMessage, AudioMessage, FileMessage， VideoMessage, ImageMessage, TextMessage, Header, Empty, MessageList, ConversationItem, MessageEditor, MessageStatus.

• Pure UI components: Avatar, Badge, Button, Checkbox, Icon, Modal, Tooltip.

• Container components: Provider， Chat，ConversationList;

• Module components: BaseMessage，AudioMessage，FileMessage， VideoMessage，ImageMessage，TextMessage，Header，Empty，MessageList， ConversationItem，MessageEditor，MessageStatus;

• Pure UI components: Avatar，Badge，Button，Checkbox，Icon，Modal，Tooltip;

Container components introduction:

Component	Description	Props	Props Description
Provider	The Provider does not render any UI but only provides global context for components. It automatically listens to SDK events, transmits data downward, and drives component rendering	initConfig: { appkey: string }	You can configure appKey
		local	To configure the localized copy, see the parameters of the i18next init method
		features	Configure the features you need globally. If the required features are also configured in the component, the configuration in the component shall prevail
		onError	Callback when an error occurs when calling sdk
ConversationList	Conversation list component	className	Component class name
		prefix	css class name prefix
		headerProps	Props for the Header component
		itemProps	Props for the ConversationItem component
		renderHeader?: () => React.ReactNode	Custom rendering header, which receives a function that returns a react node
		renderSearch?: () => React.ReactNode	Custom rendering search component, which receives a function that returns a react node
		onItemClick?: (data: ConversationData[0]) => void	Click on the conversation event to return the data of the current session
		onSearch?: (e: React.ChangeEvent) => boolean	Search input change event. If the function returns false, it will prevent the default search behavior. Users can search according to their own conditions
Chat	Chat component	className: string	Component CSS class name
		prefix: string	CSS class name prefix
		headerProps: HeaderProps	props for Header
		messageListProps: MsgListProps	Props for the MessageList component
		messageEditorProps: MessageEditorProps	Props for the MessageEditor component
		rtcConfig: ChatProps['rtcConfig']	Parameters required when using audio and video calls
		renderHeader: (cvs: CurrentCvs) => React.ReactNode	Custom render Header component that takes a function that returns a react node， CurrentCvs is the current conversation
		renderMessageList?: () => ReactNode;	Custom render message list component
		renderMessageEditor?: () => ReactNode;	Custom render message sender component
		renderEmpty?: () => ReactNode;	Custom render empty pages without a conversation

store

UIKit provides a rootStore that contains all the data. rootStore contains:

• initConfig: UIKit initializes data
• client: Chat SDK instance
• conversationStore: Conversation list data
• messageStore: Message data

For attributes and methods in the rootStore, see the rootStore document.

• conversationStore: indicates the data related to the conversation list
• messageStore: indicates message-related data
• addressStore: indicates the address book data

Store	Attribute/Method	Description
conversationStore
	currentCvs	Current conversation
	conversationList	All conversations
	searchList	The searched conversations
	setCurrentCvs	Set the current conversation
	setConversation	Set all conversations
	deleteConversation	Delete a conversation
	addConversation	Add a conversation
	topConversation	Top a conversation
	modifyConversation	Modifying a conversation
messageStore
	message	All conversation messages, including singleChat, groupChat, byId
	currentCvsMsgs	Set messages for the current conversation
	sendMessage	Send a message
	receiveMessage	Receive a message
	modifyMessage	Edit a message
	sendChannelAck	Reply with a channel ack to clear unread data from the conversation
	updateMessageStatus	Update message status
	clearMessage	Clear a conversation's messages

In this section, the Chat and Button components are used as an example to describe how to modify the component style.

Example how to customize the Chat component

Modify Component Style

You can modify the style by passing className, style, and prefix through the component props

import { Chat, Button } from "agora-chat-uikit";

const ChatApp = () => {
  return (
    <div>
      <Chat className="customClass" prefix="custom" />
      <Button style={{ width: "100px" }}>Button</Button>
    </div>
  );
};

Use custom components

This section uses the CustomHeader component to describe how to use custom components.

Using custom components

Custom components can be rendered through the renderX method of container components

import {Chat, Header} from 'agora-chat-uikit'

const ChatApp = () => {
  const CustomHeader = <Header back content="Custom Header">
  return(
    <div>
      <Chat renderHeader={(cvs) => CustomHeader}>
    </div>
  )
}

Modify Theme

The UIKit style is developed using the scss framework and defines a series of global style variables, including but not limited to global styles (main color, background color, rounded corners, borders, font size).

// need to use hsla
$blue-base: hsla(203, 100%, 60%, 1);
$green-base: hsla(155, 100%, 60%, 1);
$red-base: hsla(350, 100%, 60%, 1);
$gray-base: hsla(203, 8%, 60%, 1);
$special-base: hsla(220, 36%, 60%, 1);

$font-color: $gray-3;
$title-color: $gray-1;
$component-background: #fff;

$height-base: 36px;
$height-lg: 48px;
$height-sm: 28px;

// vertical margins
$margin-lg: 24px;
$margin-md: 16px;
$margin-sm: 12px;
$margin-xs: 8px;
$margin-xss: 4px;

// vertical paddings
$padding-lg: 24px;
$padding-md: 20px;
$padding-sm: 16px;
$padding-s: 12px;
$padding-xs: 8px;
$padding-xss: 4px;
// font
$font-size-base: 14px;
$font-size-lg: $font-size-base + 2px;
$font-size-sm: 12px;
$text-color: fade($black, 85%);

All variables can be viewed here ''

1. Use webpack for variable coverage:

module.exports = {
  module: {
    rules: [
      {
        test: /\.s[ac]ss$/i,
        use: [
          "style-loader",
          "css-loader",
          {
            loader: "sass-loader",
            options: {
              additionalData: `@import "@/styles/index.scss";`,
            },
          },
        ],
      },
    ],
  },
};

2. Customize in create-react-app

creating a scss file within variables to override style.scss. Need to ensure the order of importing files

@import "agora-chat-uikit/style.scss"; // agora-chat-uikit theme
@import "your-theme.scss"; // your theme
@import "agora-chat-uikit/components.scss"; // components style

If these cannot meet the customization requirements, you can also find the elements to cover the style of UIKit.

Community Contribution

If you want to add extra functions to agora-chat-uikit to share with others, you can fork our repository on GitHub and create a pull request. For any questions, please also submit it on the repository. Thank you for your contribution!

Feedback

If you have any problems or suggestions regarding the sample projects, feel free to file an issue.

Reference

• Other documents
• Demos
• Example project
• Agora Chat SDK Product Overview
• Agora Chat SDK API Reference
• Components storybook

Related resources

• Check our FAQ to see if your issue has been recorded.
• Dive into Agora SDK Samples to see more tutorials
• Take a look at Agora Use Case for more complicated real use case
• Repositories managed by developer communities can be found at Agora Community
• If you encounter problems during integration, feel free to ask questions in Stack Overflow

License

The sample projects are under the MIT license.