AirMessage for web

AirMessage lets people use iMessage on the devices they like. AirMessage for web brings iMessage to modern web browsers over a WebSocket proxy. Production builds are hosted on web.airmessage.org.

Other AirMessage repositories: Server | Android | Connect (community)

Getting started

To build AirMessage for web, you will need Node.js.

AirMessage for web uses React and TypeScript. If you're not familiar with these tools, they both have great introductory guides:

• React - Getting started
• TypeScript for JavaScript Programmers

AirMessage for web uses a configuration file to associate with online services like Firebase and Sentry. The app will not build without a valid configuration, so to get started quickly, you can copy the src/secrets.default.ts file to src/secrets.ts to use a pre-configured Firebase project, or you may provide your own Firebase configuration file.

To launch a development server, run npm start. To build a production-optimized bundle, run npm run build.

File structure outline

• /public holds static files that are copied in at build time. It also holds the app's entry point, index.html.
• /src holds shared source files - where most of the UI logic resides.
• /browser holds all browser-specific code. This includes logic for authenticating with Firebase and using AirMessage's WebSocket proxy.
• /windows/web holds all web-side Windows-specific code.
• /windows/AirMessageWindows is a Visual Studio project that builds to AirMessage's Windows client.
• Builds are located in /build for web builds.

/browser and /windows/web are aliased to the import prefix /platform-components at build time, depending on the build target. As such, components that are imported from /src must be available in both directories. If you're adding or modifying any files in these build-specific directories, please ensure that they are imported properly with the /platform-components alias.

Any extra files under build-specific directories (/browser or /windows/web) that aren't used by /src should be under a private subdirectory.

Building and running for AirMessage Connect

In order to help developers get started quickly, we host a separate open-source version of AirMessage Connect at connect-open.airmessage.org. The default configuration is pre-configured to authenticate and connect to this server. Since this version of AirMessage Connect is hosted in a separate environment from official servers, you will have to be running a version of AirMessage Server that also connects to the same AirMessage Connect server.

We kindly ask that you do not use AirMessage's official Connect servers with any unofficial builds of AirMessage-compatible software.

Developing and running Windows builds

AirMessage is also able to run on Windows machines, with support for direct connections like the Android app.

Builds for web browsers and Windows will be kept in sync, so any changes made to files under the /src directory will make their way into the web app as well.

On top of the dependencies for AirMessage for web, AirMessage for Windows uses Visual Studio, the Windows App SDK, and Microsoft Edge WebView2.

To build and run, please make sure you have installed Visual Studio, prepared your PC for Windows app development, and installed Microsoft Edge WebView2.

Then, open the project in Visual Studio at /windows/AirMessageWindows/AirMessageWindows.sln, and run AirMessageWindows (Package).

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Thank you for your interest in contributing to AirMessage! You're helping to shape the future of an open, secure messaging market. Should you have any questions, comments, or concerns, please shoot an email to hello@airmessage.org.