@auroraai-bot-platform/rasa-webchat

v0.6.6

Published

a year ago

Chat web widget for React apps and Rasa Core chatbots

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matiasleinonen

react chat widget javascript

AURORAAI-BOT-PLATFORM/RASA-WEBCHAT

Customization

Logo needs to be dimensioned 24px * 24px
The logo should be an SVG, which has the fill color not set or set to currentColor, to enable coloring via the font color of the parent element

Integration

Integration can be done via releasing an npm package or direct download of the index.js file

Install

install nodejs
clone this repository
run npm ci to install the dependencies

Run locally for testing or development

run npm run dev

Release

run npm run build to make a release build
the build is in lib/index.js

Official documentation

Features

Text Messages
Quick Replies
Images
Carousels
Markdown support
Persistent sessions
Typing indications
Smart delay between messages
Easy to import in a script tag or as a React Component

🔥 Promo: check out our other cool open source project

Usage

In a `<script>` tag

In your <body/>:

<script>
  !(function () {
    let e = document.createElement('script'),
      t = document.head || document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0];
    (e.src =
      'https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/@auroraai-bot-platform/rasa-webchat@latest/lib/index.js'),
      // For specific version use 'https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/@auroraai-bot-platform/[email protected]/lib/index.js' where replace the 'x.x.x' with the version that you want
      (e.async = !0),
      (e.onload = () => {
        window.WebChat.default(
          {
            customData: { language: 'en' },
            socketUrl: 'https://bf-botfront.development.agents.botfront.cloud',
            profileAvatar: 'AVATARPATH',
            accentColor: 'COLORCODE',
            accentDarkColor: 'COLORCODE',
            languageList: {},
            // add other props here
          },
          null
        );
      }),
      t.insertBefore(e, t.firstChild);
  })();
</script>

⚠️ Leave the version tag as 'latest' if you always want the latest version of the auroraai-bot-platform/rasa-webchat. But if you want to control when to update the widget, we recommend adding a version tag, e.g for version 1.0.0 'https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/@auroraai-bot-platform/[email protected]/lib/index.js' The available versions of the auroraai-bot-platform/rasa-webchat can be seen in https://www.npmjs.com/package/@auroraai-bot-platform/rasa-webchat?activeTab=versions.

About images: width and height define the size in pixels that images in messages are crop-scaled to. If not present, the image will scale to the maximum width of the container and the image.

As a React component

Install the auroraai-bot-platform/rasa-webchat npm package

npm install @auroraai-bot-platform/rasa-webchat

and to install a specific package version add '@' and version number to the end of the url

npm install @auroraai-bot-platform/[email protected]

Then:

import Widget from '@auroraai-bot-platform/rasa-webchat';

function CustomWidget = () => {
  return (
    <Widget
      initPayload={"/get_started"}
      socketUrl={"http://localhost:5500"}
      socketPath={"/socket.io/"}
      customData={{"language": "en"}} // arbitrary custom data. Stay minimal as this will be added to the socket
      title={"Title"}
      subtitle=""
      languageList={}
    />
  )
}

Parameters

| Prop / Param | ------------------------- | initPayload | socketUrl | socketPath | customData | docViewer | title | subtitle | inputTextFieldHint | hideWhenNotConnected | connectOn | onSocketEvent | embedded | showFullScreenButton | displayUnreadCount | showMessageDate | customMessageDelay | params | storage | customComponent | onWidgetEvent | showMenuButton | languageList | automaticLanguageChange | Default value | Description | | ------------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | null | Payload sent to Rasa when conversation starts | | null | Socket URL | | null | Close the chat window | | null | Arbitrary object sent with the socket. If using with Botfront, it must include the language (e.g. {"language": "en"}) | | false | If you add this prop to the component or to the init script, docViewer=true , this will treat links in received messages as links to a document ( .pdf .doc .xlsx etc. ) and will open them in a popup using https://docs.google.com/viewer service | | 'Welcome" | Title shown in the header of the widget | | null | Subtitle shown under the title in the header of the widget | | "Type a message" | User message input field placeholder | | true | If true the widget will hide when the connection to the socket is lost | | "mount" | This prop lets you choose when the widget will try connecting to the server. By default, it tries connecting as soon as it mounts. If you select connectOn='open' it will only attempt connection when the widget is opened. it can only take the values mount and open. | | null | call custom code on a specific socket event | | false | Set to true if you want to embed the in a web page. The widget will always be open and the initPayload will be triggered immediately | | false | Show a full screen toggle | | false | Path to an image displayed on the launcher when the widget is closed | | false | Show message date. Can be overriden with a function: (timestamp, message) => return 'my custom date' | | See below | This prop is a function, the function take a message string as an argument. The defined function will be called everytime a message is received and the returned value will be used as a milliseconds delay before displaying a new message. | | See below | Essentially used to customize the image size, also used to change storage options. | | "local" | ⚠️ This is not a prop, it has to be passed inside the params object above. Specifies the storage location of the conversation state in the browser. "session" defines the state to be stored in the session storage. The session storage persists on reload of the page, and is cleared after the browser or tab is closed, or when sessionStorage.clear()is called. "local" defines the state to be stored in the local stoage. The local storage persists after the the browser is closed, and is cleared when the cookies of the browser are cleared, or when localStorage.clear()is called. | | null | Custom component to be used with custom responses. E.g.: customComponent={ (messageData) => (<div>Custom React component</div>)}. Please note that this can only be used if you call the webchat from a React application as you can't write a component in pure Javscript. | | {} | call custom code on a specific widget event ( onChatOpen, onChatClose, onChatHidden, are available for now ), add a function to the desired object property in the props to have it react to the event. | | true | Show menu button in the header bar | | {} | Has the list of languages the webchat supports. The languages are shown in the menu view where the user can change them. The languageList needs to have the languages listed in a list, for example: '{ en: 'English', fi: 'Suomi', sv: 'Svensk' }'. The language needs to have the 2 letter ISO 639-1 standard country code and a name of the language, that will be shown in the webchat. | | true | Can be used to disable the automatic language change. By default this feature is on. When web page is refreshed, the webchats language is changed automatically to the web pages language (the language that is in the pages HTML element). The language is changed only if the page language exists in the languageList parameter. This makes sure that the webchat language is not changed to an unsupported language. Also the language is changed only if the user hasn't written anything to the chat, meaning that the conversation hasn't started. If the conversation is ongoing, the language is not changed automatically. |

Additional Examples

`customMessageDelay`

(message) => {
  let delay = message.length * 30;
  if (delay > 2 * 1000) delay = 3 * 1000;
  if (delay < 400) delay = 1000;
  return delay;
};

`onSocketEvent`

onSocketEvent={{
  'bot_uttered': () => console.log('the bot said something'),
  'connect': () => console.log('connection established'),
  'disconnect': () => doSomeCleanup(),
}}

`params`

The params props only allows to specify custom image dimensions:

params={{images: { dims: { width: 300, height: 200 }}}}

Other features

Setting of languages

The default language used in the webchat can be set with the CustomData parameter 'language' value.

customData={{"language": "en"}}

or if the package is loaded using a script:

customData = { language: 'en' };

If the language is not set in CustomData parameter, the default language of the Botfront is then used.
If the Botfront doesn't have a default language, english ('en') will be used.

The language options that the webchat supports needs to be listed in the 'languageList' parameter. These languages will be listen in the webchat menu view that the chat user can open, and change the used language from there.

languageList={{ en: "English", sv: "Svensk" }}

or if the package is loaded using a script

languageList: { en: 'English', sv: 'Svensk' };

The language translations of texts used in the webchat are added to the 'i18n/i18n.js' file.

The automatic language change feature is active by default. When web page is refreshed, the webchats language is changed automatically to the web pages language (the language that is in the pages HTML element). The language is changed only if:

The page language exists in the languageList parameter. This makes sure that the webchat language is not changed to an unsupported language.
The language is changed only if the user hasn't written anything to the chat, meaning that the conversation hasn't started. If the conversation is ongoing, the language is not changed automatically.

The automatic language change feature can be disabled by setting the parameter 'automaticLanguageChange' to false.

Tooltips

Text messages received when the widget is closed will be shown as a tooltip.

Sending a message on page load

When reconnecting to an existing chat session, the bot will send a message contained in the localStorage key specified by the NEXT_MESSAGE constant. The message should be stringified JSON with a message property describing the message and an expiry property set to a UNIX timestamp in milliseconds after which this message should not be sent. This is useful if you would like your bot to be able to offer your user to navigate around the site.

Sending a payload from your React app

function myComponent() {
  const webchatRef = useRef(null);

  // triggered when something happens in your app
  function callback() {
    if (webchatRef.current && webchatRef.current.sendMessage) {
      webchatRef.current.sendMessage('/myIntent{"entityName":"value"}');
    }
  }

  return <RasaWebchat ref={webchatRef} />;
}

The payload can be any message that the user would normally send, but if you want to force an intent and maybe some entities, you can use that format /myIntent{"entity1":"value1","entity2":"value2"}

Backends

The widget can be used with any backend but is primarily designed to be used with Rasa or Botfront.

Rasa

Use the socketio channel: See instructions in the Rasa documentation

If you want to process customData in Rasa you have to create a new channel. Use channel rasa_core.channels.socketio as a template for your new channel. In this channel, customData can be retrieved via data['customData']. Then you can modify sender_id, save customData to the database, fill slots or whatever you need to with your additional data.

Botfront

The Rasa Webchat is developped by the Botfront team and it works with Botfront. If your bot is multilingual, make sure to specificy the current language in the customData prop. E.g. customData={{language: 'en'}}. See in Botfront docs for more details.

Styles

From version 0.8 we started prefixing all css classes, if you already had css styling for the widget, just prepend rw- to all the classes you changed.

hierarchy:

.rw-conversation-container
  |-- .rw-header
        |-- .rw-title
        |-- .rw-close-function
        |-- .rw-loading
  |-- .rw-messages-container
        |-- .rw-message
              |-- .rw-client
              |-- .rw-response
        |-- .rw-replies
              |-- .rw-reply
              |-- .rw-response
        |-- .rw-snippet
              |-- .rw-snippet-title
              |-- .rw-snippet-details
              |-- .rw-link
        |-- .rw-imageFrame
        |-- .rw-videoFrame
  |-- .rw-sender
        |-- .rw-new-message
        |-- .rw-send

| Class | Description | | -------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------ | | .rw-widget-container | The div containing the chatbox of the default version | | .rw-widget-embedded | div of the embedded chatbox (using embedded prop) | | .rw-full-screen | div of the fullscreen chatbox (using fullScreenMode prop) | | .rw-conversation-container | the parent div containing the header, message-container and sender | | .rw-messages-container | the central area where the messages appear | | .rw-sender | div of the bottom area which prompts user input | | .rw-new-message | the text input element of sender | | .rw-send | the send icon element of sender | | .rw-header | div of the top area with the chatbox header | | .rw-title | the title element of the header | | .rw-close-button | the close icon of the header | | .rw-loading | the loading status element of the header | | .rw-message | the boxes holding the messages of client and response | | .rw-replies | the area that gives quick reply options | | .rw-snippet | a component for describing links | | .rw-imageFrame | a container for sending images | | .rw-videoFrame | a container for sending video |

Original Rasa-webchat contributors

@PHLF @znat @TheoTomalty @Hub4IT @dliuproduction @MatthieuJnon @mofortin @GuillaumeTech

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at

http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.(C) 2021 Dialogue Technologies Inc. All rights reserved.