TalkJS React Native SDK

Official TalkJS SDK for React Native

What is TalkJS?

TalkJS is a developer friendly chat API with a pre-built UI that is highly customisable. You can build a chat feature in minutes instead of months.

With TalkJS, you can create chat features that boost user engagement, retention, and conversion rate.

Don't hesitate to let us know if you have any questions about TalkJS.

Installation

Note: React Native CLI does not autolink libraries with native modules when those libraries are transitive dependencies. So you have to explicitly install the SDK's peer dependencies as shown below for the native modules to be loaded correctly

Npm:

npm install @talkjs/react-native @notifee/react-native @react-native-community/push-notification-ios @react-native-firebase/app @react-native-firebase/messaging react-native-webview

Yarn:

yarn add @talkjs/react-native @notifee/react-native @react-native-community/push-notification-ios @react-native-firebase/app @react-native-firebase/messaging react-native-webview

Usage

You can import the library in one of the following ways:

ES6 / TypeScript:

import * as TalkjsRn from '@talkjs/react-native';

CommonJS:

const TalkjsRn = require('@talkjs/react-native');

Then follow our React Native guide to start using TalkJS in your project.

TalkJS is fully forward compatible

We promise to never break API compatibility. We may at times deprecate methods or fields, but we will never remove them. If something that used to work stops working, then that's a bug. Please report it and we'll fix it asap.

The package is being released in a beta state. The reason for this is that there are things that one can do with the TalkJS JavaScript SDK that aren't possible with the React Native SDK. We will release v1.0.0 of this package once the two SDKs are similar in terms of features. This however does not take away from our commitment to always maintain backward compatibility. So you can be assured that the package is stable for production use.

Changelog

Note: These are only the changes that have an effect on the React Native package and its interface. TalkJS gets many improvements and fixes all the time. Consider subscribing to our changelog if you want to stay updated.

0.11.0

New Features

• Add scrollToMessage prop to the Chatbox component.

Fixes

• Fix registering of device tokens when a Session is used immediately after the app launches

0.10.1

Changes

• Improved error reporting.

Fixes

• Fix issue that prevented having multiple Sessions active at the same time.

0.10.0

New Features

• Add token and tokenFetcher props to Session. These props are part of our efforts at impoving identity verification and authentication.

See the reference documentation for full details on the technical requirements for the JSON Web Token(JWT).

Deprecated

• Due to the above new props, we have deprecated the signature prop on the Session component.

0.9.1

Fixes

• Fix a regression with messages not getting marked as read when loading the Chatbox.

0.9.0

New Features

• Add disableZoom prop to Chatbox and ConversationList. This allows you to choose whether the user can pinch to zoom in and out of the UI. By default its value is false and the usr can zoom into the UI.

Changes

• Upgraded dependencies

Fixes

• Fix unnecessary warnings in iOS when calling MessageField methods.

0.8.4

Fixes

• Fix bug in Android with push notifications not showing when sender's photo is not defined.

0.8.3

Fixes

• Fix issue with getNotificationHandler being undefined.

0.8.2

Fixes

• Fix errors not showing up in debug mode.

0.8.1

Changes

• The ConversationList no longer highlights the first conversation by default.

0.8.0

New Features

• Add support for push notifications via Firebase on iOS.
• Add onMessage and onUnreadsChange props to Session component.
• Add hasValidCredentials, clearPushRegistration, setPushRegistation and unsetPushRegistration methods to Session component.

Changes

• Remove implicit push notification permissions request. The users of this library will need to explicitly request for push notification permissions on iOS and Android 13+.
• Upgraded dependencies.
• Removed bounce in iOS when the UI reached the edge of the content.
• Renamed AndroidChannel and IOSPermissions interfaces to AndroidSettings and IOSSettings respectively.

Fixes

• Fix bug in Session when user synchronization is disabled.
• Fix bug with MessageField.setText and MessageField.typeText that would cause a crash given certain strings.
• Fix bug with HTMLPanel not loading.

0.7.1

Changes

• Update dependencies.
• Changed behaviour when onSelectConversation prop is not given. Previously, in this scenario, clicking on a conversation would result in nothing happening. Now, the conversation will be selected and the TalkJS Inbox Mobile view will be shown.

Fixes

• Fix a regression with onSelectConversation in ConversationList.
• Fix a bug with notifications not sent by TalkJS being displayed twice.

0.7.0

New Features

• Added onLeaveConversation, onCustomMessageAction and onCustomConversationAction props. These are intended to replace the methods with the same names. The methods have been deprecated. This change was made to ensure that this SDK's interface matched the React SDK's.

Changes

• Deprecated the off method in both Chatbox and ConversationList.

Fixes

• (iOS) Fixed a bug with videos in link previews automatically playing in fullscreen mode. The videos will now play inline instead.

0.6.0

New Features

• Make the WebView transparent. This means that whatever background colour you have applied to the parent View will be used in the empty areas around the TalkJS UI.
• Add getCurrentConversation, onCustomConversationAction, onLeaveConversation and sendLocation methods to Chatbox.
• Add leave method to ConversationBuilder.
• Add support for passing data to themes in both Chatbox and ConversationList.

Changes

• Upgraded dependencies.
• Changes the type of the conversation property in SelectConversationEvent from ConversationBuilderto ConversationData.
• Add isForegroundEvent property to NotificationPressedEvent to indicate if the user pressed the notification while the app was in the foreground or background. NOTE: In iOS this property is always true since, if the app was in the background, iOS will open the app first before calling the foreground event handler. The background event handler is never called in iOS in this case.

Fixes

• Fix zooming on iOS. A previous workaround to prevent the UI from zooming in when clicking the MessageField on iOS resulted in zooming being disabled entirely. This update removes the workaround. Should you encounter the issue, set the MessageField's font size to 16px to fix it. The default TalkJS theme already uses a font size of 16px.
• Fix bug when trying to display notifications on Android when the app has previously been killed.
• Fix bug in Android with the app not opening when a notification is clicked.

0.5.1

Fixes

• Fix bug in Android that caused the errors: Cannot assign to property '_injectJavaScript' which has only a getter or Attempted to assign to readonly property when using React Native version 0.70 and below.
• Fix Error: No Firebase App '[DEFAULT]' has been created - call firebase.initializeApp() in Android when attempting to use the SDK without enabling push notifications. With this fix, you no longer need to setup Firebase plugins in gradle if you don't intend to use push notifications

0.5.0

New Features

• (BREAKING CHANGE): Added @react-native-async-storage/async-storage as a peer dependency. If you don't already depend on the package be sure install it by running: npm install @react-native-async-storage/async-storage or yarn add @react-native-async-storage/async-storage depending on your package manager
• Added support for Custom Message Actions.
• A loading component can now be passed as a prop to Chatbox and ConversationList and it will be shown when the respective components are loading the UI. This is mostly useful on first load. Subsequent loads of the UI components are much faster.
• Add onTokenRefresh and onNotificationPressed methods to NotificationHandler.
• Add getNotificationHandler function.

Changes

• Upgraded dependencies.
• registerPushNotificationHandlers now returns Promise<NotificationHandler> instead of Promise<void>.

Fixes

• Fix bug in sendMessage where a message would get sent multiple times in certain scenarios.
• Fix bug with captureKeyboardEvents prop in Chatbox not working.
• Fix slow scrolling performance on the UI for Android devices.
• Fix bug when handling active notifications.

0.4.2

This is a minor update ensuring a great user experience when using voice messages, particularly on iOS.

To enable voice messages, you'll need to first enable it per role in the TalkJS dashboard. Then you'll need to specify the necessary permissions for both Android and iOS.

For Android, add the following to your AndroidManifest.xml file:

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.MODIFY_AUDIO_SETTINGS" />
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.RECORD_AUDIO" />

For iOS, add the following to your Info.plist file:

<key>NSMicrophoneUsageDescription</key>
<string>Messages shown to your user when the microphone is accessed for the first time</string>

0.4.1

Fixes

• Fix mark as read. This release ensures that messages are marked as read reliably as long as the chat is visible. If the app is in the background, or the chat is covered by the System UI (example: when receiving a call) then the messages won't be marked as read.

• Fix rare crash on Android for SDK 28+ when the @react-navigation/native library is used.

0.4.0

• Fix Notifee display notification error.

With this release, we have updated the SDK's dependencies and peer dependencies to keep them up to date and also fix bugs in some of them.

As of npm v7, peer dependencies are installed by default so upgrading the TalkJS SDK should also upgrade the peer dependencies accordingly. For yarn users, you may have to update the packages individually as shown:

yarn upgrade @notifee/react-native@^5.3.0 @react-native-community/push-notification-ios@^1.10.1 @react-native-firebase/app@^14.11.0 @react-native-firebase/messaging@^14.11.0 react-native-webview@^11.21.2

These libraries are defined as peer dependencies rather than dependencies since they contain native code and currently, React Native does not auto link transitive dependencies.

The new version of the notifee library also eliminates the need to add the local maven repository manually to your project. You can remove the section below. (Your app will still build and run if you don't remove it)

  maven {
    url "$rootDir/../node_modules/@notifee/react-native/android/libs"
  }

0.3.4

• Fix "Chat not found" error when joining as Guest.

0.3.3

• Fix regression in the support of devices with iOS 14 and lower.

0.3.2

• Fix Invariant Violation error due to transitive dependencies not being loaded.

To ensure the SDK's peer dependencies' native modules are loaded correctly, you have to explicitly install them as direct dependencies for your app/project. This is to ensure React Native CLI can autolink them. Below is how you'd accomplish that:

NPM:

npm install @notifee/react-native @react-native-community/push-notification-ios @react-native-firebase/app @react-native-firebase/messaging react-native-webview

Yarn:

yarn add @notifee/react-native @react-native-community/push-notification-ios @react-native-firebase/app @react-native-firebase/messaging react-native-webview

0.3.1

• Fix "Chat not found" bug when creating a new conversation.

0.3.0

When upgrading to this version, you'll need to update your android/build.gradle file by adding the following block to the repositories section of allprojects:

allprojects {

  // ... you may have other items before the "repositories" section.

  repositories {

    // ... you will already have some local repositories defined ...

    // ADD THIS BLOCK
    maven {
      url "$rootDir/../node_modules/@notifee/react-native/android/libs"
    }
  }
}

New Features

• Improved Android Notifications. They are now shown as Conversations and grouped accordingly. Images sent will also appear in the notifications.
• Added more configuration options on Android Channels (Reference).
• Improved Error Reporting.
• Add support for Guest Access through the addition of asGuest prop in Chatbox.
• Enable capturing of keyup events in Chatbox through the captureKeyboardEvents and onKeyup props.
• Added the methods: getText and typeText to MessageField.

Changes

• Changed oneOnOneId to also accept User Objects.
• Changed registerPushNotificationHandlers to add support for iOS Permissions.
• Changed showFeedHeader default to false.

Fixes

• Fix bug when user and/or conversation synchronization were disabled.

Deprecated

• The following props in ConversationList: feedConversationTitleMode, thirdParties, onBlur and onFocus.
• The following props in Chatbox: chatSubtitleMode, chatTitleMode, thirdParties, translateConversations, onBlur and onFocus.

0.2.1

• Fix bug in Chatbox when conversation synchronization was disabled.

0.2.0

• Added a ConversationList component.
• Added the messageField property to the Chatbox component
• Fix bug in ConversationBuilder.setAttributes that prevented setting a value to null or undefined after previously having given it a value.
• (iOS): Fix push notification registration token not getting received.
• (iOS): Fix zooming when messageField is clicked.

0.1.0

• Added the following components: Session, Chatbox and HtmlPanel.
• First release