React Live Chat Loader

An npm module that allows you to mitigate the negative performance and user experience impact of chat tools. react-live-chat-loader shows a fake widget until the page has become idle or users are ready to interact with chat. Currently works with Intercom, Help Scout, Drift, Messenger, Userlike, Front, Chatwoot and Hubspot.

Made by the team at ♠ Calibre, your performance companion.

🖇️ Table of Contents

1. How it Works
2. Installation
3. Usage
4. Supported Providers
5. Adding a Provider
6. Examples
7. Contributing
8. Resources
9. License

💡 How it Works

Chat widgets rely heavily on JavaScript which comes at a cost. Given the significant impact that comes from the download, parse, compile and execution of chat JavaScript, React Live Chat Loader implements a "fake", fast loading button and waits for one of the following events before loading the actual widget:

• Person hovers over the fake button
• Person clicks the fake button
• The page has been idle for a significant amount of time

Under the hood React Live Chat Loader makes use of requestIdleCallback to track how long the page has been idle for and checks if the person is on a slow connection (using navigator.connection.effectiveType) or has data-saver enabled (using navigator.connection.saveData) to prevent loading.

⚠️ Please note: Some chat widget providers open automatically based on the people’s interaction from their last session.

📥 Installation

To download react-live-chat-loader run:

npm install --save react-live-chat-loader

Or if you're using yarn, run:

yarn add react-live-chat-loader

🛠 Usage

To allow you to trigger a single live chat within your application, React Live Chat Loader has a Context Provider which should be added at the root level of your application.

You pass your providerKey and provider to the LiveChatLoaderProvider.

For example, to add a LiveChatLoaderProvider for Help Scout you would do the following:

import { LiveChatLoaderProvider } from 'react-live-chat-loader'

export default class App extends React.Component {
  /* ... */

  render() {
    return (
      <LiveChatLoaderProvider providerKey="asdjkasl123123" provider="helpScout">
        /* ... */
      </LiveChatLoaderProvider>
    )
  }
}

You can then include the relevant chat where you would like it to appear.

For example, for Help Scout you would import the HelpScout component and add it to your application:

import { HelpScout } from 'react-live-chat-loader'

export default class Index extends React.Component {
  /* ... */

  render() {
    return (
      <>
        /* ... */
        <HelpScout />
      </>
    )
  }
}

To display chat from a custom button you can import the useChat hook which has the current state of the chat and a function to load the chat.

import { useChat } from 'react-live-chat-loader'

export const LoadChatButton = () => {
  const [state, loadChat] = useChat()

  return <button onClick={() => loadChat({ open: true })}>Load Chat</button>
}

Options

You can pass the following props to the LiveChatLoaderProvider provider:

• provider: Choose from helpScout, intercom, drift, front or messenger (see below)
• providerKey: Provider API Key (see below)
• idlePeriod: How long to wait in ms before loading the provider. Default is 2000. Set to 0 to never load. This value is used in a setTimeout in browsers that don't support requestIdleCallback.
• beforeInit: A function to be called after the script has loaded, but before the chat provider has been initialized (optional)
• onReady: A function to be called once the script has been loaded, the chat provider has been initialized and is ready for use (optional)

💬 Supported Providers

Currently there are eight supported providers:

To use Help Scout import the LiveChatLoaderProvider and set the provider prop as helpScout and the providerKey prop as your Beacon API Key.

Then import the HelpScout component.

import { LiveChatLoaderProvider, HelpScout } from 'react-live-chat-loader'

export default class App extends React.Component {
  render() {
    return (
      <LiveChatLoaderProvider providerKey="asdjkasl123123" provider="helpScout">
        /* ... */
        <HelpScout />
      </LiveChatLoaderProvider>
    )
  }
}

You can customise the Help Scout placeholder by passing the following props to the HelpScout component:

• color: The background color of the placeholder
• icon: Choose from message, antenna, search, question, beacon
• zIndex: Changes the CSS index value of how the placeholder relates to other objects
• horizontalPosition: Choose from left or right
• containerClass: Class to be added to the placeholder element, defaults to live-chat-loader-placeholder

Currently the Help Scout component only supports the icon button style.

To use Intercom import the LiveChatLoaderProvider and set the provider prop as intercom and the providerKey prop as your Intercom App ID.

Then import the Intercom component.

import { LiveChatLoaderProvider, Intercom } from 'react-live-chat-loader'

export default class App extends React.Component {
  render() {
    return (
      <LiveChatLoaderProvider providerKey="asd239" provider="intercom">
        /* ... */
        <Intercom />
      </LiveChatLoaderProvider>
    )
  }
}

You can customise the Intercom placeholder icon by passing the following props to the Intercom component:

• color: The background color of the placeholder widget
• containerClass: Class to be added to the placeholder element, defaults to live-chat-loader-placeholder

Messenger Settings, User context and Company context settings can be set using window.intercomSettings. See the official Intercom documentation for more details.

To use Messenger, import the LiveChatLoaderProvider and then set the provider prop as messenger and the providerKey prop as your Facebook Page ID.

If you are using other Facebook features like share, you should set the appID prop as your Facebook App ID as the Customer Chat SDK includes all the features that Facebook provide.

You can optionally set the locale prop, the default value is en_US.

Then import the Messenger component.

import { LiveChatLoaderProvider, Messenger } from 'react-live-chat-loader'

export default class App extends React.Component {
  render() {
    return (
      <LiveChatLoaderProvider
        provider="messenger"
        providerKey="111222333444555"
        appID="111222333444555"
        locale="en_US"
      >
        /* ... */
        <Messenger />
      </LiveChatLoaderProvider>
    )
  }
}

For a list of locale option values, refer to Facebook Localization documentation.

You can customise the Messenger widget by passing the following props to the Messenger component:

• color: The theme color of the widget
• loggedInGreeting: The greeting text that will be displayed if the person is currently logged in to Facebook.
• loggedOutGreeting: The greeting text that will be displayed if the person is currently not logged in to Facebook.
• greetingDialogDisplay: Sets how the greeting dialog will be displayed.
• greetingDialogDelay: Sets the number of seconds of delay before the greeting dialog is shown after the plugin is loaded.
• containerClass: Class to be added to the placeholder element, defaults to live-chat-loader-placeholder

For a list of options, refer to Facebook Customer Chat Plugin documentation.

⚠️ Please note: Facebook Messenger will not load on localhost and you will need to configure your domain through the setup wizard in Facebook for it to load correctly.

To use Drift import the LiveChatLoaderProvider and set the provider prop as drift and the providerKey prop as your Drift App ID.

Then import the Drift component.

import { LiveChatLoaderProvider, Drift } from 'react-live-chat-loader'

export default () => (
  <LiveChatLoaderProvider providerKey="asdhjg127s1s" provider="drift">
    /* ... */
    <Drift />
  </LiveChatLoaderProvider>
)

You can customise the Drift placeholder by passing the following props to the Drift component:

• color: The background color of the placeholder
• icon: Choose from A, B, C, D; you're presented with these preset icons when signing up for Drift, or in the "Drift Widget > Design > Widget icon" entry under the "App Settings" header on the Drift settings page.
• containerClass: Class to be added to the placeholder element, defaults to live-chat-loader-placeholder

To use Userlike import the LiveChatLoaderProvider and set the provider prop as userlike and the providerKey prop as your Userlike Widget secret.

Then import the Userlike component.

import { LiveChatLoaderProvider, Userlike } from 'react-live-chat-loader'

export default () => (
  <LiveChatLoaderProvider
    providerKey="x014e93c288445c0bf6f8a378a0b1af8e6e1125t71634124a88fe63e38hme701"
    provider="userlike"
  >
    /* ... */
    <Userlike />
  </LiveChatLoaderProvider>
)

You can customise the Userlike placeholder by passing the following props to the Userlike component:

• color: The contrasting color, can be black or white.
• backgroundColor: The main color
• position: The button position, can be right or left.
• vOffset: The amount of vertical margin.
• hOffset: The amount of horizontal margin.
• style: The shape style, can be round or square.
• containerClass: Class to be added to the placeholder element, defaults to live-chat-loader-placeholder

To use Chatwoot import the LiveChatLoaderProvider and set the provider prop as chatwoot and the providerKey prop as your Chatwoot secret.

You can optionally set the locale and baseUrl props.

Then import the Chatwoot component.

import { LiveChatLoaderProvider, Chatwoot } from 'react-live-chat-loader'

export default () => (
  <LiveChatLoaderProvider
    providerKey="E33wn9ftxMDHZx18AaBkfPvY"
    provider="chatwoot"
  >
    /* ... */
    <Chatwoot />
  </LiveChatLoaderProvider>
)

You can customise the Chatwoot placeholder by passing the following props to the Chatwoot component:

• color: The background color, set to same color value you choose in Chatwoot dashboard.
• containerClass: Class to be added to the placeholder element, defaults to live-chat-loader-placeholder

To use Front import the LiveChatLoaderProvider and set the provider prop as front and the providerKey prop as your Front Chat chatId.

Then import the Front component.

import { LiveChatLoaderProvider, Front } from 'react-live-chat-loader'

export default () => {
  return (
    <LiveChatLoaderProvider
      providerKey="your-front-chat-chatId"
      provider="front"
    >
      /* ... */
      <Front />
    </LiveChatLoaderProvider>
  )
}

You can customise the Front placeholder icon by passing the following props to the Front component:

• color: The background color of the placeholder widget.
• containerClass: Class to be added to the placeholder element, defaults to live-chat-loader-placeholder

See the official Front documentation for more details.

To use Hubspot import the LiveChatLoaderProvider and set the provider prop as hubSpot and the providerKey prop as your Hubspot API Key.

Then import the Hubspot component.

import { LiveChatLoaderProvider, Hubspot } from 'react-live-chat-loader'

export default class App extends React.Component {
  render() {
    return (
      <LiveChatLoaderProvider providerKey="asdjkasl123123" provider="hubSpot">
        /* ... */
        <Hubspot />
      </LiveChatLoaderProvider>
    )
  }
}

You can customise the Hubspot placeholder by passing the following props to the Hubspot component:

• backgroundColor: The background color of the placeholder
• loader: A react component shown while the Hubspot libraries are loading

➕ Adding a Provider

To add a new live chat provider, follow the steps in Contributing: Adding a Provider.

🖥️ Examples

The website directory of this repository includes a Next.js app with example implementations of all currently supported providers.

For the initial setup of the example app, be sure first to run npm install + npm run build in the root level of the repository before running npm install in the website directory.

The following scripts in the example app will then be available:

• npm run dev (run a local server)
• npm run build (run next build)
• npm run start (run next start)

Visit react-live-chat-loader.vercel.app for a hosted version of the example app.

📝  Note that some providers require safe-listed, publicly accessible domains served over HTTPS — a service like ngrok can help achieve this locally.

🙌 Contributing

Happy to hear you’re interested in contributing to React Live Chat Loader! Please find our contribution guidelines here.

Past Contributors

Thanks goes to these wonderful people (emoji key):

This project follows the all-contributors specification. Contributions of any kind welcome!

📚 Resources

• How to avoid performance regressions when using live chat tools
• Reducing the Intercom Messenger bundle size by 65%

💼 License

This project is MIT licensed.