Gifted Chat

Web fork of most complete chat UI for React Web (formerly known as Gifted Messenger).

Demo is available here

Article

The article how to create working chat in 20 minutes is available on medium - here

Features

• Fully customizable components
• Composer actions (to attach photos, etc.)
• Load earlier messages
• Copy messages to clipboard
• Touchable links using react-native-parsed-text
• Avatar as user's initials
• Localized dates
• Multiline TextInput
• InputToolbar avoiding keyboard

Installation

• Using npm: npm install react-web-gifted-chat --save
• Using Yarn: yarn add react-web-gifted-chat

Example

import { GiftedChat } from 'react-web-gifted-chat';

class Example extends React.Component {

  state = {
    messages: [],
  };

  componentWillMount() {
    this.setState({
      messages: [
        {
          id: 1,
          text: 'Hello developer',
          createdAt: new Date(),
          user: {
            id: 2,
            name: 'React',
            avatar: 'https://facebook.github.io/react/img/logo_og.png',
          },
        },
      ],
    });
  }

  onSend(messages = []) {
    this.setState((previousState) => ({
      messages: GiftedChat.append(previousState.messages, messages),
    }));
  }

  render() {
    return (
      <GiftedChat
        messages={this.state.messages}
        onSend={(messages) => this.onSend(messages)}
        user={{
          id: 1,
        }}
      />
    );
  }

}

Advanced example

See example/App.js for a working demo!

Message object

e.g.

{
  id: 1,
  text: 'My message',
  createdAt: new Date(Date.UTC(2016, 5, 11, 17, 20, 0)),
  user: {
    id: 2,
    name: 'React',
    avatar: 'https://facebook.github.io/react/img/logo_og.png',
  },
  image: 'https://facebook.github.io/react/img/logo_og.png',
  // Any additional custom parameters are passed through
}

Props

• messages (Array) - Messages to display
• text (String) - Input text; default is undefined, but if specified, it will override GiftedChat's internal state (e.g. for redux; see notes below)
• placeholder (String) - Placeholder when text is empty; default is 'Type a message...'
• messageIdGenerator (Function) - Generate an id for new messages. Defaults to UUID v4, generated by uuid
• user (Object) - User sending the messages: { _id, name, avatar }
• onSend (Function) - Callback when sending a message
• locale (String) - Locale to localize the dates
• timeFormat (String) - Format to use for rendering times; default is 'LT'
• dateFormat (String) - Format to use for rendering dates; default is 'll'
• isAnimated (Bool) - Animates the view when the keyboard appears
• loadEarlier (Bool) - Enables the "Load earlier messages" button
• onLoadEarlier (Function) - Callback when loading earlier messages
• isLoadingEarlier (Bool) - Display an ActivityIndicator when loading earlier messages
• renderLoading (Function) - Render a loading view when initializing
• renderLoadEarlier (Function) - Custom "Load earlier messages" button
• renderAvatar (Function) - Custom message avatar; set to null to not render any avatar for the message
• showUserAvatar (Bool) - Whether to render an avatar for the current user; default is false, only show avatars for other users
• showAvatarForEveryMessage (Bool) - When false, avatars will only be displayed when a consecutive message is from the same user on the same day; default is false
• onPressAvatar (Function(user)) - Callback when a message avatar is tapped
• renderAvatarOnTop (Bool) - Render the message avatar at the top of consecutive messages, rather than the bottom; default is false
• renderBubble (Function) - Custom message bubble
• renderSystemMessage (Function) - Custom system message
• onLongPress (Function(context, message)) - Callback when a message bubble is long-pressed; default is to show an ActionSheet with "Copy Text" (see example using showActionSheetWithOptions())
• inverted (Bool) - Reverses display order of messages; default is true
• renderMessage (Function) - Custom message container
• renderMessageText (Function) - Custom message text
• renderMessageImage (Function) - Custom message image
• imageProps (Object) - Extra props to be passed to the <Image> component created by the default renderMessageImage
• videoProps (Object) - Extra props to be passed to the <Video> component created by the default renderMessageVideo
• lightboxProps (Object) - Extra props to be passed to the MessageImage's Lightbox
• renderCustomView (Function) - Custom view inside the bubble
• renderDay (Function) - Custom day above a message
• renderTime (Function) - Custom time inside a message
• renderFooter (Function) - Custom footer component on the ListView, e.g. 'User is typing...'; see example/App.js for an example
• renderChatFooter (Function) - Custom component to render below the MessageContainer (separate from the ListView)
• renderInputToolbar (Function) - Custom message composer container
• renderComposer (Function) - Custom text input message composer
• renderActions (Function) - Custom action button on the left of the message composer
• renderSend (Function) - Custom send button; you can pass children to the original Send component quite easily, for example to use a custom icon (example)
• renderAccessory (Function) - Custom second line of actions below the message composer
• onPressActionButton (Function) - Callback when the Action button is pressed (if set, the default actionSheet will not be used)
• bottomOffset (Integer) - Distance of the chat from the bottom of the screen (e.g. useful if you display a tab bar)
• minInputToolbarHeight (Integer) - Minimum height of the input toolbar; default is 44
• listViewProps (Object) - Extra props to be passed to the messages <ListView>; some props can't be overridden, see the code in MessageContainer.render() for details
• textInputProps (Object) - Extra props to be passed to the <TextInput>
• keyboardShouldPersistTaps (Enum) - Determines whether the keyboard should stay visible after a tap; see <ScrollView> docs
• onInputTextChanged (Function) - Callback when the input text changes
• maxInputLength (Integer) - Max message composer TextInput length
• parsePatterns (Function) - Custom parse patterns for react-native-parsed-text used to linkify message content (like URLs and phone numbers), e.g.:
• extraData (Object) - Extra props for re-rendering FlatList on demand. This will be useful for rendering footer etc.
• minComposerHeight (Object) - Custom min height of the composer.
• maxComposerHeight (Object) - Custom max height of the composer.

License

• MIT

Notes for local development

You need to have facebook watchman installed

1. cd example
2. yarn
3. yarn start
4. yarn run sync in another terminal window (doesn't matter where)

If you have any issues, you can clear your watches using watchman watch-del-all and try again.

Author

Feel free to ask me question on Twitter @JanRomaniak!