@pisethx/vue-chat

# increment version in package json
npm publish

vue-advanced-chat

Features

• Realtime chat messaging
• Customizeable
• Backend agnostic
• Images, files, voice messages & emojis
• Edit messages
• Reply to other messages
• UI elements for seen, new, deleted, typing and system messages
• Text formatting - bold, italic, strikethrough, code
• Online / Offline status
• Flexible options
• Custom theming - light and dark modes
• Firestore example
• PWA support
• Web Component support

Demo

Enjoy 😄

Real World Example

A Progressive Web Application showcasing all the features of vue-advanced-chat component.
Built with Firestore, Vuetify, and Push Notifications.

If you wish to get premium access to the real world example source code, please contact me by email.

You will get a fully working chat application for web and mobile:

• UI and backend integration
• Email, Facebook and Google authentication
• Real-time messaging, browser push notifications, images optimization (Firebase Cloud Functions to compress avatars)
• UI/UX components for alerts (errors, information), dialogs, etc.
• Add existing users to a room using their email
• Send email invitations to non-existing users
• Edition of profile and rooms
• Addition and deletion of room users
• Optimised firestore implementation to reduce bandwidth and costs as much as possible
• State management using vuex
• Internationalisation (i18n)
• Google Analytics
• Support to help you get the chat up and running

Table of Contents

• Installation
• Usage
• Props API
• Props data structure
• Events API
• Named Slots
• Using with Firestore
• Use as a Web Component

Installation

# Using npm
npm install --save vue-advanced-chat

# Using yarn
yarn add --save vue-advanced-chat

Usage

You can import it as a custom component:

<template>
  <chat-window :currentUserId="currentUserId" :rooms="rooms" :messages="messages" />
</template>

<script>
  import ChatWindow from 'vue-advanced-chat'
  import 'vue-advanced-chat/dist/vue-advanced-chat.css'

  export default {
    components: {
      ChatWindow
    },
    data() {
      return {
        rooms: [],
        messages: [],
        currentUserId: 1234
      }
    }
  }
</script>

Important notes

vue-advanced-chat component is performance oriented, hence you have to follow specific rules to make it work properly.

• Use array assignement instead of push method

// DO THIS
const rooms = []
for (let i = 0; i < res.length; i++) {
	rooms.push(res)
}
this.rooms = rooms

// DON'T DO THIS
for (let i = 0; i < res.length; i++) {
	this.rooms.push(res)
}

// DO THIS
this.rooms[i].typingUsers = [...this.rooms[i].typingUsers, typingUserId]

// DON'T DO THIS
this.rooms[i].typingUsers.push(typingUserId)

• To add or replace an item inside an array, use $set method or spread operator

// DO THIS
this.$set(this.rooms, roomIndex, room)

// OR DO THIS
this.rooms[roomIndex] = room
this.rooms = [...this.rooms]

// DON'T DO THIS
this.rooms[roomIndex] = room

// AND DON'T DO THIS
this.rooms.push(room)

• Follow the UI loading pattern by updating messagesLoaded prop every time a new room is fetched

fetchMessages({ room, options }) {
  this.messagesLoaded = false
  this.messages = []

  // use timeout to imitate async server fetched data
  setTimeout(() => {
    this.messagesLoaded = true
  }, 0)
}

Props API

Prop	Type	Required	Default
height	String	-	600px
currentUserId (1)	[String, Number]	true	-
rooms	Array	-	[ ]
loadingRooms (2)	Boolean	-	false
roomId (3)	[String, Number]	-	null
loadFirstRoom (4)	Boolean	-	true
messages	Array	-	[ ]
roomMessage (5)	String	-	null
messagesLoaded (6)	Boolean	-	false
menuActions (7)	Array	-	[ ]
messageActions (8)	Array	-	(4)
showAddRoom	Boolean	-	true
showSendIcon	Boolean	-	true
showFiles	Boolean	-	true
showAudio	Boolean	-	true
showEmojis	Boolean	-	true
showReactionEmojis	Boolean	-	true
showNewMessagesDivider (9)	Boolean	-	true
textMessages (10)	Object	-	null
textFormatting (11)	Boolean	-	true
responsiveBreakpoint (12)	Number	-	900
singleRoom (13)	Boolean	-	false
theme (14)	Sring	-	light
styles (15)	Object	-	(10)

(1) currentUserId is required to display UI and trigger actions according to the user using the chat (ex: messages position on the right, etc.)

(2) loadingRooms can be used to show/hide a spinner icon while rooms are loading

(3) roomId can be used to load a specific room at any time

(4) loadFirstRoom can be used to remove the default behaviour of opening the first room at initialization

(5) roomMessage can be used to add a default textarea value

(6) messagesLoaded must be manually set to true when all messages of a conversation have been loaded. Meaning the user cannot scroll on top anymore

(7) menuActions can be used to display your own buttons when clicking the vertical dots icon inside a room.
You can then use the menuActionHandler event to call your own action after clicking a button. Ex:

menuActions="[
  {
    name: 'inviteUser',
    title: 'Invite User'
  },
  {
    name: 'removeUser',
    title: 'Remove User'
  },
  {
    name: 'deleteRoom',
    title: 'Delete Room'
  }
]"

(8) messageActions can be used to display your own buttons when clicking the dropdown icon inside a message.
You can then use the messageActionHandler event to call your own action after clicking a button. Ex:

messageActions="[
  {
    name: 'addMessageToFavorite',
    title: 'Add To Favorite'
  },
  {
    name: 'shareMessage',
    title: 'Share Message'
  }
]"

You can use built-in messageActions names to trigger specific UI modifications when clicked.
Currently, replyMessage, editMessage and deleteMessage action names are available.
If messageActions is not set, it will use the default values below.
If you don't want to display this messageActions menu, you can pass it an empty array.

messageActions="[
  {
    name: 'replyMessage',
    title: 'Reply'
  },
  {
    name: 'editMessage',
    title: 'Edit Message',
    onlyMe: true
  },
  {
    name: 'deleteMessage',
    title: 'Delete Message',
    onlyMe: true
  }
]"

(9) showNewMessagesDivider can be used to show/hide the blue line divider between seen and unseen messages.

(10) textMessages can be used to replace default i18n texts. Ex:

textMessages="{
  ROOMS_EMPTY: 'Aucune conversation',
  ROOM_EMPTY: 'Aucune conversation sélectionnée',
  NEW_MESSAGES: 'Nouveaux messages',
  MESSAGE_DELETED: 'Ce message a été supprimé',
  MESSAGES_EMPTY: 'Aucun message',
  CONVERSATION_STARTED: 'La conversation a commencée le :',
  TYPE_MESSAGE: 'Tapez votre message',
  SEARCH: 'Rechercher',
  IS_ONLINE: 'est en ligne',
  LAST_SEEN: 'dernière connexion ',
  IS_TYPING: 'est en train de taper...'
}"

(11) textFormatting can be used to add text formatting. Currently, bold, italic, strikethrough, underline, inline code and multiline code formatting are available and can be used in conjonction. You can disable text formatting by passing the prop as :textFormatting="false".

Style	Syntax	Example	Output
Bold	* *	*This is bold text*	This is bold text
Italic	_ _	_This text is italicized_	This text is italicized
Strikethrough	~ ~	~This was mistaken text~	This was mistaken text
Underline	° °	°This text is underlined°	This text is underlined
Nested formatting	* * and _ _	*This text is _extremely_ important*	This text is extremely important

Inline Code

Example: `This is inline code`

Output: This is inline code

Multiline Code

Example: ```This is multiline code```

Output:

This is
multiline code

(12) responsiveBreakpoint can be used to collapse the rooms list on the left when then viewport size goes below the specified width.

(13) singleRoom can be used if you never want to show the rooms list on the left. You still need to pass the rooms prop as an array with a single element.

(14) theme can be used to change the chat theme. Currently, only light and dark are available.

(15) styles can be used to customize your own theme. Ex:

styles="{
  general: {
    color: '#0a0a0a',
    backgroundInput: '#fff',
    colorPlaceholder: '#9ca6af',
    colorCaret: '#1976d2',
    colorSpinner: '#333',
    borderStyle: '1px solid #e1e4e8',
    backgroundScrollIcon: '#fff'
  },

  container: {
    border: 'none',
    borderRadius: '4px',
    boxShadow: '0px 3px 1px 1px #000'
  },

  header: {
    background: '#fff',
    colorRoomName: '#0a0a0a',
    colorRoomInfo: '#9ca6af'
  },

  footer: {
    background: '#f8f9fa',
    borderStyleInput: '1px solid #e1e4e8',
    borderInputSelected: '#1976d2',
    backgroundReply: 'rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.08)'
  },

  content: {
    background: '#f8f9fa'
  },

  sidemenu: {
    background: '#fff',
    backgroundHover: '#f6f6f6',
    backgroundActive: '#e5effa',
    colorActive: '#1976d2',
    borderColorSearch: '#e1e5e8'
  },

  dropdown: {
    background: '#fff',
    backgroundHover: '#f6f6f6'
  },

  message: {
    background: '#fff',
    backgroundMe: '#ccf2cf',
    color: '#0a0a0a',
    colorStarted: '#9ca6af',
    backgroundDeleted: '#dadfe2',
    colorDeleted: '#757e85',
    colorUsername: '#9ca6af',
    colorTimestamp: '#828c94',
    backgroundDate: '#e5effa',
    colorDate: '#505a62',
    backgroundSystem: '#e5effa',
    colorSystem: '#505a62',
    backgroundReply: 'rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.08)',
    colorReplyUsername: '#0a0a0a',
    colorReply: '#6e6e6e',
    backgroundImage: '#ddd',
    colorNewMessages: '#1976d2',
    backgroundReaction: '#eee',
    borderStyleReaction: '1px solid #eee',
    backgroundReactionHover: '#fff',
    borderStyleReactionHover: '1px solid #ddd',
    colorReactionCounter: '#0a0a0a',
    backgroundReactionMe: '#cfecf5',
    borderStyleReactionMe: '1px solid #3b98b8',
    backgroundReactionHoverMe: '#cfecf5',
    borderStyleReactionHoverMe: '1px solid #3b98b8',
    colorReactionCounterMe: '#0b59b3'
  },

  markdown: {
    background: 'rgba(239, 239, 239, 0.7)',
    border: 'rgba(212, 212, 212, 0.9)',
    color: '#e01e5a',
    colorMulti: '#0a0a0a'
  },

  room: {
    colorUsername: '#0a0a0a',
    colorMessage: '#67717a',
    colorTimestamp: '#a2aeb8',
    colorStateOnline: '#4caf50',
    colorStateOffline: '#ccc',
    backgroundCounterBadge: '#0696c7',
    colorCounterBadge: '#fff'
  },

  emoji: {
    background: '#fff'
  },

  icons: {
    search: '#9ca6af',
    add: '#1976d2',
    toggle: '#0a0a0a',
    menu: '#0a0a0a',
    close: '#9ca6af',
    closeImage: '#fff',
    file: '#1976d2',
    paperclip: '#1976d2',
    closeOutline: '#000',
    send: '#1976d2',
    sendDisabled: '#9ca6af',
    emoji: '#1976d2',
    emojiReaction: '#828c94',
    document: '#1976d2',
    pencil: '#9e9e9e',
    checkmark: '#9e9e9e',
    checkmarkSeen: '#0696c7',
    eye: '#fff',
    dropdownMessage: '#fff',
    dropdownMessageBackground: 'rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.25)',
    dropdownScroll: '#0a0a0a'
  }
}"

Props data structure

Your props must follow a specific structure to display rooms and messages correctly:

Rooms prop

rooms="[
  {
    roomId: 1,
    roomName: 'Room 1',
    avatar: 'assets/imgs/people.png',
    unreadCount: 4,
    lastMessage: {
      content: 'Last message received',
      sender_id: 1234,
      username: 'John Doe',
      timestamp: '10:20',
      date: 123242424,
      saved: true,
      distributed: false,
      seen: false,
      new: true
    },
    users: [
      {
        _id: 1234,
        username: 'John Doe',
        avatar: 'assets/imgs/doe.png',
        status: {
          state: 'online',
          last_changed: 'today, 14:30'
        }
      },
      {
        _id: 4321,
        username: 'John Snow',
        avatar: 'assets/imgs/snow.png',
        status: {
          state: 'offline',
          last_changed: '14 July, 20:00'
        }
      }
    ],
    typingUsers: [ 4321 ]
  }
]"

• If you set a date to lastMessage property, your rooms will be ordered using this date value. date can be any sortable value, like a string, datetime, timestamp, etc.

• For each room user, you can add the status property, which can hold the state and last_changed properties:

  • state can be 'online' or 'offline'
  • last_changed is the date when state was last modified.

• typingUsers is an array of all the users who are currently writing a message

Messages prop

Message objects are rendered differently depending on their type. Currently, only text, emoji and file types are supported.

Each message object has a sender_id field which holds the id of the corresponding agent. If sender_id matches the currentUserId prop, specific UI and actions will be implemented.

Notes:

• username will be displayed on each message of corresponding agents if at least 3 users are in the room
• system is used to show messages with a specific centered display

Message states:

• saved: true one checkmark
• distributed: true two checkmarks
• seen: true two blue checkmarks

messages="[
  {
    _id: 7890,
    content: 'message 1',
    sender_id: 1234,
    username: 'John Doe',
    date: '13 November',
    timestamp: '10:20',
    system: false,
    saved: true,
    distributed: true,
    seen: true,
    disable_actions: false,
    disable_reactions: false,
    file: {
      name: 'My File',
      size: 67351,
      type: 'png',
      audio: true,
      duration: 14.4,
      url: 'https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/...'
    },
    reactions: {
      wink: [
        1234, // USER_ID
        4321
      ],
      laughing: [
        1234
      ]
    }
  }
]"

Events API

Event	Params	Fires when
fetchMessages (1)	{ room, options }	A user has scrolled on top to load more messages
sendMessage	{ roomId, content, file (5), replyMessage (6) }	A user has sent a message
editMessage	{ roomId, messageId, newContent, file (5), replyMessage (6) }	A user has edited a message
deleteMessage	{ roomId, messageId }	A user has deleted a message
openFile	{ message, action }	A user has clicked to view or download a file
addRoom	-	A user clicks on the plus icon next to searchbar
menuActionHandler (2)	{ roomId, action }	A user clicks on the vertical dots icon inside a room
messageActionHandler (3)	{ roomId, action, message }	A user clicks on the dropdown icon inside a message
sendMessageReaction	{ roomId, messageId, reaction, remove }	A user clicks on the emoji icon inside a message
roomInfo	room	A user clicks the room header bar
textareaActionHandler (4)	{ roomId, message }	A user clicks on custom icon inside the footer
typingMessage	{ message, roomId }	A user is typing a message

(1) fetchMessages is triggered every time a room is opened. If the room is opened for the first time, the options param will hold reset: true (1) fetchMessages should be a method implementing a pagination system. Its purpose is to load older messages of a conversation when the user scroll on top

(2) menuActionHandler is the result of the menuActions prop.
When clicking a button from your menuActions array, menuActionHandler will give you the name of the button that was click. Then you can do whatever you want with it. Ex:

menuActionHandler({ roomId, action }) {
  switch (action.name) {
    case 'inviteUser':
      // call a method to invite a user to the room
    case 'removeUser':
      // call a method to remove a user from the room
    case 'deleteRoom':
      // call a method to delete the room
  }
}

(3) messageActionHandler is the result of the messageActions prop.
When clicking a message menu button from your messageActions array, messageActionHandler will give you the name of the button that was click and the corresponding message data. Then you can do whatever you want with it. Ex:

messageActionHandler({ roomId, action, message }) {
  switch (action.name) {
    case 'addMessageToFavorite':
      // call a method to add a message to the favorite list
    case 'shareMessage':
      // call a method to share the message with another user
  }
}

(4) textareaActionHandler can be used to add an extra icon on the right of the textarea, and recieve an event when clicking it.

(5) All file params contain: { blob, localURL, name, size, type }

(6) replyMessage object is available when the user replied to another message by clicking the corresponding icon, and contains the message information that was clicked

Named Slots

Example:

<template v-slot:room-header="{ room, userStatus }">
  {{ room.roomName }} - {{ userStatus }}
</template>

Slot	Action	Data	Overridden slots
rooms-header	Add a template on top of rooms list (above the search bar)	-	-
room-list-item	Replace the template of the room list items	rooms	-
room-header	Replace the template of the room header	room, typingUsers, userStatus	room-options, menu-icon, toggle-icon
room-header-info	Replace the template of the room header text	room, typingUsers, userStatus
room-options	Replace the template of the room options	-	menu-icon
message	Replace the template of the message box	message	deleted-icon, eye-icon, document-icon, pencil-icon, checkmark-icon, dropdown-icon, emoji-picker-icon
messages-empty	Replace the empty message template	-	-
rooms-empty	Replace the empty rooms template	-	-
no-room-selected	Replace the no room selected template	-	-
menu-icon	Replace the room menu icon	-	-
toggle-icon	Replace the toggle room list icon	-	-
scroll-icon	Replace the scroll to newest message icon	-	-
reply-close-icon	Replace the reply close icon	-	-
image-close-icon	Replace the image close icon	-	-
file-icon	Replace the file icon	-	-
file-close-icon	Replace the file close icon	-	-
edit-close-icon	Replace the edit close icon	-	-
emoji-picker-icon	Replace the emoji picker icon	-	-
emoji-picker-reaction-icon	Replace the emoji picker reaction icon (in the message box)	-	-
paperclip-icon	Replace the paperclip icon	-	-
send-icon	Replace the message send icon	-	-
eye-icon	Replace the eye icon (image message)	-	-
document-icon	Replace the document icon	-	-
pencil-icon	Replace the pencil icon	-	-
checkmark-icon	Replace the checkmark icon	message	-
deleted-icon	Replace the deleted icon	deleted	-
microphone-icon	Replace the microphone icon		-
microphone-off-icon	Replace the microphone-off icon		-
dropdown-icon	Replace the dropdown icon	-	-
search-icon	Replace the search icon	-	-
add-icon	Replace the add room icon	-	-

Using with Firestore

Source code

You can find the source code to implement a full featured chat app using Firebase/Firestore inside the demo folder.
To test it using your own Firebase project:

• Setup Cloud Firestore (to store users and rooms) and Realtime Database (to store users online status)
• Clone this repository: git clone https://github.com/antoine92190/vue-advanced-chat.git
• Inside demo/src/firestore/index.js file, replace the line const config = ... by your own Firebase config
• Go inside demo folder and run npm run serve

Data structure

If you decide to use the same code as in the demo folder to create your chat app, you need to have a specific Firestore data structure.
To help you get started, I added in demo/src/App.vue a method addData to initialize some data on your Firestore database.

Users collection

users: {
  USER_ID_1: {
    _id: 1,
    username: 'User 1'
  },
  USER_ID_2: {
    _id: 2,
    username: 'User 2'
  },
  USER_ID_3: {
    _id: 3,
    username: 'User 2'
  }
}

Rooms collection

chatRooms: {
  ROOM_ID_1: {
    users: [1, 3]
  },
  ROOM_ID_2: {
    users: [1, 2, 3]
  }
}

Messages collection inside a room document

messages: {
  MESSAGE_ID_1: {
    content: 'My first message',
    sender_id: 2,
    timestamp: 'December 11, 2019 at 4:00:00 PM',
    seen: true
  }
}

Use as a Web Component

Clone vue-advance-chat project

git clone https://github.com/antoine92190/vue-advanced-chat.git

Build it as a Web Component

npm i && npm run build:wc

Add Vue.js to your application

<!-- index.html -->
<script src="https://unpkg.com/vue"></script>

Import the built minified component in your application

Add vue-advanced-chat.min.js in your application files

vue-advanced-chat/dist/vue-advanced-chat.min.js

Import the vue-advanced-chat.min.js file you just added

import './vue-advanced-chat.min.js'

License

This project is licensed under MIT License