@vonage/vc-messages NPM

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This Web Component follows the open-wc recommendation and is meant to be used with the Vonage Client SDK In-App Messaging.

A goal is to simplify the code needed to create a chat room quickly. Please see the Creating a chat app tutorial to see an implementation using Vanilla JavaScript.

This Web Component can be used to replace a part of the Chat app UI.

Installation

npm i @vonage/vc-messages

Usage

<script type="module">
  import '@vonage/vc-messages/vc-messages.js';
</script>

<vc-messages></vc-messages>

Attributes that can be used (optional):

loadPreviousMessages : set to load any previous messages in the conversation. Default behavior is to load no previous messages.
filter : set to filter for only the events you want to load. Default is 'message','member:joined','member:left','member:invited'

<vc-messages loadPreviousMessages="10" filter='["message"]'></vc-messages>

The vc-messages Web Component can handle all its responsibilities in a Conversation.

First, get a reference to the element:

const vcMessages = document.querySelector("vc-messages");

Then, pass the Conversation object to the Web Component:

vcMessages.client = client;
vcMessages.conversationId = conversationId;

Note: To see where conversationId and client came from, see step 4 and step 11 in the tutorial.

Styling

By default, there are no styles applied to the Web Component.

The vc-messages component uses CSS part to apply custom styles.

Here are two diagram that labels the parts of the component as well as the default style:

Diagram labeling the parts of the component

To style the overall message, the part is "message". To style the application user's message, the part to target is "message mine".

Diagram labeling the parts of each message of the component

Each message is made up of the text (part is "message-text"), and their name (part is "username"). To specifically style the application user's message text, target "message-text mine" and for their name, the target would be "username mine".

To get the styling shown in the image:

vc-messages {
  height: 300px;
}

vc-messages::part(message) {
  padding: 15px;
  margin: 5px;
}

vc-messages::part(message mine) {
  text-align: right;
}

vc-messages::part(message-text) {
  border-radius: 6px;
  background-color: #f0f0f0;
  display: inline-block;
  padding: 2px 8px;
  border-radius: 6px 6px 6px 0;
  font-size: 1.4rem;
}

vc-messages::part(message-text mine) {
  background-color: #e0e0ff;
  border-radius: 6px 6px 0px 6px;
}

vc-messages::part(username) {
  font-size: 1.2rem;
}

vc-messages::part(username mine) {
  text-align: right;
  color: black;
}

Another example could be:

vc-messages {
  background-color: red;
  height: 300px;
}

vc-messages::part(message) {
  background-color: green;
  border-radius: 20px 20px 20px 0;
}

vc-messages::part(message mine) {
  text-align: left;
  background-color: royalblue;
  border-radius: 20px 20px 0 20px;
  border: 0;
}

vc-messages::part(message-text) {
  background-color: yellow;
  border-radius: 20px 20px 20px 0;
}

vc-messages::part(message-text mine) {
  background-color: purple;
  color: white;
  font-style: italic;
  border-radius: 20px 20px 0 20px;
}

vc-messages::part(username) {
  color: white;
}

vc-messages::part(username mine) {
  text-align: right;
  font-style: italic;
  color: black;
}