A beautiful chat rooms component made with Vue.js

vue-advanced-chat

A beautiful chat rooms component made with Vue.js - compatible with Vue, React & Angular

Vue 3 compatibility ?

Features

• Vue, Angular & React compatibility
• Customizeable realtime chat messaging
• Backend agnostic
• Images, videos, files, voice messages & emojis
• Edit messages & reply to other messages
• Tag users & emojis shortcut suggestions
• UI elements for seen, new, deleted, typing and system messages
• Text formatting - bold, italic, strikethrough, underline, code, multiline
• Online / Offline users status
• Flexible options and slots
• Light and dark theme modes
• Firestore example
• Typescript, PWA, Web Component support

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

Installation

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

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

# Using CDN
<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/vue-advanced-chat@0.8.8/dist/vue-advanced-chat.min.js"></script>

If you want to send mp3 audio messages, you may need to install lamejs inside your project:

npm install lamejs --save

Installation with React & Angular

Usage

You can import it as a custom component:

<template>
  <chat-window
    :current-user-id="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>

Or if you used CDN import:

<template>
  <vue-advanced-chat/>
</template>

<script>
export default {
  data() {
    return {
      rooms: [],
      messages: [],
      currentUserId: 1234
    }
  },
  mounted() {
    document.querySelector('vue-advanced-chat').currentUserId = this.currentUserId
    document.querySelector('vue-advanced-chat').rooms = this.rooms
    document.querySelector('vue-advanced-chat').messages = this.messages
  }
}
</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 spread operator

// 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

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

Props API

Prop	Type	Required	Default
height	String	-	600px
current-user-id(1)	[String, Number]	true	-
rooms	Array	-	[]
rooms-order	String	-	desc
loading-rooms(2)	Boolean	-	false
rooms-loaded(3)	Boolean	-	false
room-id(4)	[String, Number]	-	null
load-first-room(5)	Boolean	-	true
rooms-list-opened	Boolean	-	true
messages	Array	-	[]
room-message(6)	String	-	null
messages-loaded(7)	Boolean	-	false
room-actions(8)	Array	-	[]
menu-actions(9)	Array	-	[]
message-actions(10)	Array	-	(10)
show-search	Boolean	-	true
show-add-room	Boolean	-	true
show-send-icon	Boolean	-	true
show-files	Boolean	-	true
show-audio	Boolean	-	true
show-emojis	Boolean	-	true
show-reaction-emojis	Boolean	-	true
show-new-messages-divider(11)	Boolean	-	true
show-footer(12)	Boolean	-	true
text-messages(13)	Object	-	null
text-formatting(14)	Boolean	-	true
link-options(15)	Object	-	{ disabled: false, target: '_blank' }
room-info-enabled (16)	Boolean	-	false
textarea-action-enabled(17)	Boolean	-	false
responsive-breakpoint(18)	Number	-	900
single-room(19)	Boolean	-	false
theme(20)	Sring	-	light
accepted-files(21)	String	-	*
styles(22)	Object	-	(19)

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

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

(3) rooms-loaded must be set to true when all rooms have been loaded. Meaning the user cannot scroll to load more paginated rooms

(4) room-id can be used to load a specific room at any time

(5) load-first-room can be used to remove the default behaviour of opening the first room at initialization

(6) room-message can be used to add a default textarea value

(7) messages-loaded must be set to true when all messages of a conversation have been loaded. Meaning the user cannot scroll on top to load more paginated messages

(8) room-actions can be used to display your own buttons when clicking the dropdown icon of each room inside the rooms list.

You can then use the room-action-handler event to call your own action after clicking a button. Ex:

room-actions="[
  {
    name: 'archiveRoom',
    title: 'Archive Room'
  }
]"

(9) menu-actions can be used to display your own buttons when clicking the vertical dots icon inside a room.

You can then use the menu-action-handler event to call your own action after clicking a button. Ex:

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

(10) message-actions can be used to display your own buttons when clicking the dropdown icon inside a message.

You can then use the message-action-handler event to call your own action after clicking a button. Ex:

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

You can use built-in message-actions 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
  }
]"

(11) show-new-messages-divider can be used to show/hide the blue line divider between seen and unseen messages.

(12) show-footer can be used to hide the room footer. For example to prevent users to send any message or media.

(13) text-messages can be used to replace default i18n texts. Ex:

text-messages="{
  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...'
}"

(14) text-formatting 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 :text-formatting="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

(15) link-options can be used to disable url links in messages, or change urls target. Ex:

:link-options="{ disabled: true, target: '_self' }"

(16) room-info-enabled can be used to trigger an event after clicking the room header component.

You can then use the room-info event to call your own action after clicking the header.

(17) textarea-action-enabled can be used to add an extra icon on the right of the textarea

You can then use the textarea-action-handler event to call your own action after clicking the icon.

(18) responsive-breakpoint can be used to collapse the rooms list on the left when then viewport size goes below the specified width.

(19) single-room 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.

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

(21) accepted-files can be used to set specifics file types allowed in chat. By default, all file types are allowed: "*".

Example: set "accepted-files="image/png, image/jpeg, application/pdf" to allow JPG PNG and PDF files only

(22) styles can be used to customize your own theme. You can find the full list here

styles="{
  general: {
    color: '#0a0a0a',
    colorSpinner: '#333',
    borderStyle: '1px solid #e1e4e8'
  },

  footer: {
    background: '#f8f9fa',
    backgroundReply: 'rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.08)'
  },

  icons: {
    search: '#9ca6af'
  }
}"

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,
    index: 3,
    lastMessage: {
      content: 'Last message received',
      senderId: 1234,
      username: 'John Doe',
      timestamp: '10:20',
      saved: true,
      distributed: false,
      seen: false,
      new: true
    },
    users: [
      {
        _id: 1234,
        username: 'John Doe',
        avatar: 'assets/imgs/doe.png',
        status: {
          state: 'online',
          lastChanged: 'today, 14:30'
        }
      },
      {
        _id: 4321,
        username: 'John Snow',
        avatar: 'assets/imgs/snow.png',
        status: {
          state: 'offline',
          lastChanged: '14 July, 20:00'
        }
      }
    ],
    typingUsers: [ 4321 ]
  }
]"

• If you add the index property, your rooms will be ordered using this value.
  index 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 lastChanged properties:

  • state can be 'online' or 'offline'
  • lastChanged 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. Text, emoji, image, video and file types are supported.


Each message object has a senderId field which holds the id of the corresponding agent. If senderId 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
• indexId can be used if you need to change a message ID that is already displayed in a room, this preventing an animation glitch. For example, when you don't know in advance the message ID your backend will create.

Message states:

• saved: true one checkmark
• distributed: true two checkmarks
• seen: true two blue checkmarks
• deleted: true grey background with deleted message text

messages="[
  {
    _id: 7890,
    indexId: 12092,
    content: 'Message 1',
    senderId: 1234,
    username: 'John Doe',
    avatar: 'assets/imgs/doe.png',
    date: '13 November',
    timestamp: '10:20',
    system: false,
    saved: true,
    distributed: true,
    seen: true,
    deleted: false,
    disableActions: false,
    disableReactions: false,
    files: [
      {
        name: 'My File',
        size: 67351,
        type: 'png',
        audio: true,
        duration: 14.4,
        url: 'https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/...',
        preview: 'data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAA...'
      }
    ],
    reactions: {
      ?: [
        1234, // USER_ID
        4321
      ],
      ?: [
        1234
      ]
    },
    replyMessage: {
      content: 'Reply Message',
      senderId: 4321,
      files: [
        {
          name: 'My Replied File',
          size: 67351,
          type: 'png',
          audio: true,
          duration: 14.4,
          url: 'https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/...',
          preview: 'data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAA...'
        }
      ]
    },
  }
]"

Events API

Event	Params	Fires when a user
fetch-messages(1)	{ room, options }	Scrolled on top to load more messages
fetch-more-rooms(2)	-	Scrolled to load more rooms
send-message	{ roomId, content, files(9), replyMessage(10), usersTag }	Sent a message
edit-message	{ roomId, messageId, newContent, files(9), replyMessage(10) ,usersTag }	Edited a message
delete-message	{ roomId, message }	Deleted a message
open-file	{ message, file }	Clicked to view or download a file
open-user-tag(3)	{ user }	Clicked on a user tag inside a message
add-room	-	Clicked on the plus icon next to searchbar
room-action-handler(4)	{ roomId, action }	Clicked on the vertical dots icon inside a room
menu-action-handler(5)	{ roomId, action }	Clicked on the vertical dots icon inside a room
message-action-handler(6)	{ roomId, action, message }	Clicked on the dropdown icon inside a message
send-message-reaction	{ roomId, messageId, reaction, remove }	Clicked on the emoji icon inside a message
room-info (7)	room	Clicked the room header bar
toggle-rooms-list	{ opened }	Clicked on the toggle icon inside a room header
textarea-action-handler(8)	{ roomId, message }	Clicked on custom icon inside the footer
typing-message	{ message, roomId }	Started typing a message

(1) fetch-messages 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) fetch-messages 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) fetch-more-rooms is triggered when scrolling down the rooms list, and should be a method implementing a pagination system.

(3) open-user-tag is triggered when clicking a user tag inside a message. When creating a user tag by typing @ in the footer textarea and sending the message, the tag will be identified with the below pattern:

<usertag>TAGGED_USER_ID</usertag>

This will make the tag clickable inside a message. Ex: message tag content

send-message and edit-message events will handle that pattern for you and pass it in the content param.

(4) room-action-handler is the result of the room-actions prop.

When clicking a button from your room-actions array, room-action-handler 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 'archiveRoom':
      // call a method to archive the room
  }
}

(5) menu-action-handler is the result of the menu-actions prop.

When clicking a button from your menu-actions array, menu-action-handler 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
  }
}

(6) message-action-handler is the result of the message-actions prop.

When clicking a button from your message-actions array, message-action-handler 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
  }
}

(7) room-info is the result of the room-info-enabled prop.

(8) textarea-action-handler is the result of the textarea-action-enabled prop.

(9) Array of files where each file contain: { blob, localURL, name, size, type, extension }

(10) 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 #room-header="{ room, userStatus }">
  {{ room.roomName }} - {{ userStatus }}
</template>

Slot	Action	Data	Overridden slots
custom-action-icon	Add a custom icon inside the footer	-	-
room-list-item	Replace the template of the room list items	room	room-list-avatar, room-list-options
room-list-avatar	Replace the avatar of room list items	room
room-list-options	Replace the template of the list room options	room	room-list-options-icon
rooms-header	Replace the content above the search bar	-	-
rooms-list-search	Replace the search bar	-	-
room-header	Replace the template of the room header	room, typingUsers, userStatus	room-options, menu-icon, toggle-icon
room-header-avatar	Replace the template of the room header avatar	room
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		-
dropdown-icon	Replace the dropdown icon	-	-
room-list-options-icon	Replace the room list options dropdown icon	-	-
search-icon	Replace the search icon	-	-
add-icon	Replace the add room icon	-	-
audio-pause-icon	Replace the message audio pause icon	-	-
audio-play-icon	Replace the message audio play 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 to <usertag>John</usertag>',
    senderId: 2,
    timestamp: 'December 11, 2019 at 4:00:00 PM',
    seen: true
  }
}

Notes

• You need to create a composite index to order rooms by last message received.
  The easiest way to do it is to create a room, then click the error message url in the browser debugging console.

Use as a Web Component with React and Angular

Install vue-advance-chat component

• Follow Installation steps

Install Vue.js

# Using npm
npm install --save vue

# Using yarn
yarn add --save vue

Angular Setup

// angular.json

"build": {
  "scripts": [
    "./node_modules/vue/dist/vue.min.js",
    "./node_modules/vue-advanced-chat/dist/vue-advanced-chat.min.js"
  ]
}

// page.module.ts

@NgModule({
  ...
  schemas: [CUSTOM_ELEMENTS_SCHEMA],
})

<!-- page.html -->

<vue-advanced-chat
  height="100vh"
  [currentUserId]="currentUserId"
  [roomId]="roomId"
  [rooms]="rooms"
  [roomsLoaded]="true"
  [messages]="messages"
  [messagesLoaded]="messagesLoaded"
  [showFiles]="true"
  [showEmojis]="true"
  [textFormatting]="true"
  [showReactionEmojis]="true"
  [showFooter]="true"
  (fetch-messages)="fetchMessages($event.detail[0])"
  (send-message)="sendMessage($event.detail[0])"
  ...
>
</vue-advanced-chat>

Use in a Vue 3 project

Install vue-advance-chat component (next branch)

# Using npm
npm install --save https://github.com/antoine92190/vue-advanced-chat/tarball/next

Install vue migration build

# Using npm
npm install --save-dev @vue/compat

Add migration build config

// vue.config.js

module.exports = {
  chainWebpack: config => {
    config.resolve.alias.set('vue', '@vue/compat')

    config.module
      .rule('vue')
      .use('vue-loader')
      .tap(options => {
        return {
          ...options,
          compilerOptions: {
            compatConfig: {
              MODE: 3
            }
          }
        }
      })
  }
}