Chat

A SwiftUI Chat UI framework with fully customizable message cells and a built-in media picker

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Features

• Displays your messages with pagination and allows you to create and “send” new messages (sending means calling a closure since user will be the one providing actual API calls)
• Allows you to pass a custom view builder for messages and input views
• Has a built-in photo and video library/camera picker for multiple media asset selection
• Can display a fullscreen menu on long press a message cell (automatically shows scroll for big messages)
• Supports “reply to message” via message menu. Remove and edit are coming soon
• Supports voice recording, video/photo and text. More content types are coming soon

Usage

Create a chat view like this:

@State var messages: [Message] = []

var body: some View {
    ChatView(messages: messages) { draft in
        yourViewModel.send(draft: draft)
    }
}

where:
messages - list of messages to display
didSendMessage - a closure which is called when the user presses the send button

Message is a type that Chat uses for the internal implementation. In the code above it expects the user to provide a list of Message structs, and it returns a DraftMessage in the didSendMessage closure. You can map it both ways to your own Message model that your API expects.

Customization

You may customize message cells like this:

ChatView(messages: viewModel.messages) { draft in
    viewModel.send(draft: draft)
} messageBuilder: { message, positionInGroup, showAttachmentClosure in
    VStack {
        Text(message.text)
        if !message.attachments.isEmpty {
            ForEach(message.attachments, id: \.id) { at in
                AsyncImage(url: at.thumbnail)
            }
        }
    }
}

messageBuilder‘s parameters:

• message - the message containing user info, attachments, etc.
• positionInGroup - the position of the message in its continuous collection of messages from the same user
• showAttachmentClosure - you can pass an attachment to this closure to use ChatView’s fullscreen media viewer

You may customize the input view (a text field with buttons at the bottom) like this:

ChatView(messages: viewModel.messages) { draft in
    viewModel.send(draft: draft)
} inputViewBuilder: { textBinding, attachments, state, style, actionClosure in
    Group {
        switch style {
        case .message: // input view on chat screen
            VStack {
                HStack {
                    Button("Send") { actionClosure(.send) }
                    Button("Attach") { actionClosure(.photo) }
                }
                TextField("Write your message", text: textBinding)
            }
        case .signature: // input view on photo selection screen
            VStack {
                HStack {
                    Button("Send") { actionClosure(.send) }
                }
                TextField("Compose a signature for photo", text: textBinding)
                    .background(Color.green)
            }
        }
    }
}

inputViewBuilder‘s parameters:

• textBinding to bind your own TextField
• attachments is a struct containing photos, videos, recordings and a message you are replying to
• state - the state of the input view that is controled by the library automatically if possible or through your calls of actionClosure
• style - .message or .signature (the chat screen or the photo selection screen)
• actionClosure is called on taps on your custom buttons. For example, call actionClosure(.send) if you want to send your message, then the library will reset the text and attachments and call the didSendMessage sending closure

Supported content types

This library allows to send the following content in messages in any combination:

• Text with/without markdown
• Photo/video
• Audio recording

Coming soon:

• User’s location
• Documents

Modifiers

If you are not using your own messageBuilder:
avatarSize - the default avatar is a circle, you can specify its diameter here
messageUseMarkdown - whether the default message cell uses markdown
assetsPickerLimit - the maximum media count that the user can select in the media picker
enableLoadMore(offset: Int, handler: @escaping ChatPaginationClosure) - when user scrolls to offset-th message from the end, call the handler function, so the user can load more messages
chatNavigation(title: String, status: String? = nil, cover: URL? = nil) - pass the info for the Chat’s navigation bar

Example

To try out the Chat examples:

• Clone the repo git clone git@github.com:exyte/Chat.git
• Open terminal and run cd <ChatRepo>/Example
• Wait for SPM to finish downloading packages
• Run it!

Installation

Swift Package Manager

dependencies: [
    .package(url: "https://github.com/exyte/Chat.git")
]

CocoaPods

pod 'ExyteChat'

Carthage

github "Exyte/Chat"

Requirements

• iOS 16+
• Xcode 14+

Our other open source SwiftUI libraries

PopupView - Toasts and popups library
Grid - The most powerful Grid container
ScalingHeaderScrollView - A scroll view with a sticky header which shrinks as you scroll
AnimatedTabBar - A tabbar with number of preset animations
MediaPicker - Customizable media picker
ConcentricOnboarding - Animated onboarding flow
FloatingButton - Floating button menu
ActivityIndicatorView - A number of animated loading indicators
ProgressIndicatorView - A number of animated progress indicators
SVGView - SVG parser
LiquidSwipe - Liquid navigation animation