This update brings greater flexibility for customizing your message list, and a range of SDK improvements across web and mobile.

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Customize your message list layout

Take full control over how your message list is structured. With the Components SDK (v0.1.0), you can now customize the areas above, inside of, and below the message list using newly introduced theme components.

This version adds a MessageListHeader component rendered above the message list container, complementing the existing MessageListFooter below it. Inside the message list container itself, you can now use the BeforeMessages theme component (rendered before the first message) and the AfterMessages component (after the last message). 

Components inside the message list container scroll naturally along with messages, making it easy to add contextual UI elements such as system banners or onboarding hints. Existing functionality, such as typing indicators, now lives in AfterMessages, providing more flexibility for message list customization.

All of these are exposed as theme components, giving you fine-grained control over layout and styling without workarounds.

Overview

Added

Components SDK

• Version 0.1.1:
  • Added a Preact export to @talkjs/web-components, allowing you to make your theme stateful with useEffect, useState, and the like, using Preact.
  • Added a useParticipants(conversationId, limit) hook that components can use to subscribe to a list of participants in a conversation.
• Version 0.1.0: Added localizations for the emoji picker, including emoji data for multiple languages, allowing users to search for emoji using keywords in their native language.

JavaScript Data API

• Version 1.8.0: Added ParticipantRef.subscribe, which lets you subscribe to updates for a specific participant in a conversation. This can be useful, for example, to detect when a message sender has left a conversation.
• Version 1.7.0: Added support for full message and conversation search. Use Session.searchConversations() to search across a user's conversations, and Session.searchMessages() to search through messages across those conversations.

Flutter SDK

• Version 0.17.0: Added an onError property to Session, Chatbox, and ConversationList, allowing you to provide a handler that is called whenever the JavaScript SDK encounters an error.

Changed

Components SDK

• Version 0.1.1: Made changes to the ChatHeader, ConversationListItemProps, GroupChatImage, and Message theme files. Compare theme versions 0.1.0 and 0.1.1.
• Version 0.1.0:Breaking change: Changed how the message list footer is rendered. The MessageListFooter theme component is now rendered below the message list container and no longer scrolls with the message list. Typing indicators have been moved to the new AfterMessages component. If you’ve customized MessageListFooter, see the upgrade guide for required changes.

JavaScript Data API

• Version 1.8.0: Optimized TalkSession.uploadFile() and related upload methods to perform an initial validation (such as for file size and filename checks) before uploading. Previously, files were fully uploaded before an error was returned.
• Version 1.6.3:Ref objects now maintain referential integrity. Calling Session.conversation("123") multiple times returns the same ConversationRef instance, instead of creating new ones.
• Version 1.6.2:
  • Made locale in SetUserParams nullable. Setting locale to null means the user falls back to the default locale configured on the dashboard.
  • Improved performance when repeatedly calling ConversationRef.get().

Flutter SDK

• Version 0.17.0: Breaking change: Updated the minimum supported SDK versions: minimum Flutter SDK version is now 3.32.0, and minimum Dart SDK version is now 3.8.0.

Deprecated

Components SDK

• Version 0.1.1: Deprecated the common.participants theme prop. Added the new useParticipants() hook to use instead.

Fixed

Components SDK

• Version 0.1.1: Fixed a bug in @talkjs/web-components that prevented explicitly passing null to nullable props such as selectedConversationId.
• Version 0.1.0: Fixed an issue where the waveform of audio files sometimes wouldn’t appear in Safari 26.
• Version 0.0.36: Fixed an issue where the list of participants shown in the mentions dropdown could be incomplete.
• Version 0.0.35: Fixed a bug where drag-and-drop file sharing didn't respect the file sharing setting configured on the dashboard.
• Version 0.0.34: 
  • Fixed an issue where enabling React Strict Mode could cause the UI to load indefinitely.
  • Fixed an issue where upload previews for very tall images or videos could push the send button off-screen.

Flutter SDK

• Version 0.16.2:
  • Fixed a crash when building with Xcode 26.2 and deploying to iOS 26.2.
  • Fixed an issue where audio waveforms weren't generated until the user interacted with the audio on iOS 26.

JavaScript Classic SDK

• Fixed an issue where upload previews for very tall images or videos could push the send button off-screen.
• Fixed an issue where audio waveforms weren’t always rendered on Safari (both iOS and macOS).
• Fixed an issue where setHighlightedWords didn’t accept empty arrays. You can now pass an empty array to reset highlighted words without reloading the UI.
• Fixed an issue on mobile where the system media control panel didn’t correctly display the app’s name when playing audio or video.

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