This changelog entry reflects changes to TalkJS introduced between 12 June 2023 and 15 July 2023.

Highlights

Unread message counter in REST API and Javascript SDK

You now have two new fields available in the user's conversations REST API endpoint that will provide further insight into a user's unread messages. The unreadMessageCount field in the Conversation object will allow you to retrieve the number of unread messages a user has in a conversation. This will help in tailoring badges for the user interface.

Further, the isUnread property indicates whether the conversation has been read by the user or not. isUnread offers a convenient way to determine the read status of the conversation.

Check out the updated REST API documentation for more information and usage examples.

The unreadMessageCount property is also available in the Javascript SDK.

Export conversation data from dashboard

Exporting conversation data doesn’t need to be a hassle. You can now export conversation data from your dashboard with just a click. 

To export conversation data, go to the Activity view on the dashboard. Select a conversation, and then click Export Conversation Data. You can save a transcript as a text file, or export all the relevant data as a JSON object.

The dashboard button to export conversation data as .txt or .json files

Overview of other changes

Added

• Added several methods to Chatbox in the React Native SDK: getCurrentConversation, to retrieve the conversation currently shown in the UI; onCustomConversationAction, which triggers when a user launches a custom action on a conversation within the TalkJS UI; onLeaveConversation, which triggers when the user clicks the Leave conversation action; and sendLocation, which sends the user's current location to the currently active conversation.
• Added the isForegroundEvent property to NotificationPressedEvent in the React Native SDK, which indicates whether the user pressed the notification while the app was in the foreground or not.
• Added a leave method to ConversationBuilder in the React Native SDK, which removes the current user from the conversation.
• Added support for passing data to themes in both the Chatbox and the ConversationList layouts in the React Native SDK.
• Added Catalan (ca) to the list of languages available for localization of the TalkJS interface. A massive thank you and credit to Relab Studio for providing the translation.

Fixed

• Fixed an issue that prevented Firebase Dynamic Links from generating link previews.
• Fixed an issue which disabled zooming in when clicking the MessageField on iOS for the React Native SDK.
• Fixed a bug that prevented handling notifications in the background on Android for the React Native SDK.
• Fixed a bug where the app would not open when a notification was clicked on Android for the React Native SDK.
• Fixed a bug where dismissed notifications were not being removed from the internal list of active notifications on Android for the React Native SDK.
• Fixed an issue in the theme editor where navigation links in test mode would link to live mode, instead of to test mode.

Changed

• Made the WebView transparent in the React Native SDK. With a transparent WebView, the background color you have applied to the parent View will be used in the empty areas around the TalkJS UI.
• Changed the type of the conversation property in SelectConversationEvent from ConversationBuilder to ConversationData in the React Native SDK.
• Upgraded dependencies for the React Native SDK.
• Improved various UX aspects of the dashboard’s themes page, including improvements to the layout and dropdown menus, as well as adding the options to delete custom files, hide built-in (non-top-level) files, and reset a file to the preset version.

New Expo SDK

To properly support users of Expo's Managed Workflow, we have released a new package: @talkjs/expo. This package is identical to @talkjs/react-native except it has push notifications disabled. This is because the push notification libraries used have native code which make them incompatible with the Managed Workflow. 

If you need push notifications, you can send them from your own backend using our webhooks or you can use @talkjs/react-native and create a development build for your project using EAS Build or eject to the bare workflow.

The versioning for this new package will be identical to @talkjs/react-native

Better Notifications

We have changed the libraries we use for push notifications which has allowed us to greatly improve notifications, particularly on Android. Notifications are now shown as Conversations and grouped accordingly. Applies only to devices running Android 7.0 (API level 24) and up.

Images sent will also appear in the notifications. (Android only).

The function, registerPushNotificationHandlers, now allows for more configuration options when creating Android's Notification Channels. It also supports providing iOS notification related permissions you want your app to have.

As part of these changes you'll need to update your android/build.gradle file by adding the following block to the repositories section of allprojects:

maven {
url "$rootDir/../node_modules/@notifee/react-native/android/libs" }

Better Error Reporting

It should now be clearer what is wrong with your code. Should you encounter a scenario where an error has occurred but React Native's Logbox doesn't show, notify us via our livesupport.

Other changes

• Add support for Guest Access through the addition of asGuest prop in Chatbox.
• Enable capturing of keyup events in Chatbox through the captureKeyboardEvents and onKeyup props.
• Added the methods: getText and typeText to MessageField.
• Changed oneOnOneId to also accept User Objects.
• Changed showFeedHeader default to false.
• Fix issue when user and/or conversation synchronization were disabled.
• Deprecated the following props in ConversationList: feedConversationTitleMode, thirdParties, onBlur and onFocus.
• Deprecated the following props in Chatbox: chatSubtitleMode, chatTitleMode, thirdParties, translateConversations, onBlur and onFocus.

New We have some exciting news! We have shipped a React Native SDK 😄.

Prior to this release, getting TalkJS running in React Native applications required developers to perform multiple tasks like creating an HTML file for the webview, passing parameters from the app to the JavaScript running in the webview and sometimes even adding handlers so the code in the webview could call back to the app.

With the React Native SDK you can get TalkJS running in your React Native application with a few lines of code:

<TalkRn.Session appId='YOUR_APP_ID' me={me}>
  <TalkRn.Chatbox conversationBuilder={conversationBuilder} />
</TalkRn.Session>

The new SDK makes it easier to use TalkJS in React Native applications by providing React Native Components that will feel natural to anyone using React Native.

Developers will now write significantly less code, save time and also make their code less error-prone. Additionally by using the SDK developers are guaranteed of backwards compatibility, meaning their code will always run even as TalkJS evolves.

So go ahead and check out our React Native Getting Started Guide.

We can't wait to see the cool stuff you are building!