ChatBird

ChatBird is a Swift framework that bridges the SendBird SDK with the Chatto framework. SendBird is an in-app messaging platform but doesn't provide any built-in UI, and Chatto is one such library that provides a UI to built chat applications. However, this integration requires some work to accomplish, which is where ChatBird comes to the rescue!

Compatibility

ChatBird requires iOS 12+ and is compatible with Swift 5 projects.

Installation

ChatBird is available through CocoaPods. To install it, simply add the following line to your Podfile:

pod 'ChatBird'

Example

The example project is a good starting point to learn about the capabilities and usage of ChatBird. To run the example project, clone the repo, and run pod install from the Example directory.

Setting up the example

ChatBird sets up the integration of your SendBird-enabled messaging app with Chatto. To use ChatBird:

1. Initialize your SendBird app upon startup in AppDelegate.swift or other appropriate location (e.g., your root view controller):

ChatBirdManager.shared.initializeSendbird(with: "your-SendBird-app-id")

2. Connect to your SendBird instance:

ChatBirdManager.shared.connectSendBird(uuid: "SendBird-user-id", token: "optional-token-for-authentication", completion: (user, error) -> Void)

Customizing the example

You may now customize ChatBird experience as desired. The default implementation will give you a working chat controller but you can subclass ChatViewController to provide your own input presenters and message handlers as described below.

Usage

Presenting the Chat View

To instantiate and present a new ChatViewController setup your code as follows:

let channel: SBDGroupChannel // This is the SendBird Group Channel to present in the chat view

let chatViewController = ChatViewController()
chatViewController.setup(with: channel)
present(chatViewController, animated: true)

If you're following along in the example, the chat view is presented when tapping on a Group Channel in ChatListController.swift, but in this case we're using a segue to perform the presentation since it's setup in a Storyboard. If you're using a Storyboard be sure to call (segue.destination as? ChatViewController).setup(with: channel) in the prepare(for segue:...) function.

Customizing the Chat View

ChatBird provides several defaults for the presentation of the chat view. You may subclass ChatViewController in your own project to customize how this appears. Override createChatInputView() to modify the input view (where the user types). To customize the chat bubbles override createPresenterBuilders(). Please refer to ChatViewController.swift for an example of how to setup these functions.

Adding Message Actions

You may implement classes that conform to MessageHandlerProtocol to handle actions (user taps on avatar, selects message, etc). You may implement a class that conforms to TextMessageMenuItemPresenterProtocol to enable context menus when a user taps on a chat item.

Be sure to reference these classes in your overridden functions as described above. Please refer to ChatViewController.swift for an example of how to setup these functions.

Author

David Rajan, david@velosmobile.com

License

ChatBird is available under the MIT license. See the LICENSE file for more info.