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First steps with Chat

Quickly implement a full-fledged chat into your web application.

Installation​

First, you need to obtain the JavaScript SDK using one of these two methods.

Using npm

If you are using npm, from your terminal you can run:

npm install @signalwire/js

Then, include the package in JavaScript as follows:

import * as SignalWire from '@signalwire/js'
Using a CDN

You can import the library from a CDN into your HTML file: paste the following within the <head> section of your page:

<script src="https://cdn.signalwire.com/@signalwire/js"></script>

A global SignalWire variable will be available for use by JavaScript.

Getting a token​

The chat is organized in channels. To start receiving messages from a channel, you need an authentication token which grants you access to that channel. To get a demo token:

const res = await fetch("https://guides.swrooms.com/public/chat_token", {
  method: "POST",
  headers: {
    "accept": "application/json",
    "content-type": "application/json",
  },
  body: JSON.stringify({
    member_id: "my-unique-id",
    channels: {
      "my-channel-name": {
        read: true,
        write: true
      }
    },
    state: {}
  })
});

const reply = await res.json()
// token is in reply.token

Make sure to wrap the code into an async function to be able to use await.

Receiving messages​

Now you can use the token to initialize a client and start receiving messages:

const chatClient = new SignalWire.Chat.Client({
  token: reply.token
});

await chatClient.subscribe(["my-channel-name"]);

chatClient.on("message", msg => {
  console.log(msg.member.id, "says", msg.content)
});

Sending messages​

After you have initialized a client, you can use it for sending messages too. For example:

chatClient.publish({
  channel: "my-channel-name",
  content: "Hello, world!"
});

Next steps​

Congratulations! You have now created your own basic chat application.

In this example, we made a POST request to an endpoint located at https://guides.swrooms.com/public/chat_token to obtain a token. While this works for demo purposes, it has some limitations:

  • Channels and users are shared across all applications using the same endpoint
  • Some APIs are limited
  • swrooms.com is not supported for production applications

Having your own server will also allow you to access the following additional APIs and SDKs:

  • REST APIs: create and manage tokens
  • Realtime SDK: receive events from active chat rooms and control them server-side.

To access these full capabilities, you should provide your own chat_token endpoint using your own server. Follow the guide to keep learning: