Send messages
Once you have the group chat or DM conversation, you can send messages in the conversation.
Sending does not update your own UI. Stream the conversation, or send optimistically, to display your own message.
| Platform | Send text | Send encoded content |
|---|---|---|
| Node, Browser | conversation.sendText(text, opts?) | conversation.send(encodedContent, opts?) |
| Swift | conversation.send(content:options:) | conversation.send(encodedContent:visibilityOptions:) |
| Kotlin | conversation.send(text) or send(content, options?) | conversation.send(encodedContent, opts?) |
Every form returns the message ID.
Control push notifications for a message
Section titled “Control push notifications for a message”shouldPush decides whether a message triggers a push notification on recipient devices. See Push notifications.
The text and content forms derive shouldPush from the content codec. To override it, encode the content and use the encoded-content form:
| Platform | Override |
|---|---|
| Browser, Node | send(encodedContent, { shouldPush: false }) |
| Kotlin, Swift | send(encodedContent, MessageVisibilityOptions(shouldPush: false)) |
Optimistically send messages
Section titled “Optimistically send messages”Optimistic sending displays the message in the sender’s UI immediately and processes it in the background.
| Platform | Send locally | Publish all | Publish one |
|---|---|---|---|
| Browser, Node | sendText(text, { optimistic: true }) | publishMessages() | Not available |
| Kotlin, Swift | prepareMessage(content, options?, noSend?) | publishMessages() | publishMessage(messageId) |
Browser and Node have no prepareMessage. SendOpts also accepts idempotencyKey. Re-sending identical content with the same key produces the same message ID.
Key UX considerations for optimistically sent messages
Section titled “Key UX considerations for optimistically sent messages”- After optimistically sending a message, show the user an indicator that the message is still being processed. After successfully sending the message, show the user a success indicator.
- An optimistically sent message initially has an
unpublishedstatus. Once published, it has apublishedstatus. You can use this status to determine which indicator to display in the UI.
- An optimistically sent message initially has an
- If an optimistically sent message fails to send it will have a
failedstatus. In this case, be sure to give the user an option to retry sending the message or cancel sending. Use a try/catch block to intercept errors and allow the user to retry or cancel.
Control publication of optimistic messages
Section titled “Control publication of optimistic messages”By default, publishMessages() publishes all prepared messages. For more control, use the noSend parameter when preparing a message. The message won’t be published until you explicitly call publishMessage(messageId).
This is useful when sending remote attachments. You can validate that the attachment upload succeeded before publishing. If the upload failed, you can choose to delete the local prepared message instead of publishing it.
On Kotlin and Swift, deleteMessageLocally is on client.conversations, not on the conversation.