Chat

Layout Columns

We recommend using Tailwind's grid column utility classes to define horizontal columns for your layout.

Layout Rows

We recommend using Tailwind's grid row utility classes to define vertical layout rows for your layout.

Message Feed

Within our feed element, we'll generate a feed of messages. Note that we'll replace the pre tags in the next section.

host: {
  "id": 0,
  "host": true,
  "avatar": 48,
  "name": "Jane",
  "timestamp": "Yesterday @ 2:30pm",
  "message": "Eos sint dolores laborum itaque dolorum ipsa. Impedit enim labore assumenda inventore nisi inventore. Cum totam deserunt suscipit eligendi.",
  "color": "variant-soft-primary"
}

guest: {
  "id": 1,
  "host": false,
  "avatar": 14,
  "name": "Michael",
  "timestamp": "Yesterday @ 2:45pm",
  "message": "Eos sint dolores laborum itaque dolorum ipsa. Impedit enim labore assumenda inventore nisi inventore. Cum totam deserunt suscipit eligendi.",
  "color": "variant-soft-primary"
}

Message Bubbles

By mixing Skeleton features with Tailwind styling, we can provided message bubble interfaces for each type of feed post.

Jane

Yesterday @ 2:30pm

Eos sint dolores laborum itaque dolorum ipsa. Impedit enim labore assumenda inventore nisi inventore. Cum totam deserunt suscipit eligendi.

Michael

Yesterday @ 2:45pm

Eos sint dolores laborum itaque dolorum ipsa. Impedit enim labore assumenda inventore nisi inventore. Cum totam deserunt suscipit eligendi.

Prompt

We can utilize a Skeleton Input Group to create a custom text prompt.

Scroll to Bottom

Chat windows typically remain fixed at the bottom of the scrollable pane. This can be triggered on page load and when a new message is added.

Use bind:this to bind your scrollable feed element.

let elemChat: HTMLElement;

<div bind:this={elemChat} class="overflow-y-auto">(chat)</div>

Then use Javascript's scrollTo method to scroll the binded element to the bottom on demand. You may also set smooth scrolling via behavior: 'smooth'.

function scrollChatBottom(behavior?: ScrollBehavior): void {
	elemChat.scrollTo({ top: elemChat.scrollHeight, behavior });
}

Add a Message

Below we'll cover how to append the message feed with a new message from the host user.

Per our above examples, we'll use the same messageFeed data structure.

let messageFeed = [ /* ...*/ ];

Then bind to the textarea for your prompt in order to capture any message typed by the user.

let currentMessage = '';

<textarea
	bind:value={currentMessage} name="prompt" id="prompt"
	placeholder="Write a message..."
/>

Here's an example of how we might append a new message to the messageFeed array.

function addMessage(): void {
	const newMessage = {
		id: messageFeed.length,
		host: true,
		avatar: 48,
		name: 'Jane',
		timestamp: new date(),
		message: currentMessage,
		color: 'variant-soft-primary'
	};
	// Append the new message to the message feed
	messageFeed = [...messageFeed, newMessage];
	// Clear the textarea message
	currentMessage = '';
	// Smoothly scroll to the bottom of the feed
	setTimeout(() => { scrollChatBottom('smooth'); }, 0);
}

This can be triggered when the prompt's SEND button is clicked.

<button ... on:click={addMessage}>Send</button>