Vue

To make the most of this guide, you need:

• A TalkJS account
• A Vue app that you want to add TalkJS to

To get started, install the talkjs package:

1npm install talkjs

Next, add TalkJS to your app. Create a Chat.vue Single-File Component wherever you keep your components in your project.

In Chat.vue, add a script tag with Vue's setup attribute and import TalkJS:

1// Chat.vue
2<script setup>
3  import Talk from 'talkjs';
4</script>

Then, for either a chatbox or an inbox pre-built chat UI, add this container element to the template of Chat.vue:

1// Chat.vue
2<template>
3  <div ref="talkjs" style="width: 100%; height: 500px">
4    <i>Loading chat...</i>
5  </div>
6</template>

If you're adding a popup UI, you can omit this container, as the popup gets overlaid on top of your page. By default the popup displays in the bottom right corner, but you can change the position of the popup button on your page.

You can then import this component in the place you want it in your app, for example in App.vue:

1// App.vue
2<script setup>
3  import Chat from "./components/Chat.vue";
4</script>
5
6<template>
7  <main>
8    <Chat />
9  </main>
10</template>

You can now view a conversation. Add the following code to your Chat.vue file:

1// Chat.vue
2<script setup>
3  import Talk from 'talkjs';
4  import { onMounted } from 'vue'; 
5
6  onMounted(() => {
7    Talk.ready.then(() => {
8      const me = new Talk.User('sample_user_alice');
9      const session = new Talk.Session({
10        appId: '<APP_ID>',
11        me: me,
12      });
13
14      const conversation = session.getOrCreateConversation(
15        'sample_conversation'
16      );
17      conversation.setParticipant(me);
18
19      const chatbox = session.createChatbox();
20      chatbox.select(conversation);
21      chatbox.mount(document.getElementById('talkjs-container'));
22    });
23  });
24</script>

To set up your chat as soon as the Chat component gets mounted, this code uses Vue's onMounted() lifecycle hook.

Let's step through what the code inside Talk.ready.then is doing:

• First, you make a connection to the TalkJS servers, known as a session. You'll need to replace <APP_ID> with your own app ID, which you can find on the Settings page of your TalkJS dashboard. For this tutorial, we recommend using the app ID for TalkJS's test mode, which has built-in sample users and conversations which you'll use in this tutorial. You'll also need to specify a current user to send messages as. In this example, you're setting me to be an existing user, the sample_user_alice sample user. For a user that already exists, you can call the Talk.User constructor with just their user ID.

• Next, you use the getOrCreateConversation method to fetch the existing conversation with an ID of sample_conversation.
• Then you create the chat UI. Call the createChatbox method for a chatbox, createInbox for an inbox, or createPopup for a popup UI. Use the select method to display the sample conversation, and then use the mount method to render the UI. (The methods here are linked for the chatbox, but are also available on the inbox and popup UI.)

Run your app. For example, for the chatbox UI, you should get something like the following:

Try sending Sebastian a message! You can also try switching your userId to sample_user_sebastian and viewing the other side of the conversation.

If the chat window doesn't show up, make sure that you entered your app ID, replacing <APP_ID> in the code.

So far in this guide you've used a sample user and conversation. Next, you'll create new users and a conversation between them, and sync them with the TalkJS servers. Usually, you would create users based on the data from your database. For this getting started guide, you'll hard-code some user data instead.

Modify your previous code inside Talk.ready.then by changing the highlighted lines:

1// Chat.vue
2Talk.ready.then(function () {
3  const me = new Talk.User({
4    id: 'nina',
5    name: 'Nina',
6    email: '[email protected]',
7    photoUrl: 'https://talkjs.com/new-web/avatar-7.jpg',
8    welcomeMessage: 'Hi!',
9  });
10  const session = new Talk.Session({
11    appId: '<APP_ID>',
12    me: me,
13  });
14  const other = new Talk.User({
15    id: 'frank',
16    name: 'Frank',
17    email: '[email protected]',
18    photoUrl: 'https://talkjs.com/new-web/avatar-8.jpg',
19    welcomeMessage: 'Hey, how can I help?',
20  });
21
22  const conversation = session.getOrCreateConversation('new_conversation');
23  conversation.setParticipant(me);
24  conversation.setParticipant(other);
25
26  const chatbox = session.createChatbox();
27  chatbox.select(conversation);
28  chatbox.mount(document.getElementById('talkjs-container'));
29});

Here's what you're doing in the updated version:

• You create a new user with an ID of nina to be the current user. As this user is new, you pass the full user object to the Talk.User constructor rather than just the user ID.
• You create a TalkJS session and add the new current user, as in the previous section.
• You create a second new user with an ID of frank.
• You use the getOrCreateConversation method to create a new conversation with an ID of new_conversation, and then add the two new users to the conversation with the setParticipant method.
• You create the UI, select the conversation, and mount the UI as in the previous section.

When you mount the UI, the new users and conversation are synced with the TalkJS servers.

You should now get something like the following:

That's it! You now have a working chat component in your Vue app.

In this guide, you've added powerful user-to-user chat to your Vue app. You also learned more about the fundamentals of TalkJS, and how it all fits together.

Most importantly, you've built a starting point to try out all the features TalkJS offers. For example, you could create a new UI theme in the Theme Editor, customize your chat with action buttons or HTML panels, or enable email notifications.

Here's what your working example should look like, in full:

1// Chat.vue
2<script setup>
3  import Talk from 'talkjs';
4  import { onMounted } from 'vue';
5
6  onMounted(() => {
7    Talk.ready.then(() => {
8      const me = new Talk.User({
9        id: 'nina',
10        name: 'Nina',
11        email: '[email protected]',
12        photoUrl: 'https://talkjs.com/new-web/avatar-7.jpg',
13        welcomeMessage: 'Hi!',
14      });
15      const session = new Talk.Session({
16        appId: 'tPKdyezd',
17        me: me,
18      });
19
20      const other = new Talk.User({
21        id: 'frank',
22        name: 'Frank',
23        email: '[email protected]',
24        photoUrl: 'https://talkjs.com/new-web/avatar-8.jpg',
25        welcomeMessage: 'Hey, how can I help?',
26      });
27
28      const conversation = session.getOrCreateConversation('new_conversation');
29      conversation.setParticipant(me);
30      conversation.setParticipant(other);
31
32      const chatbox = session.createChatbox();
33      chatbox.select(conversation);
34      chatbox.mount(document.getElementById('talkjs-container'));
35    });
36  });
37</script>
38
39<template>
40  <div id="talkjs-container" style="width: 100%; height: 500px">
41    <i>Loading chat...</i>
42  </div>
43</template>

For full working code for this example, see the Vue getting started GitHub repo.