Control link previews

If you customized your theme before April 2022, then link previews aren't automatically enabled. You can enable link previews by adding the <LinkPreviews> component in the MessageBody, right after the body.formattedText in the theme editor, as follows:

1<span t:if="{{ body.type == 'text' }}" class="message-text">
2  {{ body.formattedText }}
3  <LinkPreviews links="{{ body.links }}" />
4</span>

To ensure that the link preview doesn't show up as too narrow on short messages, edit the UserMessage in the theme editor. Give the message the has-link-previews class, as follows:

1<div
2  class="message {{ body.hasThumbnail | then: 'has-thumbnail' }}  {{ showAuthor | then: 'has-author' }} {{hasLinkPreviews | then: 'has-link-previews'}}"
3></div>

Give a message that has link previews a width of 100%, in the <style> block of the UserMessage, as follows:

1.has-link-previews {
2  width: 100%;
3}

This enables link previews for both user messages and system messages.

If you want to enable link previews for user messages and not for system messages instead, render the LinkPreviews component conditionally. To render the LinkPreviews component conditionally, edit the UserMessage component in the theme editor, and set the isSystemMessage="{{ false }}" property to MessageBody, as follows:

1<MessageBody
2  body="{{ body }}"
3  timestamp="{{ timestamp }}"
4  floatTimestamp="auto"
5  showStatus="{{ sender.isMe }}"
6  isLongEmailMessage="{{isLongEmailMessage}}"
7  darkenMenuArea="{{ darkenMenuArea }}"
8  isSystemMessage="{{ false }}"
9/>

Edit the SystemMessage component, and set the isSystemMessage="{{ true }}" property to MessageBody, as follows:

1<MessageBody
2  body="{{ body }}"
3  timestamp="{{ timestamp }}"
4  floatTimestamp="right"
5  isSystemMessage="{{ true }}"
6/>

Finally, in the MessageBody component, change the LinkPreviews component adding a t:if property, as follows:

1<LinkPreviews
2  links="{{ body.links }}"
3  t:if="{{ isSystemMessage | is_falsy }}"
4/>

You can control which URLs get a link preview, and how link previews appear. To filter which URLs get a link preview, you can manually loop over link previews using the <LinkPreview> component.

1<LinkPreviews
2  links="{{ body.links }}"
3  t:if="{{ isSystemMessage | is_falsy }}"
4  compact="{{ true }}"
5/>

1<div
2  t:for="{{ link in body.links }}"
3  t:key="link"
4  t:if="{{ isSystemMessage | is_falsy }}"
5>
6  <t:set
7    linkDoesntContainWord="{{ link contains 'blocked-word' | is_falsy }}"
8  />
9  <LinkPreview
10    link="{{ link }}"
11    t:if="{{ linkDoesntContainWord == true and forloop.index < 3 }}"
12  />
13</div>

To remove link previews from your chat entirely, remove the <LinkPreviews> component in the MessageBody in the theme editor, from the Themes page of your TalkJS dashboard.

Note that if you suppress link sharing in your chat, then neither the URL nor the link preview appears in the message.