Getting started in Angular Chat UI component

17 Dec 20246 minutes to read

This section explains how to create a simple Chat UI component and configure its available functionalities in Angular.

Dependencies

The following list of dependencies are required to use the Angular Chat UI component in your application.

|-- @syncfusion/ej2-angular-interactive-chat
    |-- @syncfusion/ej2-angular-base
    |-- @syncfusion/ej2-base
    |-- @syncfusion/ej2-navigations
    |-- @syncfusion/ej2-inputs
    |-- @syncfusion/ej2-popups
    |-- @syncfusion/ej2-buttons

Setup angular environment

Angular provides the easiest way to set angular CLI projects using Angular CLI tool.

Install the CLI application globally to your machine.

npm install -g @angular/cli

Create a new application

ng new syncfusion-angular-chat-ui

By default, it install the CSS style base application. To setup with SCSS, pass –style=scss argument on create project.

Example code snippet.

ng new syncfusion-angular-chat-ui --style=scss

Navigate to the created project folder.

cd syncfusion-angular-chat-ui

Installing Syncfusion Chat UI package

Syncfusion packages are distributed in npm as @syncfusion scoped packages. You can get all the Angular Syncfusion package from npm link.

Currently, Syncfusion provides two types of package structures for Angular components,

  1. Ivy library distribution package format
  2. Angular compatibility compiler(Angular’s legacy compilation and rendering pipeline) package.

Ivy library distribution package

Syncfusion Angular packages(>=20.2.36) has been moved to the Ivy distribution to support the Angular Ivy rendering engine and the package are compatible with Angular version 12 and above. To download the package use the below command.

Add @syncfusion/ej2-angular-interactive-chat package to the application.

npm install @syncfusion/ej2-angular-interactive-chat --save

Angular compatibility compiled package(ngcc)

For Angular version below 12, you can use the legacy (ngcc) package of the Syncfusion Angular components. To download the ngcc package use the below.

Add @syncfusion/ej2-angular-interactive-chat@ngcc package to the application.

npm install @syncfusion/ej2-angular-interactive-chat@ngcc --save

To mention the ngcc package in the package.json file, add the suffix -ngcc with the package version as below.

@syncfusion/ej2-angular-interactive-chat:"27.1.48-ngcc"

Note: If the ngcc tag is not specified while installing the package, the Ivy Library Package will be installed and this package will throw a warning.

Registering Chat UI module

Import Chat UI module into Angular application(app.module.ts) from the package @syncfusion/ej2-angular-interactive-chat.

import { NgModule }      from '@angular/core';
import { BrowserModule } from '@angular/platform-browser';
// import the ChatUIModule for the Chat UI component
import { ChatUIModule } from '@syncfusion/ej2-angular-interactive-chat';
import { AppComponent }  from './app.component';

@NgModule({
  //declaration of ej2-angular-interactive-chat module into NgModule
  imports:      [ BrowserModule, ChatUIModule ],
  declarations: [ AppComponent ],
  bootstrap:    [ AppComponent ]
})
export class AppModule { }

Adding CSS reference

The following CSS files are available in ../node_modules/@syncfusion package folder.
This can be referenced in [src/styles.css] using following code.

@import "../node_modules/@syncfusion/ej2-base/styles/material.css";
@import '../node_modules/@syncfusion/ej2-inputs/styles/material.css';
@import '../node_modules/@syncfusion/ej2-navigations/styles/material.css';
@import '../node_modules/@syncfusion/ej2-popups/styles/material.css';
@import '../node_modules/@syncfusion/ej2-buttons/styles/material.css';
@import '../node_modules/@syncfusion/ej2-angular-interactive-chat/styles/material.css';

Adding Chat UI component

Modify the template in [src/app/app.component.ts] file to render the Angular Chat UI component. Add the Angular Chat UI by using <ejs-chatui> selector in template section of the app.component.ts file.

import { Component } from '@angular/core';
import { ChatUIComponent } from '@syncfusion/ej2-angular-interactive-chat';

@Component({
  selector: 'app-root',
  // specifies the template string for the Chat UI component
  template: `<div ejs-chatui id='chatUI'></div>`
})
export class AppComponent  { }

Run the application

After completing the configuration required to render a basic Chat UI, run the following command to display the output in your default browser.

ng serve

The following example illustrates the output in your browser.

import { NgModule } from '@angular/core';
import { BrowserModule } from '@angular/platform-browser';
import { FormsModule, ReactiveFormsModule } from '@angular/forms';
import { ChatUIModule } from '@syncfusion/ej2-angular-interactive-chat';

import { Component, HostListener, ViewChild } from '@angular/core';


@Component({
    imports: [ FormsModule, ReactiveFormsModule, ChatUIModule ],
    standalone: true,
    selector: 'app-root',
    // specifies the template string for the Chat UI component
    template: `<div ejs-chatui id='chatui'></div>`
})

export class AppComponent {

}
import { bootstrapApplication } from '@angular/platform-browser';
import { AppComponent } from './app.component';
import 'zone.js';
bootstrapApplication(AppComponent).catch((err) => console.error(err));

Configure messages and user

You can use the <e-messages> tag directive to group all the messages and <e-message> tag to define each message and the user property to configure the current user for the chat.

import { NgModule } from '@angular/core';
import { BrowserModule } from '@angular/platform-browser';
import { FormsModule, ReactiveFormsModule } from '@angular/forms';
import { ChatUIModule, UserModel } from '@syncfusion/ej2-angular-interactive-chat';

import { Component } from '@angular/core';


@Component({
    imports: [ FormsModule, ReactiveFormsModule, ChatUIModule ],
    standalone: true,
    selector: 'app-root',
    // specifies the template string for the Chat UI component
    template: `<div id="chatui" ejs-chatui [user]="currentUserModel">
        <e-messages>
            <e-message text="Hi Michale, are we on track for the deadline?" [author]="currentUserModel"></e-message>
            <e-message text="Yes, the design phase is complete." [author]="michaleUserModel"></e-message>
            <e-message text="I’ll review it and send feedback by today." [author]="currentUserModel"></e-message>
        </e-messages>
    </div>`
})

export class AppComponent {
    public currentUserModel: UserModel = { user: 'Albert', id: 'user1' };
    public michaleUserModel: UserModel = { user: 'Michale Suyama', id: 'user2' };
}
import { bootstrapApplication } from '@angular/platform-browser';
import { AppComponent } from './app.component';
import 'zone.js';
bootstrapApplication(AppComponent).catch((err) => console.error(err));