Send and receive messages

This document describes how to use the ZIM SDK to send and receive messages.

Solution

The following shows the access solution that ZEGOCLOUD'S In-app Chat (the ZIM SDK) provides.

In this solution, you will need to implement the following business logic based on your actual business requirements:

• The logic for managing the users on the client, and the logic for distributing user ID for users to log in.
• The logic for generating the Token for SDK to authenticate the user. We recommend you implement the logic for generating tokens on your app server for data security.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, make sure:

• Go to ZEGOCLOUD Admin Console, and do the following:
  • Create a project, get the AppID and ServerSecret.
  • Activate the In-app Chat service (as shown in the following figure).
    

• Get the Token that SDK required for login authentication. For details, see Authentication.

Integrate the SDK

Optional: Create a new project

Skip to this step if a project already exists.

Import the SDK

Choose either of the following methods to integrate the SDK into your project.

Method 1: Integrate the SDK manually

1. Download and extract the latest version of SDK from SDK downloads.

2. Import the SDK using the following script.

   <!-- Path to index.html corresponding to zim SDK -->
   <script src="./zego-zim-web/index.js"></script>

Method 2: Integrate the SDK with NPM

1. Execute the npm i zego-zim-web command to install the dependencies.

   • We recommend you use the NPM package that supports the TypeScript language.
   • If the error permission denied occurs when executing the npm command on macOS or Linux, add a sudo before the npm command and try again.

2. Import the SDK.

   import { ZIM } from 'zego-zim-web';

   or

   const ZIM = require('zego-zim-web').ZIM;

Implementation steps

Get the sample code

To download and run the sample code, see Sample app.

Import the SDK file

Refer to the Method 2: Integrate the SDK with NPM to import the SDK package file.

Create a ZIM SDK instance

Creating a ZIM instance is the very first step, an instance corresponds to a user logging in to the system as a client.

So, let's suppose we have two clients now, client A and client B. To send and receive messages to each other, both of them will need to call the create method with the AppID in the previous Prerequisites steps to create a ZIM SDK instance of their own:

var appID = xxxx; // Note: the appID is a set of numbers, not a String. 
// The [create] method creates a ZIM instance only on the first call. Any subsequent calls return null.
ZIM.create({ appID });
// Get the instance via [getInstance] to avoid hot updates that cause you to use the [create] method multiple times to create a singleton and return null.
var zim = ZIM.getInstance();

Set event callbacks

Before a client user's login, you will need to call the on method to customize the event callbacks, such as you can receive callback notifications when SDK errors occur or receiving message related callback notifications.

// Set up and listen for the callback for receiving error codes. 
zim.on('error', function (zim, errorInfo) {
    console.log('error', errorInfo.code, errorInfo.message);
});

// Set up and listen for the callback for connection status changes.
zim.on('connectionStateChanged', function (zim, { state, event, extendedData }) {
    console.log('connectionStateChanged', state, event, extendedData);
    // When SDK logout occurred due to a long-time network disconnection, you will need to log in again. 
    if (state == 0 && event == 3) {
        zim.login(userInfo, token)
    }
});

// Set up and listen for the callback for receiving one-to-one messages. 
zim.on('receivePeerMessage', function (zim, { messageList, fromConversationID }) {
    console.log('receivePeerMessage', messageList, fromConversationID);
});

// Set up and listen for the callback for token expires.
zim.on('tokenWillExpire', function (zim, { second }) {
    console.log('tokenWillExpire', second);
    // You can call the renewToken method to renew the token. 
    // To generate a new Token, refer to the Prerequisites.
    zim.renewToken(token)
        .then(function({ token }){
            // Renewed successfully.
        })
        .catch(function(err){
            // Renew failed.
        })
});

Log in to the ZIM SDK

For client A and client B to send, receive messages, and renew the token after creating the ZIM SDK instance, they will need to log in to the ZIM SDK.

To log in, Clients A and B both need to do the following:

1. Call the ZIMUserInfo method to create a user object.
2. Then, call the login method with their own user information and the Token they get in the previous Prerequisites steps.

// To get the token for login, refer to the [Guides - Authentication] document. 
// userID must be within 32 bytes, and can only contain letters, numbers, and the following special characters: '~', '!', '@', '#', '$', '%', '^', '&', '*', '(', ')', '_', '+', '=', '-', '`', ';', '’', ',', '.', '<', '>', '/', '\'.
// userName must be within 64 bytes, no special characters limited.
var userInfo = { userID: 'xxxx', userName: 'xxxx' };
var token = '';

zim.login(userInfo, token)
    .then(function () {
        // Login successful.
    })
    .catch(function (err) {
        // Login failed.
    });

Send messages

Client A can send messages to client B after logging in successfully.

Currently, the ZIM SDK supports the following message types: