layer-websdk

Layer Web SDK

The Layer Web SDK is a JavaScript library for adding chat services to your web application. For detailed documentation, tutorials and guides please visit our Web SDK documentation.

About this Beta

This beta release exists solely for customers interested in trying out Channels. Customers should be familiar with Layer's services and the WebSDK, or should learn about them before learning how to use this beta. Resources to get started are at:

• https://docs.layer.com/
• https://docs.layer.com/sdk/web/introduction

This beta introduces Channels; to learn about our Channels concepts, you should become familiar with the concepts (though not the APIs) documented at:

• https://////
  • Note that Roles, Discoverability, last_read_message_id and unread_message_count described in the spec are not yet available.

This Beta introduces the following new APIs:

Create a Channel

Channels must have a unique name; attempting to create a Channel where the name is already taken will either cause an error or return an existing Channel. The basic creation is:

client.createChannel({
    members: ['layer:///identities/a', 'layer:///identities/b'],
    name: 'a-channel-with-metadata',
    metadata: {
        topicDetails: 'I am a detail'
    }
});

For more info, see client.createChannel

Listing Channels

You can get a list of Channels for rendering using:

var query = client.createQuery({
    model: layer.Query.Channel,
    paginationWindow: 50
});

This query will behave the same as a Conversation Query, with the following exception:

• There is no options for sorting the list at this time. This should change when unread_message_count and last_read_message_id become available.

The query.data will store an array of Channel Objects.

Listing members of a Channel

Channels use the term members rather than participants; unlike Conversations which come with a participants array as part of the Object, its assumed that Channels will have many participants that can not be listed, thus we use the term members and have a Query API for requesting the server to send the members:

var query = client.createQuery({
    model: layer.Query.Membership,
    predicate: 'channel.id = "layer:///channels/UUID"',
    paginationWindow: 50
});

The query.data will store an array of Membership Objects.

Supported Browsers

• IE 11 and Edge
• Safari 7
• Chrome 42 and up
• Firefox 40 and up

Older versions of Chrome and Firefox will likely work.

Installation

All examples below assume your using the CDN installation method; adapting instructions to other methods should be straightforward.

CDN

Simplest approach to install the Web SDK is to add the following script tag:

<script src='//cdn.layer.com/sdk/3.1.0-beta/layer-websdk.min.js'></script>

• For stricter code control, use //cdn.layer.com/sdk/3.0.n/layer-websdk.min.js instead. (where n is the patch number for the desired release)

All classes can then be accessed via the layer namespace:

var client = new layer.Client({
    appId: LAYER_APP_ID
});

NPM

npm install layer-websdk@beta --save

All classes can then be accessed via the layer module:

var layer = require('layer-websdk');

var client = new layer.Client({
    appId: LAYER_APP_ID
});

From source

Download the latest SDK release Source code archive, extract the files and run the following commands from the extracted project folder:

> npm install
> grunt build

A build/ folder will be generated that contains client.min.js file.

Other build commands:

• grunt debug: Generates build/client.debug.js which provides source-mapped files if you need to step through the Web SDK.
• grunt docs: Generates docs/index.html which you can open to view the API documentation.
• grunt test: Run the unit tests

Beta Users Note: code for this beta will be developped in the channels-3.1 branch until it exits beta and is merged to master.

Getting Started

• For a full introduction, see https://docs.layer.com/sdk/web/introduction
• For an API Reference, see https://docs.layer.com/api_reference/web-3.0/