Threads & Replies

Threads and replies provide your users with a way to go into more detail about a specific topic.

This can be very helpful to keep the conversation organized and reduce noise. To create a thread you simply send a message with a parent_id. Have a look at the example below:

final reply = await channel.sendMessage(
  Message(text: 'Hey, I am replying to a message!',
  parentId: parentID,
  showInChannel: false,
));

If you specify show_in_channel, the message will be visible both in a thread of replies as well as the main channel.

Messages inside a thread can also have reactions, attachments and mention as any other message.

Thread Pagination

When you read a channel you do not receive messages inside threads. The parent message includes the count of replies which it is usually what apps show as the link to the thread screen. Reading a thread and paginating its messages works in a very similar way as paginating a channel.

import StreamChat

/// 1: Create a `ChannelId` that represents the channel you want to get a message from.
let channelId = ChannelId(type: .messaging, id: "general")

/// 2: Create a `MessageId` that represents the message you want to get.
let messageId = "message-id"

/// 3: Use the `ChatClient` to create a `ChatMessageController` with the `ChannelId` and message id.
let controller = chatClient.messageController(cid: channelId, messageId: messageId)

/// 4: Call `ChatMessageController.loadNextReplies` to get the replies.
controller.loadNextReplies(limit: 25) { error in
  if let error = error {
    // handle error
    print(error)
  } else {
    // access messages
    print(controller.replies)

    controller.loadNextReplies(limit: 25) { error in
      // handle error / access messages
      print(error ?? controller.replies)
    }
  }
}

Quote Message

Instead of replying in a thread, it’s also possible to quote a message. Quoting a message doesn’t result in the creation of a thread; the message is quoted inline.

To quote a message, simply provide the quoted_message_id field when sending a message:

// Create the initial message
await channel.sendMessage(Message(id: 'first_message_id', text: 'The initial message' ));

// Quote the initial message
final res = await channel.sendMessage(Message(
    id: 'message_with_quoted_message',
    text: 'This is the first message that quotes another message',
    quotedMessageId: 'first_message_id',
  ));

Based on the provided quoted_message_id, the quoted_message field is automatically enriched when querying channels with messages. Example response:

{
  "id": "message_with_quoted_message",
  "text": "This is the first message that quotes another message",
  "quoted_message_id": "first_message_id",
  "quoted_message": {
    "id": "first_message_id",
    "text": "The initial message"
  }
}

Quoted messages are only available one level deep. If you want to access deeply quoted messages you will have to fetch them directly either finding the message in response of channel.query() or querying message by its ID. Example: Message A quotes Message B and Message B quotes Message C. In this case it’s not possible to access Message C through Message A directly. You have to fetch Message B from API in order to access it

Thread List

Query Threads

It is possible to query the list of threads that current user is participant of. This is useful to create thread list similar to what Slack or Discord has. Response will include threads with unread replies first, sorted by the latest reply timestamp in descending order. Threads with no unread replies will follow, also sorted by the latest reply timestamp in descending order.

const threads = await client.queryThreads();

for (const thread of threads) {
  const state = thread.state.getLatestValue();

  console.log(state.participants);
  console.log(state.replies);
  console.log(state.parentMessage.text);
  console.log(state.read); // read states of the participants
}

You can also paginate over the thread list or request specific number of latest replies per thread.

const { threads: page1, next: next1 } = await client.queryThreads({
  reply_limit: 10,
  participant_limit: 10,
  member_limit: 0,
  limit: 25,
  watch: true,
});

// request the next page
const { threads: page2, next: next2 } = await client.queryThreads({
  reply_limit: 10,
  participant_limit: 10,
  member_limit: 0,
  limit: 25,
  watch: true,
  next: next1,
});

Following is the list of supported options for querying threads:

nametypedescriptiondefaultoptional
reply_limitnumberNumber of latest replies to fetch per thread2✓
participant_limitnumberNumber of thread participants to request per thread100✓
limitnumberMaximum number of threads to return in response10✓
watchbooleanIf true, all the channels corresponding to threads returned in response will be watchedtrue✓
member_limitnumberNumber of members to request per thread channel100✓

Thread List Management

ThreadManager class offers built-in pagination handling for threads with own state store to access loaded threads. To access threads you can either subscribe to the ThreadManager state or access the latest value by calling getLatestValue on state property of the ThreadManager.

const threadManager = new ThreadManager({ client });

const unsubscribe = threadManager.state.subscribe((nextState) => {
  console.log(nextState.threads);
});

threadManager.loadNextPage();

// or

await threadManager.loadNextPage();

const { threads } = threadManager.state.getLatestValue();

Client instance already comes with one ThreadManager instance which can be accessed via threads property of the client ( client.threads ).

Event Handling Of Threads

Each thread instance comes with registerSubscriptions method which registers handlers to appropriate thread-related events. With subscriptions registered, the updates to the state are done automatically and can be accessed by subscribing to the state updates.

const { threads } = await client.queryThreads({ watch: true, limit: 1 });

const [thread] = threads;

thread.registerSubcsriptions();

const unsubscribe = thread.state.subscribe((nextState) => {
  console.log(nextState.replies);
});

Note that watch parameter is required when querying for threads in this case as without it, the channel to which the thread is linked won’t receive updates.

If you’re using ThreadManger to manage your list of threads, you can call registerSubscriptions method on the manager instance and the manager will automatically handle subscriptions (registration and cleanup) of the added and removed threads.

const threadManager = new ThreadManager({ client });

threadManager.registerSubscriptions();

await threadManager.loadNextPage();

// these threads are listening to linked channel events
const { threads } = threadManager.state.getLatestValue();

Get Thread By ID

This endpoint returns a thread by the given threadId.

const threadId = "<parent_message_id>";
const threadResponse = await client.getThread(threadId, {
  watch: true, // optional
  reply_limit: 3, // optional
  member_limit: 0, // optional
  participant_limit: 10, // optional
});

Update Thread Title and Custom Data

You can assign a title and any additional custom data to each thread.

const { thread: updatedThread } = client.partialUpdateThread(threadId, {
  set: {
    title: "updated title",
    description: "updated description",
  },
});

console.log(updatedThread.title);
console.log(updatedThread.description);

Similarly to remove any custom property from thread:

await client.partialUpdateThread(threadId, {
  unset: ["title"],
});

Threads Unread Count

Total number of unread threads is available in response of connectUser endpoint

const { me } = await clientUser1.connectUser({ id: user1 }, token);
console.log(me.unread_threads);

If you would like to mark specific thread as read or unread, you can do that as following

await channel.markRead({
  thread_id: "parent_message_id",
});

await channel.markUnread({
  thread_id: "parent_message_id",
});

To get unread count per thread for a current user, you can use the getUnreadCount endpoint as following

const res = await client.getUnreadCount();
console.log(res.total_unread_threads_count);
console.log(res.threads[0].last_read);
console.log(res.threads[0].last_read_message_id);
console.log(res.threads[0].parent_message_id);
console.log(res.threads[0].unread_count);
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