🚀 v2 progress

[demchenkoalex]

👋 Welcome! This document outlines the current progress of Flutter Chat UI v2. A development release is now available on pub.dev. While comprehensive documentation is still in progress, you can explore the included examples to see the new features in action. I am also thinking of creating a video demonstration to showcase all the exciting improvements in this version! ✨

Current Status ✨

Core Features:

• 💬 Basic chat screen with message input bar
• 📝 Text message support
  • Basic text messages
  • Markdown formatting
• 🖼️ Image message support
  • Thumbhash and Blurhash support
  • Cross-platform caching via CrossCache package
  • CrossCache is very basic and requires more features like caching strategies, error handling and cache management
• 🎮 ChatController for managing chat and messages
• 📱 Flexible scroll view
  • Support for both reversed and normal scroll view
  • Scroll to bottom functionality (normal scroll view only)
• 🎨 Rich theming capabilities
  • Theme constructor from ThemeData
  • Automatic light/dark mode switching
  • Simple font family customization
  • Full Builder-based customization
• 🧩 Modular architecture
  • Lean core design
  • Optional message type packages
  • Easy custom implementations

Example Implementations:

• 🌐 REST API integration (image upload coming soon)
• 🤖 AI chat with Gemini
  • Includes scroll-to-top on message receive
• 💾 Local storage examples
  • Sembast implementation
  • Hive implementation

🔄 Features from v1 that are not yet implemented

Message Core Features:

• 🌐 Localization support
• 📝 Message grouping
• ⏰ Message timestamps
• ✓ Message delivery/read statuses

Message Types:

• 📎 File message support
• 😀 Emoji-only messages
  🖼️ Image preview functionality - out of scope until there is a better image preview package, too complex to implement here

Visual Elements:

• 👤 Message avatars
• 📅 Date dividers
• ⌨️ Typing indicator
• 🔵 Unread message indicator
• 🔗 Link preview

📝 Current Plan

🔄 All open issues from v1 will be closed and migrated to GitHub Discussions if not yet implemented. The unimplemented features listed above will also be tracked in Discussions.

⭐️ Priority will be given to essential features like:

• 🌐 Localization
• ⏰ Timestamps
• ✓ Message statuses
• 🤔 Probably something else from the list above

Additional features will be implemented based on:

• 👍 Community upvotes in Discussions
• 🤝 Community contributions
• 🚨 Urgent requests from production users (depending on maintainer availability)
• 💭 Maintainer preferences

Let me know if you have any questions or concerns.

[nbonamy]

Hey thanks for the great library. Using the v2 for a project and it is working great. Some minor issues I am facing but I have been able to handle:

• Building my own ChatInput so using inputBuilder. I am under the impression that for layout of the main screen to be properly calculated I have to use ChatInputHeightNotifier (in _updateInputHeight). But this is not "exported" so I need to import 'package:flutter_chat_ui/src/utils/chat_input_height_notifier.dart'; for which of course I get a warning. If I don't handle ChatInputHeightNotifier, the chat area goes behind my custom ChatInput.

• I am also using a custom ChatController as I want to have my own data model for messages. In my custom ChatController I end up having to store all the flutter_chat_ui messages in case of update because of (I believe)

  flutter_chat_ui/packages/flutter_chat_ui/lib/src/chat_message/chat_message_internal.dart

  Line 52 in be518f8

  if (_updatedMessage == event.oldMessage) {

  . Maybe just checking id equality would be enough It will allow me to only save messages with my model and recreate flutter_chat_ui messages in List<Message> get messages on the fly.

Keep up the great work!

Screen.Recording.2024-11-08.at.21.59.34.mov

[demchenkoalex]

Thank you @nbonamy! Would you mind raising a discussion with the same comment, I would like to ask a few questions there to see if I can do anything to improve things :)

[jackie-maxx]

can't wait ..... <3

[jesusmartinoza]

Wow! That video looks great!! 😍

[jackie-maxx]