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How to customize in-app chat on iOS with the Sendbird UIKit

Customizing the channel list view and message view of the Sendbird iOS UIKit for Chat.

By Jason Allshorn
Solutions engineer | Sendbird

You may find it useful to check out the iOS chat UIKit sample. For additional guidance with the material in this tutorial, please see the docs. To see Sendbird Chat in action, please see this demo. You can also visit our website to learn more about the UIKit.

Introduction

This tutorial will show you how two customize the iOS Sendbird UIKit for chat. We will customize two components:

• The channel list view
• The message list view

Before we start, you will need to install the Sendbird UIKit. To do so, follow the instructions in the Sendbird docs.

Now that you are ready, let’s dive right into it.

How to customize the Chat Channel List

To change the aspect of the Channel List, we need to update the SBUChannelListViewController. The gist below contains the code to customize:

First, let’s:

• Initialize the UIKit Channel List View Controller
• And override its functions and properties

This is the same process to customize any component of the Sendbird Chat UIKit for iOS.

Below is a basic pattern to initialize a custom UIKit Channel List View Class. The IBAction openChat is a button in the view controller that displays the UIKit channel list.

Now, let’s change the look of the:

1. leftBarButton
2. titleView
3. rightBarButton
4. channelCell
5. Custom channel list query

Figure 1. Before and after chat channel list customization

Customizing the leftBarButton

To customize the leftBarButton use this code:

Customizing the titleView

To customize the titleView, use this code:

Customizing the channelListVC.rightBarButton

To customize the channelListVC.rightBarButton use this code:

Customizing the channelListVC.register(channelCell: CustomChannelListCell())

To customize the channelListVC.register(channelCell: CustomChannelListCell()), use this code:

For the CustomChannelListCell class, the code focuses on the programmatic rendering of cell views. Here is a working example code:

Customizing the channel list query

• When creating the channel list view, include your custom query during initialization, and pass it into the super.init() method.
• The custom channel list query leverages the Sendbird core SDK’s channel list query. The Sendbird core SDK is part of the Sendbird UIKit library.

How to customize the channel Message List

This viewController shows all the messages in a particular channel. In this example, we will change the:

1. leftBarButton
2. titleView
3. rightBarButton
4. register(channelCell: CustomUserMessageCell())
5. Customize message send

Figure 2. Before and After channel Message List customization

You will need to initialize your channelViewController with either a channel URL or a channel object to customize a single channel. The code below demonstrates overriding the SBUChannelListViewController’s didSelectRowAt delegate. The override allows you to listen to the channel selected within the channelListViewController then display the channelViewController.

ViewController.swift

Customizing the leftBarButton

To customize the leftBarButton use this code:

Customizing the titleView

To customize the titleView, use this code:

Customizing the rightBarButton

To customize the rightBarButton use this code:

Customizing the register(channelCell:CustomUserMessageCell())

To customize the register(channelCell:CustomUserMessageCell()) use this code:

Customizing message send

To customize message send, use this code:

Color set

By default, Sendbird provides a beautiful user interface with light or dark themes. To further customize and specify the exact colors to be used with both light and dark themes, you can use our UIKit color set guide. This document will help you set harmonious colors and contrast levels between the backgrounds and chat UI components.

Conclusion

This tutorial walked you through the steps to customize two components of the iOS Sendbird UIKit for Chat. For additional UI modifications, check the docs for the complete list of customizable themes and how to change common resources such as Strings, Icons, and other Styles.

You are on your way to creating a beautiful and personalized chat experience! Keep it going and happy chat building! 🙂