Upgrade from v4

Highlights

• New message menu and message edit UIs to improve usability
• Provide more CSS customization options for the avatar and icon components (to avoid providing a custom component for even basic customization)
• Drop support for Angular 12-14 and theme-v1

Want to see it all in action? Check out the demo application or try it out in your own application using the instructions below.

Get started

npm install stream-chat-angular ngx-float-ui@18

yarn add stream-chat-angular stream-chat @ngx-translate/core angular-mentions ngx-float-ui@18 @floating-ui/dom

npm install stream-chat-angular ngx-float-ui@17

# or
yarn add stream-chat-angular stream-chat @ngx-translate/core angular-mentions ngx-float-ui@17 @floating-ui/dom

npm install stream-chat-angular ngx-float-ui@16

# or
yarn add stream-chat-angular stream-chat @ngx-translate/core angular-mentions ngx-float-ui@16 @floating-ui/dom

npm install stream-chat-angular @ngx-translate/core@14 ngx-float-ui@15

# or
yarn add stream-chat-angular stream-chat @ngx-translate/core@14 angular-mentions ngx-float-ui@15 @floating-ui/dom

Breaking changes

Angular version support

Angular versions 12-14 are no longer supported. You can use the Angular update guide to update your application.

Theme v1 is removed

Theme-v1 was deprecated in version 4. Most customers already use theme-v2 which used to be imported from this path:

@import "stream-chat-angular/src/assets/styles/v2/scss/index.scss";

From version 5 this path should be used:

@import "stream-chat-angular/src/assets/styles/scss/index.scss";

// or if you're using CSS
@import "stream-chat-angular/src/assets/styles/css/index.css";

In case you run into an SCSS issue related to icons, you should extend the stylesheet import like this:

@use "stream-chat-angular/src/assets/styles/scss/variables" with (
  $assetsPath: "../node_modules/stream-chat-angular/src/assets/assets"
);
@import "stream-chat-angular/src/assets/styles/scss/index.scss";

If Angular can’t find the stylesheet, you should include node_modules in your angular.json in the build.options section:

"stylePreprocessorOptions": {
  "includePaths": ["./node_modules"]
}

No futher action is required for customers who were already using theme-v2.

Customers who used to use theme-v1 now need to use theme-v2. Updating from theme-v1 to theme-v2 will require to rewrite your custom CSS code as the new theme has a new variable system, and all the components were restructured. To help you get started please refer our theming guide.

New message menu UI

The old message menu UI caused usability issues on mobile devices. The new UI address these issues, and adds some other improvements as well.

With the new UI these component-level changes are introduced:

• The MessageListComponent no longer supports the messageOptionsTrigger parameter as this was a workaround for mobile UX problems. On desktop devices the message menu will be triggered by hovering anywhere in the message area. On mobile devices the message menu will be triggered by a longpress insde the message bubble area.
• The MessageReactionsComponent was split into two components. The MessageReactionsComponent is only responsible for displaying the existing reactions, and with that the isSelectorOpen input and isSelectorOpenChange output was removed. The MessageReactionsSelector is a new component, that’s responsible for adding/removing message reactions.

New message edit UI

The modal-based edit message UI is replaced with a more modern approach: the message will be edited inside the main/thread message input.

These are the component-level changes related to this feature:

• The EditMessageForm component has been removed
• The editMessageFormTemplate$ and messageInputTemplate$ have been removed from the CustomTemplatesService

If you don’t want to have this UI, you can set the watchForMessageToEdit input to false on the MessageInputComponent:

<stream-message-input [watchForMessageToEdit]="false"></stream-message-input>

The stream-message-input still has all inputs/outputs you need to create a custom message edit UI:

<stream-message-input
  [watchForMessageToEdit]="false"
  [displaySendButton]="false"
  [message]="messageToEdit"
  [sendMessage$]="sendMessage$Input"
  (messageUpdate)="messageUpdateHandler()"
></stream-message-input>

Signature change for custom channel list event handlers

The channelListSetter’s signature changed for the following custom event handlers of the ChannelService:

• customNewMessageNotificationHandler
• customAddedToChannelNotificationHandler
• customRemovedFromChannelNotificationHandler
• customChannelDeletedHandler
• customChannelUpdatedHandler
• customChannelTruncatedHandler
• customChannelHiddenHandler
• customChannelVisibleHandler
• customNewMessageHandler

If you’re adding a new channel to the list from these handlers, you need to make sure to provide a watched channel.

Example code:

private async customEventHandler(
  clientEvent: ClientEvent,
  channelListSetter: (channels: Channel<DefaultStreamChatGenerics>[]) => void
) {
  const channelResponse = clientEvent!.event!.channel!;
  // Change 1: create a channel from `ChannelResponse`
  const newChanel = this.chatService.chatClient.channel(
    channelResponse.type,
    channelResponse.id
  );
  try {
    // Change 2: call .watch() before adding it to the channel list
    await newChanel.watch();
    const existingChannels = this.channelService.channels;
    channelListSetter([newChanel, ...existingChannels]);
  } catch (error) {
    console.error('Failed to watch channel', error);
  }
}

If you need more information, we have a channel list guide you can check out.

Removed deprecated features

MessageListComponent

• No longer accepts the customMessageActions input. You can use the MessageActionsService for configuring custom message actions.

Go to documentation

MessageComponent

• No longer accepts the customActions input. You can use the MessageActionsService for configuring custom message actions.

Go to documentation

MessageActionsBoxComponent

• No longer accepts the isOpen input. The Message component will take care of hiding/showing the action box component.
• The customActions input has been removed. You can use the MessageActionsService for configuring custom message actions.
• The displayedActionsCount output has been removed. Moving forward the MessageActionsService will be able to provide this information.
• The isEditing output has been removed. Moving forward the MessageActionsService will be able to provide this information.

Go to documentation

messageActionsBoxTemplate$

• No longer accepts the isOpen input. The Message component will take care of hiding/showing the action box component.
• The customActions input has been removed. You can use the MessageActionsService for configuring custom message actions.
• The displayedActionsCountChangeHandler input has been removed. Moving forward the MessageActionsService will be able to provide this information.

Go to documentation

ImageLoadService

The ImageLoadService is now removed. It’s no longer required since the SDK uses a more advanced image sizing method.

ChannelListToggleService

The ChannelListToggleService is now removed as it was only used in theme-v1. For theme-v2 please refer to the responsive layout guide.

Channel query error handling

In previous versions if an error occured during channel load, the channelService.channels$ Observable emitted an error, which would close the stream. Users would have to reload the page to be able to reinitialize the ChannelService. This isn’t a sensible default behavior. From version 5 the channels$ Observable will never emit an error, the channel query result can be observed using the channelService.channelQueryState$. With this change the options.keepAliveChannels$OnError is no longer necessary, and has been removed.

Type changes

• Event handlers with Function type are changed to () => void
• Event handlers with any return types are changed to void return type
• The action handler signature of (custom) message actions was changed from (message: StreamMessage, isMine: boolean) => void to (message: StreamMessage, extraParams: MessageActionHandlerExtraParams) => void. The isMine flag is part of the MessageActionHandlerExtraParams object.
• The MessageActionBoxItemContext is changed, isMine is removed, and params: MessageActionHandlerExtraParams is added. The isMine flag is part of the MessageActionHandlerExtraParams object.

Default reactions

To better align with other SDKs, the default reaction set has been changed: the angry reaction is removed. You can provide your own reaction set using the MessageReactionsService

Component customization

Avatar

To allow better customization for avatar, the size input has been removed, and was replaced with the --str-chat__avatar-size CSS variable.

With this change the size input is no longer supported on the AvatarPlaceholderComponent, AvatarComponent, and the avatarTemplate$.

Icon

In previous versions it was hard to customize icon size and color from CSS, and using custom icons required overriding the built-in icon component. To solve these issues stream-chat-angular@5 introduces a better customization system for icons.

Please refer to the theming guide that explains how to customize icons.

With this change the size input is no longer necessary and has been removed from the the IconPlaceholderComponent, IconComponent, and the iconTemplate$.

The icon names have also been consolidated, so if you’re using a custom icon component, you need to update it accordingly:

Loading indicator

To allow better customization for loading indicator, the size input has been removed, and was replaced with the --str-chat__loading-indicator-size CSS variable.

With this change the size input is no longer supported on the LoadingIndicatorPlaceholderComponent, LoadingIndicatorComponent, and the loadingIndicatorTemplate$. The loadingIndicatorTemplate$ now accepts TemplateRef<void> instead of TemplateRef<LoadingIndicatorContext>

Channel invites

Keeping track of pending channel invites is no longer automatic. If you’re using channel invites and want to enable this behavior you need to initialize the ChatClientService with the following flag:

this.chatService.init("<API key>", "<user>", "<token provider>", {
  trackPendingChannelInvites: true,
});

Other changes

Unused packages

The ngx-popperjs package is no longer used, so you can remove the related packages from your package.json file:

• @popperjs/core
• ngx-popperjs