Channel List Search

By default, the channel list component shows a search bar at the top. This component lets you search through messages matching the search term inside the channels. When you tap on a search result, the corresponding channel is opened, automatically scrolling to the searched message.

The SwiftUI components can also scroll to a message that is not available in the local database at that moment. In those cases, the messages around that message are also loaded. The scrolling in these cases can happen in both directions - up (for loading older messages) and down (for loading newer messages).

You can also search for messages that are part of message threads. In those cases, first the channel is opened, and then the corresponding message thread is shown, scrolling to the searched message.

In order to replace this component with your own (or completely remove it by returning an EmptyView), you need to implement the makeChannelListTopView method:

func makeChannelListTopView(
    searchText: Binding<String>
) -> some View {
    SearchBar(text: searchText)
}

In this method, a binding of the search text is provided, in case you want to implement your custom search bar.

Message Search Controller

Under the hood, the channel list search uses the MessageSearchController, that you can also use to provide search in your custom UI components.

Here's an example how to search for a particular search text:

let messageSearchController = chatClient.messageSearchController()
let query = MessageSearchQuery(
    channelFilter: .containMembers(userIds: [userId]),
    messageFilter: .autocomplete(.text, text: searchText)
)
messageSearchController?.search(query: query, completion: { [weak self] _ in
    self?.updateSearchResults()
})

In order to perform search, you need to create a MessageSearchQuery. The query consists of channelFilter and messageFilter.

The channelFilter defines which channels should be included in the filter. In the query above, we are including all channels that the current user is part of, by using the containMembers filter, that contains the current user id.

The message filter defines which messages should be returned in the search query. In this case, we are using the autocomplete filter, with a search text taken from the user's input.

For the different message search options, please check this page.