Chatify Laravel Package

When upgrading to version 1.2.4 or higher, use the dedicated chatify:publish command to update your project's assets.

Warning: Using the --force flag will overwrite all existing assets (views, assets, config, etc.), meaning any custom modifications you have made to these files will be lost.

Chatify allows you to publish its various components (config, migrations, models, controllers, views, assets, and routes) to your Laravel application so you can customize them. You can use the --tag flag with the vendor:publish command to publish specific groups of files.

Available tags:

• chatify-config: The chatify.php configuration file.
• chatify-migrations: Database migrations for users and chat tables.
• chatify-models: Chatify models.
• chatify-controllers: Chatify controllers.
• chatify-views: Chatify Blade views.
• chatify-assets: CSS, JS, images, and sounds.
• chatify-routes: Chatify route files.

To install the Chatify package into your Laravel application, run the chatify:install Artisan command. This command automates the following setup steps:

1. Configuration: Publishes the chatify.php config file.
2. Views: Publishes Chatify views to resources/views/vendor/Chatify.
3. Assets: Publishes CSS and JS assets to public/css/chatify.
4. Models: Publishes the ChMessage.php model.
5. Migrations: Publishes the database migrations required for the messages table.
6. Routes: Publishes the Chatify routes.
7. Storage: Automatically runs storage:link to ensure file uploads/storage work correctly.

Note on Overwriting: If any of the files above already exist in your project, the command will prompt you for permission to overwrite them. By default, it will not overwrite existing files unless you confirm.

Chatify uses an avatar column on the users table to store user profile images. When a user does not have a custom avatar, the system defaults to the value defined in your Chatify configuration.

You can set this default value by updating the user_avatar.default key in your config/chatify.php file.

Chatify's routes can be customized via the chatify.php configuration file.

By default, Chatify loads its internal routes. However, if you set chatify.routes.custom to true in your configuration, Chatify will instead look for route files in your application's routes/chatify/ directory (web.php and api.php).

You can also customize the following route settings in the config:

• chatify.routes.prefix: The URL prefix for web routes.
• chatify.routes.namespace: The controller namespace for web routes.
• chatify.routes.middleware: Middleware applied to web routes.
• chatify.api_routes.prefix: The URL prefix for API routes.
• chatify.api_routes.namespace: The controller namespace for API routes.
• chatify.api_routes.middleware: Middleware applied to API routes.

Customize the messenger experience and user presence:

• Update Settings: updateSettings allows changing dark_mode (pass dark or other values), messengerColor, and updating the user's avatar file.
• Set Active Status: setActiveStatus updates the user's online/offline presence. Pass status: 1 for active and 0 for inactive.

Search for users by name using the search endpoint.

Request Parameters:

• input: The search string (trimmed and filtered).
• per_page (optional): Number of results per page (defaults to 30).

Response Format: Returns a JSON object containing:

• records: A string of HTML containing the search results (using Chatify::layouts.listItem).
• total: Total matching users.
• last_page: The last page number.
• If no results are found, records returns: <p class="message-hint center-el"><span class='Nothing to show.</span></p>.

Chatify uses Laravel's Storage facade to manage files. You can retrieve URLs for attachments and avatars using the following methods:

• getAttachmentUrl($attachment_name): Returns the URL for a specific attachment file.
• getUserAvatarUrl($user_avatar_name): Returns the URL for a user's avatar.
• storage(): Returns the Laravel Storage instance configured via chatify.storage_disk_name.

Remove chat data via the following endpoints:

• deleteConversation: Deletes the entire conversation for the provided id. Returns JSON {"deleted": 1} or {"deleted": 0}.
• deleteMessage: Deletes a specific message by its id. Returns JSON {"deleted": 1} or {"deleted": 0}.

Toggle or retrieve favorite contacts.

Toggle Favorite (favorite endpoint):

• Request Parameter: user_id (the ID of the user to favorite/unfavorite).
• Behavior: If the user is already a favorite, they are removed; otherwise, they are added.
• Response: JSON with status (1 for added, 0 for removed).

Get Favorites List (getFavorites endpoint):

• Response: JSON containing:
  • count: Total number of favorites.
  • favorites: HTML string of the favorites list (using Chatify::layouts.favorite). If empty, returns 0.