This guide demonstrates how to add chat to an iOS application using CometChat. Before you begin, we strongly recommend you read the Key Concepts guide.

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I want to integrate with my app

  1. Get your application keys
  2. Add the CometChat dependency
  3. Initialize CometChat
  4. Register or Login your user
  5. Integrate our UI Kits

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I want to explore iOS sample apps.

Import the app into Xcode and follow the steps mentioned in the README.md file. Download Swift Chat App Download Obj-c Chat App Download iOS SDK from Github

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Get your Application Keys

Signup for CometChat and then:
  1. Create a new app
  2. Head over to the API & Auth Keys section and note the Auth Key, App ID & Region
Minimum Requirement
  1. Xcode 12 or above
  2. iOS 11 or higher

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Add the CometChat Dependency

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CocoaPods

We recommend using CocoaPods, as they are the most advanced way of managing iOS project dependencies. Open a terminal window, move to your project directory, and then create a Podfile by running the following command.
  1. CometChatPro SDK supports installation through Cocoapods and SPM both. Currently, we are supporting Xcode 12 or above versions of Xcode.
  2. CometChatPro SDK includes video calling components. We suggest you run on physical devices to avoid errors.
$ pod init
Add the following lines to the Podfile. 
platform :ios, '12.0'
use_frameworks!

target 'YourApp' do
  pod 'CometChatPro', '3.0.919'
end
v3.0.2+ onwards, Voice & Video Calling functionality has been moved to a separate framework. In case you do plan to use the calling feature, please add the Calling framework pod 'CometChatCalls', '3.0.0' in your app Podfile.
And then install the CometChatPro framework through CocoaPods. 
$ pod install
If you’re facing any issues while installing pods then use the below command. 
pod install --repo-update
Always get the latest version of CometChatPro by command. 
$ pod update CometChatPro

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Swift Packages

To install Swift Packages you can use Xcode package manager.
  1. Open Xcode, go to the project’s General settings tab and select the project under Project in the left column.
  2. Go to the Swift packages tab and click on the + button.
  1. Once the pop-up appears, enter the github repository address in the search bar https://github.com/cometchat/chat-sdk-ios.git and set dependency rule to Up to Next Major Version and set version as 3.0.919 . Then click on the Add Package button.
  1. CometChatPro must be checked in the Package Product column and click on Add Package. This will add Package Dependencies menu in Xcode.

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Setup Bitcode

You can set the Enable Bitcode setting to YES present in build settings in your XCode project.
If you are using CometChat Pro SDK having the version less than 2.0.8, then you need to set Enable Bitcode to NO

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Swift Standard Libraries

CometChatProframework build on Swift, you have to ensure the required libraries are embedded. This can be done by setting the “Always Embed Swift Standard Libraries” checkbox in your target’s build settings to “Yes”:

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Set Header Search Path

Set the Header Search Paths to $SDKROOT/usr/include/libxml2.

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Excluded Architecture

For Xcode 12 and above, we need to add arm64 in the excluded architecture of build settings as Apple supports only arm architecture for simulators and actual devices. No support provided for X86_64 and i386 architectures.

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Setting for build for active architecture

In Build Settings, enable active architecture to Yes

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Initialize CometChat

The init() method initializes the settings required for CometChat. The init() method takes the below parameters:
  1. appID - You CometChat App ID
  2. appSettings - An object of the AppSettings class can be created using the AppSettingsBuilder class. The region field is mandatory and can be set using the setRegion() method.
The AppSettings class allows you to configure three settings:
  • Region: The region where you app was created.
  • Presence Subscription: Represents the subscription type for user presence (real-time online/offline status)
  • autoEstablishSocketConnection(boolean value): This property takes a boolean value which when set to true informs the SDK to manage the web-socket connection internally. If set to false, it informs the SDK that the web-socket connection will be managed manually. The default value for this parameter is true. For more information on this, please check the Managing Web-Socket connections manually section. The default value for this property is true.
  • overrideAdminHost(adminHost: string): This method takes the admin URL as input and uses this admin URL instead of the default admin URL. This can be used in case of dedicated deployment of CometChat.
  • overrideClientHost(clientHost: string): This method takes the client URL as input and uses this client URL instead of the default client URL. This can be used in case of dedicated deployment of CometChat.
We suggest you call the method on app startup preferably in the didFinishLaunchingWithOptions: method of the AppDelegate class. 
import CometChatPro

class AppDelegate: UIResponder, UIApplicationDelegate{
{
   var window: UIWindow?
   let appId: String = "ENTER APP ID"
   let region: String = "ENTER REGION CODE"
    
func application(_ application: UIApplication, didFinishLaunchingWithOptions launchOptions: [UIApplication.LaunchOptionsKey: Any]?) -> Bool {

let mySettings = AppSettings.AppSettingsBuilder()
  							.subscribePresenceForAllUsers()
  							.setRegion(region: region)
  							.autoEstablishSocketConnection(true)
  							.build()
        
  CometChat.init(appId: appId ,appSettings: mySettings,onSuccess: { (isSuccess) in
            if (isSuccess) {
                print("CometChat Pro SDK intialise successfully.")
            }
        }) { (error) in
                print("CometChat Pro SDK failed intialise with error: \(error.errorDescription)")
        }
        return true
    }
}
Make sure you replace the appId with your CometChat App ID in the above code.

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Register and Login your User

Once initialization is successful, you will need to create a user. To create users on the fly, you can use the createUser() method. This method takes a User object and the API Key as input parameters and returns the created User object if the request is successful. 
let newUser : User = User(uid: "user1", name: "Kevin") // Replace with your uid and the name for the user to be created.
let authKey = "AUTH_KEY" // Replace with your Auth Key.
CometChat.createUser(user: newUser, apiKey: apiKey, onSuccess: { (User) in
      print("User created successfully. \(User.stringValue())")
  }) { (error) in
     print("The error is \(String(describing: error?.description))")
}
Once initialization is successful, you will need to log the user into CometChat using the login() method. The login method needs to be called in the following scenarios:
  1. When the user is logging to the App for the first time.
  2. If the CometChat.getLoggedInUser() function returns nil.
Kindly, make sure you add the check of CometChat.getLoggedInUser() function in your app where you check the App’s user login status. In case it returns nil then you need to call the Login method inside it.
let uid    = "cometchat-uid-1"
let authKey = "YOUR_AUTH_KEY"

if CometChat.getLoggedInUser() == nil {

	CometChat.login(UID: uid, apiKey: apiKey, onSuccess: { (user) in

  	print("Login successful : " + user.stringValue())

	}) { (error) in

  	print("Login failed with error: " + error.errorDescription);

	}

}
Make sure you replace the API_KEY with your CometChat ApiKey in the above code.
Sample UsersWe have set up 5 users for testing having UIDs: cometchat-uid-1, cometchat-uid-2, cometchat-uid-3, cometchat-uid-4 and cometchat-uid-5.
The login() method returns the User object containing all the information of the logged in user.
UID can be alphanumeric with underscore and hyphen. Spaces, punctuation and other special characters are not allowed.

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Integrate our iOS UI Kit

Please refer iOS UI Kit section to integrate iOS UI Kit inside your app.