Today's Chat Interface Updates: Enhancements & Improvements
What developments have taken place today?
Today’s commits focused on enhancing user interaction, streamlining backend operations, and improving data handling within the chat interface. Several changes were made to improve the reliability of notifications, manage WebSocket connections, and ensure consistent message display.
A FocusNode was added to the chat screen’s text input field to simulate scrolling down after typing a message, using keyboard animations for a smoother user experience. The addition of a userApiProvider simplifies access to user data through authentication with a RiverpodAuth object and an ApiClient. Furthermore, a new currentUserProvider fetches user details asynchronously, handling potential errors and displaying loading states effectively. The LeftMenu widget now consumes this provider to display user information.
Significant improvements were made to the WebSocket client implementation, introducing a dedicated AppWebSocketClient class with command handlers for authentication, subscriptions, and message reception. This client utilizes dependencies like web_socket_channel, and ensures robust error handling during connection attempts. The changes also included updating the application’s Git reference to a new version of the remote repository.
The chat interface received updates, including hardcoded initial messages to provide demonstration content and ensuring chronological sorting of displayed messages via API integration. A new mechanism was implemented for handling message loading states and potential errors within the ChatScreen, providing visual indicators (loading indicator and error message) to the user. Finally, improvements were made to the application’s splash screen logic, enabling proper authentication status handling and navigation based on session availability.
In summary, these changes collectively contribute to a more responsive, reliable, and feature-rich chat experience by improving user interaction, simplifying data access, enhancing real-time communication capabilities, and ensuring consistent message presentation.