Manage channel updates

Update channel details and receive events whenever someone updates them.

Requires App Context

To store data about channels, you must enable App Context for your app's keyset in the Admin Portal.

Update channel details

You can edit the metadata of an existing channel with update() and updateChannel().

Both of them give the same output. The only difference is that you call a given method either on the Chat (updateChannel()) or the Channel (update()) object. Depending on the object, these methods take a different set of input parameters - you either have to specify the channel ID you want to update or not because it's already known.

Method signature

These methods take the following parameters:

• update()

  channel.update(
      name: String?,
      custom: CustomObject?,
      description: String?,
      status: String?,
      type: ChannelType?,
  ): PNFuture<Channel>

• updateChannel()

  chat.updateChannel(
      id: String,
      name: String?,
      custom: CustomObject?,
      description: String?,
      status: String?,
      type: ChannelType?,
  ): PNFuture<Channel>

Input

Parameter	Type	Required in update()	Required in updateChannel()	Default	Description
id	String	No	Yes	n/a	Unique channel identifier.
name	String	No	No	n/a	Display name for the channel.
custom	CustomObject	No	No	n/a	JSON object providing custom data about the channel. Values must be scalar only; arrays or objects are not supported. App Context filtering language doesn’t support filtering by custom properties.
description	String	No	No	n/a	Additional details about the channel.
status	String	No	No	n/a	Tag that categorizes a channel by its state, like archived.
type	String	No	No	n/a	Tag that categorizes a channel by its function, like offtopic.

API limits

To learn about the maximum length of parameters used to set channel metadata, refer to REST API docs.

Output

Type	Description
PNFuture<Channel>	PNFuture containing the updated channel object with its metadata.

Basic usage

Update the description of the support channel.

• update()

  // reference the "channel" object
  chat.getChannel("support").async {
      it.onSuccess { channel ->
          // invoke the "update()" method on the "channel" object
          channel.update(description = "Channel for CRM tickets").async {
              ... // handle success and failure
          }
      }.onFailure { ... /* handle failure */ }
  }

• updateChannel()

  // reference the "chat" object and invoke the "updateChannel()" method
  chat.updateChannel(
      "support",
      description = "Channel for CRM tickets"
  ).async {
      ... // handle success and failure
  }

Get channel updates

You can receive updates when specific Channel object(s) are edited or removed on other clients using the following methods:

• streamUpdates() checks updates on a single Channel object and it's tied to an instance of the Channel class.
• streamUpdatesOn() checks updates on a Channel object list and it's tied to the Channel class.

Both methods accept a callback function as an argument. The Chat SDK invokes this callback whenever someone adds, changes, or removes channel metadata.

Underneath, these methods subscribe the current user to a channel and add an objects event listener to receive all objects events of type channel. These methods also return the unsubscribe function you can invoke to stop receiving objects events and unsubscribe from the channel.

Method signature

These methods take the following parameters:

• streamUpdates()

  channel.streamUpdates(callback: (channel: Channel?) -> Unit): AutoCloseable

• streamUpdatesOn()

  class Channel {
      companion object {
          fun streamUpdatesOn(
              channels: Collection<Channel>,
              callback: (channels: Collection<Channel>) -> Unit
          ): AutoCloseable
      }
  }

Input

Parameter	Type	Required in streamUpdates()	Required in streamUpdatesOn()	Default	Description
channels	Collection<Channel>	No	Yes	n/a	A collection of Channel objects for which you want to get updates.
callback	(channel: Channel?) -> Unit	Yes	No	n/a	Function that takes a single Channel object. It defines the custom behavior to be executed when detecting channel changes.
callback	(channels: Collection<Channel>) -> Unit	No	Yes	n/a	Function that takes a set of Channel objects. It defines the custom behavior to be executed when detecting channel changes.

Output

Type	Description
AutoCloseable	Interface that lets you stop receiving channel-related updates (objects events) by invoking the close() method.

Basic usage

• streamUpdates()

  Get updates on the support channel.

  val supportChannel: Channel
   
  ... 
  
  val subscription = supportChannel.streamUpdates { updatedChannel ->
      println("-=Updated channel: $updatedChannel")
  }
  
  ...
  // always remember to call close to stop receiving updates:
  subscription.close()

• streamUpdatesOn()

  Get updates on the support and incident-management channels.

  val supportChannel: Channel
  val incidentManagementChannel: Channel
         
  ...
  
  // create a list of channels to monitor
  val channelsToMonitor = listOf(supportChannel, incidentManagementChannel)
          
  // monitor updates on the specified channels
  Channel.streamUpdatesOn(channels = channelsToMonitor) { updatedChannels ->
      println("-=Updated channels: $updatedChannels")
  }
  
  ...
  // always remember to call close to stop receiving updates:

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