Pinned messages

Using Chat SDK methods, you can implement UI features allowing users to "pin" a message to a channel by selecting a sent message and placing it on top of the channel for everyone to see and access it easily.

They can also "unpin" the message if it's no longer important or "pin" another one to replace an already pinned message (there can be only one pinned message on a channel at a time).

Additionally, they can check which message is pinned to the selected channel since the Chat SDK uses the channel metadata to store information on such messages in Message Persistence.

Pinned Messages let users highlight messages in channels for:

• Essential information - pin critical updates or announcements, ensuring important information remains easily accessible to all participants and reducing the chance of missing key details.

• Action items and reminders - by pinning action items or reminders, users and their teams can have a centralized location for reference, making it easier to stay organized, prioritize tasks, and ensure accountability.

• Polling - pin a poll to a channel, allowing a pollster to persist their questions and not have them lost in a chat flow.

Requires App Context and Message Persistence

To store modified data about messages, you must enable App Context and Message Persistence for your app's keyset in the Admin Portal.

Pin

pin() and pinMessage() attach a message to the channel.

Both of these methods give the same result. The only difference between them is that you may or may not be required to provide input parameters, and you call them on different objects: message (pin()) or channel (pinMessage()).

Alternatively, you can also use other Chat SDK methods to pin a message in a thread (thread message) to the thread channel or the parent channel.

Method signature

These methods take the following parameters:

• pin() (on the Message object)

  message.pin() async throws -> ChannelImpl

• pinMessage() (on the Channel object)

  channel.pinMessage(
      message: MessageImpl
  ) async throws -> ChannelImpl

Input

Parameter	Required in pin()	Required in pinMessage()	Description
message Type: MessageImpl Default: n/a	No	Yes	MessageImpl object that you want to pin to the selected channel.

Output

Parameter	Description
ChannelImpl	The updated channel metadata.

Basic usage

Sample code

The code samples in Swift Chat SDK focus on asynchronous code execution.

You can also write synchronous code as the parameters are shared between the async and sync methods but we don't provide usage examples of such.

Pin the last message on the incident-management channel.

• pin()

// Assuming you have a reference of type "ChatImpl" named "chat"
Task {
  if let channel = try await chat.getChannel(channelId: "incident-management") {
    if let message = try await channel.getHistory(count: 1).messages.first {
      let pinnedChannel = try await message.pin()
      debugPrint("A message was pinned to the channel: \(pinnedChannel)")
    } else {
      debugPrint("The channel history is empty. No message to pin.")
    }
  } else {
    debugPrint("Channel not found")
  }
}

• pinMessage()

Task {
  if let channel = try await chat.getChannel(channelId: "incident-management") {
    if let message = try await channel.getHistory(count: 1).messages.first {
      let pinnedChannel = try await channel.pinMessage(message: message)
      debugPrint("A message was pinned to the channel: \(pinnedChannel)")
    } else {
      debugPrint("The channel history is empty. No message to pin.")
    }
  } else {
    print("Channel not found")
  }
}

Get

getPinnedMessage() fetches the message that is currently pinned to the channel.

Method signature

This method has the following signature:

channel.getPinnedMessage() async throws -> MessageImpl?

Input

This method doesn't take any parameters.

Output

Parameter	Description
MessageImpl	Returned MessageImpl object.

Basic usage

Sample code

The code samples in Swift Chat SDK focus on asynchronous code execution.

You can also write synchronous code as the parameters are shared between the async and sync methods but we don't provide usage examples of such.

Get the message pinned to the incident-management channel.

// Assuming you have a reference of type "ChatImpl" named "chat".
// Reference the "incident-management" channel
Task {
  if let channel = try await chat.getChannel(channelId: "incident-management") {
    if let message = try await channel.getPinnedMessage() {
      print("Pinned message content: \(message.content)")
    } else {
      debugPrint("No pinned message found in the channel.")
    }
  } else {
    debugPrint("Channel not found")
  }
}

Unpin

unpinMessage() unpins a message from the channel.

Alternatively, you can also use other Chat SDK methods to unpin a message in a thread (thread message) from the thread channel or the parent channel.

Method signature

This method has the following signature:

channel.unpinMessage() async throws -> ChannelImpl

Input

This method doesn't take any parameters.

Output

Parameter	Description
ChannelImpl	The updated channel metadata.

Basic usage

Sample code

The code samples in Swift Chat SDK focus on asynchronous code execution.

You can also write synchronous code as the parameters are shared between the async and sync methods but we don't provide usage examples of such.

Unpin the message from the incident-management channel.

// Assuming you have a reference of type "ChatImpl" named "chat"
Task {
  if let channel = try await chat.getChannel(channelId: "incident-management") {
    let updatedChannel = try await channel.unpinMessage()
    debugPrint("Updated channel object: \(updatedChannel)")
  } else {
    debugPrint("Channel not found")
  }
}