Message Actions API for JavaScript SDK

Use message actions to add or remove metadata on published messages. Common uses include receipts and reactions. Clients subscribe to a channel to receive message action events. Clients can also fetch past message actions from Message Persistence, either on demand or when fetching original messages.

Supported and recommended asynchronous patterns

PubNub supports Callbacks, Promises, and Async/Await for asynchronous JS operations. The recommended pattern is Async/Await and all sample requests in this document are based on it. This pattern returns a status only on detecting an error. To receive the error status, you must add the try...catch syntax to your code.

Reactions

"Message Reactions" is a specific application of the Message Actions API for emoji or social reactions.

Message Actions vs. Message Reactions

Message Actions is the flexible, low-level API for adding any metadata to messages (read receipts, delivery confirmations, custom data), while Message Reactions specifically refers to using Message Actions for emoji/social reactions.

In PubNub Core and Chat SDKs, the same underlying Message Actions API is referred to as Message Reactions when used for emoji reactions - it's the same functionality, just different terminology depending on the use case.

Add message action

Requires Message Persistence

Enable Message Persistence for your key in the Admin Portal as described in the support article.

Add an action to a published message. The response includes the added action.

Method(s)

Use this JavaScript method:

addMessageAction({
    channel: string,
    messageTimetoken: string,
    action: {type: string, value: string}
})

* required

Parameter	Description
channel * Type: string	Channel name of the target message.
messageTimetoken * Type: string	Timetoken of the target message.
action * Type: Hash	Message action payload.
action.type * Type: string	Message action type.
action.value * Type: string	Message action value.

Sample code

Reference code

This example is a self-contained code snippet ready to be run. It includes necessary imports and executes methods with console logging. Use it as a reference when working with other examples in this document.

Returns

// Example of status
{
    "error": false,
    "operation": "PNAddMessageActionOperation",
    "statusCode": 200
}

// Example of response
{
    "data": {
        "type": "reaction",
        "value": "smiley_face",
        "uuid": "user-456",
        "actionTimetoken": "15610547826970050",
        "messageTimetoken": "15610547826969050"

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Remove message action

Requires Message Persistence

Enable Message Persistence for your key in the Admin Portal as described in the support article.

Remove a previously added action from a published message. The response is empty.

Method(s)

Use this JavaScript method:

removeMessageAction({
    channel: string,
    messageTimetoken: string,
    actionTimetoken: string
})

* required

Parameter	Description
channel * Type: string	Channel name of the target message.
messageTimetoken * Type: string	Timetoken of the target message.
actionTimetoken * Type: string	Timetoken of the message action to remove.

Sample code

Returns

// Example of status
{
    "error": false,
    "operation": "PNRemoveMessageActionOperation",
    "statusCode": 200
}

// Example of response
{
    "data": {}
}

Get message actions

Requires Message Persistence

Enable Message Persistence for your key in the Admin Portal as described in the support article.

Get a list of message actions in a channel. The response sorts actions by the action timetoken in ascending order.

Truncated response

The number of message actions in the response may be truncated when internal limits are hit. If the response is truncated, a more property is returned with additional parameters. Send iterative calls to Message Persistence, adjusting the parameters to fetch more message actions.

Method(s)

Use this JavaScript method:

getMessageActions({
    channel: string,
    start: string,
    end: string,
    limit: number
})

* required

Parameter	Description
channel * Type: string	Channel name to list message actions for.
start Type: string	Message action timetoken for the start of the range (exclusive).
end Type: string	Message action timetoken for the end of the range (inclusive).
limit Type: number	Number of message actions to return.

Sample code

Returns

// Example of status
{
    "error": false,
    "operation": "PNGetMessageActionsOperation",
    "statusCode": 200
}

// Example of response
{
    "data": [
        {
            "type": "reaction",
            "value": "smiley_face",
            "uuid": "user-456",
            "actionTimetoken": "15610547826970050",

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