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Rasa Webchat 💬

A chat widget to deploy virtual assistants made with Rasa or Botfront on any website.


demonstration

⚠️ Version 1.0.1 of the rasa webchat is made to work with version 2.3.x and 2.4.x of rasa. Use 1.0.0 for other rasa versions.


Features

  • Text Messages
  • Quick Replies
  • Images
  • Carousels
  • Markdown support
  • Persistent sessions
  • Typing indications
  • Smart delay between messages
  • Easy to import in a script tag or as a React Component

🔥 Promo: check out our other cool open source project

demonstration

Usage

In a <script> tag

In your <body/>:

<script>!(function () {
  let e = document.createElement("script"),
    t = document.head || document.getElementsByTagName("head")[0];
  (e.src =
    "https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/[email protected]/lib/index.js"),
    // Replace 1.x.x with the version that you want
    (e.async = !0),
    (e.onload = () => {
      window.WebChat.default(
        {
          customData: { language: "en" },
          socketUrl: "https://bf-botfront.development.agents.botfront.cloud",
          // add other props here
        },
        null
      );
    }),
    t.insertBefore(e, t.firstChild);
})();
</script>

⚠️ We recommend adding a version tag to prevent breaking changes from major versions, e.g for version 1.0.0 https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/[email protected]/lib/index.js, however this will not work with versions below 1.0.0. If you do not specify a version, you will get served the latest available version of the rasa-webchat.

About images: width and height define the size in pixels that images in messages are crop-scaled to. If not present, the image will scale to the maximum width of the container and the image.

As a React component

Install the npm package:

npm install rasa-webchat

Then:

import Widget from 'rasa-webchat';

function CustomWidget = () => {
  return (
    <Widget
      initPayload={"/get_started"}
      socketUrl={"http://localhost:5500"}
      socketPath={"/socket.io/"}
      customData={{"language": "en"}} // arbitrary custom data. Stay minimal as this will be added to the socket
      title={"Title"}
    />
  )
}
  • Make sure to have the prop embedded set to true if you don't want to see the launcher.

Parameters

Prop / Param Default value Description
initPayload null Payload sent to Rasa when conversation starts
socketUrl null Socket URL
socketPath null Close the chat window
customData null Arbitrary object sent with the socket. If using with Botfront, it must include the language (e.g. {"language": "en"})
docViewer false If you add this prop to the component or to the init script, docViewer=true , this will treat links in received messages as links to a document ( .pdf .doc .xlsx etc. ) and will open them in a popup using https://docs.google.com/viewer service
title 'Welcome" Title shown in the header of the widget
subtitle null Subtitle shown under the title in the header of the widget
inputTextFieldHint "Type a message" User message input field placeholder
hideWhenNotConnected true If true the widget will hide when the connection to the socket is lost
connectOn "mount" This prop lets you choose when the widget will try connecting to the server. By default, it tries connecting as soon as it mounts. If you select connectOn='open' it will only attempt connection when the widget is opened. it can only take the values mount and open.
onSocketEvent null call custom code on a specific socket event
embedded false Set to true if you want to embed the in a web page. The widget will always be open and the initPayload will be triggered immediately
showFullScreenButton false Show a full screen toggle
showResetChatButton false Show button for deleting conversation history (in embedded mode in upper right corner of the chat window and otherwise in header)
restartOnChatReset true If true, after conversation history is deleted (by user pressing the reset button), initialPayload is sent so conversation starts from the beginning. Also, if the set to true the icon in the reset button will signal restart and if set to false, trash can icon is used (to signal deletion).
newIdOnReset false If true, when conversation history is deleted, a new session id will be issues (and a new socket connection established). If false existing session and session id are used.
resetPayload null Payload sent to Rasa when user resets the conversation from the reset button. If not set, initPayload is sent instead.
resetChatConfirmTitle 'Delete conversation history' Title in the pop-up used to confirm whether user wants to delete the conversation history.
resetChatConfirmSubtitle 'This operation cannot be undone' Subtitle in the pop-up used to confirm whether user wants to delete the conversation history.
resetChatConfirmButton 'Delete' Text on the button that confirms the deletion of the conversation history
resetChatCancelButton 'Cancel' Text on the button that cancels the deletion of the conversation history
displayUnreadCount false Path to an image displayed on the launcher when the widget is closed
showMessageDate false Show message date. Can be overriden with a function: (timestamp, message) => return 'my custom date'
showCarouselImages true Show images (or placeholders) in carousel cards. If set to false neither images nor placeholders are shown.
showIconsOnWeblinks true Show an icon differentiation web links from conversation buttons (response options).
customMessageDelay See below This prop is a function, the function take a message string as an argument. The defined function will be called everytime a message is received and the returned value will be used as a milliseconds delay before displaying a new message.
params See below Essentially used to customize the image size, also used to change storage options.
storage "local" ⚠️ This is not a prop, it has to be passed inside the params object above.
Specifies the storage location of the conversation state in the browser. "session" defines the state to be stored in the session storage. The session storage persists on reload of the page, and is cleared after the browser or tab is closed, or when sessionStorage.clear()is called. "local" defines the state to be stored in the local stoage. The local storage persists after the the browser is closed, and is cleared when the cookies of the browser are cleared, or when localStorage.clear()is called.
customComponent null Custom component to be used with custom responses. E.g.: customComponent={ (messageData) => (<div>Custom React component</div>)}. Please note that this can only be used if you call the webchat from a React application as you can't write a component in pure Javscript.
onWidgetEvent {} call custom code on a specific widget event ( onChatOpen, onChatClose, onChatHidden, and onChatReset, are available for now ), add a function to the desired object property in the props to have it react to the event.

Additional Examples

customMessageDelay
(message) => {
    let delay = message.length * 30;
    if (delay > 2 * 1000) delay = 3 * 1000;
    if (delay < 400) delay = 1000;
    return delay;
}
onSocketEvent
onSocketEvent={{
  'bot_uttered': () => console.log('the bot said something'),
  'connect': () => console.log('connection established'),
  'disconnect': () => doSomeCleanup(),
}}
params

The params props only allows to specify custom image dimensions:

params={{
        images: {
          dims: {
            width: 300,
            height: 200
          }
        }
      }}

Other features

Tooltips

Text messages received when the widget is closed will be shown as a tooltip.

Sending a message on page load

When reconnecting to an existing chat session, the bot will send a message contained in the localStorage key specified by the NEXT_MESSAGE constant. The message should be stringified JSON with a message property describing the message and an expiry property set to a UNIX timestamp in milliseconds after which this message should not be sent. This is useful if you would like your bot to be able to offer your user to navigate around the site.

Sending a payload from your React app

function myComponent() {
    const webchatRef = useRef(null);
    
    // triggered when something happens in your app
    function callback() {
        if (webchatRef.current && webchatRef.current.sendMessage) {
            webchatRef.current.sendMessage('/myIntent{"entityName":"value"}');
        }
    }
    
    return <RasaWebchat
        ref={webchatRef}
    />;
}

The payload can be any message that the user would normally send, but if you want to force an intent and maybe some entities, you can use that format /myIntent{"entity1":"value1","entity2":"value2"}

Backends

The widget can be used with any backend but is primarily designed to be used with Rasa or Botfront.

Rasa

Use the socketio channel: See instructions in the Rasa documentation

If you want to process customData in Rasa you have to create a new channel. Use channel rasa_core.channels.socketio as a template for your new channel. In this channel, customData can be retrieved via data['customData']. Then you can modify sender_id, save customData to the database, fill slots or whatever you need to with your additional data.

Botfront

The Rasa Webchat is developped by the Botfront team and it works with Botfront. If your bot is multilingual, make sure to specificy the current language in the customData prop. E.g. customData={{language: 'en'}}. See in Botfront docs for more details.

Styles

From version 0.8 we started prefixing all css classes, if you already had css styling for the widget, just prepend rw- to all the classes you changed.

hierarchy:

.rw-conversation-container
  |-- .rw-header
        |-- .rw-title
        |-- .rw-close-function
        |-- .rw-loading
  |-- .rw-messages-container
        |-- .rw-message
              |-- .rw-client
              |-- .rw-response
        |-- .rw-replies
              |-- .rw-reply
              |-- .rw-response
        |-- .rw-snippet
              |-- .rw-snippet-title
              |-- .rw-snippet-details
              |-- .rw-link
        |-- .rw-imageFrame
        |-- .rw-videoFrame
  |-- .rw-sender
        |-- .rw-new-message
        |-- .rw-send
Class Description
.rw-widget-container The div containing the chatbox of the default version
.rw-widget-embedded div of the embedded chatbox (using embedded prop)
.rw-full-screen div of the fullscreen chatbox (using fullScreenMode prop)
.rw-conversation-container the parent div containing the header, message-container and sender
.rw-messages-container the central area where the messages appear
.rw-sender div of the bottom area which prompts user input
.rw-new-message the text input element of sender
.rw-send the send icon element of sender
.rw-header div of the top area with the chatbox header
.rw-title the title element of the header
.rw-close-button the close icon of the header
.rw-loading the loading status element of the header
.rw-message the boxes holding the messages of client and response
.rw-replies the area that gives quick reply options
.rw-snippet a component for describing links
.rw-imageFrame a container for sending images
.rw-videoFrame a container for sending video

Contributors

@PHLF @znat @TheoTomalty @Hub4IT @dliuproduction @MatthieuJnon @mofortin @GuillaumeTech


License

Copyright (C) 2021 Dialogue Technologies Inc.

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at

http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.(C) 2021 Dialogue Technologies Inc. All rights reserved.