Send your first message

Sendbird UIKit for Android is a set of prebuilt UI components that allows you to easily craft an in-app chat with all the essential messaging features. Our development kit includes light and dark themes, text fonts, colors and more. You can customize these components to create an interactive messaging interface unique to your brand identity.

Sendbird UIKit supports both open channels and group channels. Follow the guide below to start sending a message from scratch using Java or Kotlin.

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Note: To build an Android chat app with UIKit, see our Android UIKit tutorial. To learn how to customize in-app chat on Android, see this tutorial.

The minimum requirements for UIKit for Android are:

• Android 4.1 (API level 16) or higher
• Java 8
• Support androidx only
• Gradle 4.0.1 or higher
• Sendbird Chat SDK for Android 3.1.1 and later

Before installing Sendbird Chat SDK, you need to create a Sendbird application on the Sendbird Dashboard, which comprises everything required in a chat service including users, messages, and channels. You will need the App ID of your Sendbird application when initializing the Chat SDK.

Note: Each Sendbird application can be integrated with a single client app. Within the same application, users can communicate with each other across all platforms, whether they are on mobile devices or on the web.

You can start building a modern messaging experience in your app by installing Sendbird UIKit. This developer kit is an add-on feature to Sendbird Chat SDK so installing it will also install the core Chat SDK.

To get started, open Android Studio and create a new project for UIKit in the Project window as follows:

1. Click Start a new Android Studio project in the Welcome to Android Studio window.
2. Select Empty Activity in the Select a Project Template window and click Next.
3. Enter your project name in the Name field in the Configure your project window.
4. Select your language as either Java or Kotlin from the Language drop-down menu.
5. Make sure Use legacy android.support.libraries is unchecked.
6. Select minimum API level as 16 or higher.

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You can install UIKit for Android through Gradle. If using Gradle 6.7 or lower, add the following code to your root build.gradle file:

allprojects {
    repositories {
        maven { url "https://jitpack.io" }
        maven { url "https://repo.sendbird.com/public/maven" }
    }
}

Note: Make sure the above code block isn't added to your module build.gradle file.

If using Gradle 6.8 or higher, add the following to your settings.gradle file:

dependencyResolutionManagement {
    repositories {
        maven { url "https://jitpack.io" }
        maven { url "https://repo.sendbird.com/public/maven" }
    }
}

Note: To learn more about updates to Gradle, see this release note.

Next, for all Gradle versions, open the build.gradle file at the application level. For both Java and Kotlin, add the following code block and dependencies:

apply plugin: 'com.android.application'

android {
    buildFeatures {
        dataBinding true
    }

    compileOptions {
        sourceCompatibility JavaVersion.VERSION_1_8    // Make sure you have JavaVersion 1.8.
        targetCompatibility JavaVersion.VERSION_1_8    // Make sure you have JavaVersion 1.8.
    }
}

dependencies {
    implementation 'com.sendbird.sdk:uikit:2.2.7'
}

Before saving the build.gradle file, check if you’ve enabled dataBinding. Then, click the Sync button to apply all changes.

Note: UIKit SDK versions 2.1.1 or lower can be downloaded from JCenter until February 1, 2022. SDK versions higher than 2.1.1 will be available on Sendbird's remote repository.

To integrate and run Sendbird UIKit in your app, you need to initialize it first. You can initialize SendBirdUIKit instance by passing the SendBirdUIKitAdapter instance as an argument to a parameter in the SendBirdUIKit.init() method. The SendBirdUIKit.init() must be called once in the onCreate() method of your app’s Application instance.

Note: Local caching has now been added so that the client app can locally cache and retrieve channel and message data. The addition of this functionality requires the database to be reset and migrated. As a result of DB migration in the server, the initialization process of the SendBirdUIKit instance is now asynchronous and requires you to receive a callback function before you can move onto the next step. If the database fails to migrate, the onInitFailed() method is called. If the database successfully migrates, the onInitSucceed() method is called and you can proceed to the next step. Refer to the updated code below.

import android.app.Application;

import androidx.annotation.NonNull;
import androidx.annotation.Nullable;

import com.sendbird.uikit.SendBirdUIKit;
import com.sendbird.uikit.adapter.SendBirdUIKitAdapter;
import com.sendbird.uikit.interfaces.UserInfo;

public class BaseApplication extends Application {
    @Override
    public void onCreate() {
        super.onCreate();

        SendBirdUIKit.init(new SendBirdUIKitAdapter() {
            @NonNull
            @Override
            public String getAppId() {
                return "YOUR_APP_ID";  // Specify your Sendbird application ID.
            }

            @Nullable
            @Override
            public String getAccessToken() {
                return "";
            }

            @NonNull
            @Override
            public UserInfo getUserInfo() {
                return new UserInfo() {
                    @Override
                    public String getUserId() {
                        return "USER_ID";  // Specify your user ID.
                    }

                    @Nullable
                    @Override
                    public String getNickname() {
                        return "USER_NICKNAME";  // Specify your user nickname.
                    }

                    @Nullable
                    @Override
                    public String getProfileUrl() {
                        return "";
                    }
                };
            }

            @NonNull
            @Override
            public InitResultHandler getInitResultHandler() {
                return new InitResultHandler() {
                    @Override
                    public void onMigrationStarted() {
                        // DB migration has started.
                    }

                    @Override
                    public void onInitFailed(SendBirdException e) {
                        // If DB migration fails, this method is called.
                    }

                    @Override
                    public void onInitSucceed() {
                        // If DB migration is successful, this method is called and you can proceed to the next step.
                        // In the sample app, the `LiveData` class notifies you on the initialization progress
                        // And observes the `MutableLiveData<InitState> initState` value in `SplashActivity()`.
                        // If successful, the `LoginActivity` screen
                        // Or the `HomeActivity` screen will show.
                    }
                };
            }
        }, this);
    }
}

Add the created BaseApplication to AndroidManifest.xml.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    package="com.sendbird.uikitapplication">

    <application
        android:name=".BaseApplication"  // Add this line.
        android:icon="@mipmap/ic_launcher"
        android:label="@string/app_name"
        android:roundIcon="@mipmap/ic_launcher_round"
        android:theme="@style/AppTheme">
        <activity android:name=".MainActivity">
            <intent-filter>
                <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
                ...
                <category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
            </intent-filter>
        </activity>
    </application>

ChannelListActivity is the starting point for launching UIKit in your application. By implementing the code below, you will see a complete list of group channels that you're a member of.

package com.example.uikitapplication;

import com.sendbird.uikit.activities.ChannelListActivity;

public class MainActivity extends ChannelListActivity {
    // Add this line.
    // If you’re going to inherit `ChannelListActivity`, don’t implement `setContentView()` in the activity.
}

You can now run the application on an emulator or a plugged-in device. To send a message, you must first create a group channel by clicking on the icon in the top-right corner. Then, you can select users you wish to invite as members to your channel. Once the channel has been created, type your first message and press send.

You've successfully sent your first message with Sendbird.

Note: To customize your user list instead of retrieving the entire list from Sendbird server, set the custom user list query handler.

Methods provided by Sendbird UIKit for Android automatically process data using our Chat SDK. Using Activities and Fragments, chat can easily be added to your Android client app using the components below.

This is the most important class in the UIKit. These interfaces can be used to initialize information and call all Activity components.

Listed below are the methods of the SendBirdUIKitAdapter class:

Listed below are the methods of the UserInfo class:

The UIKit also provides the following components. All components can be called while fragments and activities are running on the Android platform.