How to implement real time chat in WPF application using ACS

Jakub Pernica 215

Hello,

I'm trying to figure out the Azure Communication Services - Chat functionality in my .NET 7 WPF application. I created a simple window (see picture):

User's image

I'm able to get user identity and access token, create new thread and invite other participants, but now the main problem is, how do I make the chat itself responsive? I can fetch all messages manually using AsyncPageable <ChatMessage> allMessages = chatThreadClient.GetMessagesAsync(); but how would I implement it in such a way the messages are updated automatically or with some kind of event?

Thanks

VenkateshDodda-MSFT 19,986 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2023-09-12T05:31:53.85+00:00

@Jakub Pernica Thanks for reaching out to Microsoft Q&A, apologize for any inconvenience caused on this.

Could you please elaborate more on your use case that you are trying to build using Azure communication service. so that we can understand and assist you better on this.

Also, please do help us with the any documentation, GItHub repo that you are following to implement your scenario.
Jakub Pernica 215 Reputation points

2023-09-12T06:11:56.9033333+00:00

@VenkateshDodda-MSFT My apologies if my question wasn't clear. Let's say a have a client A and client B, both are using WPF application. They initialize a chat (thread) between themselves. Basically what I want is that when client A sends a chat message to the thread, I want the client B to automatically see this message in his application. The way I was able to implement it is to manually fetch messages by clicking a button, which I would like to avoid. My use case is simple chat WPF application.

I was following these examples: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/communication-services/quickstarts/chat/get-started?tabs=linux&pivots=programming-language-csharp but that doesn't contain anything about the things I talk about.
VenkateshDodda-MSFT 19,986 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2023-09-12T06:35:39.3466667+00:00

@Jakub Pernica Thanks for sharing more information.

Based on the information shared, I understood that both client A& B are using a single application. Client A tries to create an chat thread and send a message to Client B.

As per my understanding, once the chat thread is created between two client when the Client A sends the message it should be shown to client B and Client B call the receive message from the chat threads using this method chatThreadClient.GetMessagesAsync() and you want to get the messages to client B automatically without calling this method.

Correct me if my understanding is wrong.
Jakub Pernica 215 Reputation points

2023-09-12T06:46:02.6566667+00:00

Client A and Client B are running the WPF application on different devices. I'm able to manually poll for messages using chatThreadClient.GetMessagesAsync() method. I'd like to avoid that and rather use some kind of event on which I could listen to for new messages etc.
Jakub Pernica 215 Reputation points

2023-09-12T07:44:21.8566667+00:00

Seems like the .NET SDK doesn't support such feature. Only the JavaScript, android and iOS SDKs.

Is there perhaps any recommendation on how to implement it for .NET applications?
VenkateshDodda-MSFT 19,986 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2023-09-12T12:41:24.78+00:00

@Jakub Pernica Thanks for your response. I am checking with internal team on this and will update you here once I hear back from them.

Accepted answer

VenkateshDodda-MSFT 19,986 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2023-09-13T12:38:29.4733333+00:00

@Jakub Pernica Thanks for your patience on this. I have checked with internal team and sharing the below.

As mentioned in the documentation or as you pointed out earlier currently real time notifications are not available for .Net.

Alternatively, you can achieve this, by running a background thread that will keep calling this function GetMessagesAsync() with a time offset to fetch the messages that have been sent in the past 5-10s.

The other option is to by listening to Event Grid events and route those events to your application about the chat threads events. This is mentioned more here Chat concepts in Azure Communication Services - An Azure Communication Services concept document | Microsoft Learn.

Since you have listening to specific event type you will receive notification form all the other threads as well you need to filter them depending on the customer thread.

You can refer to this sample .Net WinForms wherein timer trigger keeps calling the chatThreadClient.GetMessagesAsync() function for updates.

Feel free to reach back to me if you have any further questions on this.
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Jakub Pernica 215 Reputation points

2023-09-13T13:02:04.0066667+00:00

@VenkateshDodda-MSFT Thanks for your valuable input. I can see both approaches working, but there might be some potential issues to overcome. However, those weren't in the scope of my question so you not need to worry, but I'll just write here some thoughts:

For the Event Grid approach, there might be an issue if I'm sending a message to a client that is currently offline. Since events happen in real time and there's no client listening at the time of the event, it would need to be persisted and propagated later when user opens the application later.

The background thread that keeps polling the messages with time offset potentially has the same issue, but I believe that could be easily fixed by setting the time offset not to only 5-10 seconds, but rather to the time of the last known read message.

I also thought of 3rd approach, but I'm not sure if that's just making things more complicated or not, but there's a possibility to embed Javascript code in WPF application. That way, I could embed Javascript SDK for Chat and use the supported real-time notifications.

Anyways, for now I think I've got a better grasp of different approaches for my scenario. Thank you again and my question can be considered answered.

VenkateshDodda-MSFT 19,986 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2023-09-14T04:19:28.6133333+00:00

Jakub Pernica Thanks for the response. I have converted my comment to answer.

Please accept as Yes if the answer provided is useful, so that you can help others in the community looking for remediation for similar issues.
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