Live-Chat with SvelteKit and SocketIO
Tags: svelte, tutorial, javascript, socketio
Published: 2022-02-06 20:44:52

Hi! 👋

Today we're taking a look at Socket.IO and how we can integrate it into our SvelteKit project. As an example, we'll be building a realtime chat app in this demo.

## Setup the project

First, we need a SvelteKit project. If you already have a project, you can skip this step. If not, you can simply create one with the following commands:

```bash
npm init svelte@next live-chat-app
cd live-chat-app
npm install
npm run dev -- --open
```

I'm using Tailwind CSS in this demo. I've already written an article on [how to add Tailwind CSS to SvelteKit](https://linu.us/sveltekit-with-tailwindcss-v3).

## Install the dependencies

All we need is Socket.IO for the server-side part (handling the incoming requests and connections) and the Socket.IO-Client for the client-side part (sending and receiving messages).

```bash
npm i socket.io socket.io-client
```

## Inject the Socket.IO server

We can inject the Socket.IO server directly in the SvelteKit config:

```js
// ... (other imports here)
import { Server } from 'socket.io'; // <-- Import the Socket.IO server

const config = {
	// ...

	kit: {
		adapter: adapter(),
		vite: {
			plugins: [
				{
					name: 'sveltekit-socket-io',
					configureServer(server) {
						const io = new Server(server.httpServer);

						// Socket.IO stuff goes here				

						console.log('SocketIO injected');
					}
				}
			]
		}
	},

    // ...
};

export default config;
```

## Server-side part

For this demo, I'll keep things simple and generate a random username for each client and just broadcast incoming messages along with the username and time.

```js
// This is located in the svelte config (see above "Socket.IO stuff goes here")
io.on('connection', (socket) => {
    // Generate a random username and send it to the client to display it
    let username = `User ${Math.round(Math.random() * 999999)}`;
    socket.emit('name', username);

    // Receive incoming messages and broadcast them
    socket.on('message', (message) => {
        io.emit('message', {
            from: username,
            message: message,
            time: new Date().toLocaleString()
        });
    });
});
```

Please note: This guide is not a full Socket.IO guide. The example is pretty simple and only to show you how to use Socket.IO with SvelteKit.

## Client-Side part

### Connect to Socket.IO

Because you may want to use the Socket.IO connection in multiple components or pages, I recommend to separate the connection stuff:

```js
// src/lib/realtime.js
import ioClient from "socket.io-client";
const ENDPOINT = "http://localhost:3000";

const socket = ioClient(ENDPOINT)

export const io = socket
```

Now we can import and use `io` everywhere in our project.

### Layout

Before we add Socket.IO to the client-side, I'll create a simple UI for our demo. Because this is only the chat, I'll do this directly in the `src/routes/index.svelte`:

```html
<script>
    import { onMount } from "svelte";

	let textfield = ""
	let username = ""

	let messages = []

	function sendMessage() {
		
	}
</script>

<div class="h-screen w-screen bg-zinc-800">
	<div class="h-full w-full max-w-md mx-auto bg-zinc-500 flex flex-col">
		
		<header class="px-6 py-4 border-b border-zinc-800 bg-zinc-700 text-white shrink-0 flex items-center justify-between">
			<span class="font-bold text-xl">My Chat app</span>
			<span>{username}</span>
		</header>

		<div class="h-full w-full p-4">
			{#each messages as message}
				<div class="bg-zinc-300 rounded-xl rounded-tl-none px-4 py-3 my-4 w-fit">
					<span class="flex items-center space-between gap-4">
						<b>{message.from}</b>
						<i>{message.time}</i>
					</span>
					{message.message}
				</div>
			{/each}
		</div>

		<form action="#" on:submit|preventDefault={sendMessage}
			class="px-6 py-4 border-t border-zinc-800 bg-zinc-700 text-white shrink-0 flex items-center"
		>
			<input type="text" bind:value={textfield} placeholder="Type something..." class="bg-transparent border-none px-4 py-3 w-full" />
			<button type="submit" class="shrink-0 border border-white rounded-lg px-4 py-3">Send</button>
		</form>

	</div>
</div>
```

As you can see, I'm storing all messages inside the `messages` array and output them inside the `each` loop.

To send messages, I've attached a listener to the form `sendMessage`.

### Send messages

First, we need to import `io` from the file we just created (realtime.js).
In our send function, we can simply trigger the `message` event (that's how we called it in the server-side part) with the message:

```html
<script lang="ts">
	import { io } from "$lib/realtime";
	import { onMount } from "svelte";

	let textfield = ""
	let username = ""

	let messages = []

	function sendMessage() {
		const message = textfield.trim()
		if(!message) return

		textfield = ""
		io.emit("message", message) // Send the message
	}
</script>
```

### Receive messages

To receive messages, we need to listen to the `message` event (that's how we called it in the server-side part). The object we receive is the same object we sent (server-side) and we can just add it to the `messages` array:

```js
<script lang="ts">
	import { io } from "$lib/realtime";
	import { onMount } from "svelte";

	let textfield = ""
	let username = ""

	let messages = []

	onMount(() => {
		io.on("message", message => { // Listen to the message event
			messages = [...messages, message]
		})
		io.on("name", name => { // Another listener for the name:
			username = name // Update the name so it can be displayed
		})
	})

	function sendMessage() {
		const message = textfield.trim()
		if(!message) return

		textfield = ""
		io.emit("message", message) // Send the message
	}
</script>
```

---

Now, run `npm run dev` and test it out:

![image.png](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1644177870810/Zi_E7t660.png)

---

And that's it - now you can send data in realtime between the server and the client! 🚀

Thanks for reading and have a great day 🤗

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