react-use-intercom

A React Intercom integration powered by hooks.

Features

* Hooks
* Written in TypeScript
* Documented, self explaining methods
* Tiny size without any external libraries
* Safeguard for SSR environments (NextJS, Gatsby)

Installation

``
yarn add react-use-intercom
`

Quickstart

`js
import * as React from 'react';

import { IntercomProvider, useIntercom } from 'react-use-intercom';

const INTERCOM_APP_ID = 'your-intercom-app-id';

const App = () => (



);

// Anywhere in your app
const HomePage = () => {
const { boot, shutdown, hide, show, update } = useIntercom();

return Boot intercom! ☎️;
};
`

Links

* API
* Playground
* Examples
* TypeScript
* Troubleshoot
* Advanced

API

* IntercomProvider
* useIntercom
* IntercomProps

$3

IntercomProvider is used to initialize the window.Intercom instance. It makes sure the initialization is only done once. If any listeners are passed, the IntercomProvider will make sure these are attached.

Place the IntercomProvider as high as possible in your application. This will make sure you can call useIntercom anywhere.

#### Props
| name | type | description | required | default |
|---------------------|------------------|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|----------|---------|
| appId | string | app ID of your Intercom instance | true | |
| children | React.ReactNode | React children | true | |
| autoBoot | boolean | indicates if Intercom should be automatically booted. If true no need to call boot, the IntercomProvider will call it for you | false | false |
| onHide | () => void | triggered when the Messenger hides | false | |
| onShow | () => void | triggered when the Messenger shows | false | |
| onUnreadCountChange | (number) => void | triggered when the current number of unread messages changes | false | |
| shouldInitialize | boolean | indicates if the Intercom should be initialized. Can be used in multistaged environment | false | true |
| apiBase | string | If you need to route your Messenger requests through a different endpoint than the default. Generally speaking, this is not needed.
Format: https://${INTERCOM_APP_ID}.intercom-messenger.com (See: https://github.com/devrnt/react-use-intercom/pull/96) | false | |
| initializeDelay | number | Indicates if the intercom initialization should be delayed, delay is in ms, defaults to 0. See https://github.com/devrnt/react-use-intercom/pull/236 | false | |

#### Example
`javascript
const App = () => {
const [unreadMessagesCount, setUnreadMessagesCount] = React.useState(0);

const onHide = () => console.log('Intercom did hide the Messenger');
const onShow = () => console.log('Intercom did show the Messenger');
const onUnreadCountChange = (amount: number) => {
console.log('Intercom has a new unread message');
setUnreadMessagesCount(amount);
};

return (
appId={INTERCOM_APP_ID}
onHide={onHide}
onShow={onShow}
onUnreadCountChange={onUnreadCountChange}
autoBoot
>


Hi there, I am a child of the IntercomProvider



);
};
`

$3

Used to retrieve all methods bundled with Intercom. These are based on the official Intercom docs. Some extra methods were added to improve convenience.

Make sure IntercomProvider is wrapped around your component when calling useIntercom().

Remark - You can't use useIntercom() in the same component where IntercomProvider is initialized.

#### Methods
| name | type | description |
|-----------------|--------------------------------------------|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| boot | (props?: IntercomProps) => void | boots the Intercom instance, not needed if autoBoot in IntercomProvider is true |
| shutdown | () => void | shuts down the Intercom instance |
| hardShutdown | () => void | same functionality as shutdown, but makes sure the Intercom cookies, window.Intercom and window.intercomSettings are removed. |
| update | (props?: IntercomProps) => void | updates the Intercom instance with the supplied props. To initiate a 'ping', call update without props |
| hide | () => void | hides the Messenger, will call onHide if supplied to IntercomProvider |
| show | () => void | shows the Messenger, will call onShow if supplied to IntercomProvider |
| showMessages | () => void | shows the Messenger with the message list |
| showNewMessages | (content?: string) => void | shows the Messenger as if a new conversation was just created. If content is passed, it will fill in the message composer |
| getVisitorId | () => string | gets the visitor id |
| startTour | (tourId: number) => void | starts a tour based on the tourId |
| trackEvent | (event: string, metaData?: object) => void | submits an event with optional metaData

#### Example
`javascript
import * as React from 'react';

import { IntercomProvider, useIntercom } from 'react-use-intercom';

const INTERCOM_APP_ID = 'your-intercom-app-id';

const App = () => (



);

const HomePage = () => {
const {
boot,
shutdown,
hardShutdown,
update,
hide,
show,
showMessages,
showNewMessages,
getVisitorId,
startTour,
trackEvent,
} = useIntercom();

const bootWithProps = () => boot({ name: 'Russo' });
const updateWithProps = () => update({ name: 'Ossur' });
const handleNewMessages = () => showNewMessages();
const handleNewMessagesWithContent = () => showNewMessages('content');
const handleGetVisitorId = () => console.log(getVisitorId());
const handleStartTour = () => startTour(123);
const handleTrackEvent = () => trackEvent('invited-friend');
const handleTrackEventWithMetaData = () =>
trackEvent('invited-frind', {
name: 'Russo',
});

return (
<>
Boot intercom
Boot with props
Shutdown
Hard shutdown
Update clean session
Update session with props
Show messages
Hide messages
Show message list
Show new messages

Show new message with pre-filled content

Get visitor id
Start tour
Track event

Track event with metadata


);
};
`


$3


All the Intercom default attributes/props are camel cased (appId instead of app_id) in react-use-intercom, see IntercomProps to see what attributes you can pass to boot or update. Or check the Intercom docs
to see all the available attributes/props.

Remark - all the listed Intercom attributes here are snake cased, in react-use-intercom are these camel cased.

#### Custom attributes
Still want to pass custom attributes to Intercom? Whether boot or update is used, you can add your custom properties by passing these through customAttributes in the boot or update method.

Remark - the keys of the customAttributes object should be snake cased (this is how Intercom wants them). They are rawly passed to Intercom.
`javascript
const { boot } = useIntercom();

boot({
name: 'Russo',
customAttributes: { custom_attribute_key: 'hi there' },
})
`

Playground


Small playground to showcase the functionalities of react-use-intercom.

$3

https://devrnt.github.io/react-use-intercom/#/useIntercom

$3

https://devrnt.github.io/react-use-intercom/#/useIntercomTour

Examples

Go to examples to check out some integrations (Gatsby, NextJS...).

TypeScript

All the possible pre-defined options to pass to the Intercom instance are typed. So whenever you have to pass IntercomProps, all the possible properties will be available out of the box.
These props are JavaScript 'friendly', so camelCase. No need to pass the props with snake_cased keys.

Remark - if you want to pass custom properties, you should still use snake_cased keys.

Troubleshoot

* I'm seeing Please wrap your component with IntercomProvider in the console.
> Make sure IntercomProvider is initialized before calling useIntercom(). You only need to initialize IntercomProvider once. It is advised to initialize IntercomProvider as high as possible in your application tree.

> Make sure you aren't calling useIntercom() in the same component where you initialized IntercomProvider.

* I'm seeing Some invalid props were passed to IntercomProvider. Please check following props: [properties] in the console.
> Make sure you're passing the correct properties to the IntercomProvider. Check IntercomProvider to see all the properties.
> Mind that all the properties in react-use-intercom are camel cased, except for the customAttributes property in the boot and update method from useIntercom.

Advanced

$3

uses an official intercom snippet and is directly initialized on load. In the background this snippet will load some external code that makes Intercom work. All of this magic happens on the initial load and in some use cases this can become problematic (E.g. when LCP is priority).

Since v1.2.0 it's possible to delay this initialisation by passing initializeDelay in (it's in milliseconds). However most of the users won't need to mess with this.

For reference see https://github.com/devrnt/react-use-intercom/pull/236 and https://forum.intercom.com/s/question/0D52G00004WxWLs/can-i-delay-loading-intercom-on-my-site-to-reduce-the-js-load


$3


To reduce the amount of re-renders in your React application I suggest to make use of useCallback

TLDR: useCallback will return a memoized version of the callback that only changes if one of the dependencies has changed.

This can be applied to both the IntercomProvider events and the useIntercom methods. It depends on how many times your main app gets re-rendered.

$3


`javascript
import * as React from 'react';

import { IntercomProvider, useIntercom } from 'react-use-intercom';

const INTERCOM_APP_ID = 'your-intercom-app-id';

const App = () => {
// const onHide = () => console.log('Intercom did hide the Messenger');
const onHide = React.useCallback(
() => console.log('Intercom did hide the Messenger'),
[],
);

return (



);
};

const HomePage = () => {
const { boot } = useIntercom();

// const bootWithProps = () => boot({ name: 'Russo' });
const bootWithProps = React.useCallback(() => boot({ name: 'Russo' }), [boot]);

return Boot with props;
};
``