Laravel websocket - develop mobile chat app using laravel as backend

Question

I successfully setup laravel websocket chat with all the configuration. However, I want to connect it with flutter app or mobile app and not sure how to go about it.

The only way I can think of is using api route to call controller function to post message. but I am not sure how to listen from the app frontend.

How can we listen to the channel without using echo, especially I want to develop for mobile app?

I am using laravel 5.8, and flutter as my frontend.

Solution

You can use package https://pub.dev/packages/web_socket_channel
Official example https://flutter.dev/docs/cookbook/networking/web-sockets

demo code

import 'package:flutter/foundation.dart';
import 'package:web_socket_channel/io.dart';
import 'package:flutter/material.dart';
import 'package:web_socket_channel/web_socket_channel.dart';

void main() => runApp(MyApp());

class MyApp extends StatelessWidget {
  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    final title = 'WebSocket Demo';
    return MaterialApp(
      title: title,
      home: MyHomePage(
        title: title,
        channel: IOWebSocketChannel.connect('ws://echo.websocket.org'),
      ),
    );
  }
}

class MyHomePage extends StatefulWidget {
  final String title;
  final WebSocketChannel channel;

  MyHomePage({Key key, @required this.title, @required this.channel})
      : super(key: key);

  @override
  _MyHomePageState createState() => _MyHomePageState();
}

class _MyHomePageState extends State<MyHomePage> {
  TextEditingController _controller = TextEditingController();

  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    return Scaffold(
      appBar: AppBar(
        title: Text(widget.title),
      ),
      body: Padding(
        padding: const EdgeInsets.all(20.0),
        child: Column(
          crossAxisAlignment: CrossAxisAlignment.start,
          children: <Widget>[
            Form(
              child: TextFormField(
                controller: _controller,
                decoration: InputDecoration(labelText: 'Send a message'),
              ),
            ),
            StreamBuilder(
              stream: widget.channel.stream,
              builder: (context, snapshot) {
                return Padding(
                  padding: const EdgeInsets.symmetric(vertical: 24.0),
                  child: Text(snapshot.hasData ? '${snapshot.data}' : ''),
                );
              },
            )
          ],
        ),
      ),
      floatingActionButton: FloatingActionButton(
        onPressed: _sendMessage,
        tooltip: 'Send message',
        child: Icon(Icons.send),
      ), // This trailing comma makes auto-formatting nicer for build methods.
    );
  }

  void _sendMessage() {
    if (_controller.text.isNotEmpty) {
      widget.channel.sink.add(_controller.text);
    }
  }

  @override
  void dispose() {
    widget.channel.sink.close();
    super.dispose();
  }
}

example code of web_socket_channel

import 'package:web_socket_channel/io.dart';
import 'package:web_socket_channel/status.dart' as status;

main() async {
  var channel = IOWebSocketChannel.connect("ws://localhost:1234");

  channel.stream.listen((message) {
    channel.sink.add("received!");
    channel.sink.close(status.goingAway);
  });
}

Comments

[Shajedul Islam]

I need to implement api for flutter app using laravel. I need to learn how you implemented that part of laravel when mobile app listening for data in an endpoint of laravel. It will be helpful if you help me.