Notifications – Hooks

The Notifications React hooks can be used to fetch inbox notifications on the client, and change their behavior.

useInboxNotifications hook

The most important Notifications hook is useInboxNotifications, which retrieves every inbox notification for the current user. This can be used to render a list of notifications, either using the default components, or with your own components. Here’s an example of it used with the default InboxNotification component.

import { useInboxNotifications } from "../liveblocks.config";
function Component() {  const { inboxNotifications } = useInboxNotifications();
  // [{ kind: "$myCustomNotification", id: "in_sf8s6sh...", ... }, ...]  console.log(inboxNotifications);
  return (    <>      {inboxNotifications.map((inboxNotification) => (        <InboxNotification          key={inboxNotification.id}          inboxNotification={inboxNotification}        />      ))}    </>  );}

There are two versions of the useInboxNotifications hook, the Suspense version, which we recommend by default, and the regular version.

useUnreadInboxNotificationsCount hook

The useUnreadInboxNotificationsCount hook is useful for creating a badge that displays the unread notifications count.

import { useUnreadInboxNotificationsCount } from "../liveblocks.config";
function Component() {  const { count } = useUnreadInboxNotificationsCount();
  // 3  console.log(count);
  return <div>You have {count} unread notifications</div>;}

useMarkAllInboxNotificationsAsRead hook

To mark all notifications as read for the current user, you can add useMarkAllInboxNotificationsAsRead.

function NotificationReadButton() {  const markAllInboxNotificationsAsRead = useMarkAllInboxNotificationsAsRead();
  return (    <button onClick={markAllInboxNotificationsAsRead}>Mark all as read</button>  );}

useUser hook

The only information Liveblocks stores about users is their user ID, which is set when authenticating with Liveblocks. With the useUser hook, you can fetch a user’s information from their ID. This is particularly helpful when building custom components, as this allows you fetch their name, avatar, and any other custom data you’ve set.

import { useUser } from "../liveblocks.config";
function Component() {  const { user } = useUser("olivier@example.com");
  // { name: "Olivier", avatar: "https://...", color: "red" }  console.log(user);
  return <img src={user.avatar} alt={user.name} />;}

The user data retrieved is set within the resolveUsers function in your liveblocks.config.ts file.

async function resolveUsers({ userIds }) {  // ["olivier@example.com"]  console.log(userIds);
  return [    {      name: "Olivier",      avatar: "https://example.com/olivier.png",      color: "red",    },  ];}

There are two versions of the useUser hook, Suspense, which we recommend by default, and regular.

Comments hooks

Comments integrates seamlessly into Notifications, and a number of hooks are provided to modify this behavior.

Unread indicator

Threads keep track of unread comments so viewing a thread will also mark its inbox notification as read, and vice versa. If you use the default Thread component, it will automatically handle marking threads as read when they are viewed and show unread indicators when there are unread comments in threads you are participating in.

If you’re building your own custom Thread component, you can use useMarkThreadAsRead and useThreadSubscription to replicate or customize this behavior.

Thread notification settings

By default, you’ll receive inbox notifications for threads you are participating in. This setting can be customized for each user and per room:

• "all" to be notified about everything.
• "replies_and_mentions" for the default setting.
• "none" to mute the room.

You can use useRoomNotificationSettings to build a settings picker in your app and allow users to change their own notification settings for the current room, or use updateRoomNotificationSettings server-side to control them yourself: for example, to automatically make a document’s author notified about everything in their document.

Getting thread data

When using inbox notifications for threads, it can be useful to fetch the actual thread data, and useInboxNotificationThread makes this easy.

function Notification({ inboxNotification }) {  const thread = useInboxNotificationThread(inboxNotification.id);
  // { type: "thread", id: "th_sf8s6sh...", ... }  console.log(thread);
  // ...}

Hook types

There are two different ways to use the notifications and user hooks; with React Suspense, and without it. We recommend using the Suspense versions, as they often result in simpler code.

Suspense hooks

Using Suspense hooks means that any data retrieved, for example inboxNotifications from useInboxNotifications, will never be undefined, and your component will never see an error.

import { useInboxNotifications } from "../liveblocks.config.ts";
// Suspense: `inboxNotifications` is always definedfunction MyNotifications() {  const { inboxNotifications } = useInboxNotifications();
  // [{ type: "$myCustomNotification", id: "in_sf8s6sh...", ... }, ...]  console.log(inboxNotifications);}

To catch errors and display a loading screen, you can use ErrorBoundary and ClientSideSuspense.

import { ClientSideSuspense } from "@liveblocks/react";import { ErrorBoundary } from "react-error-boundary";
// Handle errors and loading state in the component abovefunction Component() {  return (    <ErrorBoundary fallback={<div>Error</div>}>      <ClientSideSuspense fallback={<div>Loading...</div>}>        <MyNotifications />      </ClientSideSuspense>    </ErrorBoundary>  );}

To use Suspense, make sure you’re exporting your hooks from the suspense property in your config file.

// ...
export const {  suspense: {    // Export from here to use Suspense hooks    useInboxNotifications,    useUser,  },} = createLiveblocksContext(client, {});

Regular hooks

The regular versions of Liveblocks hooks require you to check for error and isLoading properties. You can then handle these states in the same component.

import { useInboxNotifications } from "../liveblocks.config.ts";
// Handle errors and loading state in the same componentfunction MyNotifications() {  const { inboxNotifications, error, isLoading } = useInboxNotifications();
  if (error) {    return <div>Error</div>;  }
  if (isLoading) {    return <div>Loading...</div>;  }
  // Non-Suspense: `inboxNotifications` is only defined AFTER the `if` checks  // [{ type: "$myCustomNotification", id: "in_sf8s6sh...", ... }, ...]  console.log(inboxNotifications);}

To use the regular hooks, make sure you’re exporting from the root level in your config file.

// ...
export const {  // Export from here to use regular hooks  useInboxNotifications,  useUser,} = createLiveblocksContext(client, {});