Development Guide

Global IM UIKit is a globalized IM UI component library launched by RC, based on in-depth research of IM applications internationally, and is more aligned with the usage habits of overseas users.

Global IM UIKit for Android helps you quickly build fully-featured chat functionalities and pages, currently covering one-to-one chat and group chat conversation types (more conversation types will be supported in the future). The UI components support flexible configuration and customization, and can be developed using both Java and Kotlin.

Advantages

Global IM UIKit adopts a "One-Click Switch, Two-Level Override, Three-Level Customization" approach to expand customization capabilities.

• One-Click Switch: For general, enumerable interaction and UI customization ranges, Global IM UIKit has already implemented related functionalities and adaptations internally. With just one line of code, you can switch between multiple interaction and UI styles.
• Two-Level Override: Supports Module (page) and Component overrides, including ViewModel, Fragment, and XML inheritance and overrides. Suitable for highly personalized customizations of default implementations, with high extensibility.
• Three-Level Customization: Also provides API customization capabilities for general, non-enumerable customization ranges, such as navigation bar action items, input box extension function entries, etc.

Modularization

Module

Typically, an Android page corresponds to a Module. A Module contains one or more Components and manages the overall layout of these Components. For example, the entire conversation page is a Module, and its content can be divided into three Components.

Component

A Component is the smallest unit in modular definitions and the smallest unit that developers can override.

As shown in the image above, the top navigation bar is an independent Component, the bottom input component is an independent Component, and the middle scroll area is also a Component.

In addition, Components also provide convenient customization APIs to support some general customization capabilities.

For example: adding navigation bar actions (you can choose whether to include them in the "More" popup layer); adding input box "+" popup layer list items; adding conversation list page conversation action items (displayed in the navigation bar component after long press), etc.

Module and Component Correspondence

Module	Component
ChatListModule	ChatListHeaderComponent
ChatListModule	ChatListComponent
ChatModule	ChatHeaderComponent
ChatModule	MessageListComponent
ChatModule	InputComponent

Selection Suggestions

Global IM UIKit is more aligned with the usage habits of C-end users.

• Global IM UIKit:
  • Apps targeting overseas users
  • Default implementations cannot meet requirements, requiring more personalized work
  • Higher requirements for technical architecture flexibility