Chat Items

The RadChat control works with a collection of ChatItem objects. The control provides different Chat Items that you can use, such as the basic TextMessage and the PickerItems used to display various pickers (item, date, and time picker) and predefined cards (defined through a card picker).

This section covers the specific details of the different Chat Items provided by RadChat:

• Message—The basic message unit in RadChat; apart from the text of the message itself, each TextMessage instance contains information about the Author of the message as well as any additional data.
• Time Break—Used to encapsulate messages in a conversation by a certain condition such as read/unread, time intervals, or any other condition. It visualizes as a dividing line across the messages board with a text message attached to it.
• PickerItem—A special ChatItem type which contains a RadChatPicker control used for providing a selection to the end user. Depending on the information that is presented and the choices the user can make, the pickers can be one of the following types:
  • DatePicker—Displays a Calendar to choose a date.
  • TimePicker—Displays a clock view to choose a time.
  • ItemPicker—Displays a list of suggestions the end user could choose from.
  • CardPicker—Displays a list of cards with structured layout.

Additionally, you can create your own Chat Items with custom item templates and add them to the Items collection of the control. For more details, see the MVVM Support and ItemTemplateSelector topics.

See Also

• Messages
• Time Break
• PickerItem
• MVVM Support
• ItemTemplateSelector