Room reactions
Users can send reactions to the entire chat room to show their sentiment as to what is happening. For example, agreeing with the content in a livestream using a thumbs up, or sending a heart when their team scores in a sports game.
Room reactions are ephemeral and not stored or aggregated by Ably. The intention being that they show the overall sentiment of a room at a point in time.
Subscribe to room reactions
Subscribe to room reactions by registering a listener. Use the reactions.subscribe() method in a room to receive reactions:
Room reaction event structure
The following is the structure of a room reaction event:
The following are the properties of a room reaction:
| Property | Description | Type |
|---|---|---|
| type | The type of reaction event. | String |
| reaction | The reaction data. | Object |
type: The type of reaction, for example a 'like' or a heart emoji. | String | |
headers: Optional headers for adding additional information to a reaction. | Object | |
metadata: Optional metadata about the reaction, such as an animation or effect. This information is not read by Ably. | Object | |
createdAt: The time the reaction was sent. | Date | |
clientId: The client identifier of the user that sent the reaction. | String | |
isSelf: Will be true for the user that sent the reaction. | Boolean |
Unsubscribe from room reactions
Use the unsubscribe() function returned in the subscribe() response to remove a room reaction listener:
Send a room reaction
Use the reactions.send() method to send a room-level reaction. The most common way of using this method is to trigger it whenever a user clicks an emoji button in a room: