React SDK

This package contains React components to build a notification inbox for your site powered by MagicBell. Feel free to explore using our Playground

Quick Start

npm i @magicbell/magicbell-react
# or
yarn add @magicbell/magicbell-react

import React from 'react';
import ReactDOM from 'react-dom';
import MagicBell, { FloatingNotificationInbox } from '@magicbell/magicbell-react';

ReactDOM.render(
  <MagicBell apiKey={MAGICBELL_API_KEY} userEmail="[email protected]">
    {(props) => <FloatingNotificationInbox height={300} {...props} />}
  </MagicBell>,
  document.body,
);

MagicBell

The MagicBell component is the default export of this package and is the root component for building a notification inbox. It initializes a connection to the MagicBell server, renders a bell icon with the number of unseen notifications and keeps the data updated in real time.

import MagicBell, { FloatingNotificationInbox } from "@magicbell/magicbell-react";

function MyComponent({ user }) {
  return (
    <MagicBell apiKey={MAGICBELL_API_KEY} userEmail={user.email || user.id}>
      {(props) => (
        <FloatingNotificationInbox
          height={600}
          width={500}
          {...props}
        />
      )}
    </MagicBell>
  );
}

These are all the properties accepted by this component.

Property	Type	Description
`apiKey`	`string`	The API key of your magicbell.io project
`userEmail`	`string`	The email of the user you want to show notifications for
`userExternalId`	`string`	The external ID of the user you want to show notifications for. See the Identifying Users documentation for an example.
`userKey`	`string`	The HMAC for the user. It is recommended to enable HMAC authentication but not required
`children`	`({ isOpen, toggle, launcherRef }) => JSX.Element`	The children function to render a list of notifications for the user
`theme`	`IMagicBellTheme`	An optional object containing custom color values for the widget, see Custom Themes
`BellIcon`	`JSX.Element`	An optional react element to be displayed instead of the default bell icon
`Badge`	`({ count: number }) => JSX.Element`	An optional custom component to use as notification badge
`defaultIsOpen`	`boolean`	An optional flag to set the default visibility state of the element returned by the children function. It is `false` by default.
`onNewNotification`	`(notification) => void`	An optional function called when a new notification arrives.
`onToggle`	`(isOpen) => void`	An optional function called when the bell is clicked.
`isOpen`	`boolean`	An optional flag to control the visibility state of the element returned by the children function.
`bellCounter`	`string`	Counter to show in the bell. If set to 'unread' it will show the number of unread notifications. It is set to 'unseen' by default.

Children function

This component expects a children function. This is how you render whatever you want to based on the state of the MagicBell.

You can use the standard notification inbox:

import React from 'react';
import ReactDOM from 'react-dom';
import MagicBell from '@magicbell/magicbell-react';

ReactDOM.render(<MagicBell apiKey={MAGICBELL_API_KEY} userEmail="[email protected]" />, document.body);

Or the standard inbox with basic customizations (see NotificationInbox):

import React from 'react';
import ReactDOM from 'react-dom';
import MagicBell, { NotificationInbox } from '@magicbell/magicbell-react';

ReactDOM.render(
  <MagicBell apiKey={MAGICBELL_API_KEY} userEmail="[email protected]">
    {() => <NotificationInbox height={300} />}
  </MagicBell>,
  document.body,
);

Or use your own:

import React from 'react';
import ReactDOM from 'react-dom';
import MagicBell from '@magicbell/magicbell-react';

ReactDOM.render(
  <MagicBell apiKey={MAGICBELL_API_KEY} userEmail="[email protected]">
    {({ launcherRef, isOpen, toggle }) => (
      <MyOwnNotificationInbox toggle={toggle} isOpen={isOpen} launcherRef={launcherRef} />
    )}
  </MagicBell>,
  document.body,
);

The MagicBell component does not render the component returned by the children function by default, only the bell is rendered. When the bell is clicked, the child component is toggled. This behaviour can be changed using the defaultIsOpen flag.

As shown above, the children function gets a function to manually toggle the notification inbox. You can access the notifications store through MagicBellContext or using the useMagicBellContext hook.

import { useMagicBellContext } from '@magicbell/magicbell-react';
const { rootStore } = useMagicBellContext();

Tip: Initialize a MagicBell instance with a custom stores definition to render an inbox with two or more filtered lists:

import React from 'react';
import ReactDOM from 'react-dom';
import MagicBell, { NotificationList } from '@magicbell/magicbell-react';

ReactDOM.render(
  <MagicBell
    apiKey={MAGICBELL_API_KEY}
    userEmail="[email protected]"
    stores=[{ id: 'read', defaultQueryParams: { read: true }}, { id: 'unread', defaultQueryParams: { read: false }}]>
    {(props) => (
      <>
        <NotificationList {...props} storeId="read" />
        <NotificationList {...props} storeId="unread" />
      </>
    )}
  </MagicBell>,
  document.body,
);

MagicBellProvider

The MagicBellProvider component is the main component for building a custom notification inbox. It initializes a connection to magicbell.io, creates a MagicBellContext and keeps the list of notifications updated in real time.

This is a headless component.

import React from 'react';
import ReactDOM from 'react-dom';
import { MagicBellProvider } from '@magicbell/magicbell-react';

ReactDOM.render(
  <MagicBellProvider apiKey={MAGICBELL_API_KEY} userEmail="[email protected]">
    <App />
  </MagicBellProvider>,
  document.body,
);

MagicBellProvider creates a React context object, so now you can access the MagicBellContext anywhere in your application.

These are all the properties accepted by this component.

Property	Type	Description
`apiKey`	`string`	The API key of your magicbell.io project
`userEmail`	`string`	The email of the user you want to show notifications for
`userExternalId`	`string`	The external ID of the user you want to show notifications for. See the Identifying Users documentation for an example.
`userKey`	`string`	The HMAC for the user. It is recommended to enable HMAC authentication but not required
`children`	`JSX.Element`	The children to be wrapped in a `MagicBellContext.Provider`
`theme`	`IMagicBellTheme`	An optional object containing custom color values for the widget, see Custom Themes
`stores`	`object[]`	An optional object containing the definitions of the notification stores to create.

NotificationInbox

The NotificationInbox component renders a header, a footer and an infinite scroll list of notifications.

These are all the properties accepted by this component.

Property	Type	Description
`height`	`number`	Optional height (in pixels) of the infinite scroll list
`onAllRead`	`() => void`	An optional callback function invoked when the "Mark All Read" button is clicked
`onNotificationClick`	`(notification) => boolean \| void`	An optional callback function invoked when a notification is clicked. Return `false` when you wish to prevent opening the notification action url.
`storeId`	`string`	ID of the store to render (optional)
`EmptyInboxPlaceholder`	`() => JSX.Element`	An optional custom component to use as placeholder when there are no notifications
`NotificationItem`	`({ notification, onItemClick }) => JSX.Element`	An optional custom component to use for rendering each notification. Defaults to ClickableNotification.
`NotificationPreferences`	`() => JSX.Element`	An optional custom component to use for rendering preferences. Shown when the user clicks the settings button`
`notificationPreferencesEnabled`	`boolean`	Optional, and defaults to `true`. Set to `false` to hide the settings button.
`tabs`	`{ storeId: string, label: string }[]`	Optional, a map to render inbox tabs, where each tab is connected to a defined store.

If the store wasn't fetched previously, this component will fetch the first page on first render.

Example: an inbox using tabs and custom stores:

const stores = [
  { id: 'default', defaultQueryParams: {} },
  { id: 'unread', defaultQueryParams: { read: true } },
  { id: 'billing', defaultQueryParams: { categories: ['billing'] } },
];

// can list all stores, but doesn't need to
const tabs = [
  { storeId: 'default', label: 'Latest' },
  { storeId: 'unread', label: 'Archive' },
  { storeId: 'billing', label: 'Billing' },
];

<MagicBellProvider stores={stores}>
  <NotificationInbox tabs={tabs} />
</MagicBellProvider>;

FloatingNotificationInbox

This component renders a NotificationInbox component in a tooltip. The tooltip is created with popper.

These are all the properties accepted by this component.

Property	Type	Description
`isOpen`	`boolean`	Whether the notification inbox is open (visible) or not
`toggle`	`() => void`	Optional function to toggle the notification inbox
`launcherRef`	`React.RefObject`	React ref pointing to the element that toggles the notification inbox
`placement`	`string`	Position of the notification inbox relative to the launcher. It can be one of these: "top", "bottom", "right", "left", "top-start", "top-end", "bottom-start", "bottom-end", "right-start", "right-end", "left-start", "left-end". Omit this prop for auto placement.
`width`	`number`	Optional width (in pixels) of the list of notifications. Defaults to 500.
`height`	`number`	Optional height (in pixels) of the list of notifications. Defaults to the window height.
`onAllRead`	`() => void`	An optional callback function invoked when the "Mark All Read" button is clicked
`onNotificationClick`	`(notification) => boolean \| void`	An optional callback function invoked when a notification is clicked. Return `false` when you wish to prevent opening the notification action url.
`closeOnClickOutside`	`boolean`	Whether to close the inbox when the user clicks outside of it or not. Defaults to true.
`closeOnNotificationClick`	`boolean`	Whether to close the inbox when the user clicks on a notification or not. Defaults to true.
`hideArrow`	`boolean`	Whether to hide the pointing arrow or not. Defaults to false.
`NotificationItem`	`({ notification, onItemClick }) => JSX.Element`	An optional custom component to use for rendering each notification. Defaults to ClickableNotification.
`offset`	`number \| { mainAxis: number, crossAxis: number }`	Optional offset to position the inbox relative to the trigger. Defaults to 10.
`arrowPadding`	`number`	Optional padding to adjust the arrow position. Defaults to 18.

NotificationList

The NotificationList component renders an infinite scroll list of notifications. When the user scrolls to the bottom the next page of notifications are fetched and appended to the current array of notifications. By default it renders a ClickableNotification component for each item in the notifications store.

These are all the properties accepted by this component.

Property	Type	Description
`height`	`number`	Height in pixels of the infinite scroll list
`onItemClick`	`(notification) => void`	An optional callback function invoked when a notification is clicked
`ListItem`	`({ notification, onItemClick }) => JSX.Element`	An optional custom component to use for each item in the list
`notifications`	`NotificationStore`	A store of notifications to render
`queryParams`	`object`	An object with some query parameters to fetch the list. Do not include the page to fetch as this is handled by the component

If the height property is not provided, then the window scroll will be used.

Example: notification inbox with a custom list item.

ClickableNotification

This component renders the title and content of a notification.

These are all the properties accepted by this component.

Property	Type	Description
`notification`	`Notification`	The notification object
`onClick`	`(notification) => boolean \| void`	An optional callback function invoked when the component is clicked. Return `false` when you wish to prevent opening the notification action url.

IMPORTANT: When a notification is clicked, the notification is marked as read. If you implement your own component, you might also want to mark the notification as read manually. E.g.:

import React from 'react';
import { useNotification } from '@magicbell/magicbell-react';

export default function CustomNotification({ notification: data, onClick }) {
  const notification = useNotification(data);
  const handleClick = () => {
    notification.markAsRead();
    onClick(notification);
  };

  return <div onClick={handleClick}>{notification.title}</div>;
}

NotificationContent

This component renders the notification's content, by injecting the notification content as HTML. As the notification content comes from a safe source - your server - we do not sanitize the content. If you need to sanitize content - because the notification contains user generated info - you'd need to do so when creating the notification on your backend.

These are all the properties accepted by this component.

Property	Type	Description
`notification`	`Notification`	The notification object

TIP: If the content has a time tag with the datetime attribute, the content of this tag will be replaced with a relative time. For example, <time datetime="2021-06-10T03:00:00Z">on Jun 10</time> will be replaced with <time>in 3 months</time>.

NotificationPreferences

The preferences component enables you to create your own notification preferences page. By default it shows all notification channels and all categories, but it's possible to only show a subset of the available options.

Properties

Property	Type	Description
`channels`	`string[]`	An optional string array specifying channel slugs to include in the preferences grid. When `channels` is empty or absent, all channels are shown.
`categories`	`string[]`	An optional string array specifying category slugs to include in the preferences grid. When `categories` is empty or absent, all categories are shown.
`onChange`	`({ category: CategoryChannelPreference }) => void`	An optional onChange handler, that is invoked after our server has responded to the change.

Show preference for all channels & all categories

import { MagicBellProvider, NotificationPreferences } from '@magicbell/magicbell-react';

function Component() {
  return (
    <MagicBellProvider apiKey={API_KEY} userEmail={USER_EMAIL}>
      <NotificationPreferences />
    </MagicBellProvider>
  );
}

Show preference for specific channels, for specific categories

import { MagicBellProvider, NotificationPreferences } from '@magicbell/magicbell-react';

function Component() {
  return (
    <MagicBellProvider apiKey={API_KEY} userEmail={USER_EMAIL}>
      <NotificationPreferences channels={['email']} categories={['announcements', 'billing']} />
    </MagicBellProvider>
  );
}

Invoke a callback when a preference gets updated

import { MagicBellProvider, NotificationPreferences } from '@magicbell/magicbell-react';

function Component() {
  return (
    <MagicBellProvider apiKey={API_KEY} userEmail={USER_EMAIL}>
      <NotificationPreferences onChange={() => alert('preferences updated!')} />
    </MagicBellProvider>
  );
}

useMagicBellEvent

This a hook to listen to realtime events.

import { useMagicBellEvent } from '@magicbell/magicbell-react';

useMagicBellEvent('notifications.new', showPushNotification);

This is a list of events you can listen to:

Event name	Description
`*`	Any event
`notifications.new`	A new notification for the authenticated user was created
`notifications.read`	A notification was marked as read
`notifications.read.all`	All notifications were marked as read
`notifications.unread`	A notification was marked as unread
`notifications.seen.all`	All notifications were marked as seen
`notifications.delete`	A notification was deleted

useNotifications

Hook to get notifications for the current authenticated user. Returns a NotificationStore.

import { useNotifications } from '@magicbell/magicbell-react';

function NotificationsList() {
  const store = useNotifications();

  return (
    <ul>
      {store?.notifications.map((notification) => (
        <li key={notification.id}>{notification.title}</li>
      ))}
    </ul>
  );
}

You can optionally provide a name for the store you want to get, e.g.:

import { useNotifications } from '@magicbell/magicbell-react';
const store = useNotifications('mentions');

Custom Themes

It is possible to customize the text color, font size and border radius of some elements by providing to the MagicBell component a theme property. This is going to be deep merged with the default theme. Note that the notification unread and unseen definitions inherit properties from notification default style.

This is the definition of the default theme:

{
  prose: {
    headings: '#0f172a',
    links: '#0f172a',
    bold: '#0f172a',
    hr: '#e2e8f0',
    quotes: '#0f172a',
    quoteBorders: '#e2e8f0',
    captions: '#64748b',
    code: '#0f172a',
    preCode: '#e2e8f0',
    preBg: '#1e293b',
    thBorders: '#cbd5e1',
    tdBorders: '#e2e8f0',
    buttonBorders: '#1e293b',
    buttons: '#0f172a',
    fontMono: 'ui-monospace,SFMono-Regular,Menlo,Monaco,Consolas,"Liberation Mono","Courier New",monospace',
  },
  icon: {
    borderColor: '#3498F4',
    width: '24px',
  },
  header: {
    backgroundColor: '#3498F4',
    backgroundOpacity: 1,
    borderRadius: '8px',
    fontFamily: '-apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif',
    fontSize: '14px',
    fontWeight: 'inherit',
    textColor: 'white',
    textAlign: 'left',
    textTransform: 'uppercase',
    padding: '16px 24px',
    borderColor: undefined,
  },
  footer: {
    backgroundColor: '#3498F4',
    backgroundOpacity: 1,
    borderRadius: '8px',
    fontFamily: '-apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif',
    fontSize: '14px',
    fontWeight: 'inherit',
    textColor: 'white',
    textAlign: 'right',
    textTransform: 'none',
    padding: '16px 24px',
    borderColor: undefined,
  },
  banner: {
    backgroundColor: '#3498F4',
    backgroundOpacity: 0.1,
    textColor: '#000',
    fontFamily: '-apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif',
    textAlign: 'left',
    fontSize: '14px',
    boxShadow: 'none',
  },
  unseenBadge: {
    backgroundColor: '#DF4759',
    backgroundOpacity: 1,
    borderRadius: '2px',
    fontFamily: '-apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif',
    fontSize: '14px',
    fontWeight: 'inherit',
    textColor: 'white',
    textAlign: 'left',
    textTransform: 'none',
  },
  container: {
    backgroundColor: '#FFFFFF',
    backgroundOpacity: 1,
    borderRadius: '8px',
    fontFamily: '-apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif',
    fontWeight: 'inherit',
    fontSize: '14px',
    textAlign: 'left',
    textColor: '#3A424D',
    textTransform: 'none',
    boxShadow: '0px 20px 25px rgba(84, 95, 111, 0.1), 0px 10px 10px rgba(84, 95, 111, 0.04)',
  },
  notification: {
    default: {
      backgroundColor: 'transparent',
      backgroundOpacity: 0,
      borderRadius: '8px',
      fontFamily: '-apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif',
      fontSize: '14px',
      fontWeight: 'inherit',
      textColor: '#000',
      textAlign: 'left',
      textTransform: 'none',
      margin: '4px',
      padding: '16px 20px 16px 12px',
      title: {
        fontFamily: 'inherit',
        fontSize: 'inherit',
        fontWeight: 500,
        textColor: 'inherit',
      },
      hover: {
        backgroundColor: '#3498F4',
        backgroundOpacity: 0.1,
      },
      state: {
        color: 'transparent',
      },
    },
    unread: {
      backgroundColor: '#D9E2EF',
      backgroundOpacity: 0.1,
      state: {
        color: '#3498F4',
      },
    },
    unseen: {
      backgroundColor: '#D9E2EF',
      backgroundOpacity: 0.05,
      state: {
        color: '#3498F4',
      },
    },
  },
}

You can override any attribute of this theme. Colors can be expressed in HEX, HSL, HSV or RGB(A).

import React from 'react';
import ReactDOM from 'react-dom';
import MagicBell, { NotificationInbox } from '@magicbell/magicbell-react';

const customTheme = {
  icon: {
    borderColor: 'rgba(160, 30, 120, 0.5)',
  },
  header: {
    borderRadius: '2px',
  },
  footer: {
    borderRadius: '2px',
  },
};

ReactDOM.render(
  <MagicBell apiKey={MAGICBELL_API_KEY} userEmail="[email protected]" theme={customTheme}>
    {() => <NotificationInbox height={500} />}
  </MagicBell>,
  document.body,
);

Custom translations

All elements in the inbox can be translated by providing a translations object to the MagicBell component. This includes category labels:

const customLocale = {
  name: 'en',
  translations: {
    header: {
      title: 'Notifications',
    },
    preferences: {
      categories: { // mapping from slug > label
        billing: 'My Billing',
      },
    },
  },
};

function MyComponent() {
  return (
    <MagicBell locale={customLocale} apiKey={MAGICBELL_API_KEY} userEmail="[email protected]" />
      {(props) => <FloatingNotificationInbox height={450} {...props} />}
    </MagicBell>
  );
}

The notification model

The Notification class can be imported from @magicbell/magicbell-react. It implements this interface.

interface INotification {
  // Attributes
  id: string | null;
  title: string;
  content: string | null;
  category: string | null;
  actionUrl: string;
  customAttributes: any;
  readAt: number | null;
  seenAt: number | null;
  sentAt: number;

  // Getters/setters
  isRead: boolean;
  isSeen: boolean;

  // Read-only properties
  seenAtDate: Dayjs | null;
  sentAtDate: Dayjs;
  readAtDate: Dayjs | null;

  // Methods
  fetch: () => Promise;
  markAsRead: () => Promise;
  markAsUnread: () => Promise;
  delete: () => Promise;
}

`seenAtDate`

A date representation of the seenAt attribute. It returns an immutable instance of Dayjs. Dayjs exposes an API similar to moment.js.

notification.seenAtDate.format('DD/MM/YYYY'); // '01/04/2021'
notification.seenAtDate.fromNow(); // 1mo
notification.seenAtDate.to('2021-01-01'); // in 4mo
notification.seenAtDate.add(2, 'day');

`readAtDate`

A date representation of the readAt attribute. It returns an immutable instance of Dayjs.

`sentAtDate`

A date representation of the sentAt attribute. It returns an immutable instance of Dayjs.

`fetch`

Fetches the notification from the magicbell.io server. All fetched attributes are assigned to the current object.

`markAsRead`

This method makes a POST request to the read notification API endpoint of magicbell.io. It sets the readAt attribute as well.

`markAsUnread`

This method makes a POST request to the unread notification API endpoint of magicbell.io. It sets the readAt attribute to null as well.

`delete`

This method makes a DELETE request to the notification API endpoint of magicbell.io. If the notification belongs to a store, it will remove itself from the store.

The notification store

The NotificationStore class implements this interface:

interface INotificationStore {
  unseenCount: number;
  unreadCount: number;
  total: number;
  perPage: number;
  totalPages: number;
  currentPage: number;
  notifications: Notification[];

  length: number;
  isEmpty: boolean;
  hasNextPage: boolean;

  fetch: (queryParams, options = { reset: false }) => Promise<void>;
  fetchNextPage: (queryParams) => Promise<void>;
  markAllAsRead: () => Promise<boolean>;
  markAllAsSeen: () => Promise<boolean>;
}

TIP: You can import this class from @magicbell/magicbell-react. However, you may want to access he notifications store through the MagicBellContext, instead of creating a new instance in your app.

`fetch`

Fetch notifications from the magicbell server. The pagination data is also updated. The provided query parameters are included in the request to the server.

The response is appended to the current array of notifications, so it can be used as the view model for an infinite scroll list. If you want to reset the collection instead, pass the reset: true option to this method:

notifications.fetch({ page: 2 }, { reset: true });

`fetchNextPage`

This method is simply wrapping the fetch method, sending as a parameter the next page of notifications. You can include query parameters to this method.

`create`

Create a new notification.

It is equivalent to creating a Notification instance with some attributes, saving the notification to the server, and adding it to the array of items after being successfully created.

`markAllAsRead`

Makes a POST request to the read notifications API endpoint. It also marks all notifications in the collection as read.

`markAllAsSeen`

Makes a POST request to the seen notifications API endpoint. It also sets the unseenCount to 0 and marks all notifications in the collection as seen.

`remove`

Removes the given notification from the items array. It does not make any request to the server. If you want to delete a notification, use the delete method of the notification object instead.