typing indicator in xcode

Question

Does anyone know how to implement the typing indicator ("John is typing") for an iPhone chat application? This senses when the user is in the middle of typing. Like in Kik messenger.

I'm trying to get a gauge of how much work is needed to implement this, before a release.

Or pointers in the right direction would be helpful!

Regards

Answer 1

It's highly likely that messaging apps like Kik are pinging the next device through their server and when the ping is received from the recipient device (the iPhone that shows that "John is typing") the application is displaying a UILabel.

Answer 2

Run RabbitMQ MQTT Adapter on your server.

Use MQTT Client Framework for sending and receiving data from devices.

Subscribe app in device A to a topic lets say /topic/user-a, and device B to topic /topic/user-b

Attach event to UITextField for text change, read details here Once the user (lets say user-a) starts typing, publish data using MQTT client framework to topic: /topic/user-b with data: 1 and on typing stop, publish 0. As the device B is subscribed to this topic, device will receive the data as 1 (typing started) and 0 (typing ended).

Checkout https://github.com/AppLozic/Applozic-iOS-SDK for a sample code of a chat ios sdk which contains typing indicator as well.

Source: http://www.applozic.com/blog/how-to-implement-typing-indicator-in-android-chat-app/