PubNub Text Chat

Text chat between the web and in event experience

Due for Simplification, please speak to support for further info.

31/01/2025: MSquared is not maintaining the text chat that uses PubNub and Community Sift. We do provide a simple example of text chat that does not use these features (see Unreal Text Chat). If customers wish to continue using these services, they need to speak to the Solutions Engineering team for guidance on how to implement this within their project outside of what MSquared provides off the shelf.

When MSquared drops support for PubNub, we will no longer support Web-to-Unreal text chat. Chat will be limited to Unreal Worlds within MSquared.

This legacy text chat is used in the deprecated UI elements (WBP_Origin_HUD still uses the deprecated WBP_M2_TextChat, however the M2 Example plugin does not use this, instead using a different WBP_M2Example_TextChat, which points to the new Unreal chat component.

Until MSquared completely drops support of PubNub and Community sift, they will remain functional. When the new simplified chat lands, the old chat widget will remain within the platform for customer use.

MSquared will not be addressing non-critical and cosmetic issues relating to Text Chat during this process of simplification. Please reach out to your Support Engineers with concerns.

If your project is running on V37 or older, you may have to use alternative settings. Please reach our to your Support Engineer to assist you.

Text Chat in game with Emoji Menu

Beta Quality - Customers are encouraged to test and use Beta features in their experiences, but may still require some support

Overview

The ability to chat on web and in game, including:

• Chat from Web to Unreal and back

• Works on Desktop and Mobile*

• Text appears in game above the head

• Ability to hide and show the widget, and custom sizing

• User name and profile image appending to the message

The in-and-out-experience chat is backed by PubNub. For battle-tested, in-experience only chat, see Experience Only Chat.

* Mobile is currently only supported via the old chat UI (Cloud Chat). See Adding Mobile support to continue use of this version of the text chat for desktop

Integration

1. Make sure you have a safe internal world id set up for your editor users.

2. Configure the variable Social.Chat.Editor.World in deployment.json with this value (see below)

How to enable

1. Enable TextChat.UseCloudChat in game.json.

2. Make sure your in-game HUD is set up to use the new chat system

The following settings in game.json influence the Text Chat feature:

Setting	Description	Default Value
TextChat.UseCloudChat	Enables the cloud chat functionality	true
TextChat.ForceMobileView	Forces mobile view regardless of detected platform	false

How to enable Text chat in Editor

The steps taken will depend on your sign-in settings. Navigate to Editor Preferences > General > Sign in Settings. If Use Local World For PIE is enabled then follow the instructions for using a local world below. By default, this setting should be true.

Using local world

If you are using local world sign in then nothing needs to be done. You will automatically be configured a chat channel named after your users unique local world Id.

Not using local world

Create a deployment.override.json in your project live config directory (Config/LiveConfig/Overrides) and add the following, replacing the World value with any unique name for your chat channel.

{    
    "Social": { 
        "Chat": { 
            "Editor": { 
                "WorldSource": "LiveConfig", 
                "World": [REPLACE WITH WORLD ID] 
            }
        }
    }
}

Live Config configuration

The following deployment.json live config fields influence the Text Chat feature:

Setting	Description	Default Value
Social.Chat.WorldSource	Determines how the client should determine the world id to use for chat. The values are as follows: Domain - Uses the current WorldId value of the Domain Configuration Subsystem. This can change per-player at runtime. Therefore a single users chat channel can change during the game. For example if the player world travels. LiveConfig - Uses the Social.Chat.World value. As a live config value this can be changed for all players by modifying the live config settings via the dashboard. CommandLine - Uses the client cli launch arguments. These are static throughout gameplay for each client and therefore even if you world travel, clients will continue to use the same chat channel	Domain
Social.Chat.World	This is a generic, hard coded chat channel name. It is named "World" because the other sources will use the world Id however any unique name could be used as the chat channel Only used when Social.Chat.WorldSource is set to LiveConfig.	Empty
Social.Chat.Editor.WorldSource	Exactly the same as Social.Chat.WorldSource but used when in the Editor. For example in Play-in-Editor (PIE) scenarios. The default value will only work if you are signing in with a local world. If you are not using a local world, you should change this value.	Domain
Social.Chat.Editor.World	Exactly the same as Social.Chat.World but used when in the Editor. For example in Play-in-Editor (PIE) scenarios. Only used when Social.Chat.Editor.WorldSource is set to LiveConfig.	Empty
M2.Domains.WorldId (LEGACY)	The world id in the web to scope the chat to. This must match the web portals if you want cross-experience chat.

Adding Chat to your HUD

Add WBP_M2_TextChat to your HUD and ensure it is stretched across the whole screen.

Adding Mobile Support

WBP_M2_TextChat does not yet support mobile platforms. If your HUD is or derives from WBP_TH_HUD then your good to go. Otherwise follow the below steps:

Use a widget switcher to switch between WBP_M2_TextChat and WBP_TextChatWindow_Mobile with the following code to allow it to automatically revert to the old UI for mobile devices.

1. On Bootflow finished, add a handle to get live config updates.

Add a Handle to Config Updated to get Live config event updates

1. Create a function called Update Live Config and add the following:

Create a function which determines which chat UI version to use

Full Live Config Setting List

Settings marked (LEGACY) may be removed in a future update

Setting	Description	Default Value
TextChat.GlobalChatEnabled	Enables the Global Chat channel	true
TextChat.UseCloudChat	Enables use of the cloud based chat system, linking the in game chat with web chat	true
TextChat.ForceMobileView	Forces the old Chat UI (WBP_TextChatWindow_Mobile) to a full screen mobile view, regardless of platform or device used	false
TextChat.ForceMobileUI	Force the old Chat UI (WBP_TextChatWindow_Mobile) to be used over the new WBP_M2_TextChat regardless of platform or device used	false
TextChat.StartMinimized	Sets the chat interfaces to start in a minimized state	true
TextChat.EmojiMenuEnabled	Enables the in game emoji menu to be used. Only supported in WBP_M2_TextChat	true
TextChat.ReactionsEnabled	Enables message reactions. Still WIP, not yet supported in Origin	false
TextChat.MaxHistoryMessages	Max messages to be displayed in the chat interface	100
TextChat.LocalChatEnabled (LEGACY)	Enables Local chat functionality for Experience only chat	true
TextChat.LocalRateLimitPerSecond (LEGACY)	Maximum number of messages a player can send per second	10
TextChat.LocalRateLimitQueueSize (LEGACY)	Defines the message queue size for the local chat server	100
TextChat.AllowQuestions (LEGACY)	Allows questions to be sent in chat	false