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This guide walks you through creating a tab-based messaging UI using React and CometChat UIKit. The UI will include different sections for Chats, Calls, Users, and Groups, allowing seamless navigation.
Tip: You can fork the sandbox, insert your CometChat credentials (App ID, Region, Auth Key.) in the code, and immediately preview how the UI and messages respond in real time.

User Interface Preview

This layout consists of:
  1. Sidebar (Conversation List) – Displays recent conversations with active users and groups.
  2. Message View – Shows the selected chat with real-time messages.
  3. Message Input Box – Allows users to send messages seamlessly.

Step-by-Step Guide

Step 1: Create a Tab Component

To manage navigation, let’s build a CometChatTabs component. This component will render different tabs and allow switching between sections dynamically.

Folder Structure

Create a CometChatTabs folder inside your src directory and add the following files:

Download the Icons

These icons are available in the CometChat UI Kit assets folder. You can find them at:
🔗 GitHub Assets Folder

Implementation

CometChatTabs.tsx

Step 2: Create Sidebar

Let’s create the Sidebar component which will render different conversations.

Folder Structure

Create a CometChatSelector folder inside your src/app directory and add the following files:
CometChatSelector.tsx

Step 3: Render Experience

Now we will update the CometChatNoSSR.tsx & CometChatNoSSR.css files to import these new components as below,
CometChatNoSSR.tsx

Step 4: Disabling SSR for CometChatNoSSR.tsx in Next.js

In this update, we will disable Server-Side Rendering (SSR) for CometChatNoSSR.tsx while keeping the rest of the application’s SSR functionality intact. This ensures that the CometChat UI Kit components load only on the client-side, preventing SSR-related issues.

Disabling SSR in index.tsx

Modify your index.tsx file to dynamically import the CometChatNoSSR.tsx component with { ssr: false }.
index.tsx

Why disable SSR?

  • The CometChat UI Kit depends on browser APIs (window, document, WebSockets).
  • Next.js pre-renders components on the server, which can cause errors with browser-specific features.
  • By setting { ssr: false }, we ensure that CometChatNoSSR.tsx only loads on the client.

Step 5: Update Global CSS

Next, add the following styles to global.css to ensure CometChat UI Kit is properly styled.
global.css

Step 6: Run the project


Next Steps

Enhance the User Experience