Typing Indicators

Product deprecation notice

Effective April 30th, 2026, Vonage In-App Messaging will no longer be available. Access for new users will be closed, and the service will be discontinued for all existing users.

If you have any questions regarding this product’s discontinuation, please contact your account manager or our support team.

Overview

This guide covers text typing indicators within a conversation.

Before you begin, make sure you added the SDK to your app and you are able to create a conversation.

NOTE: A step-by-step tutorial to build a chat application is available here.

This guide will make use of the following concepts:

Conversation Events - text:typing:on (start typing) and text:typing:off (stop typing) events that fire on a Conversation, after you are a Member

Typing Indicators

Typing Indicators are used to notify conversation members on whether or not a member is currently typing a text message.

Send typing state events

Set the Member's current typing (on/off) state when they start or stop typing a text message:

// call this when a member starts typing
conversation.startTyping();

// call this when a member stops typing
conversation.stopTyping();

// call this when a member starts typing
conversation.startTyping()

// call this when a member stops typing
conversation.stopTyping()

// call this when a member starts typing
conversation.startTyping();

// call this when a member stops typing
conversation.stopTyping();

conversation.sendStartTyping(completionHandler:)
conversation.sendStopTyping(completionHandler:)

// call this when a member starts typing
[conversation sendStartTyping:^(NSError * _Nullable error) completionHandler];

// call this when a member stops typing
[conversation sendStopTyping:^(NSError * _Nullable error) completionHandler];

Listen for the state of other members

The following will listen for the typing (on/off) events created by the above calls:

conversation.on('text:typing:on', (event) => {
  console.log(event.user.name + " is typing");
});

conversation.on("text:typing:off", (event) => {
  console.log(event.user.name + " stopped typing");
});

// Option 1: Listen for typing events using NexmoTypingEventListener
conversation.addTypingEventListener(typingEventListener)

// or

// Option 2: Listen for typing events using NexmoMessageEventListener
conversation.addMessageEventListener(messageListener)

private val typingEventListener = NexmoTypingEventListener { typingEvent ->
    val typingState = if(typingEvent?.state == NexmoTypingState.ON) "typing" else "not typing"
    Timber.d("User ${typingEvent.fromMemberId} is $typingState")
}

private val messageListener = object : NexmoMessageEventListener {
    override fun onTypingEvent(typingEvent: NexmoTypingEvent) {
        val typingState = if(typingEvent.state == NexmoTypingState.ON) "typing" else "not typing"
        Log.d("TAG", "User ${typingEvent.fromMemberId} is $typingState")
    }

    override fun onAttachmentEvent(attachmentEvent: NexmoAttachmentEvent) {}

    override fun onTextEvent(textEvent: NexmoTextEvent) {}

    override fun onSeenReceipt(seenEvent: NexmoSeenEvent) {}

    override fun onEventDeleted(deletedEvent: NexmoDeletedEvent) {}

    override fun onDeliveredReceipt(deliveredEvent: NexmoDeliveredEvent) {}
}

// Option 1: Listen for typing events using NexmoTypingEventListener
conversation.addTypingEventListener(typingEventListener);

// or

// Option 2: Listen for typing events using NexmoMessageEventListener
conversation.addMessageEventListener(messageListener);

private NexmoTypingEventListener typingEventListener = new NexmoTypingEventListener() {
    @Override
    public void onTyping(NexmoTypingEvent typingEvent) {
        String typingState;

        if (typingEvent.getState() == NexmoTypingState.ON) {
            typingState = "typing";
        } else {
            typingState = "not typing";
        }

        Timber.d("User " + typingEvent.getFromMemberId() + " is " + typingState);
    }
};

private NexmoMessageEventListener messageListener = new NexmoMessageEventListener() {
    @Override
    public void onTypingEvent(@NonNull NexmoTypingEvent typingEvent) {
        String typingState;

        if (typingEvent.getState() == NexmoTypingState.ON) {
            typingState = "typing";
        } else {
            typingState = "not typing";
        }

        Log.d("TAG", "User " + typingEvent.getFromMemberId() + " is " + typingState);
    }

    @Override
    public void onTextEvent(@NonNull NexmoTextEvent textEvent) {}

    @Override
    public void onAttachmentEvent(@NonNull NexmoAttachmentEvent attachmentEvent) {}

    @Override
    public void onEventDeleted(@NonNull NexmoDeletedEvent deletedEvent) {}

    @Override
    public void onSeenReceipt(@NonNull NexmoSeenEvent seenEvent) {}

    @Override
    public void onDeliveredReceipt(@NonNull NexmoDeliveredEvent deliveredEvent) {}
};

Add NXMConversationDelegate as an extension to a ViewController or similar, and implement conversation(_ conversation: NXMConversation, didReceive event: NXMTextTypingEvent):

Note: The first method below is required when implementing NXMConversationDelegate:

extension ViewController: NXMConversationDelegate {
    func conversation(_ conversation: NXMConversation, didReceive error: Error) {
        NSLog("Conversation error: \(error.localizedDescription)")
    }
    func conversation(_ conversation: NXMConversation, didReceive event: NXMTextTypingEvent) {
        if event.status == .on {
            NSLog("Started typing")
        } else {
            NSLog("Typing ended")
        }
    }
}

Have a ViewController, or similar, conform to NXMConversationDelegate and implement conversation:didReceiveTypingEvent::

Note: The first method below is required when implementing NXMConversationDelegate:

- (void)conversation:(NXMConversation *)conversation didReceive:(NSError *)error {
    NSLog(@"Conversation error: %@", error.localizedDescription);
}
- (void)conversation:(NXMConversation *)conversation didReceiveTypingEvent:(NXMTextTypingEvent *)event {
    if (event.status == NXMTextTypingEventStatusOn) {
        NSLog(@"Started typing");
    } else {
        NSLog(@"Typing ended");
    }
}

Typing Indicators

Product deprecation notice

Overview

Typing Indicators

Send typing state events

Listen for the state of other members

Reference