React Simple Chatbot Files

Maintenance release that brings the package up to date with current React and styled-components versions and fixes the most reported bugs (#392).

Install

:::bash
npm install react-simple-chatbot styled-components

Works with React 16.3 or newer (tested with 16, 18 and 19) and styled-components 4, 5 and 6.

Bug fixes

• Duplicated messages with React 18 StrictMode. Each step now triggers the next step only once (#346, [#370], [#350], [#386], [#278], [#202])
• Autoscroll works again in Chrome 127+. It uses a MutationObserver instead of the removed DOMNodeInserted event. It no longer jumps to the bottom while you are scrolled up reading (#380, [#133], [#232], [#321], [#288], [#266])
• Server-side rendering no longer fails with window is not defined when recognitionEnable is set (#377)
• localStorage is only used when cache is enabled, and storage errors (e.g. Safari private mode) are ignored (#296)
• The mic button no longer crashes with non-hex theme colors (#230, [#322])
• Options without a value are selected by their label; before, they all selected the first option (#201)
• DOM elements used as step components (e.g. <div />) no longer produce React warnings (#261)
• Cached steps are no longer spoken again, and speechSynthesis can be toggled after mount (#248)
• The extraControl prop type is fixed (#372)
• Voice input submits the recognized text when recognition ends, and no longer restarts forever when it ends empty
• A second or remounted chatbot no longer reuses the first one's speech recognition callbacks
• A first user step now waits for the input
• The value of a first custom step is kept
• update steps no longer change the original step's options

New

• TypeScript declarations are included (#340)
• Updates to steps after mount, and to botAvatar, userAvatar, the delays and botName, are used by the steps that were not rendered yet (#291, [#301], [#349], [#368], [#221])
• A closed floating chatbot starts its conversation when it is opened (#341)
• Accessibility: the input and buttons have labels, the open/close buttons work with the keyboard, and buttons use type="button" so the chatbot doesn't submit a surrounding form (#313)

Packaging

• react, react-dom and the lint tools are no longer installed as dependencies. This fixes install conflicts with React 17+ and "Invalid hook call" errors, and removes the vulnerable braces version (#305, [#381], [#327], [#387])
• Peer dependencies: react/react-dom >=16.3 and styled-components >=4 (#284, [#300])
• Props used only for styling are no longer passed to the DOM with styled-components 6
• The bundle is still ES5, and the UMD globals (React, styled) are fixed

Behavior changes

• A closed floating chatbot no longer runs its conversation in the background. It starts on the first open.
• Updates to the steps prop are now applied; before, they were ignored after mount.
• dist/ is no longer committed to the repository. It is built when the package is published or installed from git.

Thanks to everyone who reported issues and opened PRs, especially @darabos (#374), @davedotdev (#335), @LouaiTrabulsi (#351), @BranonConor (#293), @tomoki-oke-LITALICO (#328) and @vyk1 (#347), whose work was ported into this release.