I am having a hard time wrapping my head around how to save notifications when a message is received from another other_user in a 2-person Django Channels websockets chat application.
Right now I have a function def create_notification that is called after def create_chat_message.
def create_chat_message creates a new ChatMessage object each time a new message is sent in the Thread. It takes args thread=thread_obj, user=me, message=msg So obviously each individual message is saved with the user than sent it.
def create_notification takes the last object by id in ChatMessage and creates a new Notification object.
created_notification = Notification.objects.create(notification_user=user, notification_chat=last_chat)
So essentially, the person who sends the message is associated with the notification_user field in the Notification model and saved along with the ChatMessage id.
But if I send a message to Tom, my sent message should only be associated with a notification for Tom, not for myself.
When I go to render out the notification objects, I get a list of all of them, including notifications for messages I've sent obviously.
How can I render out all notifications for each thread I am in with various users?
Am I saving these wrong? Should I configure the save notification function so that it only saves incoming messages from the other user? Or add some kind of if statement?
Don't I need to be associated in some way to the notification so that when they are rendered out, all notifications where I am the recipient will display?
My Notification model has ChatMessage as a ForeignKey which has a thread field, which is a ForeignKey to Thread which contains first and second (representing me and another user in a single thread).
I've been looking at this for days and have a feeling I am missing something simple and am making this far more complicated than it needs to be.
models.py
class ThreadManager(models.Manager):
def by_user(self, user):
qlookup = Q(first=user) | Q(second=user)
qlookup2 = Q(first=user) & Q(second=user)
qs = self.get_queryset().filter(qlookup).exclude(qlookup2).distinct()
return qs
# method to grab the thread for the 2 users
def get_or_new(self, user, other_username): # get_or_create
username = user.username
if username == other_username:
return None, None
# looks based off of either username
qlookup1 = Q(first__username=username) & Q(second__username=other_username)
qlookup2 = Q(first__username=other_username) & Q(second__username=username)
qs = self.get_queryset().filter(qlookup1 | qlookup2).distinct()
if qs.count() == 1:
return qs.first(), False
elif qs.count() > 1:
return qs.order_by('timestamp').first(), False
else:
Klass = user.__class__
try:
user2 = Klass.objects.get(username=other_username)
except Klass.DoesNotExist:
user2 = None
if user != user2:
obj = self.model(
first=user,
second=user2
)
obj.save()
return obj, True
return None, False
class Thread(models.Model):
first = models.ForeignKey(settings.AUTH_USER_MODEL, on_delete=models.CASCADE, related_name='chat_thread_first')
second = models.ForeignKey(settings.AUTH_USER_MODEL, on_delete=models.CASCADE, related_name='chat_thread_second')
updated = models.DateTimeField(auto_now=True)
timestamp = models.DateTimeField(auto_now_add=True)
objects = ThreadManager()
def __str__(self):
return f'{self.id}'
@property
def room_group_name(self):
return f'chat_{self.id}'
def broadcast(self, msg=None):
if msg is not None:
broadcast_msg_to_chat(msg, group_name=self.room_group_name, user='admin')
return True
return False
class ChatMessage(models.Model):
thread = models.ForeignKey(Thread, null=True, blank=True, on_delete=models.SET_NULL)
user = models.ForeignKey(settings.AUTH_USER_MODEL, verbose_name='sender', on_delete=models.CASCADE)
message = models.TextField()
timestamp = models.DateTimeField(auto_now_add=True)
def __str__(self):
return f'{self.id}'
class Notification(models.Model):
notification_user = models.ForeignKey(User, on_delete=models.CASCADE)
notification_chat = models.ForeignKey(ChatMessage, on_delete=models.CASCADE)
notification_read = models.BooleanField(default=False)
def __str__(self):
return f'{self.id} attached to {self.notification_user}'
consumers.py
class ChatConsumer(AsyncConsumer):
async def websocket_connect(self, event):
print('connected', event)
other_user = self.scope['url_route']['kwargs']['username']
me = self.scope['user']
#print(other_user, me)
thread_obj = await self.get_thread(me, other_user)
self.thread_obj = thread_obj
chat_room = f"thread_{thread_obj.id}"
self.chat_room = chat_room
# below creates the chatroom
await self.channel_layer.group_add(
chat_room,
self.channel_name
)
await self.send({
"type": "websocket.accept"
})
async def websocket_receive(self, event):
# when a message is recieved from the websocket
print("receive", event)
message_type = json.loads(event.get('text','{}')).get('type')
print(message_type)
if message_type == "notification_read":
user = self.scope['user']
username = user.username if user.is_authenticated else 'default'
# Update the notification read status flag in Notification model.
notification = Notification.objects.filter(notification_user=user)
notification.notification_read = True
notification.save() #commit to DB
print("notification read")
return
front_text = event.get('text', None)
if front_text is not None:
loaded_dict_data = json.loads(front_text)
msg = loaded_dict_data.get('message')
user = self.scope['user']
username = user.username if user.is_authenticated else 'default'
notification_id = 'default'
myResponse = {
'message': msg,
'username': username,
'notification': notification_id,
}
print(myResponse)
await self.create_chat_message(user, msg)
await self.create_notification(user, msg)
# broadcasts the message event to be sent, the group send layer
# triggers the chat_message function for all of the group (chat_room)
await self.channel_layer.group_send(
self.chat_room,
{
'type': 'chat_message',
'text': json.dumps(myResponse)
}
)
# chat_method is a custom method name that we made
async def chat_message(self, event):
# sends the actual message
await self.send({
'type': 'websocket.send',
'text': event['text']
})
async def websocket_disconnect(self, event):
# when the socket disconnects
print('disconnected', event)
@database_sync_to_async
def get_thread(self, user, other_username):
return Thread.objects.get_or_new(user, other_username)[0]
@database_sync_to_async
def create_chat_message(self, me, msg):
thread_obj = self.thread_obj
return ChatMessage.objects.create(thread=thread_obj, user=me, message=msg)
@database_sync_to_async
def create_notification(self, user, msg):
last_chat = ChatMessage.objects.latest('id')
created_notification = Notification.objects.create(notification_user=user, notification_chat=last_chat)
print(created_notification)
return created_notification
navbar.html
<div id="notificationsBody" class="notifications">
{% for notifications in notification|slice:"0:10" %}
<a href="{% url 'chat:thread' user %}">
<span id="notification-{{notification.id}}">
{{ notifications.notification_chat.message }}
via {{ notifications.notification_chat.user }}
at {{ notifications.notification_chat.timestamp }}
</span>
</a>
{% endfor %}
The Notification object that you are creating, you need to set Notification.notification_user to other_user. The notification is for the other user, not the user who sent the message.
other_username = self.scope['url_route']['kwargs']['username']
other_user = User.objects.get(username=other_username)
await self.create_notification(other_user, msg) #other_user, not the current user
However, when updating the Notification as read, the current user is required.