Liveblocks is a real-time collaboration infrastructure for building performant
collaborative experiences. Follow the following steps to start adding a
commenting experience to your Next.js /app
directory application using the
hooks from @liveblocks/react
and the
components from
@liveblocks/react-comments
.
liveblocks.config.ts
fileThe first step in connecting to Liveblocks is creating a client which
will be responsible for communicating with the back end. You can do
this by modifying createClient
in your config file, and
passing your public API key.
Liveblocks uses the concept of rooms, separate virtual spaces where people
collaborate. To create a real-time experience, multiple users must be
connected to the same room. When using Next.js’ /app
directory, we recommend creating your room in a Room.tsx
file in the same directory as your current route.
After creating your room file, it’s time to join it. Import
your room into your page.tsx
file, and place
your collaborative app components inside it.
Now that we’re connected to a room, we can start using the Liveblocks hooks and components.
We’ll add useThreads
to get the threads in the room, then we’ll use the Thread
component
to render them. Finally, we’ll add a way to create threads by adding a Composer
.
The default components come with default styles, you can import them into the
root layout of your app or directly into a CSS file with @import
.
Comments is set up and working now, but each user is anonymous—the next step is to authenticate each user as they connect, and attach their name and avatar to their comments.
Add your users to Comments
Congratulations! You’ve set up the foundation to start building a commenting experience for your Next.js application.