Get Started: Write your First mesibo Enabled Application

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

Now since we are familiar with the basic concepts and anatomy of a mesibo app, we will now start creating a simple real-time app using Mesibo API for various platforms including Android, iOS, Web (JavaScript), C++ (Linux, Mac, Raspberry Pi), and Python.

Before we begin coding, let’s cover basic Mesibo Settings common across all the platforms.

Prerequisites

Ensure that you have gone through the following prerequisites before you read further.

You are not required to go through Real-time APIs for now.

Preparation

Mesibo APIs are very simple to use. You only need to perform the following steps to use mesibo APIs.

  1. Create a mesibo application that will host all your users and groups. Once you create a mesibo application, you will get an App Token that you can use it to create users and users tokens. Note that, App Token is secret and you should never expose it to your users. Hence, you MUST not use it in client-side APIs (Android, iOS, JS, etc).

  2. Create users using backend APIs and the App Token that you have generated in step 1.

  3. Create a user access token for each user that you need to use in client-side real-time APIs.

  4. That’s it! Start messaging and calling using mesibo APIs.

Let’s say you are creating a new app FirstApp for Android, iOS, and web. Login to Mesibo console and create a new application FirstApp.

mesibo-api-key

Once your application is created, note down the App token. The App Token looks like the following:

cn9cvk6gnm15e7lrjb2k7ggggax5h90n5x7dp4sam6kwitl2hmg4cmwabet4zgdw

We will need this app token to create users and groups for this Application.

App Token is secret and you should never expose it to your users. Hence, you MUST not use it in client-side APIs (Android, iOS, JS, etc)

Create Users (Endpoints)

Once you have created your application, it’s time to add users and groups. Typically, you will add users and groups dynamically on a need basis. However, for this sample app, you can create a few users and groups manually so that you can test messaging between them.

Note that all your users and groups are local and confined to an Application. So there is no conflict when the same user is created by another application.

There are two ways you can create users for your mesibo application.

  • Option-1 (Recommended) Create users using Mesibo backend APIs. In a real app, you need to create users on-demand using these REST based APIs
  • Option-2 Create users in the mesibo console

We will explain both the ways of creating users - using REST APIs & using the console.

Create Users using Mesibo Backend APIs

Now we will create two users by using Mesibo backend API and the app token obtained in the previous step. The user is a string. It is not necessary to use a phone number, you can use whatever suits your app, as long as it’s unique across your Application.

  • 123
  • 456

Note that, you also need to pass the Android package name declared in the AndroidManifest.xml or iOS Bundle id declared in the Xcode project, for example, com.mesibo.firstapp as appid while creating users. This is a security feature that restricts your users from using the user access token on intended platforms and the app only.

User Creation Request

https://api.mesibo.com/api.php?token=cn9cvk6gnm15e7lrjb2k7ggggax5h90n5x7dp4sam6kwitl2hmg4cmwabet4zgdw&op=useradd&appid=com.mesibo.firstapp&addr=123

Where

  • token = Application Token
  • appid = Android package name declared in the AndroidManifest.xml or iOS Bundle id declared in the Xcode project (for example, com.mesibo.xxx). In the case of C++, Python, and Javascript, you can pass whatever appid you prefer. However, the same app id you will need to pass in setAppName API call. Note that, for security reasons, the token generated for a particular appid will only be usable on app matching that appid.
  • addr = end point address, for example, a user phone number.

You can find more about backend API in the reference section. The above API returns a JSON response like this,

Response

{"user":{"uid":"5302","token":"cn9cvk6gnm15e7lrjb2k7ggggax5h90n5x7dp4sam6kwitl2hmg4cmwabet4zgdw"},"op":"useradd","result":true}

The token returned in the above API JSON response is the access token, that will be used by real-time API to connect to Mesibo real-time server (using setAccessToken API).

You can now create more users in a similar fashion so that you can test messaging between them. You can also send messages to a particular user using the console in the ‘Users’ section.

Create Users in the mesibo Console

To create users in the console,

  • Click on the Settings icon of your app

mesibo-app-settings

  • Click on the Users section in your app. Click on the + NEW USER button.

mesibo-app-users-section

  • To create a user, Enter a User Address and App ID. For example, the address can be 123 and the APP Id can be something like com.mesibo.firstapp

mesibo-app-new-user

  • Once a user is created, if you click on the edit button for the user you will be able to view the access token for that user.

mesibo-user-token

Similarly, you can create more users in the console.

You can also create users from the console by clicking on the ‘New User’ button from the Application settings page.

It’s coding time now! We are now all set to create our first mobile app which can send and receive real-time messages.

From the next section onwards, we will start coding basic Mesibo applications on various platforms, starting with Android in the next section.

First Mesibo Application - Android >>

mesibo, android, ios