Customize your Firebase In-App Messaging messages


Firebase In-App Messaging provides a useful set of preconfigured behaviors and message types with a default look and feel, but in some cases you may want to extend behaviors and message content. In-App Messaging allows you to add actions to messages and customize message look and feel.

Add an action to your message

With actions you can use your in-app messages to direct users to a website or a specific screen in your app.

Firebase In-App Messaging uses link handlers to process actions. The SDK is able to use a number of handlers, so if your app already has one, Firebase In-App Messaging can use that without any further setup. If you don't yet have a handler, you can use Firebase Dynamic Links. To learn more, read Create Dynamic Links on iOS.

Add the action to your message using the Firebase console

Once your app has a link handler, you're ready to compose a campaign with an action. Open the Firebase console to Messaging, and start a new campaign or edit an existing campaign. In that campaign, provide a Card, Button text and Button action, an Image action, or a Banner action, where the action is a relevant deep link.

The action's format depends on which message layout you choose. Modals get action buttons with customizable button text content, text color, and background color. Images and top banners, on the other hand, become interactive and invoke the specified action when tapped.

Modify message look and feel

Firebase In-App Messaging lets you customize message displays to change the way your app renders messages' layout, font styles, button shapes, and other details. There are two ways to modify message displays: modify the default Firebase In-App Messaging displays or create your own message display library from scratch.

Note: This product is not available on macOS, Mac Catalyst, App Clip or watchOS targets.

Modify default displays

The most straightforward way customize your messages is to build off of Firebase In-App Messaging's default message display code.

Clone the firebase-ios-sdk repo

To get started, clone the latest release of the firebase-ios-sdk repo, and open the InAppMessaging directory.

Select message types to modify

With the repo cloned, you can modify any or all of the Firebase In-App Messaging message types: Card, Modal, Banner, and ImageOnly. Each type corresponds to a message layout in the Firebase In-App Messaging campaign creation flow.

Accordingly, each type has access to a different set of data, determined by campaign customization options in the Firebase console:

Type titleText bodyText textColor backgroundColor imageData actionButton secondaryActionButton
Card
Modal
Banner
ImageOnly

Modify the message display rendering code

With the message type limitations in mind, you're free to modify them however you'd like. You can create a banner that displays at the bottom of your app, move around the action button on a modal, embed the in-app message in a user's feed, or any other modification that would make the messages' look and feel fit your app.

There are two main things to pay attention to when modifying message displays:

Modify files in your preferred message types' directories and the corresponding sections of the .storyboard to create your custom message displays.

Update your podfile to use your modified InAppMessaging code

To get Firebase In-App Messaging to use your modified message displays instead of the default displays, update your podfile to use your customized InAppMessaging library: 

# Uncomment the next line to define a global platform for your project
# platform :ios, '9.0'

target 'YourProject' do
# Comment the next line if you're not using Swift and don't want to use dynamic frameworks
use_frameworks!

# Pods for YourProject
pod 'Firebase'

# Remove the default InAppMessaging pod:
# pod 'Firebase/InAppMessaging'

# Overwrite it with a version that points to your local copy:
pod `FirebaseInAppMessaging', :path => '~/Path/To/The/Cloned/Repo/'

end
With that done, you can update your pods, rebuild your app, and see your new, customized message displays.

Create your own message display library

You're not limited to working from the InAppMessaging library to create a UI for displaying messages. You can also write your own code from scratch.

Build a class that implements the InAppMessagingDisplay protocol

Firebase In-App Messaging uses the InAppMessaging class to handle communications between Firebase servers and your app. That class, in turn, uses the InAppMessagingDisplay protocol to display the messages it receives. To build your own display library, write a class that implements the protocol.

The protocol definition and documentation on how to conform to it are in the FIRInAppMessagingDisplay.h file of the InAppMessaging library.

Set messageDisplayComponent to use your message display library

InAppMessaging uses its messageDisplayComponent property to determine which object to use when displaying messages. Set that property to an object of your custom message display class, so Firebase In-App Messaging knows to use your library to render messages:

InAppMessaging.inAppMessaging().messageDisplayComponent = yourInAppMessagingRenderingInstance