Inputs

Input and output components define where data enters and exits your flow.

Both Text Input and Chat Input components accept user input and return a Message object, but they serve different purposes.

The Text Input component accepts a text string input and returns a Message object containing only the input text. The output does not appear in the Playground.

The Chat Input component accepts multiple input types including text, files, and metadata, and returns a Message object containing the text along with sender information, session ID, and file attachments.

The Chat Input component provides an interactive chat interface in the Playground.

Chat input

This component collects user input as Text strings from the chat and wraps it in a Message object that includes the input text, sender information, session ID, file attachments.

It can optionally store the message in a chat history.

Parameters

Inputs
Name	Display Name	Info
background_color	Background Color	The background color of the icon.
chat_icon	Icon	The icon of the message.
files	Files	Files to be sent with the message.
input_value	Text	The message to be passed as input. Accepts text, data objects, messages, and dataframes.
sender	Sender Type	The type of sender.
sender_name	Sender Name	The name of the sender.
session_id	Session ID	The session ID of the chat. If empty, the current session_id parameter is used.
should_store_message	Store Messages	Store the message in the history.
text_color	Text Color	The text color of the name.

Outputs
Name	Display Name	Info
message	Message	The response message.

Message method

The ChatInput class provides an asynchronous method to create and store a Message object based on the input parameters. The Message object is created in the message_response method of the ChatInput class using the Message.create() factory method. The user’s input is stored in the input_value field of the Message object.

message = await Message.create(
    text=self.input_value,
    sender=self.sender,
    sender_name=self.sender_name,
    session_id=self.session_id,
    files=self.files,
    properties={
        "background_color": background_color,
        "text_color": text_color,
        "icon": icon,
    },
)