Features

The Features action set allows you to find out what features are available in the current app context, and to request currently unavailable features.

Setup

Create an app and import the Features module from @shopify/app-bridge/actions. Note that we'll be referring to this sample application throughout the examples below.

import createApp from '@shopify/app-bridge';
import {Features, Group, Scanner} from '@shopify/app-bridge/actions';

const app = createApp({
  apiKey: '12345',
  shopOrigin: shopOrigin,
});

Subscribe to feature availability updates

app.subscribe(Features.ActionType.UPDATE, function () {
  // This callback is a reminder that a feature's availability has
  // changed.
  // Call `app.featuresAvailable()` to get all available features
});

App.featuresAvailable()

Calling app.featuresAvailable() returns a promise that evaluates to the entire set of available features for the app. The feature set is represented as an object containing groups, the actions within each group, and the permissions for each action (Dispatch and Subscribe).

If Dispatch is equal to true, then you will be able to send that type of action within your app. Likewise if Subscribe is equal to true, then you will be able to subscribe to dispatches of that type of action.

If a group is not present in the state then it can be assumed that all actions contained in that group are also not available.

app.featuresAvailable().then(function (state) {
  /* All actions will be in the state object:
  {
    Cart: {...},
    Button: {...},
    Modal: {...},
    ...
    Scanner: {...},
    Share: {...}
  } */
});

If you want to limit your resulting state to a subset of groups, then pass in a group parameter.

app.featuresAvailable(Group.Cart).then(function (state) {
  // state will contain only Cart actions
  /*
  {
    Cart: {
      FETCH: {
        Dispatch: false,
        Subscribe: false
      },
      REMOVE_LINE_ITEM_PROPERTIES: {
        Dispatch: false,
        Subscribe: false
      }
      ...
    }
  } */
});

Multiple group filters are also supported by using ...rest parameters.

app.featuresAvailable(Group.Cart, Group.Button, Group.Modal).then(function (state) {
  // state will contain only Cart, Button, and Modal actions
  /*
  {
    Cart: {...},
    Button: {...},
    Modal: {...}
  } */
});

Cart

If you experience feature availability errors while trying to access Cart actions on Point of Sale, try wrapping that code in a subscription to Features.ActionType.UPDATE.

// Subscribe to the features update action as early as possible
const unsubscribe = app.subscribe(Features.ActionType.UPDATE, function () {
  app.featuresAvailable(Group.Cart).then((features) => {
    const hasFetchCart = features.Cart[Cart.Action.FETCH];
    if (hasFetchCart) {
      unsubscribe();
      // Do something
    }
  });
});

Features Update action

Response

Features Request action

If an action is not available when you call app.featuresAvailable(), then you can use the APP::FEATURES::REQUEST action to request either a group of actions or a single action inside a group to be enabled. This is particularly useful when the app is running on a mobile device and requesting a hardware feature, such as the scanner, that needs authorization from the user.

The workflow for enabling a feature includes two parts: subscribing to APP::FEATURES::REQUEST::UPDATE and dispatching APP::FEATURES::REQUEST. APP::FEATURES::REQUEST is the input and APP::FEATURES::REQUEST::UPDATE is the output.

Requesting Camera Scanner actions:

var features = Features.create(app);
features.subscribe(Features.Action.REQUEST_UPDATE, function (payload) {
  if (payload.feature[Scanner.Action.OPEN_CAMERA]) {
    var Dispatch = payload.feature[Scanner.Action.OPEN_CAMERA].Dispatch;
    console.log("Camera Scanner has been ".concat(Dispatch ? "enabled" : "disabled"));
  }
});
features.dispatch(Features.Action.REQUEST, {
  feature: Group.Scanner,
  action: Scanner.Action.OPEN_CAMERA
});

Request

Features Request Update action

Response

Application context

Shopify App Bridge applications can be opened in different places. We refer to each of these places as a context. Each context makes a set of features available to the application. Different contexts can provide different feature sets.

For instance, the Modal context has a different set of features available than the Main context.

To check which context an application is in, you can use app.getState(). Read more about app.getState.

app.getState('context').then(function (context) {
  console.log('Context is: ', context); // Context is: Main
});