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TMA Examples

Check out the examples below to see how to create your own Telegram Mini App.

Basic TMA Example​


logo of telegram mini apps

This is a basic and straightforward Telegram Mini App(TMA) implemented using plain JavaScript, HTML, and CSS. This project aims to provide a minimalistic example of how to create a simple TMA and launch it within Telegram without relying on complex build tools or bleeding-edge libraries.

Open Demo

GitHub

Features​

  • Minimalistic user interface.
  • No external libraries or frameworks used.
  • Easy to understand and modify.

Getting Started​

Prerequisites​

To run this example, you'll need a modern web browser with JavaScript enabled.

Installation​

  1. Clone this repository to your local machine:
git clone https://github.com/Telegram-Mini-Apps-Dev/vanilla-js-boilerplate.git
  1. Navigate to the project directory:
cd vanilla-js-boilerplate

Open index.html in your preferred code editor or IDE.

Usage​

  1. Open index.html in your preferred code editor or IDE.
  2. Make your changes.
  3. Create your own GitHub repository, commit and push your updates.
  4. Go to your repository GitHub page and open Settings. Check the Pages tab and Build and deployment section. If GitHub Actions option was selected, assets should be deployed to Pages and there will be an URL like https://<username>.github.io/vanilla-js-boilerplate/. You can copy this URL and use it with BotFather bot to create your very own TWA.

Modern TMA Example​

Introduction​

Vite (which means "fast" in French) is a front-end build tool and development server that aims to provide a faster and leaner development experience for modern web projects. We will utilise Vite to create this Telegram Mini App example.

You can find the example project here https://github.com/Telegram-Mini-Apps-Dev/vite-boilerplate or you can go through following instructions.

Prerequisites​

We are going to start with scaffolding your Vite project.

With NPM:

$ npm create vite@latest

With Yarn:

$ yarn create vite

Then follow the prompts!

Or you can simply run this command to create React project with TypeScript Support:

# npm 7+, extra double-dash is needed:
npm create vite my-react-telegram-web-app -- --template react-ts

# or yarn
yarn create vite my-react-telegram-web-app --template react-ts

# this will change the directory to recently created project
cd my-react-telegram-web-app

Development of Mini App​

Now we need to start the development mode of the project, run the following commands in terminal:

# npm
npm install
npm run dev --host

# or yarn
yarn
yarn dev --host

--hostoption allows you to get URL with IP address, which you can use for test purposes during the development process. Important note: In development mode we are going to use a self-signed SSL certificate, which will give us the option to test our app with hot reload only in the web version of Telegram https://web.telegram.org/ due to the other platforms (iOS, Android, MacOS) policies.

We need to add @vitejs/plugin-basic-ssl plugin:

npm install @vitejs/plugin-basic-ssl

Now we need to change vite.config.ts. Add import:

import basicSsl from '@vitejs/plugin-basic-ssl';

And add the plugin

export default defineConfig({
   plugins: [react(), basicSsl()]
});

You can use ngrok to expose your local server to the Internet with SSL certificate. You will be able to develop with hot module replacement on all Telegram platforms. Open new terminal window and run:

# where 5173 is the port number from npm/yarn dev --host
ngrok http 5173

Also, we are going to prepare our project for deployment to GitHub Pages:

export default defineConfig({
   plugins: [react(), basicSsl()],
	 build: {
	   outDir: './docs'
	 },
   base: './'
});

We will use deploy script for GitHub Actions which will run on pushes targeting the master branch. From the root of your project:

# we are going to create GitHub Actions config for deployment
mkdir .github
cd .github
mkdir workflows
cd workflows
touch static.yml

Now add this config to static.yml:

# Simple workflow for deploying static content to GitHub Pages
name: Deploy static content to Pages

on:
  # Runs on pushes targeting the default branch
  push:
    branches: ['master']

  # Allows you to run this workflow manually from the Actions tab
  workflow_dispatch:

# Sets the GITHUB_TOKEN permissions to allow deployment to GitHub Pages
permissions:
  contents: read
  pages: write
  id-token: write

# Allow one concurrent deployment
concurrency:
  group: 'pages'
  cancel-in-progress: true

jobs:
  # Single deploy job since we're just deploying
  deploy:
    environment:
      name: github-pages
      url: ${{ steps.deployment.outputs.page_url }}
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v3
      - name: Setup Node
        uses: actions/setup-node@v3
        with:
          node-version: 18
          cache: 'npm'
          cache-dependency-path: './'
      - name: Install dependencies
        run: npm install
      - name: Build
        run: npm run build
      - name: Setup Pages
        uses: actions/configure-pages@v3
      - name: Upload artifact
        uses: actions/upload-pages-artifact@v1
        with:
          # Upload dist repository
          path: './docs'
      - name: Deploy to GitHub Pages
        id: deployment
        uses: actions/deploy-pages@v1

Don’t forget to choose GitHub Actions option for Build and Deployment in Settings→Pages of your GitHub repo. Now after each push, your code will be deployed to Pages.

Screenshot 2023-09-11 at 22.07.44.png

And now we are going to add @twa-dev/sdk. Telegram distributes SDK via link. It's kind of an old fashion way to work with a library. @twa-dev/sdk package allows to work with SDK as with an npm package and with TypeScript support.

npm install @twa-dev/sdk

Open /src/main.tsx file and add following:

import WebApp from '@twa-dev/sdk'

WebApp.ready();

ReactDOM.createRoot...

WebApp.ready() - is a method that informs the Telegram app that the Mini App is ready to be displayed. It is recommended to call this method as early as possible, as soon as all essential interface elements are loaded. Once this method is called, the loading placeholder is hidden and the Mini App is shown.

Then we will add some interaction with user. Go to src/App.tsx and we will add the button with alert.

import { useState } from 'react'
import reactLogo from './assets/react.svg'
import viteLogo from '/vite.svg'
import './App.css'

import WebApp from '@twa-dev/sdk'

function App() {
  const [count, setCount] = useState(0)

  return (
    <>
      <div>
        <a href="https://vitejs.dev" target="_blank">
          <img src={viteLogo} className="logo" alt="Vite logo" />
        </a>
        <a href="https://react.dev" target="_blank">
          <img src={reactLogo} className="logo react" alt="React logo" />
        </a>
      </div>
      <h1>Vite + React</h1>
      <div className="card">
        <button onClick={() => setCount((count) => count + 1)}>
          count is {count}
        </button>
      </div>
		{/* Here we add our button with alert callback */}
      <div className="card">
        <button onClick={() => WebApp.showAlert(`Hello World! Current count is ${count}`)}>
            Show Alert
        </button>
      </div>
    </>
  )
}

export default App

And now we need to create a Telegram Bot so that we can launch Telegram Mini App within the messenger application.

Setting Up a Bot for the App​

To connect your Mini App to the Telegram, you need to create a bot and set up a Mini App for it. Follow these steps to set up a new Telegram bot:

Setup a Bot

Hints​

With self-signed SSL certificate you can encounter issues with these kind of alerts. Click the “Advanced” button and then click Proceed <local dev server address here>. Without these steps you will not be able to debug in the web version of Telegram.

Screenshot 2023-09-11 at 18.58.24.png