Social SDK: Update UFL Guide with new helper functions (#7689)

markmandel · anthonydiscord · web-flow · commit 1f2f73091a2f · 2025-07-18T15:15:09.000-07:00
* Social SDK: Update UFL Guide with new helper functions Update documentation to show how to use `Client::GetRelationshipsByGroup` and `Client::SetRelationshipGroupsUpdatedCallback`. * Apply suggestion from @anthonydiscord Review upadate Co-authored-by: Anthony <anthony.tesija@discordapp.com> --------- Co-authored-by: Anthony <anthony.tesija@discordapp.com>
diff --git a/docs/discord-social-sdk/development-guides/creating-a-unified-friends-list.mdx b/docs/discord-social-sdk/development-guides/creating-a-unified-friends-list.mdx
@@ -25,13 +25,18 @@ Before you begin, make sure you have:
 
 ### Implementing a Unified Friends List
 
-The Discord friend list is ultimately constructed from two entities: Relationships, and Users. You can query Relationships API to find everyone a user is a friend with, and the Users API to find the necessary extra information for rendering the list, such as whether they are online or not.
+The Discord friend list is ultimately constructed from two entities: Relationships, and Users. You can query
+Relationships API to find everyone a user is a friend with, and the Users API to find the necessary extra information
+for rendering the list, such as whether they are online or not.
 
 ### Relationships
 
-[Relationships](/docs/discord-social-sdk/development-guides/managing-relationships) are how Discord models friends, friend requests, and more. All relationships for the current user are loaded when the Client connects. Each relationship has a target user id, and a type, such as `Friend`, `PendingOutgoing`, or `Blocked`. The set of all relationships can be queried with [`Client::GetRelationships`].
+[Relationships](/docs/discord-social-sdk/development-guides/managing-relationships) are how Discord models friends,
+friend requests, and more. All relationships for the current user are loaded when the Client connects. Each
+relationship has a target user id, and a type, such as `Friend`, `PendingOutgoing`, or `Blocked`.
 
-To allow users to manage their relationships in your game, you should provide a way to accept or reject friend requests, block users, and manage pending requests. See [Development Guide: Managing Relationships in Your Game](/docs/discord-social-sdk/development-guides/managing-relationships) for implementation details.
+To allow users to manage their relationships in your game, you should provide a way to accept or reject friend
+requests, block users, and manage pending requests. See [Development Guide: Managing Relationships in Your Game](/docs/discord-social-sdk/development-guides/managing-relationships) for implementation details.
 
 ### Users
 
@@ -50,13 +55,144 @@ The SDK will only display activities associated with the current game, meaning y
 
 See our [Design Guidelines: Status & Rich Presence](/docs/discord-social-sdk/design-guidelines/status-rich-presence) for best practices on displaying presence information.
 
-Let's combine  to create a unified friends list.
+There are two ways in which you can create a unified friends list in your game:
+
+1. Using the SDK Unified Friends List helper functions, which automatically group and sort
+relationships and users for you.
+2. Directly retrieving relationships and users from the SDK, and sorting manually.
+
+## Approach 1: Using SDK Unified Friends List Helper Functions
+
+:::info
+This approach is recommended as it significantly reduces the amount of code you need to write and maintain compared to
+manually fetching and organizing relationships, while ensuring your friends list follows Discord's best practices.
+:::
+
+The Discord Social SDK provides built-in helper functions that automatically group and sort your friends list according
+to Discord's [recommended design guidelines](/docs/discord-social-sdk/design-guidelines/unified-friends-list).
+This approach is generally simpler and more maintainable than manually fetching and organizing relationships.
+
+The SDK automatically organizes friends into the three groups we find via [`RelationshipGroupType`]:
+- `OnlinePlayingGame`: Friends who are online and currently playing your game
+- `OnlineElsewhere`: Friends who are online but not playing your game
+- `Offline`: Friends who are offline
+
+### Step 1: Display the Unified Friends List
+
+The [`Client::GetRelationshipsByGroup`] method returns a pre-sorted list of relationships for a specific group type.
+This eliminates the need to manually filter, categorize, and sort friends yourself. The SDK handles all the logic
+for determining which group each friend belongs to based on their online status and game activity, and
+automatically sorts users within each group (for example, users who have played your game are moved to the top of
+the OnlineElsewhere group).
+
+Let's create a function that uses the SDK helper functions to display a properly organized friends list:
+
+```cpp
+void DisplayUnifiedFriendsList(const std::shared_ptr<discordpp::Client> &client) {
+    // Get friends playing the game
+  const auto onlineInGame = client->GetRelationshipsByGroup(
+        discordpp::RelationshipGroupType::OnlinePlayingGame
+    );
+
+    // Get friends online elsewhere
+    const auto onlineElsewhere = client->GetRelationshipsByGroup(
+        discordpp::RelationshipGroupType::OnlineElsewhere
+    );
+
+    // Get offline friends
+    const auto offline = client->GetRelationshipsByGroup(
+        discordpp::RelationshipGroupType::Offline
+    );
+
+    // Display "Online - GameTitle" Friends
+    std::cout << "\n=== Online - GameTitle (" << onlineInGame.size() << ") ===\n";
+    for (const auto& relationship : onlineInGame) {
+        auto user = relationship.User();
+        if (user) {
+            std::string displayStr = "🟣 " + user->DisplayName();
+
+            // Add Discord friend indicator
+            if (relationship.DiscordRelationshipType() == discordpp::RelationshipType::Friend) {
+                displayStr += " 👾";
+            }
+
+            // Add game friend indicator
+            if (relationship.GameRelationshipType() == discordpp::RelationshipType::Friend) {
+                displayStr += " 🎮";
+            }
+
+            std::cout << displayStr << "\n";
+        }
+    }
+
+    // Display "Online - Elsewhere" Friends
+    std::cout << "\n=== Online - Elsewhere (" << onlineElsewhere.size() << ") ===\n";
+    for (const auto& relationship : onlineElsewhere) {
+        auto user = relationship.User();
+        if (user) {
+            std::string displayStr = "🟢 " + user->DisplayName();
+
+            // Add Discord friend indicator
+            if (relationship.DiscordRelationshipType() == discordpp::RelationshipType::Friend) {
+                displayStr += " 👾";
+            }
+
+            // Add game friend indicator
+            if (relationship.GameRelationshipType() == discordpp::RelationshipType::Friend) {
+                displayStr += " 🎮";
+            }
+
+            std::cout << displayStr << "\n";
+        }
+    }
+
+    // Display "Offline" Friends
+    std::cout << "\n=== Offline (" << offline.size() << ") ===\n";
+    for (const auto& relationship : offline) {
+        auto user = relationship.User();
+        if (user) {
+            std::string displayStr = "⚫ " + user->DisplayName();
+
+            // Add Discord friend indicator
+            if (relationship.DiscordRelationshipType() == discordpp::RelationshipType::Friend) {
+                displayStr += " 👾";
+            }
+
+            // Add game friend indicator
+            if (relationship.GameRelationshipType() == discordpp::RelationshipType::Friend) {
+                displayStr += " 🎮";
+            }
+
+            std::cout << displayStr << "\n";
+        }
+    }
+}
+```
+
+### Step 2: Set Up Automatic Updates
+
+To keep your friends list up-to-date automatically, use the [`Client::SetRelationshipGroupsUpdatedCallback`]. This
+callback is triggered whenever any change occurs that might affect the friends list grouping, such as a friend going
+online or offline, or when a relationship changes, such as when you accept a friend request, or block a user.
+
+```cpp
+// Set up the unified friends list update callback
+client->SetRelationshipGroupsUpdatedCallback([&client](const uint64_t userId) {
+    std::cout << "👥 Friends list updated for user: " << userId << std::endl;
+    DisplayUnifiedFriendsList(client);
+});
+```
 
 ---
 
-## Step 1: Fetch Relationships
+## Approach 2: Manually Fetching Relationships and Users
+
+In this section we'll show a more manual method which gives you more control over how the friends list is displayed in your game.
+
+### Step 1: Fetch Relationships
 
-First, let's create a function to see what kind of relationships and information we have to work with:
+First, let's create a function that utilises [`Client::GetRelationships`] to query all the relationships and
+user information we for our account:
 
 ```cpp
 void DisplayFriendsList(discordpp::Client& client) {
@@ -122,7 +258,7 @@ This will output the raw relationship data to the console. You can use this info
 
 ---
 
-## Step 2: Organize Relationships
+### Step 2: Organize Relationships
 
 Based on our design guidelines for a [Unified Friends List](/docs/discord-social-sdk/design-guidelines/unified-friends-list), you should separate the player's friends list into three sections: `Online - GameTitle`, `Online - Elsewhere`, and `Offline`. 
 
@@ -219,7 +355,7 @@ void DisplayFriendsList(std::shared_ptr<discordpp::Client> client) {
 
 If we build and run our application, we should now see a list of friends separated into three categories: `Online - GameTitle`, `Online - Elsewhere`, and `Offline`.
 
-## Step 3: Monitor Changes to Users
+### Step 3: Monitor Changes to Users
 
 To monitor for user changes, we're going using the [`Client::SetUserUpdatedCallback`] function.
 
@@ -242,7 +378,7 @@ user list, or similar operations.
 :::
 ---
 
-## Step 4: Monitor Changes in Relationships
+### Step 4: Monitor Changes in Relationships
 
 Let us setup two callbacks to handle relationship updates.
 
@@ -251,7 +387,7 @@ These examples rebuild the friends list from scratch every time a relationship c
 recommend maintaining a collection of [`UserHandle`] objects and adding and removing them appropriately.
 :::
 
-### Relationship Created Callback
+#### Relationship Created Callback
 
 This can happen when a user sends or accepts a friend invite, or blocks a user.
 
@@ -266,7 +402,7 @@ client->SetRelationshipCreatedCallback([&client](uint64_t userId, bool isDiscord
 });
 ```
 
-### Relationship Deleted Callback
+#### Relationship Deleted Callback
 
 This can happen when a user rejects a friend request or removes a friend.
 
@@ -303,11 +439,15 @@ Now that you have a unified friends list, you can build on your social features
 
 ## Change Log
 
-| Date           | Changes         |
-|----------------|-----------------|
-| March 17, 2025 | Initial release |
+| Date           | Changes                |
+|----------------|------------------------|
+| March 17, 2025 | Initial release        |
+| July 17, 2025  | Add UFL helper methods |
 
 {/* Autogenerated Reference Links */}
 [`Client::GetRelationships`]: https://discord.com/developers/docs/social-sdk/classdiscordpp_1_1Client.html#ad481849835cd570f0e03adafcf90125d
+[`Client::GetRelationshipsByGroup`]: https://discord.com/developers/docs/social-sdk/classdiscordpp_1_1Client.html#a9f7898d3f3d1ec92b06c662df70746d5
+[`Client::SetRelationshipGroupsUpdatedCallback`]: https://discord.com/developers/docs/social-sdk/classdiscordpp_1_1Client.html#af12441ef091298f968075b7190851098
 [`Client::SetUserUpdatedCallback`]: https://discord.com/developers/docs/social-sdk/classdiscordpp_1_1Client.html#a3559f375165acedc6d6677ef599b3a4a
+[`RelationshipGroupType`]: https://discord.com/developers/docs/social-sdk/namespacediscordpp.html#a503ed2f7b0bfbd435321a0e8b1dfba35
 [`UserHandle`]: https://discord.com/developers/docs/social-sdk/classdiscordpp_1_1UserHandle.html#a587bcc838e42dc5c56f840a350070707
