Participant Management - CometChat Docs

Manage participants during a call with actions like muting, pausing video, and pinning. These features help maintain order in group calls and highlight important speakers.

By default, all participants who join a call have moderator access and can perform these actions. Implementing role-based moderation (e.g., restricting actions to hosts only) is the responsibility of the app developer based on their use case.

Mute a Participant

Mute a specific participant’s audio. This affects the participant for all users in the call.

await CallSession.getInstance()?.muteParticipant(participant.uid);

Pause Participant Video

Pause a specific participant’s video. This affects the participant for all users in the call.

await CallSession.getInstance()?.pauseParticipantVideo(participant.uid);

Pin a Participant

Pin a participant to keep them prominently displayed regardless of who is speaking. Useful for keeping focus on a presenter or important speaker.

CallSession? callSession = CallSession.getInstance();

// Pin a participant
await callSession?.pinParticipant(participant.uid);

// Unpin (returns to automatic speaker highlighting)
await callSession?.unPinParticipant();

Pinning a participant only affects your local view. Other participants can pin different users independently.

Listen for Participant Events

Monitor participant state changes using ParticipantEventListener:

CallSession? callSession = CallSession.getInstance();

callSession?.addParticipantEventListener(ParticipantEventListener(
  onParticipantJoined: (Participant participant) {
    debugPrint("${participant.name} joined the call");
    updateParticipantList();
  },
  onParticipantLeft: (Participant participant) {
    debugPrint("${participant.name} left the call");
    updateParticipantList();
  },
  onParticipantListChanged: (List<Participant> participants) {
    debugPrint("Participant count: ${participants.length}");
    refreshParticipantList(participants);
  },
  onParticipantAudioMuted: (Participant participant) {
    debugPrint("${participant.name} was muted");
    updateMuteIndicator(participant, muted: true);
  },
  onParticipantAudioUnmuted: (Participant participant) {
    debugPrint("${participant.name} was unmuted");
    updateMuteIndicator(participant, muted: false);
  },
  onParticipantVideoPaused: (Participant participant) {
    debugPrint("${participant.name} video paused");
    showParticipantAvatar(participant);
  },
  onParticipantVideoResumed: (Participant participant) {
    debugPrint("${participant.name} video resumed");
    showParticipantVideo(participant);
  },
  onDominantSpeakerChanged: (Participant participant) {
    debugPrint("${participant.name} is now speaking");
    highlightActiveSpeaker(participant);
  },
  // Other callbacks...
  onParticipantHandRaised: (Participant participant) {},
  onParticipantHandLowered: (Participant participant) {},
  onParticipantStartedScreenShare: (Participant participant) {},
  onParticipantStoppedScreenShare: (Participant participant) {},
  onParticipantStartedRecording: (Participant participant) {},
  onParticipantStoppedRecording: (Participant participant) {},
));

Flutter listeners are not lifecycle-aware. You must manually remove listeners in your widget’s dispose() method to prevent memory leaks.

Participant Object

The Participant object contains information about each call participant:

Property	Type	Description
`uid`	String	Unique identifier (CometChat user ID)
`name`	String	Display name
`avatar`	String	URL of avatar image
`pid`	String	Participant ID for this call session
`role`	String	Role in the call
`audioMuted`	bool	Whether audio is muted
`videoPaused`	bool	Whether video is paused
`isPinned`	bool	Whether pinned in layout
`isPresenting`	bool	Whether screen sharing
`raisedHandTimestamp`	int	Timestamp when hand was raised (0 if not raised)

Hide Participant List Button

To hide the participant list button in the call UI:

SessionSettings sessionSettings = CometChatCalls.SessionSettingsBuilder()
    .hideParticipantListButton(true)
    .build();

Participant Actions

Mute, pause video, and pin participants programmatically

Participant Event Listener

Handle all participant events

​Mute a Participant

​Pause Participant Video

​Pin a Participant

​Listen for Participant Events

​Participant Object

​Hide Participant List Button

Participant Actions

Participant Event Listener

Mute a Participant

Pause Participant Video

Pin a Participant

Listen for Participant Events

Participant Object

Hide Participant List Button