openvidu-custom-chat-panel 🔗

Check it on GitHub

The openvidu-custom-chat-panel tutorial demonstrates how to replace the default chat panel with a custom one.

This customization is possible thanks to the ChatPanelDirective, which provides us a simple way to customize the ChatPanelComponent.

Running this tutorial 🔗

To run the tutorial you need the three components stated in OpenVidu application architecture: an OpenVidu deployment, your server application and your client application. In this order:

1. Run OpenVidu deployment 🔗

Using Docker Engine:

# WARNING: this container is not suitable for production deployments of OpenVidu
# Visit https://docs.openvidu.io/en/stable/deployment

docker run -p 4443:4443 --rm -e OPENVIDU_SECRET=MY_SECRET openvidu/openvidu-dev:2.29.0

2. Run your preferred server application sample 🔗

For more information visit Application server.

3. Run the client application tutorial 🔗

You need NPM and Angular CLI to serve the application. Check them with the following command:

npm -v
ng v

To serve the tutorial:

# Using the same repository openvidu-tutorials from step 2

cd openvidu-tutorials/openvidu-components/openvidu-custom-chat-panel
npm install
ng serve

Go to http://localhost:4200 to test the app once the server is running.

To test the application with other devices in your network, visit this FAQ

---

Understanding the code 🔗

This is an Angular project generated with Angular CLI tool, and therefore you will see lots of configuration files and other stuff that doesn't really matter to us. We will focus on the following files under src/app/ folder:

• app.module.ts: defines the AppComponent module where we import and configure the openvidu-angular library.
• app.component.ts: defines AppComponent, main component of the app. It handles the request of OpenVidu tokens to pass them to the videoconference component, so it is able to connect to the OpenVidu session.

---

First, we need to install the openvidu-angular library. You can check how to do that here.

The VideoconferenceComponent needs the OpenVidu tokens to connect to the session. We request them on ngOnInit method. The VideoconferenceComponent will automatically use them to connect to the session when available.

<ov-videoconference
  (onSessionCreated)="onSessionCreated($event)"
  [tokens]="tokens"
  [toolbarDisplaySessionName]="false">
  <div *ovChatPanel id="my-panel">
    <h3>Chat</h3>
    <div>
      <ul>
        <li *ngFor="let msg of messages">{{ msg }}</li>
      </ul>
    </div>
    <input value="Hello" #input />
    <button (click)="send(input.value)">Send</button>
  </div>
</ov-videoconference>

Inside of the ov-videoconference component we add the custom template tagged with the *ovChatPanel directive. You can see how the ChatPanelDirective works here.

In this case we replace the default chat panel with a very simple custom one. Messages are displayed in a ul list, and the user can send the content of an input element as a new message by pressing the Send button.

app.component.ts declares the following properties and methods:

APPLICATION_SERVER_URL = 'http://localhost:5000/';

sessionId = "chat-panel-directive-example";
tokens!: TokenModel;

session!: Session;
messages: string[] = [];

constructor(private httpClient: HttpClient) { }

async ngOnInit() {
  this.tokens = {
    webcam: await this.getToken(),
    screen: await this.getToken(),
  };
}

onSessionCreated(session: Session) {
  this.session = session;
  this.session.on(`signal:${Signal.CHAT}`, (event: any) => {
    const msg = JSON.parse(event.data).message;
    this.messages.push(msg);
  });
}

send(message: string): void {
  const signalOptions: SignalOptions = {
    data: JSON.stringify({ message }),
    type: Signal.CHAT,
    to: undefined,
  };
  this.session.signal(signalOptions);
}

getToken() {
  // Requesting tokens to the server application
}

Where:

• APPLICATION_SERVER_URL: URL to communicate the client application with the server application to request OpenVidu tokens.
• sessionId: OpenVidu Session identifier. This is the session where the VideoconferenceComponent will connect to.
• tokens: object where OpenVidu Tokens are stored. The VideoconferenceComponent uses this object to connect to the session.
• session: OpenVidu Session object. We need this object to subscribe to signal event and send signals, so we are able to receive and send chat messages.
• messages: collection of chat messages that will be displayed in our custom chat panel.
• constructor method with dependency injection.
• ngOnInit method where OpenVidu Tokens are requested.
• onSessionCreated method to get the Session object from ov-videoconference component and subscribe to signal event.
• send method to call Session.signal method to send a chat message to the OpenVidu Session.

Deploying openvidu-custom-chat-panel 🔗

1) Build the docker image 🔗

Under the root project folder, you can see the openvidu-components/docker/ directory. Here it is included all the required files yo make it possible the deployment with OpenVidu.

First of all, you will need to create the openvidu-custom-chat-panel docker image. Under openvidu-components/docker/ directory you will find the create_image.sh script. This script will create the docker image with the openvidu-basic-node as application server and the static files.

./create_image.sh openvidu/openvidu-custom-chat-panel-demo:X.Y.Z openvidu-custom-chat-panel

The script needs two parameters:

1. The name of the docker image to create.
2. The name of the tutorial folder.

This script will create an image named openvidu/openvidu-custom-chat-panel-demo:X.Y.Z. This name will be used in the next step.

2) Deploy the docker image 🔗

Time to deploy the docker image. You can follow the Deploy OpenVidu based application with Docker guide for doing this.