openvidu-custom-participants-panel 🔗

Check it on GitHub

The openvidu-custom-participants-panel tutorial demonstrates how to replace the default participants panel, injecting our own with the aim of adapting the app to our needs.

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

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-participants-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

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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 [tokens]="tokens" [toolbarDisplaySessionName]="false" (onSessionCreated)="subscribeToParticipants()">
  <div *ovParticipantsPanel id="my-panel">
    <ul id="local">
      <li>{{localParticipant.nickname}}</li>
    </ul>
    <ul id="remote">
      <li *ngFor="let p of remoteParticipants">{{p.nickname}}</li>
    </ul>
  </div>
</ov-videoconference>

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

In this case we replace the default participants panel with a very simple custom one. Nicknames of local and remote participants will be displayed in simple ul elements.

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

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

sessionId = 'participants-panel-directive-example';
tokens!: TokenModel;

localParticipant!: ParticipantAbstractModel;
remoteParticipants!: ParticipantAbstractModel[];
localParticipantSubs!: Subscription;
remoteParticipantsSubs!: Subscription;

constructor(private httpClient: HttpClient, private participantService: ParticipantService) { }

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

ngOnDestroy() {
  this.localParticipantSubs.unsubscribe();
  this.remoteParticipantsSubs.unsubscribe();
}

subscribeToParticipants() {
  this.localParticipantSubs = this.participantService.localParticipantObs.subscribe((p) => {
    this.localParticipant = p;
  });
  this.remoteParticipantsSubs = this.participantService.remoteParticipantsObs.subscribe((participants) => {
    this.remoteParticipants = participants;
  });
}

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.
• localParticipant, remoteParticipants: objects of type ParticipantAbstractModel that store the local and remote participants.
• localParticipantSubs, remoteParticipantsSubs: subscriptions to retrieve session participants from the Observables of openvidu-angular. This allows us to manage the participants in our own terms and show their nicknames in our custom participants panel.
• constructor method with dependency injection.
• ngOnInit method OpenVidu Tokens are requested.
• ngOnDestroyed method to unsubscribe from openvidu-angular Observables.
• subscribeToParticipants method to retrieve session participants from openvidu-angular by subscribing to the required Observables.

Deploying openvidu-custom-participants-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-participants-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-participants-panel-demo:X.Y.Z openvidu-custom-participants-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-participants-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.