MeetBox
The WebRTC library.
Status
Currently, this library is in testing phase. Please come back soon, to check again the status.
Overview
MeetBox is a JavaScript library, that provides audio and video communication functionality, supported by WebRTC technology available in all modern browsers.
MeetBox helps to integrate simple audio and video functionality with your web page, with minimum effort and cost, just to verify whether this technology will be adopted by your customers. In case the prototyping phase using MeetBox was a success, more matured solutions may be adopted to your needs.
MeetBox does not aim to be a replacement for such products like:
- Microsoft Teams,
- Google Meet,
- Zoom,
- ...and many others.
Introduction
Current version of MeetBox allows establishing audio and video communication channel in peer-to-peer mode, between two participants (no group meetings). One participant (called meeting's owner) opens a new meeting, and the other one (called meeting's client) just joins it. As simply as that.
The basic scenario looks like this:
- Meeting's owner opens a new meeting.
- Meeting's owner sends the meeting's identifier to meeting's client.
- Meeting's client, having a meeting's identifier, joins the meeting.
- Both parties communicate using audio and/or video channel.
- When the meeting is over, each participant may close it.
- After closing, the meeting's identifier is invalidated and useless.
MeetBox supports all steps in this scenario, EXCEPT STEP 2. Sending meeting's identifier from meeting's owner to meeting's client is out of scope of this library. Sending meeting's identifier must be implemented in secured way by your application.
Installation
Using npm:
$ npm i --save meetbox
Dependencies
MeetBox requires the following external services to operate:
Accounts in these services are required to use MeetBox. There are free and commercial plans available, details may be found here:
For prototyping purposes, free plans are sufficient.
Usage
MeetBox initialization in web page
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<title>MeetBox</title>
<script src="https://unpkg.com/meetbox@0.1.0"></script>
</head>
<body>
<!-- prepare a container to inject MeetBox -->
<div id="my-meetbox-container-identifier"></div>
<script>
// prepare configuration
let configuration = {
trace: false, // log tracing messages?
pubNub: {
publishKey: 'your-publish-key-acquired-from-PubNub',
subscribeKey: 'your-subscribe-key-acquired-from-PubNub',
},
xirSys: {
apiPath: 'https://global.xirsys.net',
channel: 'your-channel-name-acquired-from-XirSys',
ident: 'your-identifier-acquired-from-XirSys',
secret: 'your-secret-key-acquired-from-XirSys',
}
};
// initialize MeetBox
window.meetbox.init('my-meetbox-container-identifier', configuration);
</script>
</body>
</html>Opening a meeting by meeting's owner
To immediately open a new meeting, the meeting's owner calls openMeeting function,
and acquires the meeting's identifier.
// open a new meeting, somwhere in your application
const meetingId = window.meetbox.openMeeting();Sending a meeting's identifier between owner and client
Meeting's owner has to send the meeting's identifier to meeting's client, somehow. It is up to you (or your application) how it is done. Sending identifiers between participants is out of scope of this library.
Joining a meeting by meeting's client
Meeting's client, having the meeting's identifier, may join an opened meeting,
just by passing the meeting's identifier to joinMeeting function:
// join an opened meeting, somewhere in your application
window.meetbox.joinMeeting(meetingId);MeetBox API
MeetBox methods:
- init
- openMeeting
- joinMeeting
- closeMeeting
- setOnClose
Documentation
Milestones
- Codebase refactoring, stabilisation and intensive testing (approx. end of June 2021).
- Custom implementation of signalling as an alternative for PubNub (approx. end of May 2021).
- Integration with coturn as an alternative for XirSys (approx. end of July 2021).
- Any requirements from community and users...
License
This library is distributed under MIT https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT.
This library includes icons from the Font Awesome project, taken from SVG formatted assets from the 'Free' download version. These components are applicable to the CC BY 4.0 license (which applies to all Font Awesome icons packaged as .svg and .js file types). Original .svg icons are modified by removing not used attributes from SVG element.