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Live streams

One person presents live to everyone watching: the picture, a chat beside it, reactions, and the count of who watches. In WordPlusRealtimeCalls, on the same media servers as the browser: an app watches a stream a browser presents, and goes live itself.

Who is who​

Your server declares streams by pattern, as it declares rooms and calls (live streams in depth):

realtime.streams( 'show:{id}', ( user ) => ( user === ANN ? 'host' : 'viewer' ), { reactions: true } );

The app asks the calls route of your server, as for calls: nothing more to add.

Watching​

import WordPlusRealtimeCalls

let show = try await rt.calls.stream("show:mugs")

let player = LiveStreamVideoView()
player.show(show)                       // the main picture of the stream as it changes, its sound plays by itself

show.onChange {                         // the state, the count, the chat, the pictures
    stateLabel.text = show.state == .live ? "Live now" : "Not live"
    countLabel.text = "\(show.viewers) watching"
}
show.onMessage { message in add(message.name, message.text) }
try await show.send("Hello!")
show.react(.heart)
show.leave()
  • state is idle, live or ended. media is where the app is in the room of the stream: off, connecting, live, reconnecting.
  • The main picture is the one the host chose: a shared screen, the picture from OBS, else the camera of the host. show.tiles has each picture, and player.show(show, tile: identity) draws one of them.
  • The chat: messages (the history, oldest first), pinned, canWrite, slow. Each message has the app user id of who wrote it, nil for a visitor.
  • onEnded says why the app is out of the stream: left, banned, kicked.

Going live​

The app of the host shows its camera, then goes live:

try await show.preview()                // the camera and microphone, in the same LiveStreamVideoView
try await show.setCamera(false)         // or setMicrophone(_:)
try await show.goLive()
try await show.end()
  • The camera and microphone need NSCameraUsageDescription and NSMicrophoneUsageDescription in Info.plist, as for calls.
  • goLive() with nothing on turns the camera and microphone on first.
  • What a role may not do throws its code: not_host, read_only, slow, timeout.
  • From OBS: let (url, key) = try await show.ingest(). ingest(renew: true) makes a new key and cuts off the old one.

Keeping the chat​

The host, and anyone the rule made mod: deleteMessage(id), pin(id), unpin(), timeout(user, seconds:) (from a minute to a day, they go on watching), setSlow(seconds), clearChat(), kick(user) (out now, they may come back) and ban(user).

The show card of the Example Shop watches the show of Ann from the app: the example app.