WebRTC Plugin for Cordova

NOTE: This code might require special tailoring to adapt to your use case.

This project aims to implement the full WebRTC API on Cordova.

• Shim implementations:
  • WebRTC
    • RTCPeerConnection
    • RTCICECandidate
    • RTCSessionDescription
    • RTCDataChannel
  • getUserMedia (not really part of WebRTC, but needed to get for audio/video input)
    • MediaStream
    • MediaTrack

Supported Platforms

• iOS6+
• Android 4.0+ coming soon

Installation

cordova plugin add cordova-plugin-webrtc

Usage

Just use exactly the same WebRTC code as you would be using for a browser page! Bear in mind the following quirks:

• Only use the WebRTC related APIs after getting cordova's deviceReady event.
• Use <webrtc-video> tag instead of <video> if you dont want any video player skin to be shown. Also, you will need to use element.setAttribute('src', ...) instead of element.src for the MutableObserver to detect changes in the non-standard 'src' element.

Example:

// ------- for <video> tags -------
navigator.getUserMedia({video: true},
   function(stream) {
      var video = document.querySelector('video');
      video.src = URL.createObjectURL(stream);
   }, ...}
);
// ------- for <webrtc-video> tags -------
navigator.getUserMedia({video: true},
   function(stream) {
      var video = document.querySelector('webrtc-video');
      video.setAttribute('src', URL.createObjectURL(stream));
   }, ...}
);

• Use pc.dispose() to clear the native peer connection object after closing it.

Current Limitations

• Canvas operations not supported over the WebRTC video elements.
• getUserMedia only returns front camera.
• getUserMedia overrides native implementation (if it exists). Do not use it for anything else.
• Audio tracks will be enabled even if the video tag is not in the DOM.
• No MediaStream callbacks
• Cannot detect javascript object garbage collection, thus everything has to be disposed manually (use obj.dispose() for that).

Implementation details

To make this implementation work almost seamless with the WebRTC standard, we use some hacks that allow us to overlay the native WebRTC video views on the page.

• Use MutationObserver to listen for changing <video> tags.
• Implement MediaStream on top of Blob, so it is compatible with URL.createObjectURL.

How to build for development

You shall already have the npm tool (required for cordova). Just do:

npm install
bower install
gulp build

WebRTC working samples (tested)

As a mid-term goal, we aim to support all WebRTC samples from here, as well as the javascript AppRTC demo.

Note, the samples were only modified for its scripts only execute after cordova's deviceReady event is triggered.

Currently tested and working samples:

• getUserMedia
  • Basic getUserMedia demo
• RTCPeerConnection
  • Audio-only peer connection
• RTCDataChannel
  • Transmit text

Contributing

We use the github issue tracker and pull request frameworks to accept contributions.

To do list

• All kinds of tests
• Support for other platforms
• Better object cleanup
• Automatic resizing of DOM element to video
• ...

License

This software is released under the Apache 2.0 License.