Book Image

Getting Started with WebRTC

By : Rob Manson
Book Image

Getting Started with WebRTC

By: Rob Manson

Overview of this book

WebRTC delivers web-based real-time communication and is set to revolutionize our view of what the Web really is. Streaming audio and video from browser to browser, as well as opening raw access to the camera and microphone, is already creating a whole new dynamic web. WebRTC also introduces real-time data channels that will allow interaction with dynamic data feeds from sensors and other devices. This really is a great time to be a web developer! Getting Started with WebRTC provides all of the practical information you need to quickly understand what WebRTC is, how it works, and how you can add it to your own web applications. It includes clear working examples designed to help you get started building your own WebRTC-enabled applications right away. Getting Started with WebRTC will guide you through the process of creating your own WebRTC application that can be applied in a number of different real-world situations, using well documented and clearly explained code examples. You will learn how to quickly and easily create a practical peer-to-peer video chat application, an audio only call option, and how a Web-Socket-based signaling server can also be used to enable real-time text-based chat. You will also be shown how this same server and application structure can easily be extended to include simple drag-and-drop file sharing with transfer updates and thumbnail previews.
Table of Contents (15 chapters)
Getting Started with WebRTC
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Sending a thumbnail preview before the entire file


In order to create a friendlier and more responsive user interface, we have set up the send_file process as a pipeline. First, it creates a thumbnail version of the image that is scaled to fit within the 160px by 120px image area. Then, we slice this thumbnail image and first send it to the other browser so it can be displayed while the full data is being transferred. Then, we transfer the full data:

// send selected file
function send_file(name, file_id, data) {
  var default_width = 160;
  var default_height = 120;
  var img = document.getElementById("file_img_src");

First, we set up the default width and height for the image area and select the hidden file_img_src element that we use in the first step of the thumbnail creation process.

  img.onload = function() {
    var image_width = this.width;
    var target_width = default_width;
    var image_height = this.height;
    var target_height = default_height;
    var top = 0;
    var left...