Step by Step Guide to Build WebRTC Native Android App

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WebRTC Native Android SDK lets developers build their own native WebRTC applications that with just some clicks. WebRTC Android SDK has built-in functions such as publishing to Ant Media Server for one-to-many streaming, playing a stream in Ant Media Server and lastly P2P communication by using Ant Media Server as a signalling server. Anyway, no need to say too much things let's make our hands dirty.

Download the WebRTC Native Android SDK

We provide WebRTC Native Android SDK to Ant Media Server Enterprise users for free. Please keep in touch for getting WebRTC Native Android SDK. As a result download the SDK and open it to a directory that we will import it to Android App Project

Creating Android Project

Open Android Studio and Create a New Android Project

Just Click File > New > New Project . A window should open as shown below for the project details. Fill the form according to your Organization and Project Name

Click Next button and Choose Phone and Tablet as below.

Lastly Choose Empty Activity in the next window

Let the default settings for activity name and layout. Click Next and finish creating the project.

Import WebRTC SDK to Android Project

After creating the project. Let's import the WebRTC Android SDK to the project. For doing that click File > New > Import Module . Choose directory of the WebRTC Android SDK and click Finish button.

If module is not included in the project, add the module name into settings.gradle file as shown in the image below.

Add dependency to Android Project App Module

Right click app, choose Open Module Settingsand click the Dependencies tab. Then a window should appear as below. Click the + button at the bottom and choose `Module Dependency``

Choose WebRTC Native Android SDK and click OK button

CRITICAL thing about that You need import Module as an API as shown in the image below. You can change it from Implementation to API in the drop down list

So let's do other simple stuff.

Prepare the App for Stream Publishing

Set permissions for the App.

Open the AndroidManifest.xml and add below permissions between application and manifesttag

 <uses-feature android:name="android.hardware.camera" />
    <uses-feature android:name="android.hardware.camera.autofocus" />
    <uses-feature
        android:glEsVersion="0x00020000"
        android:required="true" />

    <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.CAMERA" />
    <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.CHANGE_NETWORK_STATE" />
    <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.MODIFY_AUDIO_SETTINGS" />
    <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.RECORD_AUDIO" />
    <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.BLUETOOTH" />
    <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.INTERNET" />
    <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE" />
    <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE" />

    <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.READ_PHONE_STATE" />
    <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE" />

Implement MainActivity onCreate function

Open the MainActivity and implement it as below. You should change SERVER_URL according to your Ant Media Server address. Secondly, the third parameters in the last line of the code below is IWebRTCClient.MODE_PUBLISH that publishes stream to the server. You can use IWebRTCClient.MODE_PLAY for playing stream and IWebRTCClient.MODE_JOIN for P2P communication. If token control is enabled, you should define tokenId parameter.

public class MainActivity extends AbstractWebRTCActivity {

    public static final String SERVER_URL = "ws://192.168.1.21:5080/WebRTCAppEE/websocket";
    private CallFragment callFragment;


    @Override
    protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);

        //below exception handler show the exception in a popup window
        //it is better to use in development, do not use in production
        Thread.setDefaultUncaughtExceptionHandler(new UnhandledExceptionHandler(this));

        // Set window styles for fullscreen-window size. Needs to be done before
        // adding content.
        requestWindowFeature(Window.FEATURE_NO_TITLE);
        getWindow().addFlags(WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_FULLSCREEN | WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_KEEP_SCREEN_ON
                | WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_DISMISS_KEYGUARD | WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_SHOW_WHEN_LOCKED
                | WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_TURN_SCREEN_ON);
        getWindow().getDecorView().setSystemUiVisibility(getSystemUiVisibility());

        setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);

        webRTCClient = new WebRTCClient( this,this);

        String streamId = "stream" + (int)(Math.random() * 999);
        String tokenId = "tokenID";

        SurfaceViewRenderer cameraViewRenderer = findViewById(R.id.camera_view_renderer);

        SurfaceViewRenderer pipViewRenderer = findViewById(R.id.pip_view_renderer);

        webRTCClient.setVideoRenderers(pipViewRenderer, cameraViewRenderer);

        // if you want to play mode, you should change IWebRTCClient.MODE_PLAY instead to IWebRTCClient.MODE_PUBLISH
        webRTCClient.init(SERVER_URL, streamId, IWebRTCClient.MODE_PUBLISH, tokenId);

        webRTCClient.startStream();
    }
}

WebRTCClient parameters are in below

void WebRTCClient.init(String url, String streamId, String mode, String token)

      @param url is websocket url to connect
      @param streamId is the stream id in the server to process
      @param mode one of the MODE_PUBLISH, MODE_PLAY, MODE_JOIN
      @param token is one time token string

      If mode is MODE_PUBLISH, stream with streamId field will be published to the Server
      if mode is MODE_PLAY, stream with streamId field will be played from the Server

     
void WebRTCClient.setOpenFrontCamera(boolean openFrontCamera)

      Camera open order
      By default front camera is attempted to be opened at first,
      if it is set to false, another camera that is not front will be tried to be open
      @param openFrontCamera if it is true, front camera will tried to be opened
                             if it is false, another camera that is not front will be tried to be opened

void WebRTCClient.startStream()
  
      Starts the streaming according to mode

void WebRTCClient.stopStream()

      Stops the streaming

void WebRTCClient.switchCamera()

      Switches the cameras

void WebRTCClient.switchVideoScaling(RendererCommon.ScalingType scalingType)

      Switches the video according to type and its aspect ratio
      @param scalingType

boolean WebRTCClient.toggleMic()

      toggle microphone
      @return Microphone Current Status (boolean)

void WebRTCClient.stopVideoSource()

      Stops the video source

void WebRTCClient.startVideoSource()

      Starts or restarts the video source

void WebRTCClient.setSwappedFeeds(boolean b)

      Swapped the fullscreen renderer and pip renderer
      @param b

void WebRTCClient.setVideoRenderers(SurfaceViewRenderer pipRenderer, SurfaceViewRenderer fullscreenRenderer)

      Set's the video renderers,
      @param pipRenderer can be nullable
      @param fullscreenRenderer cannot be nullable

String WebRTCClient.getError()

      Get the error
      @return error or null if not

Edit the activity_main.xml as below

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<FrameLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
    xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    tools:context=".MainActivity">

    <org.webrtc.SurfaceViewRenderer
        android:id="@+id/camera_view_renderer"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_gravity="center" />

    <FrameLayout
        android:id="@+id/call_fragment_container"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="match_parent" /> 
</FrameLayout>

Build and Start the App

App directly publishes stream to the server before that we need to let the app has the permissions for that. Make sure that you let the app has permissions as shown below.

Then restart the app and it should open the camera and start streaming. You should the see stream id in the screen as below. You can go to the http://SERVER_URL:5080/WebRTCAppEE/player.html, write stream id to the text box and click Play button.