Getting Started with OpenTok-RTC

OpenTalk-RTC is a web-based video conferencing app that uses the OpenTok platform. OpenTalk-RTC has its own customizable user interface. As I struggled to get it working, here is a quick start guide that may help you.

1. Download the repository from github: https://github.com/opentok/opentok-rtc
2. Install Windows dependencies:

• Ensure you are using nodejs version 10. I tried older and newer versions of node but they didn’t work well.
• Install Redis for Windows: https://github.com/MicrosoftArchive/redis/releases
• Install Grunt globally:

npm install -g grunt-cli

• Install bower globally:

npm install -g bower

• Obtain API key and secret from OpenTok: https://www.vonage.com/communications-apis/video/
• Obtain data URL and secret from Firebase: https://firebase.google.com/

3. Create a config.json file in the config folder. Copy the code in the config/example.json file and paste it into your config.json file. Edit the following code:

{
    "OpenTok": {
        "apiKey": "<key>"
        "apiSecret": "<secret>"
    }
},
{
    "Firebase": {
        "dataUrl": "<firebase_url>",
        "authSecret": "<firebase_secret>"
    },
    "Archiving": {
        "enabled": true,
        "archiveManager": {
            "enabled": true
        }
    }
}

4. Install dependencies:

npm install

5. Run redis server:

redis-server

6. Run application:

npm run dev

7. If the UI (CSS) does not appear to load, run the following commands:

bower install
grunt clientBuild

8. To enable recording go to the config.json in the config folder:

"Archiving": {
    "enabled": true,
    "archiveAlways": false,
    "pollingInitialTimeout": 5000,
    "pollingTimeoutMultiplier": 1.5,
    "archiveManager": {
        "enabled": false,
        "emptyRoomMaxLifetime": 3
    }
},

Also, go into the room.less file and remove “display: none” from #startArchiving

Lastly, go to the min.ejs, roomView_spec.html file, and room.ejs file and remove “disabled” from the <li disabled> parent of the <a id=”startArchiving”>