Have you ever wondered how Google Hangouts and other robust video-call web apps can not only access your screen but also enable screen sharing during calls? Wonder no more. Just read on.
This tutorial delves into how it all works and shows you how to integrate a screen recorder into a web app. The best part is that you can also send video feeds directly to Cloudinary's image and video platform for easy access and on-the-fly retrieval with Cloudinary APIs.
At the end of this tutorial, you'll have built a demo app that looks like this:
Note: This is where the demo GIFs reside.
Putting in Place the Prerequisites
Currently, some of the code in this tutorial requires a few experimental features that will be integrated into the Chrome browser soon. To turn on those features, do the following:
On Chrome, go to
chrome://flagsfor your current Chrome flags.Type
Experimental Web Platform featuresin the search field at the top and press Enter.
Chrome displays the Experiments page with the section Experimental Web Platform features under Available.
- Click the downward arrow in the Disabled button to choose Enabled and then click RELAUNCH NOW.
Building the Interface
To create a screen recorder for the web, you need only to code in regular HTML and JavaScript. As a start, follow the steps below to build the interface.
- Create a folder called
cloudy-snap. Type:
mkdir cloudy-snap
cd cloudy-snap
- Create an
index.htmlfile incloudy-snapto house the code in the demo app. Type:
touch index.html
- Edit the
index.htmlfile to read like this:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="ie=edge">
<title>Cloudy Snap</title>
<style>
body{
display: flex;
flex-direction: column;
align-items: center;
}
.container{
display: flex;
flex-direction: column;
align-items: center;
}
#videoElement{
width: 50%;
padding: 30px;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/cloudinary/image/upload/c_scale,w_200/v1/logo/for_white_bg/cloudinary_vertical_logo_for_white_bg.png">
<h1>CloudySnap</h1>
<p>Take a screen recording on the web and upload it to Cloudinary</p>
<div class="container">
<video id="videoElement" autoplay></video>
<button id="recorder">
Capture screen for 2 seconds and Upload to Cloudinary
</button>
</div>
</body>
</html>
- Run the
index.htmlfile in Chrome.
Chrome then displays the interface for the demo app.
At this point, interacting with the interface results in no response from the recorder. The next section shows you how to add capabilities to the recorder and make it work.
Adding the Pertinent Features
To add features to the screen recorder, put the following script in your index.html file:
[...]
<script>
let recorder = document.getElementById('recorder')
let videoElement = document.getElementById('videoElement')
recorder.onclick = async () => {
let mStream = await navigator.getDisplayMedia({ 'video': true })
videoElement.srcObject = mStream
let opts = { mimeType: 'video/webm; codecs=vp9' };
let rec = new MediaRecorder(videoElement.srcObject, opts);
let blobs = [];
rec.ondataavailable = (e) => (e.data && e.data.size > 0) ? blobs.push(e.data) : null;
rec.onstop = () => {
// get the image blob
let finalBlob = new Blob(blobs, { type: 'video/mp4' });
// create form data for submission
let formData = new FormData();
formData.append('upload_preset', 'CLOUDINARY_UPLOAD_PRESET');
formData.append('api_key', "CLOUDINARY_API_KEY");
formData.append('file', finalBlob);
var xhr = new XMLHttpRequest();
xhr.open("POST", 'https://api.cloudinary.com/v1_1/CLOUDINARY_CLOUD_NAME/auto/upload');
xhr.onreadystatechange = function () {
if (this.readyState == XMLHttpRequest.DONE && this.status == 200) {
console.log(this.status);
alert("Video uploaded to your cloudinary media library");
}
}
xhr.send(formData);
}
rec.start(100);
setTimeout(() => rec.stop(), 2000)
};
</script>
[...]
Be sure to replace the variables
CLOUDINARY_UPLOAD_PRESET,CLOUDINARY_API_KEY, andCLOUDINARY_CLOUD_NAMEwith their values for your Cloudinary account. To learn how to obtain those values, see the next section.
Note the following in the script:
In the first couple of lines, you obtain the button and video elements you created previously in the interface.
Then we assign a function to be executed when you click the recorder button. This function accesses the user's display and then assigns the stream from there to the
srcObjectproperty of thevideoElementwith this code snippet:
let mStream = await navigator.getDisplayMedia({ 'video': true })
videoElement.srcObject = mStream
What is being recorded on your screen then becomes visible. When you run the demo app, you'll see the display, as in this example:
The next section details how to connect a recording with Cloudinary. Afterwards, you can store recordings in the Cloudinary Media Library, gaining access to a wide array of capabilities for manipulating videos.
Connecting With Cloudinary
Understand the Connection Process
Note this code snippet in the index.html file:
[...]
let opts = { mimeType: 'video/webm; codecs=vp9' };
let rec = new MediaRecorder(videoElement.srcObject, opts);
let blobs = [];
rec.ondataavailable = (e) => (e.data && e.data.size > 0) ? blobs.push(e.data) : null;
rec.onstop = () => {
// get the image blob
let finalBlob = new Blob(blobs, { type: 'video/mp4' });
// create form data for submission
let formData = new FormData();
formData.append('upload_preset', 'CLOUDINARY_UPLOAD_PRESET');
formData.append('api_key', "CLOUDINARY_API_KEY");
formData.append('file', finalBlob);
var xhr = new XMLHttpRequest();
xhr.open("POST", 'https://api.cloudinary.com/v1_1/CLOUDINARY_CLOUD_NAME/auto/upload');
xhr.onreadystatechange = function () {
if (this.readyState == XMLHttpRequest.DONE && this.status == 200) {
console.log(this.status);
alert("Video uploaded to your cloudinary media library");
}
}
xhr.send(formData);
}
rec.start(100);
setTimeout(() => rec.stop(), 2000)
[...]
We implement the core upload capability by first creating a media recording with videoElement.srcObject. Below that are the definitions of the properties for the rec variable, which instructs the recorder on how to act in various situations.
The rec.onstop property is of particular interest. When a recording is complete, the recorder obtains the recorded data and sends them as a single blob to Cloudinary with Cloudinary's Upload Presets.
To further handle the videos you have uploaded, leverage Cloudinary. First, create an account there.
Find Out Your Cloud Name
Cloudinary then takes you to your Dashboard (media console), in which your cloud name is displayed under Account Details (see the screenshot below). Replace the CLOUDINARY_CLOUD_NAME and CLOUDINARY_API_KEY variable in the index.html file in the previous code segments with that name.
Create a Cloudinary Upload Preset
Cloudinary Upload Presets enable you to set up the default behavior of your image uploads. That means that, instead of having to add parameters to apply to your images every time you upload one, you can define tags, transformations, and other analysis presets from your Cloudinary console. Simply specify the preset name in your code and you’re good to go!
To create a preset, go to the Upload Settings screen and click the Add upload preset link:
The Add upload preset screen is then displayed:
Type a name of your choice under Preset name, set Mode to Unsigned, and then specify the other details, as appropriate.
Now go back to the index.html file and replace CLOUDINARY_UPLOAD_PRESET with the name of your preset.
Test Uploads to Cloudinary
Now that you've added all your Cloudinary details to the index.html file, go to your Chrome browser and run your demo app. Afterwards, you'll see this display:
Accessing Uploaded Videos
To access your uploaded images, go to your Cloudinary Media Library:
You can now easily and efficiently transform your videos any time in numerous ways: formatting, resizing, cropping, and so forth. For details, see the Cloudinary Documentation
Moving On
You have now learned how to build a simple screen recorder for the web with Cloudinary and JavaScript. For the complete code, see the Github repository. This demo is also available on CodePen.
You can also access this article as a Gitbook tutorial.
Feel free to use the concepts explained in this tutorial to build other apps. Cloudinary offers a wide array of excellent features that make image and video management intuitive, seamless, and fast in both web and mobile apps. Do check them out.
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