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Video SDK profile image Ahmed Bhesaniya
Ahmed Bhesaniya for Video SDK

Posted on • Originally published at videosdk.live on

Build a React Native Video Calling App with Video SDK

Why choose Video SDK to integrate into your React Native video calling app?

Let's simplify the process of building a cross-platform video & audio calling app in React Native. Video calling has become an essential requirement, no doubt about that because the feature is being used in ways never seen before from Telehealth apps to live commerce but it's only the start. So we can't assume the kind of app you will be building, but whatever the app is we provide you the best Video SDK solution which is feature-rich, easy to implement, robust, & not to say free to use!

Best Features to add to your React Native Vedio Calling app

React Native is a great choice for building cross-platform apps. However, providing the exact same features for both platforms becomes difficult. But at Video SDK, we have you covered fam! We provide some great features you can right away implement that work both for react native android & react native iOS screen sharing on devices, which is unheard of for iOS! We provide 20+ features, so let your futuristic mind take over to create the best video & audio calling app in React Native. Here's the list of features you can add to your React Native application.

Now we are all set, so let's get started with the tutorial!

Start Building your video calling app in React Native

The below steps will give you all the information to quickly integrate video SDK into your app. Please follow along carefully & if you face any difficulty then let us know immediately on discord and we will help you right away.

Prerequisite

  • Node.js v12+
  • NPM v6+ (comes installed with newer Node versions)
  • Android Studio or Xcode installed
  • A token from Video SDK dashboard

7 Step To Create Your Own React Native Video Calling App

Lets start by creating a new react native app using the command:

$ npx react-native init AppName

1. Install Video SDK

Install the Video SDK by following the below command. Do make sure you are in your project directory before you run this command.

$ npm install "@videosdk.live/react-native-sdk"
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2. Project Structure 

  root
   ├── node_modules
   ├── android
   ├── ios
   ├── App.js
   ├── api.js
   ├── index.js
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Project Configuration

You need to configure your project for android and iOS to make sure the app runs smoothly.

3. React Native Video Calling App Setup For Android

Step 1: Add required permission in the AndroidManifest.xml file.

<manifest
  xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
  package="com.cool.app"
>
    <!-- Give all the required permissions to app -->
    <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE" />
    <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.BLUETOOTH" />
    <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.CAMERA" />
    <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.INTERNET" />
    <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.MODIFY_AUDIO_SETTINGS" />
    <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.RECORD_AUDIO" />
    <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.SYSTEM_ALERT_WINDOW" />
    <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.FOREGROUND_SERVICE"/>
    <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.WAKE_LOCK" />
​
  <application>
   <meta-data
      android:name="live.videosdk.rnfgservice.notification_channel_name"
      android:value="Meeting Notification"
     />
    <meta-data
    android:name="live.videosdk.rnfgservice.notification_channel_description"
    android:value="Whenever meeting started notification will appear."
    />
    <meta-data
    android:name="live.videosdk.rnfgservice.notification_color"
    android:resource="@color/red"
    />
    <service android:name="live.videosdk.rnfgservice.ForegroundService" android:foregroundServiceType="mediaProjection"></service>
    <service android:name="live.videosdk.rnfgservice.ForegroundServiceTask"></service>
  </application>
</manifest>
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Steap 2: Link couple of internal library dependencies in android/app/build.gradle file

dependencies {
    compile project(':rnfgservice') 
    compile project(':rnwebrtc') 
    compile project(':rnincallmanager')
  }
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Include dependencies in android/settings.gradle

include ':rnwebrtc'
project(':rnwebrtc').projectDir = new File(rootProject.projectDir, '../node_modules/@videosdk.live/react-native-webrtc/android')

include ':rnincallmanager'
project(':rnincallmanager').projectDir = new File(rootProject.projectDir, '../node_modules/@videosdk.live/react-native-incallmanager/android')

include ':rnfgservice'
project(':rnfgservice').projectDir = new File(rootProject.projectDir, '../node_modules/@videosdk.live/react-native-foreground-service/android')
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Update MainApplication.java to use InCall manager and run some foreground services.

import live.videosdk.rnfgservice.ForegroundServicePackage;
import live.videosdk.rnincallmanager.InCallManagerPackage;
import live.videosdk.rnwebrtc.WebRTCModulePackage;

public class MainApplication extends Application implements ReactApplication {
  private static List<ReactPackage> getPackages() {
      return Arrays.<ReactPackage>asList(
          /* Initialise foreground service, incall manager and webrtc module */
          new ForegroundServicePackage(),
          new InCallManagerPackage(),
          new WebRTCModulePackage(),
      );
  }
}
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Some device might face WebRTC problem and to solve that update your android/gradle.properties file with the following

/* This one fixes a weird WebRTC runtime problem on some devices. */
android.enableDexingArtifactTransform.desugaring=false
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If you use proguard , make the changes shown below in android/app/proguard-rules.pro file (this is optional)

-keep class org.webrtc.** { *; }
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Step 3: Update colors.xml file with some new colours for internal dependencies.

<resources>
    <item name="red" type="color">#FC0303</item>
    <integer-array name="androidcolors">
    <item>@color/red</item>
    </integer-array>
</resources>
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4. React Native Vedio Calling App Setup For iOS

Step 1: Install react-native-incallmanager

$ yarn add @videosdk.live/react-native-incallmanager
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Step 2: Make sure you are using CocoaPods 1.10 or higher. To update CocoaPods, you can simply install the gem again.

$[sudo] gem install cocoapods
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Step 3: Manually linking (if react-native-incall-manager is not linked automatically)

  • Drag node_modules/@videosdk.live/react-native-incall-manager/ios/RNInCallManager.xcodeproj under /Libraries

  • Select --> Build Phases --> Link Binary With Libraries

  • Drag Libraries/RNInCallManager.xcodeproj/Products/libRNInCallManager.a to Link Binary With Libraries

  • Select --> Build Settings In Header Search Paths, add $(SRCROOT)/../node_modules/@videosdk.live/react-native-incall-manager/ios/RNInCallManager

Step 4: Change path of react-native-webrtc

pod ‘react-native-webrtc’, :path => ‘../node_modules/@videosdk.live/react-native-webrtc’
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Step 5: Change your platform version

  • You have change platform field of podfile to 11.0 or above it, as react-native-webrtc doesn’t support IOS < 11 platform :ios, ‘11.0’

Step 6: After updating the version, you have to install pods

Pod install
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Step 7: Then Add “libreact-native-webrtc.a” in Link Binary with libraries. In target of main project folder.

Step 8: Now add following permissions to info.plist (project folder/IOS/projectname/info.plist):

<key>NSCameraUsageDescription</key>
<string>Camera permission description</string>
<key>NSMicrophoneUsageDescription</key>
<string>Microphone permission description</string>
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5. Register Service

Register VideoSDK services in root index.js file for initialization service.

import { register } from '@videosdk.live/react-native-sdk';
import { AppRegistry } from 'react-native';
import { name as appName } from './app.json';
import App from './src/App.js';
​
// Register the service
register();
AppRegistry.registerComponent(appName, () => App);
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6. Start Writing Your Code Now

Step 1 : Before jumping to anything else, we have write API to generate unique meetingId. You will require auth token, you can generate it using either by using videosdk-rtc-api-server-examples or generate it from the Video SDK Dashboard for developer.

export const token = "<Generated-from-dashbaord>";
// API call to create meeting
export const createMeeting = async ({ token }) => {
  const res = await fetch(`https://api.videosdk.live/v1/meetings`, {
    method: "POST",
    headers: {
      authorization: `${token}`,
      "Content-Type": "application/json",
    },
    body: JSON.stringify({ region: "sg001" }),
  });

  const { meetingId } = await res.json();
  return meetingId;
};
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Step 2 : To build up wireframe of App.js , we are going to use Video SDK Hooks and Context Providers. Video SDK provide us MeetingProvider, MeetingConsumer, useMeeting and useParticipant hooks. Let's understand each of them.

First we will explore Context Provider and Consumer. Context is primarily used when some data needs to be accessible by many components at different nesting levels.

  • MeetingProvider : It is Context Provider. It accepts value config and token as props. The Provider component accepts a value prop to be passed to consuming components that are descendants of this Provider. One Provider can be connected to many consumers. Providers can be nested to override values deeper within the tree.
  • MeetingConsumer : It is Context Consumer. All consumers that are descendants of a Provider will re-render whenever the Provider’s value prop changes.
  • useMeeting : It is meeting react hook API for meeting. It includes all the information related to meeting such as join, leave, enable/disable mic or webcam etc.
  • useParticipant : It is participant hook API. useParticipant hook is responsible to handle all the events and props related to one particular participant such as name, webcamStream, micStream etc.

Meeting Context helps to listen on all the changes when participant joins meeting or changes mic or camera etc.

Let's get started with change couple of lines of code in App.js

import React, { useState } from "react";
import {
  SafeAreaView,
  TouchableOpacity,
  Text,
  TextInput,
  View,
  FlatList,
} from "react-native";
import {
  MeetingProvider,
  useMeeting,
  useParticipant,
  MediaStream,
  RTCView,
} from "@videosdk.live/react-native-sdk";
import { createMeeting, token } from "./api";

function JoinScreen(props) {
  return null;
}

function ControlsContainer() {
  return null;
}

function MeetingView() {
  return null;
}

export default function App() {
  const [meetingId, setMeetingId] = useState(null);

  const getMeetingId = async (id) => {
    const meetingId = id == null ? await createMeeting({ token }) : id;
    setMeetingId(meetingId);
  };

  return meetingId ? (
    <SafeAreaView style={{ flex: 1, backgroundColor: "#F6F6FF" }}>
      <MeetingProvider
        config={{
          meetingId,
          micEnabled: false,
          webcamEnabled: true,
          name: "Test User",
        }}
        token={token}
      >
        <MeetingView />
      </MeetingProvider>
    </SafeAreaView>
  ) : (
    <JoinScreen getMeetingId={getMeetingId} />
  );
}
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Step 3 : Lets now add Join Screen to our app with which you can create new meeting or join existing meeting.

function JoinScreen(props) {
  const [meetingVal, setMeetingVal] = useState("");
  return (
    <SafeAreaView
      style={{
        flex: 1,
        backgroundColor: "#F6F6FF",
        justifyContent: "center",
        paddingHorizontal: 6 * 10,
      }}
    >
      <TouchableOpacity
        onPress={() => {
          props.getMeetingId();
        }}
        style={{ backgroundColor: "#1178F8", padding: 12, borderRadius: 6 }}
      >
        <Text style={{ color: "white", alignSelf: "center", fontSize: 18 }}>
          Create Meeting
        </Text>
      </TouchableOpacity>

      <Text
        style={{
          alignSelf: "center",
          fontSize: 22,
          marginVertical: 16,
          fontStyle: "italic",
          color: "grey",
        }}
      >
        ---------- OR ----------
      </Text>
      <TextInput
        value={meetingVal}
        onChangeText={setMeetingVal}
        placeholder={"XXXX-XXXX-XXXX"}
        style={{
          padding: 12,
          borderWidth: 1,
          borderRadius: 6,
          fontStyle: "italic",
        }}
      />
      <TouchableOpacity
        style={{
          backgroundColor: "#1178F8",
          padding: 12,
          marginTop: 14,
          borderRadius: 6,
        }}
        onPress={() => {
          props.getMeetingId(meetingVal);
        }}
      >
        <Text style={{ color: "white", alignSelf: "center", fontSize: 18 }}>
          Join Meeting
        </Text>
      </TouchableOpacity>
    </SafeAreaView>
  );
}
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Step 4: Next step is to create a ControlsContainer component that manage features such as Join or Leave Meeting and Enable or Disable Webcam/Mic.

In this steps we will use useMeeting hook to get all required method such as join(), leave(), toggleWebcam() and toggleMic().

So let's update ControlsContainer and add it to our MeetingView.

const Button = ({ onPress, buttonText, backgroundColor }) => {
  return (
    <TouchableOpacity
      onPress={onPress}
      style={{
        backgroundColor: backgroundColor,
        justifyContent: "center",
        alignItems: "center",
        padding: 12,
        borderRadius: 4,
      }}
    >
      <Text style={{ color: "white", fontSize: 12 }}>{buttonText}</Text>
    </TouchableOpacity>
  );
};

function ControlsContainer({ join, leave, toggleWebcam, toggleMic }) {
  return (
    <View
      style={{
        padding: 24,
        flexDirection: "row",
        justifyContent: "space-between",
      }}
    >
      <Button
        onPress={() => {
          join();
        }}
        buttonText={"Join"}
        backgroundColor={"#1178F8"}
      />
      <Button
        onPress={() => {
          toggleWebcam();
        }}
        buttonText={"Toggle Webcam"}
        backgroundColor={"#1178F8"}
      />
      <Button
        onPress={() => {
          toggleMic();
        }}
        buttonText={"Toggle Mic"}
        backgroundColor={"#1178F8"}
      />
      <Button
        onPress={() => {
          leave();
        }}
        buttonText={"Leave"}
        backgroundColor={"#FF0000"}
      />
    </View>
  );
}

function ParticipantList() {
  return null;
}
function MeetingView() {
  const { join, leave, toggleWebcam, toggleMic, meetingId } = useMeeting({});

  return (
    <View style={{ flex: 1 }}>
      {meetingId ? (
        <Text style={{ fontSize: 18, padding: 12 }}>
          Meeting Id :{meetingId}
        </Text>
      ) : null}
      <ParticipantList /> // Will implement in next steps
      <ControlsContainer
        join={join}
        leave={leave}
        toggleWebcam={toggleWebcam}
        toggleMic={toggleMic}
      />
    </View>
  );
}
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Step 5: After implementing controls, now it's time to render joined participants.

We will get joined participants from useMeeting Hook.

function ParticipantView() {
  return null;
}

function ParticipantList({ participants }) {
  return participants.length > 0 ? (
    <FlatList
      data={participants}
      renderItem={({ item }) => {
        return <ParticipantView participantId={item} />;
      }}
    />
  ) : (
    <View
      style={{
        flex: 1,
        backgroundColor: "#F6F6FF",
        justifyContent: "center",
        alignItems: "center",
      }}
    >
      <Text style={{ fontSize: 20 }}>Press Join button to enter meeting.</Text>
    </View>
  );
}

function MeetingView() {
  // Get `participants` from useMeeting Hook
  const { join, leave, toggleWebcam, toggleMic, participants } = useMeeting({});
  const participantsArrId = [...participants.keys()]; // Add this line

  return (
    <View style={{ flex: 1 }}>
      <ParticipantList participants={participantsArrId} /> // Pass participants
      <ControlsContainer
        join={join}
        leave={leave}
        toggleWebcam={toggleWebcam}
        toggleMic={toggleMic}
      />
    </View>
  );
}
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Step 6: Next step is to update the participant view to show the participant media i.e video and audio. Before handling participant media, We need to understand a couple of concepts.

1. useParticipant Hook

useParticipant hook is responsible to handle all the properties and events of one particular participant joined in the meeting. It will take participantId as argument.

//Example for useParticipant Hook
const { webcamStream, webcamOn, displayName } = useParticipant(participantId);
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2. MediaStream API

MediaStream is useful to add MediaTrack to the RTCView component to play the audio and video.

//MediaStream API example
<RTCView
  streamURL={new MediaStream([webcamStream.track]).toURL()}
  objectFit={"cover"}
  style={{
    height: 300,
    marginVertical: 8,
    marginHorizontal: 8,
  }}
/>
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So let us combine these two concepts and render the participant view.

function ParticipantView({ participantId }) {
  const { webcamStream, webcamOn } = useParticipant(participantId);
  return webcamOn ? (
    <RTCView
      streamURL={new MediaStream([webcamStream.track]).toURL()}
      objectFit={"cover"}
      style={{
        height: 300,
        marginVertical: 8,
        marginHorizontal: 8,
      }}
    />
  ) : (
    <View
      style={{
        backgroundColor: "grey",
        height: 300,
        justifyContent: "center",
        alignItems: "center",
      }}
    >
      <Text style={{ fontSize: 16 }}>NO MEDIA</Text>
    </View>
  );
}
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7. Run Your Code Now 

//for android
npx react-native run-android

//for ios
npx react-native run-ios
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Build a React Native Video Calling App with Video SDK

Conclusion

With this, we successfully built the React Native video calling app using the video SDK in React-Native. If you wish to add functionalities like chat messaging, and screen sharing, you can always check out our documentation. If you face any difficulty with the implementation you can connect with us on our discord community.

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