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• Prerequisites
• Installation
  • iOS Installation
  • Android Installation
• Basic sample
• Unsupported features
• More samples

Apps written with the OpenTok React Native SDK 2.27+ can interoperate with OpenTok apps written with version 2.25+ of the OpenTok client SDKs:

• OpenTok.js
• OpenTok Android SDK
• OpenTok iOS SDK
• OpenTok Windows SDK
• OpenTok macOS SDK
• OpenTok Linux SDK

The OpenTok React Native SDK is built on top of the OpenTok Android SDK and iOS SDK. For details, see the following:

• Android SDK docs
• Android SDK release-notes
• iOS SDK docs
• iOS SDK release-notes

Prerequisites

1. Install node.js

2. Install and update Xcode (you will need a Mac). (See the React Native iOS installation instructions.)

3. Install and update Android Studio. (See the React Native Android installation instructions.)

Installation

1. In your terminal, change into your React Native project's directory.

2. Add the library using npm or yarn:

• npm install opentok-react-native
• yarn add opentok-react-native

iOS Installation

1. Install the iOS pods:

   npx pod-install
   

2. For React Native versions prior to 0.60:

   • Add this to your Podfile:

     target '<YourProjectName>' do
         # Pods for <YourProject>
         pod 'OTXCFramework', '2.27.3'
     end
     

   • Run react-native link opentok-react-native.

   These steps are not necessary in React Native version 0.60 and later.

3. Ensure you have enabled both camera and microphone usage by adding the following entries to the Info.plist file:

   <key>NSCameraUsageDescription</key>
   <string>Your message to user when the camera is accessed for the first time</string>
   <key>NSMicrophoneUsageDescription</key>
   <string>Your message to user when the microphone is accessed for the first time</string>
   

When you create an archive of your app, the privacy manifest settings required by Apple's App store are added automatically with this version of the OpenTok React Native SDK.

If you try to archive the app and it fails, please do the following:

1. Go to Target.

2. Click Build Phases.

3. Under the Link Binary With Libraries section, remove libOpenTokReactNative.a and add it again.

Android Installation

1. In your terminal, change into your project directory.

2. For React Native versions prior to 0.60:

   • Run react-native link opentok-react-native

   This step is not necessary in React Native version 0.60 and later.

3. Run bundle install.

4. Make sure the following in your app's gradle compileSdkVersion, buildToolsVersion, minSdkVersion, and targetSdkVersion are greater than or equal to versions specified in the OpenTok React Native library.

5. For older Android devices, add the following permissions to the AndroidManifest.xml file:

   • android.permission.BLUETOOTH -- The default audio device supports Bluetooth audio. If your app does not use the default audio device and does not use Bluetooth, you can remove this permission.

   • android.permission.BLUETOOTH_CONNECT -- You need to enable this for API level 31 and above. If you want to use the Bluetooth device with Android SDK DefaultAudioDevice targeting API level 31 and above, please ask for runtime permissions in the app or enable the ("Nearby devices/Bluetooth") permission manually in the app settings.

   • android.permission.BROADCAST_STICKY -- We have determined that this is unused by the OpenTok Android SDK, and we will remove this permission from an upcoming release.

   • android.permission.CAMERA -- If your app does not use the default video capturer and does not access the camera, you can remove this permission.

   • android.permission.INTERNET -- Required.

   • android.permission.MODIFY_AUDIO_SETTINGS -- If your app does not use the default audio device and does not access the microphone, you can remove this permission.

   • android.permission.READ_PHONE_STATE -- The OpenTok Android SDK requests this permission in API level 22 and lower, and 31 and above.

   • android.permission.RECORD_AUDIO -- If your app does not use the default audio device and does not access the microphone, you can remove this permission.

   For newer versions of Android — API Level 23 (Android 6.0) and later — you do not need to add these to your app manifest. The OpenTok React Native SDK adds them automatically. However, if you use Android 21+, certain permissions require you to prompt the user.

   Your app can remove any of these permissions that will not be required. See this post and this Android documentation. For example, this removes the android.permission.CAMERA permission:

   <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.CAMERA" tools:node="remove"/>
   

Bintray sunset

Bintray support has ended (official announcement: https://jfrog.com/blog/into-the-sunset-bintray-jcenter-gocenter-and-chartcenter/). In your app build.gradle file you need to remove reference to jcenter and replace it with mavenCentral. Example:

// Top-level build file where you can add configuration options common to all sub-projects/modules.

buildscript {
    ...
    repositories {
        google()
        mavenCentral()
    }
    ...
}

allprojects {
    repositories {
        maven {
            // All of React Native (JS, Obj-C sources, Android binaries) is installed from npm
            url("$rootDir/../node_modules/react-native/android")
        }
        maven {
            // Android JSC is installed from npm
            url("$rootDir/../node_modules/jsc-android/dist")
        }
        mavenCentral {
            // We don't want to fetch react-native from Maven Central as there are
            // older versions over there.
            content {
                excludeGroup "com.facebook.react"
            }
        }
        google()
        maven { url 'https://www.jitpack.io' }
    }
}

Basic sample

This simplest use of these opentok-react-native componenents:

<OTSession apiKey="your-api-key" sessionId="your-session-id" token="your-session-token">
  <OTPublisher style={{ width: 100, height: 100 }}/>
  <OTSubscriber style={{ width: 100, height: 100 }} />
</OTSession>

Replace your-api-key, your-session-id, and your-session-token with your OpenTok project API key, an OpenTok session ID, and a token for the session.

Note that you add the OTPublisher and OTSubscriber components and children of the OTSession component. Use the style and className properties to use CSS to adjust publisher and subscriber layout.

Unsupported features

The OpenTok React Native library provides a React interface for using the OpenTok Android and iOS client SDKs. The following advanced features of the OpenTok Android and iOS client SDKs are unsupported in the OpenTok React Native library:

• Custom audio drivers -- An application using OpenTok React Native use the device microphone to capture audio to transmit to a published stream. And it uses the device speakers (or headphones) to play back audio from subscribed streams. However, you can set the enableStereoOutput property of the OTSession object to enable stereo output.

• Custom video capturers -- (BaseVideoCapturer) -- The OpenTok React Native OTPublisher uses the standard video capturer that uses video directly from the device's camera. However, you can set the videoSource property of an OTPublisher component to "screen" to publish a screen-sharing stream.

• Custom video renderers -- The OTSubscriber and OTPublisher components implement a standard video renderer that renders streams and provides user interface controls for displaying the stream name and muting the microphone or camera. Publishers and subscribers use mPublisher.setStyle(BaseVideoRenderer.STYLE_VIDEO_SCALE, BaseVideoRenderer.STYLE_VIDEO_FILL)

• iOS delegate callback queue -- For iOS, you cannot assign the delegate callback queue (the GCD queue). See the docs for the OTSession.apiQueue property in the OpenTok iOS SDK.

To build Android and iOS apps that use these features, use the OpenTok Android SDK and the OpenTok iOS SDK.

More samples

To see this library in action, check out the opentok-react-native-samples repo.