v13.4

November 24th 2020

Change Log 🚧 - v13.4

• Added the ability for the Director to send TEXT messages as overlays to specific performers. Font size is nice and large; each message lasts for 3 to 8 seconds on screen. Can be disabled with the added bell icon. 💬

• Using &device=0 gives the user no option between webcam or screenshare now; just a join now button.

• Some issues with "permissions not accepted" timeout errors fixed, especially when &webcam flag is used or when no audio device was found

• Android-based Smartphones can use the "torch" or flashlight now; turn on via settings menu when the rear camera selected.

• the Electron App's top-drag-bar-region has a minimum height now, so its easier to drag even if a very small window.

• http://linkgen.vdo.ninja/ has been created by a community user; a wizard-like interface for creating invite links. [work in progress?]

• A community user-made quick-start / cheat sheet guide has been updated with automation workflows; Mac user-focused: https://github.com/steveseguin/vdo.ninja/tree/quickstart

• Improved compatibility of the Exposure/Focus controls for webcams/android devices, available via settings. (manual/continuous drop-down options were added)

• Manual camera controls hidden behind a "Show Advanced" drop down menu now

• Czech-language translation added (user contributed; thank you)

• The &broadcast flag 📺 was introduced. If added to a guest invite link, that guest will only be able to see video pushed by the director. (no website header and no video self preview either). You can also specify a stream ID manually (instead of the director) by passing it a value; &broadcast=STREAMIDHERE. Guests will be able to hear each other still; just not see each other, which reduces CPU/Bandwidth requirements for guests. This flag doesn't create new functionality; just simplifies existing functionality.

• &noheader is now an alias of &hideheader

• I changed the "faux full-screen" icon to a pair of glasses 👓, which I hope makes its purpose more clear

• I changed the Director's room access to iOS streams to be h264-based by default, rather than VP8-based. I had it set to be VP8, but it broke the record-video function, so I've changed it back to h264.

• You can change the bitrate of video previews as a director now from 0-bitrate, 50-kbps bitrate, and 1200-kbps bitrate. Three buttons are available per video to do this dynamically. 0-will FREEZE the video track as a result; might reduce some CPU/network load on guests by having the track paused like this if not needed.

• On newer versions of Chromium, (86/87), there does seem to be support for Hardware Encoding now, although it is still highly experimental. It sometimes will trigger if &codec=h264 is set, and if the video resolution is higher than ~360p. Just noting this; it's not officially supported yet tho.

• Added a new TURN relay server; located in US Central. Things are starting to get expensive, lol. Thank you to those who have donated; it takes the sting out. ❤❤❤❤

• &audiodevice=XXXX and &vd=XXXX device filters match device labels based on string 'contains' rather than 'starts with'.

• Users can select the audio output destination now by label name instead of &sink=device_id; &outputdevice=NAMEHERE 🔉 (alias &od)

• Some JavaScript libraries were moved off of public CDNs and are now hosted locally instead

• Changed redirecting MS IE users from Chrome to MS Edge instead.

• On iOS, if using Chrome, I now give you a warning about Chrome on iOS not being compatible.

• Updated https://vdo.ninja/?fileshare so that the file sharing option will let you select multiple media files. Hold CTRL or whatever to multi-select multiple media files to play.

• Updated the Electron Capture app; mac-specific issues fixed mainly.

• Fixed an issue where &turn=false wasn't working as expected. Setting to false disables the TURN servers from being used.

• added a bit of URL auto-correction code. If a user starts the URL params with & instead of ? the system will auto-fix it. Same goes if they forget to add a ? to the start entirely.

• Lots of other minor changes; FPS-stat on Electron app, permissions bugs, UI tweaks, typos, etc.

Regarding the IFRAMES API 👓

• added &manual as a URL parameter option, which disables the auto video mixer if used. This is mainly for IFRAME API users who want to perhaps control the video layouts themselves.

• added an IFRAME API command that will allow for dynamic disable/enable control of the auto-mixer

• added a way to specify a video by stream ID via the IFRAME API to set a custom style for the video; allows for dynamic stylings to videos (all-videos or one specific one at a time)

• added a way to add or remove a video by stream ID from the mixer area.

• added a way to list all available streamIDs and labels via the IFRAME API

• added an IFRAME API function to change the innerHTML/text of a specified HTML element.

• added the ability to insert custom CSS styles via the IFRAME API

• Added the ability to mute the video (black it out) via the IFRAME api.

(samples of these changes added to the dev iframe sandbox page; https://vdo.ninja/iframe)

Final words

I've had a lot of great feature requests lately; apologies if I didn't get them all out this release. Staying ahead of stability issues has been the priority for me this month. More features coming though.

🙏 Thank you to everyone who has helped with user support on Reddit and Discord this month; it has freed up time for me to get some sleep. Thank you to Chris for the detailed beta-testing. Thank you sincerely to those who have donated to the project. And also thank you to those who have shared VDO.Ninja with friends, family, and followers -- VDO.Ninja is growing and it's all thanks to you.