August 2021 Summaries

At Daily, they've developed a flexible video and audio-only API that can be used with any frontend framework or no framework at all. They've created several demos to cover various use cases, including a new Vue demo app. The Vue demo app allows users to join a Daily call and control the call programmatically using instance methods provided by daily-js. The controls include features such as toggling the local camera, turning on/off the microphone, sharing the screen, expanding fullscreen, and leaving the call. With this tutorial, developers can add Daily video chat to their Vue projects and customize their experience further by updating the color theme.

This Chrome extension, Daily Collab, uses React to embed an entire video call into any webpage, including Notion pages. The extension communicates with a custom API and the browser's background script to manage state and updates. It associates a Notion page with a Daily room, which is used to identify the current live call. When a user starts or joins a call on the same page, the extension updates the UI in real-time using React context and polling every second for new information. The extension also handles multiple tabs staying in sync for any live calls.

Daily provides real-time video and audio APIs to help developers build and iterate on their apps quickly and efficiently. However, creating a reliable real-time communication product requires adapting to diverse network conditions. To address this challenge, Daily created Synthetic Network, a tool that simulates arbitrary network conditions using Docker and packet processing in userspace. The tool ships as a Docker image containing a Rust program that forwards packets between two Linux network interfaces, introduces artificial latency, bandwidth limits, packet loss, and jitter, as well as a frontend that exposes a JSON API and a Web UI to configure synthetic network conditions. Developers can derive an image from Synthetic Network and add their application to test under varying network conditions. The tool also includes a Chrome-on-Syntheticnet container example, which allows users to test web applications under arbitrary network conditions using VNC. Additionally, Synthetic Network provides scripting and automated testing capabilities through a JavaScript library that wraps the JSON API in a programmatically friendly object, enabling developers to automate their network testing.

This tutorial explains how to authenticate with Notion's public integration in a Chrome extension demo called Daily Collab, which embeds and transcribes Daily video calls in any Notion page. The demo uses the new public API of Notion, which requires a different authentication approach compared to internal integrations. To use the public integration, users must authorize the app for their workspace by clicking an "Authorize" button, which opens a new tab with an authorization screen from Notion. Once authorized, the user is redirected back to the Daily Collab page and can share an access code with other workspace members, who can then enter it in the Authorization form to authenticate API requests. The demo also shows how to handle errors and edge cases, such as when the admin declines to authorize the app. The tutorial provides a step-by-step guide on how to set up Notion authentication in your own apps using public integrations.

This Chrome extension allows users to embed and transcribe video calls directly in their Notion docs. The extension uses a variety of components, including the manifest.json file, popup menu, background scripts, content scripts, browser messages, accessing individual tabs, and messaging between webpages and the extension. The Daily Collab demo code specifically uses a v2 background script instead of converting it to a v3 background service worker. The main components of Chrome extensions include the manifest.json file, which instructs the browser as to what the extension can (and cannot) do, such as which parts of the browser the extension has access to and which scripts it's permitted to run. Background service workers replaced background scripts in Manifest V3, allowing for more flexibility and power but also introducing new limitations, such as not being able to access global variables. Content scripts are required when a Chrome extension needs to access the DOM of specific webpages, allowing for features that depend on what is actually present on the page. The popup menu provides a space for users to learn information about the Chrome extension or have user interactions unrelated to webpage content. Tabs provide access to browser tabs, enabling the extension to track which Notion docs have live Daily calls in them. Messaging between webpages and the extension allows for asynchronous updates of different parts of the Chrome extension.

The Daily Collab Chrome extension demo showcases a seamless collaboration experience in Notion by integrating video and audio calls with transcription, leveraging the Daily APIs, Notion API, Deepgram transcription, and custom Chrome extension development. This project aims to improve productivity and facilitate real-time collaboration within Notion workspaces, offering features such as one-click call embedding, transcription, and customization possibilities. The extension is built on top of existing technologies and demonstrates the potential for Chrome extensions in enhancing web app functionality.

Daily has introduced live streaming capabilities for its paid accounts, allowing customers to broadcast their events with low latency, ranging from 3 to 20 seconds. This feature is now available via RTMP (Real-Time Messaging Protocol) streaming, which can be consumed by various existing solutions such as Amazon IVS. With Daily's live streaming, customers can customize their experience with multiple video feeds and full HD resolution, making it ideal for events like live classes, concerts, and large business meetings. To get started, customers need a Daily account, an AWS account, and a few other requirements, which are outlined in the tutorial provided by Daily. The tutorial demonstrates how to embed a Daily call with live streaming using Amazon IVS's player SDK, allowing users to play back their live stream with incredibly low latency of 2 to 5 seconds.

Daily now supports 25 active participants with 15,000 viewers and 1,000 person large calls, all with cams and mics on. Developers can customize colors of video-call UI elements in the updated Daily Prebuilt embeddable call interface, allowing for greater brand consistency and expressiveness. This update enables developers to assign up to 10 different colors, apply multiple color themes, and add subtle accent colors without overhauling existing themes. Color theming is currently available to all users and will be part of the branding bundle on the Scale plan in the future. The company has released color theming templates in Figma, a free design tool, to help teams visualize how their chosen color theme maps to individual UI elements before making changes to code. This update aims to give developers more tools to build with video at every step of integration, including design and prototyping.