Janus-gateway: janus.js should be NPM installable

[cmacq2]

Ideally janus.js and its JS dependencies would be installable via NPM, to better integrate with modern frontend workflows.

That would require developing a NPM package, and it may be a good idea to move the janus.js code to a separate repository. Doing so could also enable us to tackle the forked adapter.js more cleanly, and remove the need to reference external files in the demos entirely. The demos could be part of a janus-demos NPM package which could pull in janus.js and other deps via NPM as normal. Finally, it could simplify the existing issues surrounding proper licensing and attribution of the code as well: as it is, the HTML/JS code sits somewhat awkwardly alongside the main C code base of Janus in this one.

Agree? Disagree?

[mirkobrankovic]

Uuu i agree completely :)

[lminiero]

Discussed this more than once. I don't like the idea of making janus.js any more complicated than it is and I can handle. I'm not a great JavaScript developer, and I have to maintain this stuff too. Changes too big or complex for me to be able to handle are going to take time from the server stuff, and I really don't want that to happen. Not sure if #792 can be seen as a step in your direction, but I told @thehunmonkgroup pretty much the same things.

If you do need anything more complex and flexible, there are good JavaScript stacks to start from, so please don't make my life way harder than it already is... :smile:

[cmacq2]

Just to be clear: I am not asking to node-ify it. I'm asking to provide a simple NPM package wrapper around existing code so people can pull in Janus and get the maintained & up to date support for Janus REST API directly via NPM.

EDIT to add:
Also the JS alternatives you pointed out don't seem like very good replacements for janus.js. From an admittedly somewhat cursory review:

• One more complete example from cargomedia does API calls via Websockets whereasjanus.js does HTTP/HTTPS It is also unmaintained
• A number of projects appear to be unmaintained.
• And they tend to be only half finished (note: lot's of TODO's about proper error handling).
• One is a thin Typescript wrapper that does the 'user' API only

Also, I'm not asking that you do the work yourself. At least not necessarily.. Judging by #792 you are not opposed to others picking this up and running with it, but in order to get started it would be good if you're willing to setup the repository with README and appropriate LICENSE and an initial check in of JS & HTML code. My reasons for asking this are:

• The fact that licensing of the JS and HTML is apparently somewhat distinct from that of the main C code base (see various other issues).
• Meetecho clearly has the right to do this because of the CLA: you can relicense or redistribute code in any whole or in part at your discretion.
• It's not clear that others from the wider community can do the same, because of the licensing muddling the waters here.

If you do setup such a repository, it would be really great if you are willing to at least raise issues there when there's a relevant Janus API break coming up.

With such a separate semi-official repo, other people who are more interested in developing the JS codebase are more free to push this forward.

[thehunmonkgroup]

@cmacq2 I'm handling automatically keeping up to date via server build scripts, and, that's certainly a higher bar than 'npm install' ;)

@lminiero another perspective to consider: this proposal and #792 both have the advantage of making Janus more accessible/easier to install. I like the idea of removing barriers :)

[lminiero]

@cmacq2 good points, I'll definitely keep this in mind.

[zoobot]

Are you all saying that janus.js and dependencies are a js version of janus? Which files? Can I just use it with a node server?

I've been trying to get Janus installed for about an hour and had a ton of errors then failed on Raspbian.

Would love an npm version of it, if it works!!

[lminiero]

There is no npm version of janus.js. If you want to control Janus from node.js, try one of the third-party libraries available here.

[SaqlainHussainShah]

Agree. I am a node developer and even through documentation on janus site I am unable to get how can I integrate it into my Application. I have a window machine

[lminiero]

Closing as we don't have any plan to make janus.js NPM installable. I'll consider merging the effort Chad proposed on UMD, but nothing more than that I'm afraid. We discussed having a separate project for the demos, but discarded that idea as well, as it would be hard to sync PRs (think of new features/plugins that add new demos or change janus.js with respect to what it can notify or do).

External projects targeting this, and that we can reference in the resources docs (as others already are) are more than welcome of course!

[aluedeke]

@lminiero did your opinion on this accidentally changed in the last 2 years?would you accept a pr pushing the Janus js to npm on release?

[lminiero]

Not changed, sorry. This can be a separate repo that can be addressed in the docs (resources page).