easyRTC version (0.8.0) released

[Rod Apeldoorn]

We've merged easyRTC v0.8.0 into the master branch on GitHub making it the recommended release.

The top changes:

• API - new function easyRTC.setAppDefinedFields. It is used to publish small amounts of state information to other peers via their loggedInListeners. It is the perfect way to associate a user's name with his easyrtcid.
  
• API - fixed issue with initMediaSource where a second self-video hung around increasing audio feedback.
  
• Server - added socket.io gzip option to config.js. The default is now false as enabling it caused problems for some users.
  

The full changelog for v0.8.0:

New Features:

• API - Added support for grabbing the screen as the local media source. Currently this only works in Canary, and causes the browser to crash if you try to use it in a peer connection. 
  
• API - Added support for grabbing video at high-definition instead of the default standard definition. Warning: the browser may cheat and give you a lower resolution than you asked for that has the desired aspect ratio.
  
• API - Added a number of callbacks to the initManaged method to support richer interactions with the client.
  
• API - Added a cleaner error reporting mechanism. The code now calls showError(errCode, errText) to report an error. showError will in turn call onError (which you can still override).
  
• API - Added support for calls that get cancelled (by the initiator) before they are accepted or rejected.
  
• API - Added a method to query the status of a peer to peer call.
  
• API - Added the dontAddCloseButtons method.
  
• Server - Added socket.io options to config.js. Note that socketIoClientGzipEnabled is now false by default as gzip causes issues on some servers (often Windows).
  
• Demos - Added a screen sending and screen receiving demo. These tend to crash the browser at this point. Hopefully Google will get that feature working properly again.
  
• Demos - Added a multiperson tablet-oriented chat demo that runs very nicely on your Android devices.
  
• Documentation - Moved the client API documentation from mark-down format to jsDoc and added inline examples. Check out the easyRTC.html file in the docs directory. The easyrtcjs.html file is a helper file that shouldn't be looked at directly.
  

Changes:

• Demos - In demos which show the local media stream as both audio and video (as a mirror), the video object with the local media stream is muted and given a volume of 0.
  
• Demos - Removed references to Firefox requiring flags
  
• Server - Version bumps for node modules express (3.2.x) and winston (0.7.x).
  
• Server - Added additional public stun servers
  

Fixes:

• API - The mozRTCSessionDescription object didn't used to work properly in Firefox. Now it appears to be required.
  
• API - When initMediaSource is called, the API creates a temporary video object to determine the pixel dimensions of the local camera. Until this version, that video object wasn't being explicitly destroyed, which resulted in a feedback shriek in Firefox and the most recent versions of Chrome. The temporary video object is now being destroyed.   
  

New Github Branches:

We've added a couple GitHub branches which you can get to by pressing the down arrow next to the branch button.

• beta - Previously we did much of our programming in a private repository, but we're now going to try putting changes up into the beta branch asap.
  
• demo_site - Contains a version specifically for our demo site at http://demo.easyrtc.com/ . File logging is enabled, ports are changed, and homepage is forwarded to the demos. We may try out new features in this branch first.
  

Tags:

•  We tag each release making it easier to download or compare an earlier version. You can select tags in GitHub by clicking on the Tags tab in the upper right corner.
  

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Big thanks to Eric who did the majority of work on this release. I'm just the server guy :)

Rod Apeldoorn, Priologic Software Inc.