Migration guide

This migration guide helps you migrate from Signaling 1.x to Signaling 2.x.

In December 2023, Agora released Signaling 2.x in response to market and industry needs. Signaling 2.x brings significant innovation to users in terms of:

• Features coverage: Signaling 2.x expands its scope to encompass a broader range of business use-cases through the introduction of functional modules including Channel, Message, Topic, Presence, Storage, and Lock. These additions empower you to shift your attention from fundamental feature implementation to fostering business innovation.

• Performance improvement: Signaling 2.x revamps the backend architecture, enhancing overall performance through optimized network connections. This overhaul results in sustained low-latency, higher reliability, increased concurrency, and seamless scalability for real-time network access. With these advancements, businesses can confidently rely on the backend, to ensure both optimal performance and high-quality service.

• Experience optimization: All documents, including user guides and API references, have been optimized and furnished more comprehensive sample code. These enhancements empower developers with a cost-effective learning experience, enable swift integration and improve development efficiency when utilizing the SDK.

For a seamless transition from Signaling 1.x to 2.x, refer to the following document. This resource is designed to expedite the migration process, ensuring that you can swiftly leverage the new features in Signaling 2.x and start reaping their benefits.

Activate Signaling

To activate Signaling 2.x, take the following steps:

1. Log in to Agora Console

2. Create a new Agora project or choose an existing project from the project list.

3. Select the project on the Project Management page and click the pencil icon to configure it.

4. Go to All features > Signaling > Basic information and select a data center in the dropdown.

5. Go to Subscriptions > Signaling and subscribe to a plan.

6. Copy the App ID for your project for use in your code.

   Signaling version 2.x differs from 1.x in the support of naming character sets. For example, 2.x does not support channel names, user names, or topic names that start with _ or contain . characters. When upgrading from 1.x to 2.x or using both versions together, be aware of possible incompatibilities caused by character set differences. Best practice is to use the character set supported by 2.x when migrating. See Channel naming for the character set supported by 2.x.

Integrate the SDK

You can integrate the Signaling 2.x SDK into your app either using a CDN or through Maven Central. The integration methods are as follows:

• For 1.x:

  dependencies {
      // Replace x.y.z with the specific SDK version, e.g., 1.5.1
      implementation 'io.agora.rtm:rtm-sdk:x.y.z'
  }

• For 2.x:

  dependencies {
      // Replace x.y.z with the specific SDK version, e.g., 2.1.9
      implementation 'io.agora:agora-rtm:x.y.z'
  }

Note that the SDK package names for `2.x` and `1.x` are different. The `2.x` package name is `agora-rtm`, while the `1.x` package name is `rtm-sdk`.

Initialize an RTM Client instance

Signaling 2.x makes adjustments to initialization parameters. It introduces new features such as end-to-end encryption, and cloud proxy. Refer to the API Reference for details. Additionally, 2.x provides richer error information when invoking interfaces, allowing you to quickly identify issues. Look up Error Codes for efficient troubleshooting.

• Sample code for 1.x:

  try {
      rtmClient = RtmClient.createInstance(getBaseContext(), "your_appId", new RtmClientListener() {
          @Override
          public void onConnectionStateChanged(int state, int reason) {
          }
  
          @Override
          public void onMessageReceived(RtmMessage rtmMessage, String peerId) {
          }
  
          @Override
          public void onTokenExpired() {
          }
  
          @Override
          public void onTokenPrivilegeWillExpire() {
          }
  
          @Override
          public void onPeersOnlineStatusChanged(Map<String, Integer> status) {
          }
      });
  } catch (Exception e) {
      throw new RuntimeException("RTM initialization failed!");
  }

• Sample code for 2.x:

  RtmConfig rtmConfig = new RtmConfig.Builder("your_appId", "your_userId")
      .eventListener(eventListener)
      .build();
  try {
      rtmClient = RtmClient.create(rtmConfig);
  } catch (Exception e) {
      e.printStackTrace();
  }

Log in to Signaling

The login method for 2.x differs from 1.x:

• Sample code for 1.x:

  rtmClient.login("your_token", "your_userId", new ResultCallback<Void>() {
      @Override
      public void onSuccess(Void responseInfo) {
          // Handle login result
      }
      @Override
      public void onFailure(ErrorInfo errorInfo) {
          // Handle errors
      }
  });

• Sample code for 2.x:

  rtmClient.login("your_token", new ResultCallback<Void>() {
      @Override
      public void onSuccess(Void responseInfo) {
          // Handle login success
      }
  
      @Override
      public void onFailure(ErrorInfo errorInfo) {
          // Handle errors
      }
  });

Event notifications

Signaling 2.x has redesigned the system event notification mechanism and API interfaces. It provides more detailed classification and aggregation of event notification types, and optimizes the payload data structure.

2.x introduces the following types of event notifications:

For more information on event notifications and payload data structures, see Event listeners.

Consider the example of listening to channel message events:

• For 1.x:

  rtmChannel = rtmClient.createChannel("channelName", new RtmChannelListener() {
      @Override
      public void onMessageReceived(final RtmMessage message, final RtmChannelMember fromMember) {
          // Handle message event
      }
      // Add other event notifications
  });

• For 2.x:

  RtmEventListener eventListener = new RtmEventListener() {
      @Override
      public void onMessageEvent(MessageEvent event) {
          // Handle message event
      }
      // Add other event notifications
  };
  
  // Option 1: Add event listener when initializing RTM Client instance with create method
  RtmConfig rtmConfig = new RtmConfig.Builder("your_appId", "your_userId")
      .eventListener(eventListener)
      .build();
  try {
      rtmClient = RtmClient.create(rtmConfig);
  } catch (Exception e) {
      e.printStackTrace();
  }
  
  // Option 2: Add event listener at any time during the app's lifecycle
  rtmClient.addEventListener(eventListener);

The comparison demonstrates significant differences:

• In 1.x, channel message event notifications are bound to specific channel instances. Users need to call the createChannel() method to create a channel instance, then register the onMessageReceived callback to handle events. The SDK notifies the handler through this callback when a message is received. If multiple channels are involved, this process needs to be repeated for each channel. In 2.x, message event notifications are bound to the client instance globally. You call the addEventListener() method to register the callback code once, and it applies to all subscribed channels or topics. This simplifies the implementation for handling message events across multiple channels or topics.

• The payload data structure for message event notifications in 2.x contains more information, which simplifies implementation of custom business logic.

Channel messages

In version 1.x, to send a channel message, you needed to:

• Create a Channel instance
• Join the channel
• Send and receive channel messages

The disadvantage to this design is that you cannot independently send messages. You must also receive messages because sending and receiving is coupled. Signaling 2.x adopts a new Pub/Sub-based model designed to decouple sending and receiving messages. When sending messages, you only need to publish to the specified channel without joining the channel. To receive channel messages, you only need to subscribe to the specified channel. The two operations are independent.

• Sample code for 1.x:

  // Create channel
  rtmChannel = rtmClient.createChannel("channelName", new RtmChannelListener() {
      @Override
      public void onMessageReceived(final RtmMessage message, final RtmChannelMember fromMember) {
          // Handle message event
      }
      // Add other event notifications
  });
  
  // Join channel
  rtmChannel.join(new ResultCallback<Void>() {
      @Override
      public void onSuccess(Void responseInfo) {
          // Handle join channel result
      }
  
      @Override
      public void onFailure(ErrorInfo errorInfo) {
          // Handle errors
      }
  });
  
  // Send message
  RtmMessage message = rtmClient.createMessage();
  message.setText("Hello World!");
  rtmChannel.sendMessage(message, new ResultCallback<Void>() {
      @Override
      public void onSuccess(Void aVoid) {
          // Handle message send result
      }
  
      @Override
      public void onFailure(ErrorInfo errorInfo) {
          // Handle errors
      }
  });

• Sample code for 2.x:

  // Send message in Message Channel
  String message = "Hello world";
  PublishOptions options = new PublishOptions();
  options.customType = 'PlainText';
  rtmClient.publish("channelName", message, options, new ResultCallback<Void>() {
      @Override
      public void onSuccess(Void responseInfo) {
          // Handle message send result
      }
      @Override
      public void onFailure(ErrorInfo errorInfo) {
          // Handle errors
      }
  });
  
  // Subscribe to Message Channel
  SubscribeOptions options = new SubscribeOptions();
  options.setWithMessage(true);
  rtmClient.subscribe("channelName", options, new ResultCallback<Void>() {
      @Override
      public void onSuccess(Void responseInfo) {
          // Handle subscribe result
      }
      @Override
      public void onFailure(ErrorInfo errorInfo) {
          // Handle errors
      }
  });
  
  // Handle received messages
  rtmClient.addEventListener(new RtmEventListener() {
      @Override
      public void onMessageEvent(MessageEvent event) {
          String channelName = event.getChannelId();
          String content = event.getMessage();
          // Handle received message
      }
      // Add other event notifications
  });

Peer-to-peer messaging

In version 1.x, the peer-to-peer messaging API sends messages to a specified user. For example, to send a message to the user whose user ID is "Tony":

// 1.x
RtmMessage message = rtmClient.createMessage();
message.setText("Hello World!");

SendMessageOptions options = new SendMessageOptions();

rtmClient.sendMessageToPeer("Tony", message, options, new ResultCallback<Void>() {
    @Override
    public void onSuccess(Void aVoid) {
        // Handle success
    }

    @Override
    public void onFailure(ErrorInfo errorInfo) {
        // Handle failure
    }
});

Starting from v2.2.1, Signaling 2.x supports User Channels for peer-to-peer messaging. Use the publish() method with channelType set to RtmChannelType.USER to send messages to a specific user, and handle incoming messages in the onMessageEvent callback. For more information, see User channels.

// 2.x (v2.2.1 or later)
PublishOptions options = new PublishOptions();
options.setChannelType(RtmChannelType.USER);
options.setCustomType("PlainText");

rtmClient.publish("Tony", "Hello world", options, new ResultCallback<Void>() {
    @Override
    public void onSuccess(Void responseInfo) {
        // Handle success
    }

    @Override
    public void onFailure(ErrorInfo errorInfo) {
        // Handle failure
    }
});

Picture and file messages

For reasons of user data privacy, compliance and cost optimization, Signaling 2.x no longer directly supports image and file message types. After version 1.5.0, the related interfaces have been removed. However, this does not mean that you cannot use Signaling to transmit and distribute image and file messages. You can build image and file message functions with the help of Signaling 2.x and third-party object storage services, such as Amazon S3 or Alibaba Cloud OSS. Not only can you get the best factual message transmission experience, you can also implement more flexible technical solutions. For example, CDN static resource acceleration or image and text moderation. The following code sample shows you how to use Signaling 2.x and Amazon S3 object storage service to build and send image and file messages.

// 1. Upload the file to Amazon S3

// 2. Notify RTM
JSONObject jsonObject = new JSONObject();
// File type, the receiving party can parse the message packet structure based on this field
jsonObject.put("type", "file");
// Your bucket name on Amazon S3, the receiving party needs this field to download the file
jsonObject.put("bucket", "uploadParams.Bucket");
// The Key under which the file is stored on Amazon S3, the receiving party needs this field to download the file
jsonObject.put("key", "uploadParams.Key");
// File content type
jsonObject.put("contentType", "uploadParams.ContentType");
// File URL address
jsonObject.put("url", "data.Location");

PublishOptions options = new PublishOptions();
rtmClient.publish("receiver", jsonObject.toString(), options, new ResultCallback<Void>() {
    @Override
    public void onSuccess(Void responseInfo) {
        // Handle message send result
    }

    @Override
    public void onFailure(ErrorInfo errorInfo) {
        // Handle errors
    }
});

ℹ️ Information When using Amazon S3 for static file storage, go to the Amazon S3 console and set the correct user permissions and access policies. Refer to Access Control Best Practices for more information.

User presence and custom status

In Signaling 1.x, you can subscribe to or query the online status of multiple users, query the number of users in a channel, or obtain the list of online members in a channel. Signaling 2.x not only retains these features, but also implements upgrades and extends them. In Signaling 2.x, these capabilities are redefined and implemented in the Presence module.

Presence provides the ability to monitor user online, user offline and user status change notifications. Through the Presence module, you can obtain the following information in real time:

• A user joins or leaves the specified channel
• Customize temporary user status and its changes
• Query which channels a specified user has joined or is subscribed to
• Query which users have joined the specified channel and their temporary status data

Call the getOnlineUsers method to query the number of online users in the specified channel, the list of online users, and the temporary status of online users in real-time.

// 2.x
PresenceOptions options = new PresenceOptions();
options.setIncludeUserId(true);
options.setIncludeState(true);
options.setPage("yourBookMark");

rtmClient.getPresence().getOnlineUsers("channelName", RtmChannelType.MESSAGE, options, new ResultCallback<GetOnlineUsersResult>() {
    @Override
    public void onSuccess(GetOnlineUsersResult result) {
        // Handle the getOnlineUsers call result
    }

    @Override
    public void onFailure(ErrorInfo errorInfo) {
        // Handle errors
    }
});

Call the getUserChannels method to get a list of channels where the specified user is present, in real-time.

// 2.x
rtmClient.getPresence().getUserChannels("Tony", new ResultCallback<ArrayList<ChannelInfo>>() {
    @Override
    public void onSuccess(ArrayList<ChannelInfo> channels) {
        // Handle the getUserChannels call result
    }

    @Override
    public void onFailure(ErrorInfo errorInfo) {
        // Handle errors
    }
});

To meet the user status requirements of business use-cases, Signaling 2.x provides temporary user status capabilities. Customize temporary user status through the setState method. Users can add their scores, game status, location, mood, and other customized statuses.

// 2.x
ArrayList<StateItem> stateItems = new ArrayList<>();
stateItems.add(new StateItem("mood", "pumped"));

rtmClient.getPresence().setState("channelName", RtmChannelType.MESSAGE, stateItems, new ResultCallback<Void>() {
    @Override
    public void onSuccess(Void responseInfo) {
        // Handle the setState call result
    }

    @Override
    public void onFailure(ErrorInfo errorInfo) {
        // Handle errors
    }
});

You can retrieve a user's online state at any time by using the getState method, or remove your own state by using the removeState method. Signaling triggers a presence event notification of type REMOTE_STATE_CHANGED when a user's temporary state is changed. See the Presence guide for details on how to use this feature.

Signaling 2.x makes it very simple to listen to the real-time notification of users entry, exit, timeout and temporary status changes in a channel. To do this, implement the following steps:

• Implement a Presence event listener
• Enable the withPresence switch when you join the channel

You can add a Presence event listener as follows:

// 2.x
// 1. Implement the Presence event listener
RtmEventListener eventListener = new RtmEventListener() {
        @Override
        public void onPresenceEvent(PresenceEvent event) {
            // Handle Precense event notifications
        }
    };
rtmClient.addEventListener(eventListener);

// 2. When subscribing to a channel, turn on the withPresence switch
SubscribeOptions options = new SubscribeOptions();
options.setWithPresence(true);
rtmClient.subscribe("channelName", options, new ResultCallback<Void>() {
    @Override
    public void onSuccess(Void responseInfo) {
        // Handle message subscription result
    }

    @Override
    public void onFailure(ErrorInfo errorInfo) {
        // Handle errors
    }
});

In Signaling 2.x real-time notifications have been redesigned. The presence event notification mode refers to how subscribed users of presence events in the channel are notified. There are two available modes:

1. Real-time notification mode (Announce)
2. Scheduled notification mode (Interval)

You can determine the conditions for switching between the two modes through the Announce Max parameter in the project settings of the Agora Console. The interval notification mode can prevent noisy events caused by too many online users in the channel. For details, see Event Listeners.

User metadata and channel metadata

Signaling 2.x retains the full functionality of user metadata and channel metadata, with new capabilities such as versioning and locking. It adds optimized interfaces to make these features easier to use.

In 2.x, user attributes and channel attributes are mounted under the Storage module. To set channel attributes, refer to the following code:

// 2.x
// Create a Metadata instance
Metadata metadata = rtmClient.getStorage().createMetadata();
// Set Major Revision
metadata.setMajorRevision(174298270);
// Add a Metadata Item
metadata.setMetadataItem(new MetadataItem("Apple", "100", 174298200));
// Add another Metadata Item
metadata.setMetadataItem(new MetadataItem("Banana", "200", 174298100));
// Record the timestamp and user ID when setting Metadata Items
MetadataOptions options = new MetadataOptions();
options.setRecordTs(true);
options.setRecordUserId(true);

rtmClient.getStorage().setChannelMetadata("channelName", RtmChannelType.MESSAGE, metadata, options, "lockName", new ResultCallback<Void>() {
    @Override
    public void onSuccess(Void responseInfo) {
        // Handle setChannelMetadata result
    }

    @Override
    public void onFailure(ErrorInfo errorInfo) {
        // Handle errors
    }
});

To learn more about how to get, update, and delete channel attributes, how to use version control and lock control, refer to the Storage guide. The use of user attributes is similar to that of channel attributes.

Events for channel attributes and user attributes are distributed to users through onStorageEvent type event notifications. To listen to these events:

1. Implement the Storage event listener.

2. When subscribing to a channel, turn on the withMetadata switch.

   // 2.x
   // 1. Implement the Storage event listener
   RtmEventListener eventListener = new RtmEventListener() {
       @Override
       public void onStorageEvent(StorageEvent event) {
           // Handle Storage event notifications
       }
   
        // Add other event notifications
   };
   rtmClient.addEventListener(eventListener);
   
   // 2. When subscribing to a channel, turn on the withMetadata switch
   SubscribeOptions options = new SubscribeOptions();
   options.setWithMetadata(true);
   rtmClient.subscribe("channelName", options, new ResultCallback<Void>() {
       @Override
       public void onSuccess(Void responseInfo) {
           // Handle message subscription result
       }
   
       @Override
       public void onFailure(ErrorInfo errorInfo) {
           // Handle errors
       }
   });

Restrict access area

Signaling supports the restricted access area feature to comply with the laws and regulations of different countries or regions. After turning on the restricted access area feature, no matter which area the user uses your app from, the SDK will only access the Agora server in the geographical specified area. Signaling 1.x implements access area limitation as follows.

• Sample code for 1.x:

  // 1.x
  RtmServiceContext context = new RtmServiceContext();
  context.areaCode = RtmAreaCode.AREA_CODE_GLOB;
  setRtmServiceContext(context);

• Sample code for 2.x:

  // 2.x
  RtmConfig rtmConfig = new RtmConfig.Builder(appId, userId)
      .areaCode(EnumSet.of(RtmAreaCode.AS))
      .eventListener(eventListener)
      .build();

Call invitation

Call Invitation is no longer available in Signaling 2.x. Use CallAPI as an alternate approach.

Other new features

In addition to the enhancements presented in this document, Signaling 2.x introduces an array of additional features. Choose and implement features that fit the needs of your project. The following table outlines key new features of Signaling 2.x: