Quickstart

Updated

Build a Voice Calling app for your selected platform, and switch platforms with the selector below.

This macOS quickstart shows you how to create a basic Voice Calling app using the Agora Voice SDK.

Understand the tech

To start a Voice Calling session, implement the following steps in your app:

  • Initialize the Agora Engine: Before calling other APIs, create and initialize an Agora Engine instance.

  • Join a channel: Call methods to create and join a channel.

  • Send and receive audio: All users can publish streams to the channel and subscribe to audio streams published by other users in the channel.

Prerequisites

  • Xcode 13.0 or higher.

  • An Apple developer account.

  • If you need to use CocoaPods integrated SDK, make sure CocoaPods is installed.

  • Two devices running macOS 10.10 or higher.

  • A microphone

  • A valid Agora account and project. Please refer to Agora account management for details.

Set up your project

This section shows you how to set up your macOS project and install the Agora Voice SDK.

Follow these steps to create a project in Xcode:

  1. Refer to Create a project. Under Application select App. Use Storyboard for the user interface and choose Swift as the programming language.

    If you have not added the development team information, you see the Add account... button. Click the button and follow the on-screen prompts to log in to your Apple ID. Once login is complete, click Next, and choose your Apple account as the development team.

  2. Set up automatic signing for your projects.

  3. Set the target devices where your app will be deployed.

  4. Create a user interface for your app. Refer to Create a user interface to create a bare bones UI.

Follow these steps to add Voice Calling to your Xcode project:

  1. Open your project in Xcode.

  2. Set the target devices where your app will be deployed.

  3. Create a user interface for your app. Refer to Create a user interface to create a bare bones UI.

Install the SDK

Use one of the following methods to install Voice SDK.

  1. In Xcode, go to File > Add Package Dependencies.

  2. In the search bar, past the following URL:

    {`https://github.com/AgoraIO/AgoraRtcEngine_macOS.git`}
  3. Click Add Package, select the latest version, and click Next.

  4. For basic Voice Calling, select RtcBasic.

    If needed, also select:

    • SpatialAudio for spatial audio effects.
    • VirtualBackground for virtual background.
  5. Under Add to Target, select your project and click Add Package.

    For further information, refer to Apple's official documentation.

  1. Go to the project root directory in the terminal and run the pod init command. A text file named Podfile is generated in the project folder.

  2. Open Podfile and modify the content as follows. Replace Your App with your target name.

    platform :macos, '10.11'
      target 'Your App' do
       # For x.y.z fill in the specific SDK version number, such as 4.4.0.
       pod 'AgoraRtcEngine_macOS', 'x.y.z'
      end

    Obtain the latest version number from the release notes.

  3. Run the pod install command in the terminal to install the Voice SDK. After successful installation, the terminal shows Pod installation complete!.

  4. After successful installation, a file with the suffix .xcworkspace is generated in the project folder. Open the file through Xcode for subsequent operations.

  1. Download the latest version of the SDK from SDKs download and extract the contents.

  2. Copy the files in the libs folder of the SDK package to your project directory.

  3. Open Xcode and add the corresponding dynamic library. Make sure the Embed property of the added dynamic library is set to Embed & Sign.

    Agora SDK uses libc++ (LLVM) by default. If you need to use libstdc++ (GNU), please contact support@agora.io. The library provided by the SDK is a FAT Image, which includes 32/64-bit simulator and 32/64-bit real machine versions.

The privacy updates for App Store submissions released by Apple, require developers to declare approved reasons for using a set of APIs in their app’s privacy manifest. Agora provides a PrivacyInfo.xcprivacy file that you can include in your project.

Implement Voice Calling

This section guides you through the implementation of basic real-time audio interaction in your app.

The following figure illustrates the essential steps:

This guide includes complete sample code that demonstrates implementing basic real-time interaction. To understand the core API calls in the sample code, review the following implementation steps.

Import Agora framework

Add the following import to your swift file:

import AgoraRtcKit

Initialize the engine

Call sharedEngine(withAppId:delegate:) to create and initialize an AgoraRtcEngineKit instance. Provide your App ID and an AgoraRtcEngineDelegate implementation to handle SDK events.

var agoraKit: AgoraRtcEngineKit!
let appId = "YOUR_AGORA_APP_ID"

// Initialize the Agora engine
func initializeAgoraVoiceSDK() {
  agoraKit = AgoraRtcEngineKit.sharedEngine(withAppId: appId, delegate: self)
}

Join a channel

To join a channel, call joinChannel with the following parameters:

  • Channel name: The name of the channel to join. Clients that pass the same channel name join the same channel. If a channel with the specified name does not exist, it is created when the first user joins.

  • Authentication token: A dynamic key that authenticates a user when the client joins a channel. In a production environment, you obtain a token from a token server in your security infrastructure. For the purpose of this guide Generate a temporary token.

  • User ID: A 32-bit signed integer that identifies a user in the channel. You can specify a unique user ID for each user yourself. If you set the user ID to 0 when joining a channel, the SDK generates a random number for the user ID and returns the value in the didJoinChannel callback.

  • Channel media options: Configure AgoraRtcChannelMediaOptions to define publishing and subscription settings, optimize performance for your specific use-case, and set optional parameters.

For Voice Calling, set the channelProfile to .communication and the clientRoleType to .broadcaster.

let channelName = "demo"  // Replace with your actual channel name
let token = "<Authentication token>" // Replace with your token

func joinChannel() {
  let options = AgoraRtcChannelMediaOptions()
  options.channelProfile = .communication
  // Set user role to broadcaster; to set user role to audience, keep the default value
  options.clientRoleType = .broadcaster
  // Publish microphone audio
  options.publishMicrophoneTrack = true
  // Automatically subscribe to all audio streams
  options.autoSubscribeAudio = true
  // Join the channel using a temporary token and channel name
  agoraKit.joinChannel(
    byToken: token,
    channelId: channelName,
    uid: 0,
    mediaOptions: options
  )
}

Subscribe to Voice SDK events

The Voice SDK provides a delegate for handling channel events. To use it, conform to the AgoraRtcEngineDelegate protocol in your class and implement the event methods you want to handle. The following code implements the didJoinChannel, didOfflineOfUid, and didJoinedOfUid callbacks:

To ensure that you receive all Voice SDK events, set the Agora Engine event handler before joining a channel.

// Extension for handling Agora SDK callbacks
extension ViewController: AgoraRtcEngineDelegate {

  // Triggered when the local user successfully joins a channel
  func rtcEngine(_ engine: AgoraRtcEngineKit, didJoinChannel channel: String, withUid uid: UInt, elapsed: Int) {
    print("Successfully joined channel: \(channel) with UID: \(uid)")
  }

  // Triggered when a remote user joins the channel
  func rtcEngine(_ engine: AgoraRtcEngineKit, didJoinedOfUid uid: UInt, elapsed: Int) {
    print("User \(uid) joined after \(elapsed) milliseconds")
  }
  // Triggered when a remote user leaves the channel
  func rtcEngine(_ engine: AgoraRtcEngineKit, didOfflineOfUid uid: UInt, reason: AgoraUserOfflineReason) {
    print("User \(uid) left: Reason -> \(reason)")
  }
}

To learn about the other SDK events, see AgoraRtcEngineDelegate.

Display the local video

Call setupLocalVideo to initialize the local view and set the local video display properties.

// Configures and starts displaying the local video feed
func setupLocalVideo() {
  let videoCanvas = AgoraRtcVideoCanvas()
  videoCanvas.view = localView
  videoCanvas.uid = 0 // UID 0 is assigned to the local user
  videoCanvas.renderMode = .hidden
  agoraKit.setupLocalVideo(videoCanvas)
}

Display remote video

To initialize the remote user view, call setupRemoteVideo and set the local display properties for the remote user. Use the didJoinedOfUid callback to get the UID of the remote user.

func setupRemoteVideo(uid: UInt, view: UIView?) {
  let videoCanvas = AgoraRtcVideoCanvas()
  videoCanvas.uid = uid
  videoCanvas.view = view // Assign view for joining, set to nil for leaving
  videoCanvas.renderMode = .hidden
  agoraKit.setupRemoteVideo(videoCanvas)
}

Handle permissions

To access the camera and microphone on macOS devices, add the required permissions for real-time interaction. Open the info.plist file from the project navigation bar, edit the property list, to add the required permissions. These permissions are optional. However, if you do not add these permissions, you will not be able to use the corresponding devices.

KeyTypeValue
Privacy - Microphone Usage DescriptionStringFor the purpose of using the microphone. For example, for a call or live interactive streaming session.
  • If your project depends on third-party plugins or libraries, such as a third-party camera library, and the signature of the plug-in or library is inconsistent with the signature of the project, check the Hardened Runtime settings. Specifically, review and potentially disable Runtime Exceptions and Library Validation in the project configuration.
  • For further information, refer to Preparing your app for distribution.

Configure your macOS project settings by navigating to TARGETS > Project Name > Signing & Capabilities. Enable App Sandbox and Hardened Runtime, and add the necessary permissions as follows:

CapabilityCategoryPermission
App SandboxNetwork
  • Incoming Connections (Server)
  • Outgoing Connections (Client)
App SandboxHardware
  • Camera
  • Audio Input
Hardened RuntimeResource Access
  • Camera
  • Audio Input

Start and close the app

When the user launches the app, it joins the channel and starts Voice Calling. When the user closes the app, it leaves the channel and ends Voice Calling.

  1. To start Voice Calling, call the following methods:

    // Initialize the Agora engine
    initializeAgoraVoiceSDK()
    // Join the channel
    joinChannel()
  2. To leave the channel and release SDK resources when the app is closed, call the following methods:

    // Leave the channel and release session-related resources
    agoraKit.leaveChannel(nil)
    // Release all resources used by the Agora SDK
    AgoraRtcEngineKit.destroy()

After destroying the engine, you can no longer use SDK methods and callbacks. To use the real-time interaction functions again, create a new engine. See Initialize the engine for details.

Complete sample code

A complete code sample demonstrating the basic process of real-time interaction is provided for your reference. Copy the following code into your ViewController.swift file:

Create a user interface

Based on your use-case, create a user interface for your project.

The following example uses a UILabel to display the current app status. To use this interface, replace the contents of the ViewController.swift file with the following code:

Sample code to create the user interface

import UIKit

class ViewController: UIViewController {
  var statusLabel: UILabel!

  override func viewDidLoad() {
    super.viewDidLoad()

    // Set up user interface
    setupUI();
  }

  func setupUI() {
    let mainView = UIView(frame: view.bounds)
    mainView.backgroundColor = .black

    statusLabel = UILabel(frame: mainView.bounds)
    statusLabel.text = "Waiting for other user"
    statusLabel.textColor = .white
    statusLabel.textAlignment = .center
    statusLabel.autoresizingMask = [.flexibleWidth, .flexibleHeight]

    mainView.addSubview(statusLabel)
    view.addSubview(mainView)
  }
}

Test the sample code

Take the following steps to test the sample code:

  1. In your code update the appId and token, with the app ID and temporary token you obtained from Agora Console. Use the same channelName you filled in when generating the temporary token.

  2. Click Build to run your project and wait a few seconds for the app installation to complete.

  3. Allow the app to access the device's microphone.

  4. On a second macOS device, repeat the previous steps to install and launch the app. Alternatively, use the Web demo to join the same channel and test the following use-cases:

    • If users on both devices join the channel as hosts, they can hear each other.
    • If one user joins as host and the other as audience, the audience can hear the host.

Reference

This section contains content that completes the information on this page, or points you to documentation that explains other aspects to this product.

  • If a firewall is deployed in your network environment, refer to Connect with Cloud Proxy to use Agora services normally.

Next steps

After implementing the quickstart sample, read the following documents to learn more:

  • To ensure communication security in a test or production environment, best practice is to obtain and use a token from an authentication server. For details, see Secure authentication with tokens.

Sample project

Agora provides open source sample projects on GitHub for your reference. Download or view the JoinChannelAudio project for a more detailed example.

API reference

See also