NodeCG
Create broadcast graphics using Node.js and a browser
NodeCG is a broadcast graphics framework and application. It enables you to write complex, dynamic broadcast graphics
using the web platform. NodeCG has no graphics or drawing primitives of its own. Instead, NodeCG provides
a structure for your code and an API to facilitate moving data between the dashboard, the server, and your graphics.
It makes no assumptions about how to best code a graphic, and gives you complete freedom to use whatever libraries,
frameworks, tools, and methodologies you want. As such, NodeCG graphics can be rendered in any environment that
can render HTML, including:
Don't see your preferred streaming software on this list? NodeCG graphics require Chrome 49 or newer. If your streaming software's implementation of browser source uses a build of CEF that is based on at least Chrome 49, chances are that NodeCG graphics will work in it. You can check what version of Chrome your streaming software uses for its browser sources by opening whatversion.net/chrome as a browser source.
Looking for a list of NodeCG bundles and resources? Check out awesome-nodecg.
Have questions about NodeCG, or just want to say 'hi'? Join our Discord server!
Who should use NodeCG?
NodeCG is a programming framework. As such, it's most useful to developers capable of creating their own graphics
using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. NodeCG's ecosystem of bundles is quite small.
Those expecting to download NodeCG and use off-the-shelf bundles to get a complete stream overlay
without writing any code may be disappointed.
Table of Contents
Install
Install Node.js (version 8.3 or greater) & npm (version 2 or greater).
Then, run the following commands from a terminal (command prompt):
npm install -g bower
git clone https://github.com/nodecg/nodecg.git
cd nodecg
npm install --production
bower install
node index.js
Looking to get started developing bundles? Check out the Quick Start tutorial.
To run NodeCG in production, pm2 is recommended.
Installing bundles
NodeCG's individual graphics packages are called bundles. They can be installed either from the command-line
(via nodecg-cli), or by simply placing the folder into the ./bundles
directory.
The easiest way to install bundles is via the command-line using nodecg-cli.
You will need to install nodecg-cli before you can use the nodecg
terminal commands.
(Once you have nodecg-cli installed) To install a bundle from Github, enter the owner and repository name:
nodecg install lange/lange-notify
... to install a bundle from Bitbucket, enter the owner and repository name prefixed with bitbucket:
nodecg install bitbucket:username/repo-name
... to install a bundle from any other git provider, enter the git URL:
nodecg install https://gitlab.com/username/repo-name.git
Bundles are just directories inside the ./bundles
folder.
They can always be added and removed by simply moving them into or out of that folder.
Avoid installing or uninstalling bundles while NodeCG is running.
Usage
- Install a bundle to the
bundles
folder. - Start NodeCG (
node index.js
or nodecg start
if you have nodecg-cli installed). - Open the dashboard (
http://localhost:9090
by default). - Open a graphic from the "Graphics" menu.
- You can configure NodeCG by creating and editing cfg/nodecg.json.
Configuration
./cfg/nodecg.json
is an optional file that you can create to configure NodeCG.
See the NodeCG Configuration tutorial for more information on configuring NodeCG.
Bundles
Each NodeCG graphic is called a bundle. A bundle has one or more of the following:
- Graphics: Visual elements to render and broadcast.
- Dashboard Panels: Controls used to manipulate and manage the bundle.
- Extension: Server-side code.
A bundle can have multiple graphics and dashboard panels, and an extension can be split up into multiple files.
If you wish to quickly start a new bundle from a template, check out the Quick Start tutorial.
Concepts and Terminology
A breakdown of the terminology and concepts used inside NodeCG can be found here, on the NodeCG website.
Maintainers
Designers
Acknowledgements
Contribute
Please contribute! This is an open source project. If you would like to report a bug or suggest a feature, open an issue. Or, to open a Pull Request:
- Fork it (http://github.com/nodecg/nodecg/fork)
- Create your feature branch (
git checkout -b my-new-feature
) - Commit your changes (
git commit -am 'Add some feature'
) - Push to the branch (
git push origin my-new-feature
) - Create a new Pull Request
Note: Make sure you run npm install
in the root directory without the --production
flag to ensure all devDependencies
are installed.
Before creating your pull request:
- Ensure your code matches our existing style using our provided EditorConfig options.
- Ensure the existing tests pass, or are updated appropriately, with
npm test
. - For new features, you should add new tests.
Building and viewing the docs locally
Documentation contributions are always welcome and very appreciated!
NodeCG's documentation site, nodecg.com, is automatically generated based on NodeCG's JSDoc comments and the markdown files in the tutorials
folder. The table of contents in this README is also automatically generated.
To build the docs, run the following commands (after you have cloned NodeCG and installed its dependencies via npm install
):
npm run docs:build
After that, you can open docs/index.html
directly in your web browser.
Once you've made your changes, follow the steps above in the Contribute section to open a pull request.
Running tests locally
You no longer need Selenium to run browser integration tests. Chromium is installed with
npm install
/npm ci
, and that's all required for tests.
Then just run npm test
Code of Conduct
Note that all contributions and discussions around NodeCG take place under our Code of Conduct.