Remote control VDO.Ninja using an HTTP or Websocket interface; now Companion compatible.

Support for Companion.Ninja is now built into VDO.Ninja (v19), with a set of hard-coded commands. The available API commands and their related options are listed further down. The index.html file contains sample code with an interactive layer, where you can press buttons to send commands to VDO.Ninja. HTTP and Websocket methods of sending commands are provided as examples. Details of those two methods are also below.

To use the integrated command set and API, just add &api=XXXXXX to the VDO.Ninja link you wish to remotely control, like you would any other parameter. ie: https://vdo.ninja?api=XXXXXX The API value needs to match the value used by Companion Ninja and should be kept private. Then just send commands however you may wish.

Note: This API should also work with the vdo.ninja/beta/mixer?api=XXXXX page.

A fantastic user in the community also has made a BitFocus-Companion module for this VDO.Ninja API. If you wish to avoid doing custom API calls, definitely give the module a go.

https://github.com/bitfocus/companion-module-vdo-ninja

You can also use the Companion Ninja service with your own custom set of commands if desired. You would wrap VDO.Ninja into an IFRAME, and use the parent-window to relay commands to VDO.Ninja and Companion Ninja. You can speak to VDO.Ninja via the IFRAME API in that case, to have access to the more exhaustive set of remote control options.

An example of this approach can be found here:

https://github.com/steveseguin/Companion-Ninja/blob/main/iframe_api_customizable_example.html

Also note, the IFRAME API used by VDO.Ninja (v19.1) is also largely backwards compatible with the Companion Ninja API. You can find the IFRAME developer sandbox here: https://vdo.ninja/beta/iframe to get a sense of what is available.

The API is likely to change over time, as this is still early days and user feedback with direct how things evolve. More commands added on request.

The HTTP API uses GET-requests (not POST/PUT), and is structured in a way to be compatible with existing hotkey control software.

https://api.vdo.ninja/{apiID}/{action}/{target}/{value}

or

https://api.vdo.ninja/{apiID}/{action}/{value}

or

https://api.vdo.ninja/{apiID}/{action}

Any field can be replaced with "null", if no value is being passed to it. Double slashes will cause issues though, so avoid those.

If using the Websocket API, this accepts JSON-based commands

connect to: wss://api.vdo.ninja:443

On connection, send: {"join": $apiID }, where $apiID is your api ID.

• be sure to stringify objects as JSON before sending over the websocket connection. ie: JSON.stringify(object)

Once joined, you can then issue commands at will, such as this object

{
  "action":"reload",
  "value": "true",
  "target" "null"
}

Be sure to implement reconnection logic with the websocket connection, as it will timeout every minute or so by default otherwise. You will need to rejoin after a timeout.

If you want to simply listen to events, using SSE connections, you can do so using the https://api.vdo.ninja/sse/APIKEYHERE endpoint.

Sample Javascript code is below:

const apiID = "APIKEYHERE";
const eventSource = new EventSource(`https://api.vdo.ninja/sse/${apiID}`);
eventSource.onmessage = function(event) {
 console.log(JSON.parse(event.data));
};
eventSource.onerror = function(error) {
  console.error('SSE connection error:', error);
  eventSource.close();
};

The API and its commands are currently in a DRAFT form, and as such, may/will undergo change.

layout | null | {** see below}

You can create an array of layouts, set them via the URL parameters in VDO.Ninja, and then switch between them remotely using the API.

The value passed to the API can either be a number, representing the position in the array of the layout you want to activate, or it can be a single layout object.

{action: "layout", value:3} or {action: "layout", value:[{"x":0,"y":0,"w":100,"h":100,"slot":0}]}

layout 0 is the auto mixer
layout 1 is the first custom layout
layout 2 is the second custom layout
etc

If using the mixer app, the layout objects are controlled via the mixer app itself, so you don't need to pass an object in that case to the URL.

?layouts=[[{"x":0,"y":0,"w":100,"h":100,"slot":0}],[{"x":0,"y":0,"w":100,"h":100,"slot":1}],[{"x":0,"y":0,"w":100,"h":100,"slot":2}],[{"x":0,"y":0,"w":100,"h":100,"slot":3}],[{"x":0,"y":0,"w":50,"h":100,"c":false,"slot":0},{"x":50,"y":0,"w":50,"h":100,"c":false,"slot":1}],[{"x":0,"y":0,"w":100,"h":100,"z":0,"c":false,"slot":1},{"x":70,"y":70,"w":30,"h":30,"z":1,"c":true,"slot":0}],[{"x":0,"y":0,"w":50,"h":50,"c":true,"slot":0},{"x":50,"y":0,"w":50,"h":50,"c":true,"slot":1},{"x":0,"y":50,"w":50,"h":50,"c":true,"slot":2},{"x":50,"y":50,"w":50,"h":50,"c":true,"slot":3}],[{"x":0,"y":16.667,"w":66.667,"h":66.667,"c":true,"slot":0},{"x":66.667,"y":0,"w":33.333,"h":33.333,"c":true,"slot":1},{"x":66.667,"y":33.333,"w":33.333,"h":33.333,"c":true,"slot":2},{"x":66.667,"y":66.667,"w":33.333,"h":33.333,"c":true,"slot":3}]]

Some of these layout features are only available with Version 22 of VDO.Ninja; specifically the &layouts= parameter is available on v22.5 or newer only.

See https://docs.vdo.ninja/advanced-settings/director-parameters/and-layouts for details and better documentation on this layout function.

The guest slot (1 to 99) or the guests's stream ID can be used as a target.

Currently toggling is primarily available for options; on/off absolute value options will be coming soon.

Start with Version 22 of VDO.Ninja, the API requestes will have a response reflecting the state of the request.

For example, if toggling a mic of a guest, the response of the HTTP API request will be true or false, based on whether the mic is now muted or not. If the request is an object, such as when using getDetails, you'll get a JSON response instead of basic text. There's also getGuestList, which can be useful for getting a set of possible guest slot positional values, along with its corresponding stream ID and label.

Basic text/word responses are such things as true, false, null, fail, {somevalue}, or timeout. Timeout occurs if there's no listener or no response to a request; the system will stop the callback and fail to a timeout after 1-second.

If the request was made via Websockets, instead of the HTTP request, you'll get a JSON object back that contains the same data, along with the original request, including custom data fields. These custom data fields, such as data.cid = 3124, can be used to link requests with the callback, if precision with the requests is needed.

There is no time-out when using Websockets; the callback can happen seconds or minutes later even, although normally a response should be expected in under a second as well.