@make-live/toolkit

An npm module to help Make Live customers create a custom HTML UI for their hosted experience.

Install

The Make Live Toolkit can be integrated into an existing website. Ideally, we recommend setting up a new website with something like Parcel or Vite. You can find a working example application built using Parcel and the Make Live Toolkit here.

To install with npm:

npm install --save @make-live/toolkit

To install with Yarn:

yarn add @make-live/toolkit

Commands

There are two different type of commands your application can send at the moment.

CONSOLE_COMMAND

This command enables you to use the Unreal Engine console to run commands. Please see the Unreal Engine documentation for further details.

instance.sendCommand({
  data: "stat fps",
  type: "CONSOLE_COMMAND",
});

INTERACTION_COMMAND

This command enables you to use send a customer Unreal Engine command that is bespoke to your application. For example, a command that turns a light on or off, or changes the time of day, the possibilities are endless. Please see the Unreal Engine documentation for further details.

instance.sendCommand({
  data: "MyCustomEvent",
  type: "INTERACTION_COMMAND",
});

instance.sendCommand({
  data: {
    LoadLevel: "/Game/Maps/Level_2",
    PlayerCharacter: {
      Name: "Shinbi",
      Skin: "Dynasty",
    },
  },
  type: "INTERACTION_COMMAND",
});

Events

There are a variety of events your application can receive. Some of these are related to Make Live itself.

You can listen for events by calling the addEventListener function on the MakeLiveInstance object. You can add multiple event listeners if required so you can separate concerns in a larger application and just listen for a subset of events.

const instance = createInstance({
  url,
  container: viewport,
});

instance.addEventListener((event) => {
  /// do something with `event`…
});

CONNECT

This event is from Make Live itself and is broadcast when it's time for your application to come to life. Typically, you would enable/show your UI once receiving this as the user is able to interact with the experience.

instance.addEventListener((event) => {
  if (event.type === "CONNECT") {
    /// show UI or start other tasks
  }
});

DISCONNECT

This event is from Make Live itself and is broadcast when it's time for your application shut down. Typically, you would disable/hide your UI once receiving this as the user is unable to interact with the experience. Examples of when this could happen are there the user's session expiring or some other issue causing your experience to no longer continue.

instance.addEventListener((event) => {
  if (event.type === "DISCONNECT") {
    /// show UI or start other tasks
  }
});

RESPONSE

This event is from your Unreal Engine application (via Make Live) and is broadcast when your application wants to alert the UI to something interesting. Maybe the user has entered a certain area and you need to change the UI to show different controls or data? For more information please see the Unreal Engine documentation.

instance.addEventListener((event) => {
  if (event.type === "RESPONSE") {
    // RESPONSE event data will always be a JSON `string`.
    const data = JSON.parse(event.data);
    /// do something with the data
  }
});