Comment

What is Comment?

Comment is a platform where users can create their own radio channels and broadcast to other users. There are currently several categories that users can choose between, these are as follows: Sport, Rock, Jazz, Pop, Tjööt and more to come!

To be able to create a channel, it is required to have a registered account which can be created through the application. Requirements to create an account consist of an email address and password. It is however possible to view other’s broadcasts as a guest user. Once a user either logs in or enters as a guest, the app transitions to a page which displays all live channels within each respective category. The user may then join or leave any channel.

Comment is currently in an early phase of development and does not have all planned features implemented at this point. It does however have basic functionality such as account creation, channel creation and the ability to stream sound to multiple clients.

Why is the project useful?

Comment aims to provide a combination of both traditional podcasts but also live sessions (in the form of radio channels), allowing users to interact with their favorite streamer and the broadcaster to interact with their fans. As the cherry on the top, it is free of charge and available for anyone to use.

How users can get started with the project

To get started and setup your own test environment is relatively simple: Setup your local network so that it accepts and properly forward UDP/TCP traffic on ports 5604, 5605. Follow the flutter guide on how to configure your IDE with flutter, and clone the repository.

This project uses Flutter v2 so if you have installed flutter V3 or newer then run this command:

flutter downgrade 2.10 # downgrades flutter to version 2.10.5

If this fails then try going to the flutter directory and do git checkout 2.10.5 or download from the site.

Use this command to verify that everything is installed correctly:

flutter doctor

Setup and configure a postgres database with the SQL file server/server.sql provided from the repo. Alternatively, if you have docker you can run docker-compose up db to setup a development postgres db container.

In the lib folder copy and rename environment.dart.example to environment.dart. Update lib/environment.dart with db configs and the ip to your db/stream servers. For development, you need to use your device's local ip which can be found with the command ipconfig(windows) or ifconfig (Unix), "localhost" will not work since the android emulator will not find it.

Afterwards you can start the servers by running the command dart run <file> on the following files found in server/:

• Start database_server.dart
• Start stream_server.dart

Once this is done in order to run the application first start the database server and stream server. You can then download and install the apk provided in this repository or run them with the flutter commands below.

Building the project

Most IDEs like Android Studio should handle most things automatically but you can run these commands anyway. You may need to configure an Android emulator trough Android Studio for running the app.

Downloading dependencies

flutter pub get

Lint Dart code

flutter analyze

Build

flutter build apk # build for android
flutter install # install app to virtual/physical device (use adb if needed)
flutter run # builds, installs and runs the app on a device

flutter build ios # builds for ios (only on macOS)
flutter run

flutter build web # build website

Generate documentation

flutter pub global activate dartdoc #only needed to do once
flutter pub global run dartdoc

How to generate and install an APK on your android.

If you want to use the application on your physical android phone rather than the emulator, you can generate an APK (a file which represents the app), install it on your phone and then run it. This allows you to test the application on a physical device rather than solely testing it on an emulator. To generate and install the APK, follow the guide from flutter’s official website.

There's also a Github Actions workflow that also builds multiple packages and executables. To run go to the Actions tab and click "Build Application for Production" to the left. Afterwards you will see a blue banner with a "run workflow" button to the right to start it. Afterwards, you will see a new list entry that has a yellow circle which means that it's running, once it's done it will turn green. When it's done you can click it and scroll the to the buttom to find the artifacts section which is where all the files are contained!

To configure which server url the application will connect to then you need to go to the Settings tab and select the "Secrets and Variables">Actions category. You can add repository secrets by clicking the green button at the top left. You will need the variables SERVER_IP_ANDROID, SERVER_IP_IOS and SERVER_IP_DART which contains the domain/ip adress to the server.

Where users can get help with your project

For inquiries and problems with the app contact the support division of CMT Sweden.

Who maintains and contributes to the project

This project is currently maintained by CMT Sweden. Prior to this however, the project was developed and maintained by students enrolled at Chalmers University of Technology as part of a course assignment.