node-grumble

node-grumble is a Node.js client for Mumble written in Typescript. The name is inspired by the Mumble Server implementation in Go called Grumble.

This package is a rewrite from scratch and some refactors from code copied from the NoodleJS package, which was also an inspiration for this project.

This library is still new and there are a lot of unstabilities. Expect Breaking Changes.

Features

• [ ] Documentation
• [x] Type-safe Event Driven Programming
  • [x] Typed Connection, Close and Error events from Socket
  • [x] Typed protobuf events from Mumble Server
  • [x] Promises for wrapping connection state
  • [ ] Observables to watch changes in server state
• Channel Features
  • [ ] Set Channel
  • [ ] Listen multiple channels
  • [ ] Observe channel changes
• User Features
  • [ ] List users in the server
  • [ ] List users in a channel
  • [ ] Observe changes in users states
• Text Features
  • [x] Send text to a Channel
  • [ ] Send text to a User
• Voice Features
  • [x] Play audio file
  • [x] Volume control
  • [x] Opus Support Only
  • [x] Bitrate optimization
  • [ ] Mute / Unmute
  • [ ] Process incoming voice
  • [ ] Real-time list of speaking users as Observable

Usage

yarn add node-grumble

• Javascript example:

const { NodeGrumble, Events } = require('node-grumble');

const grumble = NodeGrumble.create({
  url: String(process.env.MUMBLE_SERVER_URL),
  name: String(process.env.MUMBLE_CLIENT_NAME),
});

grumble.on(Events.Error, (error) => {
  console.error('Client errored:', error);
});

grumble.on(Events.Packet, (packet) => {
  console.log(packet.type);
  console.log(packet.message);
});

grumble.on(MessageType.UserState, (userState) => {
  console.log(`UserState packet received: ${userState.name}`);
});

grumble.on(Events.Close, () => {
  console.log('Connection got closed.');
});

const connection = await grumble.connect();

connection.sendTextMessage('Hey you.');

await connection.playFile('./audio/your-favorite-2020-audio.mp3', 0.8);

connection.disconnect();

• Typescript example:

import { NodeGrumble, Events, MessageType } from 'node-grumble';

const grumble = NodeGrumble.create({
  url: String(process.env.MUMBLE_SERVER_URL),
  name: String(process.env.MUMBLE_CLIENT_NAME),
});

grumble.on(Events.Error, (error) => {
  console.error('Client errored:', error);
});

grumble.on(Events.Packet, (packet) => {
  console.log(packet.type);
  console.log(packet.message);
});

grumble.on(MessageType.UserState, (userState) => {
  console.log(`UserState packet received: ${userState.name}`);
});

grumble.on(Events.Close, () => {
  console.log('Connection got closed.');
});

const connection = await grumble.connect();

connection.sendTextMessage('Hey you.');

await connection.playFile('./audio/your-favorite-2020-audio.mp3', 0.8);

connection.disconnect();

Also check src/example for another Typescript example.

Why?

I communicate with my friends in Brazil through Mumble for voice chat. Even more in 2020 since we're mostly home. We used Discord in the past but it disappointed us quite a lot back then, so @guilhermelimak decided to deploy a mumble server for us to use instead.

We also create some bots to use so it enhances our experience using mumble.

We used the NoodleJS library before, but we've got used to write Typescript applications for the last 3 years in our jobs, so managing voice activity and chat activity without any type checking was a huge pain. There are some // @ts-ignore's around our bot servers together with some code that can potentially fail.

I thought about contributing back to NoodleJS, but a complete typescript rewrite sounded like too much for a first contribution for me. I also don't trust that much packages that offer type definitions but are written in JS, as the type definitions often mismatch the actual implementation, requiring to use things such as tsd to make sure it is correct.The volume controls when playing audio with NoodleJS didn't seem to work (at the time of this writing).

Besides all of that, I wanted to learn a bit more about the UDP protocol, Protocol Buffers and Audio Streaming. Unfortunately, my work rarely exposes me to this type of challenges. node-grumble is my attempt on learning a bit more about the above, while also bringing a better development experience for me and my friends while we use Mumble.

Credits

• All the NoodleJS developers, it wouldn't happen without much of the code I stole borrowed from them.
• Rafael Martins, for bootstraping one of the bots that motivated me to end up writing this.
• Guilherme Lima, for accepting me breaking his murmur instance with this and for exposing me to Mumble.
• Armando Magalhaes (me), for spending my time writing and testing all of this.