Shaka Upgrade Guide, v2.3 => v2.4

This is a detailed guide for upgrading from Shaka Player v2.3 to v2.4. Feel free to skim or to search for the class and method names you are using in your application.

What's New in v2.4?

Shaka v2.4 introduces several improvements over v2.3, including:

  • Support for CEA captions in TS content
  • Support for TTML and VTT regions
  • A video element is no longer required when Player is constructed
  • New attach() and detach() methods have been added to Player to manage attachment to video elements
  • Fetch is now preferred over XHR when available
  • Network requests are now abortable
  • Live stream playback can begin at a negative offset from the live edge

Promise polyfill for IE

Prior to v2.4, we had our own polyfill of Promise for IE 11 support. In v2.4, we have dropped that polyfill. To support IE 11 in your application, you MUST install a Promise polyfill separately. We recommend es6-promise-polyfill for that purpose.

Text parser plugin API changes

The TextParser plugin API has changed.

The segmentStart attribute of shakaExtern.TextParser.TimeContext is now nullable. Your plugin will receive a segmentStart of null if the information is not available, as is the case in HLS.

Text-parsing plugins that produce region information will need to be updated to use the new shaka.text.CueRegion class. The new structure allows for more accurate representation of both TTML and VTT regions.

All application-specific text-parsing plugins MUST to be updated. v2.4 does not have backward compatibility for this!

See shaka.extern.TextParser.TimeContext and shaka.text.CueRegion for details.

Text displayer plugin API changes

The TextDisplayer plugin API has changed.

TextDisplayer plugins need to handle changes to the shakaExtern.CueRegion structure. The new structure allows for more accurate representation of both TTML and VTT regions.

All application-specific TextDisplayer plugins MUST to be updated. v2.4 does not have backward compatibility for this!

See shaka.extern.CueRegion for details.

NetworkingEngine API changes

In v2.3, the request() method on shaka.net.NetworkingEngine returned a Promise. Now, in v2.4, it returns an instance of shakaExtern.IAbortableOperation, which contains a Promise.

All applications which make application-level requests via NetworkingEngine SHOULD update to the new API. Support for the old API will be removed in v2.5.

// v2.3:
player.getNetworkingEngine().request(type, request).then((response) => {
  // ...
});

// v2.4:
let operation = player.getNetworkingEngine().request(type, request);
// Use operation.promise to get the response.
operation.promise.then((response) => {
  // ...
});
// The operation can also be aborted on some condition.
onSomeOtherCondition(() => {
  operation.abort();
});

Backward compatibility is provided in the v2.4 releases by adding .then and .catch methods to the return value from request().

Network scheme plugin API changes

In v2.4, we changed the API for network scheme plugins.

These plugins now return an instance of shakaExtern.IAbortableOperation. We suggest using the utility shaka.util.AbortableOperation for convenience.

We also introduced an additional parameter for network scheme plugins to identify the request type.

All applications which have application-level network scheme plugins SHOULD update to the new API. Support for the old API will be removed in v2.5.

// v2.3
function fooPlugin(uri, request) {
  return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
    // ...
  });
}
shaka.net.NetworkingEngine.registerScheme('foo', fooPlugin);

// v2.4
function fooPlugin(uri, request, requestType) {
  let rejectCallback = null;

  const promise = new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
    rejectCallback = reject;

    // Use this if you have a need for it.  Ignore it otherwise.
    if (requestType == shaka.net.NetworkingEngine.RequestType.MANIFEST) {
      // ...
    } else {
      // ...
    }

    // ...
  });

  const abort = () => {
    // Abort the operation.
    // ...

    // Reject the Promise.
    rejectCallback(new shaka.util.Error(
        shaka.util.Error.Severity.RECOVERABLE,
        shaka.util.Error.Category.NETWORK,
        shaka.util.Error.Code.OPERATION_ABORTED));
  };

  return new shaka.util.AbortableOperation(promise, abort);
}
shaka.net.NetworkingEngine.registerScheme('foo', fooPlugin);

Manifest parser plugin API changes

The API for shaka.media.PresentationTimeline has changed. ManifestParser plugins that use these methods MUST be updated:

  • setAvailabilityStart() was renamed to setUserSeekStart().
  • notifySegments() now takes a reference array and a boolean called isFirstPeriod, instead of a period start time and a reference array.