20 Conferencing API Programming Guide — August 2006
Application Development Guidelines
devices at once. A conference device and a party device are independent; that is, you can open a
party device without first opening a conference device.
5.3 Creating a Conference
The following steps describe how to create a conference. See the Glossary for information on the
terms used here. See the Conferencing API Library Reference for details on conferencing functions
and data structures.
Note: These steps provide general guidelines. They do not cover all tasks required to write a conferencing
application.
1. Use the asynchronous programming model, and enable a Standard Runtime Library (SRL)
event handler for the various devices used by the conferencing software (virtual board,
conference, and party) via sr_enbhdlr().
2. Open the virtual board device handle using cnf_Open(). The device naming convention for
the virtual board is cnfBx, where x is the board number starting at 1. You must have a virtual
board device before you can open a conference device or a party device.
3. Get a count of the resources on this board using cnf_GetDeviceCount( ). This count is a
snapshot in time. The CNF_DEVICE_COUNT_INFO data structure contains information
about the number of devices on this board, such as the maximum number of conferences and
parties, as well as the number of free conferences and free parties. The maximum number of
conferences and parties supported varies with the Intel NetStructure® Host Media Processing
software license in use and, if applicable, the media load in use on the board. Having a count of
the resources enables you to properly manage these resources.
4. If desired, specify attributes for the board using cnf_SetAttributes( ). Attributes are contained
in the CNF_ATTR data structure. Use cnf_GetAttributes() to return the current attributes for
the board.
5. If desired, enable notification events for the board using cnf_EnableEvents( ). Events are
contained in the CNF_EVENT_INFO data structure. For example, the application can be
notified dynamically whenever a conference is opened or a party is added.
6. At this point, you can choose to open and set up all conferences; or you can choose to open one
conference at a time as needed. Similarly, you can also choose to open and set up all parties, or
open one party at a time as needed. The steps that follow show how to open one conference,
then add a party to this opened conference. Repeat the steps as appropriate for your use case.
7. Using cnf_OpenConference( ), create a new conference to which parties will be added. This
function takes the virtual board device handle returned by cnf_Open() as an argument. It
returns a unique SRL device handle for the conference. The conference created consumes a
conference resource.
8. If desired, specify attributes for the conference using cnf_SetAttributes( ). Attributes are
contained in the CNF_ATTR data structure. Use cnf_GetAttributes() to return the current
attributes for the conference.
9. If desired, enable notification events for the conference using cnf_EnableEvents( ). Events
are contained in the CNF_EVENT_INFO data structure.
10. Open a party device handle using cnf_OpenParty( ). This function returns a unique SRL
device handle for the party.