Customize

1. Shares and referrals

Edit the default sharing text to make it more personal and customized for each place you use it.

Megacool.Instance.Share(new MegacoolShareConfig() {
    Message = "Try to beat my score!",
});

If you want to customize a share, create a MegacoolShareConfig object and pass this as an argument to Share(MegacoolShareConfig config).

string urlString = "level5/battle?username=nbroby";
Dictionary<string, string> data = new Dictionary<string, string>();
data.Add ("welcomeText", "Nick has invited you!");
Megacool.Instance.Share(new MegacoolShareConfig {
    Url = new Uri(urlString, UriKind.Relative),
    Data = data,
});

The example above will create a share link that looks like this: https://mgcl.co/appId/level5/battle?_m=12345678&username=nbroby

When a receiver opens the app from the link, a MegacoolShare object containing the data and url will be included in the ReceivedShareOpened event.

1.3 Handling shares and events

You can specify listeners for receiving a MegacoolEvent from the server. A MegacoolEvent can contain a MegacoolShare object.

You can implement event listeners to:

reward your users for referring friends
send users to a specific location in the app
automatically make two users friends

Check out the full docs for MegacoolEvent and MegacoolShare to see all fields and methods available.

1.3.1 Receiver opens a shared link

This is an example of how to implement the event listener:

// Receiver's callback for when a share has been opened
Megacool.OnReceivedShareOpened += (MegacoolEvent megacoolEvent) => {
    Debug.Log("Event ReceivedShareOpened");
    // The user id of the sender
    string senderUserId = megacoolEvent.Data["senderUserId"];
    // Check if this is a first install
    if (megacoolEvent.FirstSession) {
        // First install on this device
        Debug.Log("First install, invited by user id: " + senderUserId);
    } else {
        // The app is already installed on this device
        Debug.Log("App opened, invited by user id: " + senderUserId);
    }
    Debug.Log("Share data: " + megacoolEvent.Share.Data);
};

1.3.2 Sender is notified about an opened link

This is an example of how to implement the event listener:

// Sender's callback for when a share has been opened
Megacool.OnSentShareOpened += (MegacoolEvent megacoolEvent) => {
    Debug.Log("Event SentShareOpened");
    // The user id of the receiver
    string receiverUserId = megacoolEvent.Data["receiverUserId"];
    // Check if this share resulted in a first install
    if (megacoolEvent.FirstSession) {
       // Receiver installed the app for the first time
       Debug.Log("Receiver installed the app, user id: " + receiverUserId);
    } else {
        // The app was already installed
        Debug.Log("Receiver opened the app, user id: " + receiverUserId);
    }
};

Note: The SDK occasionally communicates with the server, so this event is not triggered immediately. To reward a user right after a new install has occurred, you can add a "refresh" button that calls GetShares. The GetShares method is used for checking the status of sent shares, but it also requests the server for new events.

void RefreshButton() {
    Megacool.Instance.GetShares(shares => {});
}

1.3.3 Link clicked

You can improve the experience for existing users by sending them to the right location in your app immediately after they've opened the link. This is only for users that already have the app installed.

// The app has been opened from a link. Send the user instantly to
// the right location if the URL path exists.
Megacool.OnLinkClicked += (MegacoolEvent megacoolEvent) => {
    Debug.Log("Event LinkClicked");
    Debug.Log("Url: " + megacoolEvent.Data["url"]);
    Debug.Log("Invited by: " + ((MegacoolReferralCode)megacoolEvent.Data["referralCode"]).UserId);
};

Call GetShares to get the latest State of a sent share. The locally cached shares will be returned immediately and are useful to determine the total number of shares. If the function is non-null a request will be sent to the server to get the latest State update for each share.

States can be:

MegacoolShare.MegacoolShareState.Sent
MegacoolShare.MegacoolShareState.Clicked
MegacoolShare.MegacoolShareState.Opened
MegacoolShare.MegacoolShareState.Installed

Megacool.Instance.GetShares(shares => {
    for (int i = 0; i < shares.Count; i++) {
        if (shares[i].State == MegacoolShare.MegacoolShareState.Clicked){
            Debug.Log("Share sent on " + shares[i].CreatedAt + " was clicked");
        }
    }
});

You can use the share state to display the number of friends that have been invited and what the state is:

To delete local shares that you don’t need updates from anymore, simply call DeleteShares, where filter is a function with MegacoolShare as an argument. Based on State, CreatedAt, UpdatedAt etc. you can return true to delete the share object or false to keep it. Make sure GetShares has completed the request to the server before calling this, otherwise the deleted shares will just be re-added.

Megacool.Instance.DeleteShares(share => {
    return share.State == MegacoolShare.MegacoolShareState.Installed;
});

In addition to Megacool.Instance.Share, you can add custom share buttons for specific apps. This reduces the numbers of steps needed to complete a share.

1.5.1 Messages

Megacool.Instance.ShareToMessages();

1.5.2 Mail

Megacool.Instance.ShareToMail();

It's possible to customize these by passing MegacoolShareConfig as argument to the methods above.

To know when the share view completes add this code:

Megacool.Instance.CompletedSharing += () => {
    Debug.Log("Did Complete Share");
};
Megacool.Instance.DismissedSharing += () => {
    Debug.Log("Did Dismiss Share");
};
Megacool.Instance.PossiblyCompletedSharing += () => {
    Debug.Log("Share was either completed or dismissed");
};

PossiblyCompletedSharing will only be called on Android, where in most cases it's impossible for us to tell whether the share actually completed or not.

Not all apps support sharing both a link and a GIF, and we have to choose which one to include. By default the SDK will prioritize links, to ensure referrals work, but if you only want to ensure the GIFs are spread as widely as possible you can customize this behavior:

Megacool.Instance.Share(new MegacoolShareConfig() {
    Strategy = MegacoolSharingStrategy.MEDIA,
});

2. GIF customization

2.1 Types of recording

2.1.1 Time recording

Add the following line of code where you want to start a recording:

Megacool.Instance.StartRecording();

The recording will by default keep a buffer of the last 5 seconds. Old frames get overwritten by new frames. See Max Frames for editing the default setting.

To end a recording, add the following line of code:

Megacool.Instance.StopRecording();

2.1.2 Highlight recording

The highlight recording feature records the ‘most interesting’ part of your game--whether this is an awesome action sequence, or a hilarious ‘fail’. It does this by keeping track of the gameplay's intensity as determined by metrics specific to your game.

Whenever a critical event (such as scoring a point, landing a cool combo, failing in an epic way, etc.) occurs, call this function to make note of the event (and optionally, its intensity):

Megacool.Instance.RegisterScoreChange();   // without intensity
Megacool.Instance.RegisterScoreChange(42); // with intensity of 42

For easy integration, we suggest ‘piggy-backing’ off your game’s current score system by calling this function whenever the player’s score increases, with the amount that it increases by. We equate ‘intensity’ with a change in point value, but you can also experiment with assigning various intensities to events with subjective ‘cool’ value.

Add the following line of code at the beginning of your game to start capturing your highlight!

Megacool.Instance.StartRecording (new MegacoolRecordingConfig {
    OverflowStrategy = MegacoolOverflowStrategy.HIGHLIGHT,
});

2.1.3 Peak location

Different games have different paces: in one game, an awesome move might be followed immediately by bland downtime, while in another game, there might be some cool graphics or an interesting cutscene immediately afterwards. To let you adjust how much to include after the action dies down, try experimenting with the peakLocation parameter. This parameter is specific to highlight recording and controls where the ‘peak’ (or, maximum change in point value) of your highlight occurs. In the previous example, we would want the first game to have a late peak location so we don't record too much boring downtime, and the first game to have an early peak location so we make sure to record the cool after-graphics. The value of the peak location (between 0 and 1, inclusive), determines at what percentage through the recording the peak will be placed.

For example, in a recording with 10 frames, a peakLocation of 0.2 means that the peak will occur near the beginning around frame 2, and a peakLocation of 0.8 means that the peak will occur near the end around frame 8. The default peakLocation is 0.7. You can set the peak location by calling:

Megacool.Instance.StartRecording(new MegacoolRecordingConfig() {
    OverflowStrategy = MegacoolOverflowStrategy.HIGHLIGHT,
    PeakLocation = 0.5,
});

2.1.4 Capture individual frames

Capture each frame of the recording, e.g. on each user tap:

Megacool.Instance.CaptureFrame();

By default max 50 frames will be captured. If it exceeds 50 frames, old frames are overwritten until Megacool.Instance.StopRecording gets called to reset it. Add the following line of code to stop a recording:

Megacool.Instance.StopRecording();

2.1.5 Timelapse

Timelapse is identical to the normal captureFrame, except timelapse has different behavior when overflowing MaxFrames. If it's about to overflow, it will delete every other frame captured so far, and half the rate of capturing (thus only storing every second image on the first overflow, every fourth image on the next, and so on).

Megacool.Instance.CaptureFrame(new MegacoolRecordingConfig {
    OverflowStrategy = MegacoolOverflowStrategy.TIMELAPSE,
});

If you want to guarantee that a frame is added to the timelapse (like an end screen or final state of the game), pass a ForceAdd = true parameter to captureFrame like this:

Megacool.Instance.CaptureFrame(null, true);

Important: Only pass this parameter once! Normally this function returns as soon as it has spawned a thread to do the actual capture, but if you pass ForceAdd = true it will run synchronously (e.g. not return until it has actually stored the frame. This is because usually this is called as the last step before a session ends and the GIF is created, thus we need the call to complete before creating the GIF. This enables you to change visible elements on the screen after this call completes and be sure that it's not going to be included in the GIF.

2.2 Rendering preview

This creates a rendered preview of the GIF that can be displayed to the user before sharing.

Drag the MegacoolPreviewCanvas Prefab to your scene
In the script where you want to control the preview, add a public field with type MegacoolGifPreview. This will expose the megacoolGifPreview field in the inspector for the GameObject.
```
 public MegacoolGifPreview megacoolGifPreview;
```
Drag the MegacoolGifPreview GameObject onto the open field in the inspector of the GameObject you use. This will attach an instance of the MegacoolGifPreview object to the public field.

You can now call StartPreview and StopPreview to display or hide the preview.

megacoolGifPreview.StartPreview();

megacoolGifPreview.StopPreview();

2.3 Recording frame rate

Set numbers of frames to record per second. Recommended range: 1 - 10. The default is 10:

Megacool.Instance.StartRecording(new MegacoolRecordingConfig() {
    FrameRate = 8;
});

Note: This only applies to recordings made with Megacool.Instance.StartRecording, not Megacool.Instance.CaptureFrame.

Frame rate examples (with Playback frame rate: 10):

2.4 Playback frame rate

Set the number of frames per second when playing the GIF. The default is 12 frames / second. The GIF will be exported with this frame rate and it doesn't affect the recording frame rate. Setting this value higher than the frame rate causes the recording to be sped up, setting it lower means it'll be slowed down.

Megacool.Instance.StartRecording(new MegacoolRecordingConfig() {
    PlaybackFrameRate = 11,
});

2.5 Max frames

Max number of frames to record, default is 50 frames. Change the maximum amount of captured frames by setting:

Megacool.Instance.StartRecording(new MegacoolRecordingConfig() {
    MaxFrames = 25,
});

2.6 Delay last frame

Set a delay (in milliseconds) for the last frame of the GIF. The default is 1 second to give a natural break before the GIF loops again.

Megacool.Instance.StartRecording(new MegacoolRecordingConfig() {
    LastFrameDelay = 2000,
});

2.7 Last frame overlay

With last frame overlay you can add a transparent image on top of the last GIF frame.

+ =

Create a folder called StreamingAssets if you don't have it already and add the overlay image to the folder. Then call:

Megacool.Instance.StartRecording(new MegacoolRecordingConfig() {
    LastFrameOverlay = "overlay.png",
});

2.8 Color table

A gif consists of 256 colors and there are three different ways we can compute those colors, with slightly varying quality and performance tradeoffs. Default is dynamic.

2.8.1 Dynamic

The frames are analyzed before encoding, yielding a good balance between quality and speed. This is the default.

2.8.2 Analyze first

The frames are analyzed before encoding to generate a representative color table. This requires more CPU to create the GIF, but often yields better results when a GIF contains many shades of the same color. This option is only available on iOS, on Android the dynamic color table will be used instead.

Go to Window -> Megacool -> Configuration -> GIF Color Table and select Gif Color Table Analyze First. It can also be set programmatically:

Megacool.Instance.GifColorTable = Megacool.GifColorTableType.GifColorTableAnalyzeFirst;

2.9 Recording customization

Our Unity SDK will by default record everything that happens on screen if it's capable of it, otherwise it'll fall back to copying whatever is shown by the main camera. If you don't have a main camera or want your recording to include or exclude certain elements, add the MegacoolManager script to the camera you want to record from, and hide or include elements with that camera's culling mask.

3. Save recordings

Being able to save and resume recordings is useful for combining multiple game sessions together. These recordings are stored to disk to be retrieved and potentially resumed later. This is a great case for turn-based games like Words with Friends where waiting for the other user to finish the round could take many hours, and still create a GIF of the whole game play.

3.1 Start and resume a recording

All completed recordings will by default be deleted whenever a new recording is started with either Megacool.Instance.CaptureFrame or Megacool.Instance.StartRecording. To save a recording you can set Megacool.Instance.KeepCompletedRecordings = true;

To save multiple recordings you can set a RecordingId in the config object at StartRecording(MegacoolRecordingConfig config) or CaptureFrame(MegacoolFrameCaptureConfig config). The RecordingId can be anything you prefer, for instance a name of the current level like "level3".

A recording with a given RecordingId can be resumed until Megacool.Instance.StopRecording is called. After calling Megacool.Instance.StopRecording you can either share the recording or start a new one from scratch with the same RecordingId.

//Save recording of level 3 to disk
Megacool.Instance.KeepCompletedRecordings = true;
Megacool.Instance.StartRecording(new MegacoolRecordingConfig() {
    RcordingId: "level3",
});

3.2 Pause recording

When you want to pause a recording that can be continued later, you call PauseRecording.

Megacool.Instance.PauseRecording();

3.3 Delete recording

DeleteRecording will remove any frames of the recording in memory and on disk. Both completed and incomplete recordings will take space on disk, thus particularly if you're using Megacool.Instance.KeepCompletedRecordings = true; you might want to provide an interface to your users for removing recordings they don't care about anymore to free up space for new recordings.

Megacool.Instance.DeleteRecording("level3");

3.4 Show a GIF from a specific recording

To show a GIF from a specific recording:

Megacool.Instance.StartPreview("level3");

To share a GIF from a specific recording you pass the RecordingId as a parameter to Share(MegacoolShareConfig config).

Megacool.Instance.Share(new MegacoolShareConfig() {
    RecordingId = "level3"
});

Note: Megacool.Instance.Share calls PauseRecording automatically, so if you haven't called Megacool.Instance.StopRecording before next time you call Megacool.Instance.StartRecording, the recording will continue from where you paused.

4 Testing referrals

For this you need two devices. Let’s call them Sender and Receiver. If you have your app installed already, please delete it from both devices.

4.1 iOS

Sender	Receiver
Follow the Quickstart guide and build the app to this device.
Run the app and share a link to Receiver.	Open the link and press “Play now” to simulate that you’re going to download the app.
	Add `Megacool.Instance.ResetIdentity` before `Megacool.Instance.Start`. This will reset the device identity, so it acts as a new device every time the app starts. Remember to remove this after you’re done testing.
	Build and run the app. Now this device will receive the `ReceivedShareOpened` event with `FirstSession`: `true` and generate a new install.
Press the home button and re-open the app to instantly receive the `SentShareOpened` event, like shown in the Quickstart guide.

4.2 Android

Sender	Receiver
Follow the Quickstart guide and build the app to this device.
Run the app and share a link to Receiver.
	Add `Megacool.Instance.ResetIdentity` before `Megacool.Instance.Start`. This will reset the device identity, so it acts as a new device every time the app starts. Remember to remove this after you’re done testing.
	Connect this device to your computer and run the following in the terminal, to simulate a new Google Play install: `adb shell am broadcast -a "com.android.vending.INSTALL_REFERRER" --es referrer '?_m=REFERRAL_CODE' "YOUR_ANDROID_PACKAGE"`. Replace `REFERRAL_CODE` with the `_m` parameter value from your shared link.
	Build and run the app. Now this device will receive the `ReceivedShareOpened` event with `FirstSession`: `true` and generate a new install.
Press the home button and re-open the app to instantly receive the `SentShareOpened` event, like shown in the Quickstart guide.

5. Troubleshooting

When I find myself in times of trouble
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom:
"submit a detailed debug log"
— Paul McCartney

When things turn sour, and you're done running in circles screaming and shouting, you can swap the SDK over in debug mode to let it capture detailed call traces of what's happening, and automatically submit a debug report to us. Do this by calling Megacool.Debug = true as early as possible in the session, and when your problem has been reproduced (or you believe it is about to happen), call Megacool.Instance.SubmitDebugData("halp!"); to share the issue with us. Please try to explain in the message what you expected to happen, and what happened instead. If you follow this procedure it will be much easier for us to reproduce the issue you're having and get it fixed ASAP.

We appreciate you taking the time to help us find the cause of the bugs, and we're very sorry that we didn't find them ourselves.

Using a custom engine and seeing problems with the capture? Read about how to use our low-level API to optimize the capture process.

Customize

1. Shares and referrals

2. GIF customization

3. Save recordings

4. Testing referrals

5. Troubleshooting

1. Shares and referrals

1.1 Custom sharing text

1.2 Share config

1.3 Handling shares and events

1.3.1 Receiver opens a shared link

1.3.2 Sender is notified about an opened link

1.3.3 Link clicked

1.4 Share state

1.5 Share directly to given apps

1.5.1 Messages

1.5.2 Mail

1.6 Delegates after a share

1.7 Sharing strategies

2. GIF customization

2.1 Types of recording

2.1.1 Time recording

2.1.2 Highlight recording

2.1.3 Peak location

2.1.4 Capture individual frames

2.1.5 Timelapse

2.2 Rendering preview

2.3 Recording frame rate

2.4 Playback frame rate

2.5 Max frames

2.6 Delay last frame

2.7 Last frame overlay

2.8 Color table

2.8.1 Dynamic

2.8.2 Analyze first

2.9 Recording customization

3. Save recordings

3.1 Start and resume a recording

3.2 Pause recording

3.3 Delete recording

3.4 Show a GIF from a specific recording

3.5 Share a GIF from a specific recording

4 Testing referrals

4.1 iOS

4.2 Android

5. Troubleshooting