BigBlueButtonPlugin

BigBlueButtonPlugin integrates BigBlueButton web conferencing into foswiki.

BigBlueButtonPlugin integrates BigBlueButton web conferencing (also known as BBB) into foswiki. It promotes using virtual meeting rooms for collaboration by simulating physical meeting rooms:

• All participants can become presenter.
• Meeting rooms are easy to find and enter.
• All participants have the option to see each other.
• It is obvious who is talking.
• You can see who is currently in the meeting room without having to enter first.

BigBlueButton is flash-based open source web conferencing, supporting web conferencing from most modern browsers without requireding software installation. With this plugin, your authorized wiki users are just a click away from talking to each other.

The Configuration for this Plugin lets you define one or more meeting rooms (usually following a naming theme such as flowers, painters, characters from Lord of the Rings...). The plugin will automatically create these meeting rooms on the BBB server, creates a wiki topic for each meeting room (a room named Lotus will be described in topic LotusConferenceRoom) and provides macros to join meetings and see who's in them. Topic CategoryConferenceRooms is automatically created, listing all conference room topics.

This plugin also supports a REST interface, allowing other applications to use it to access virtual meeting rooms using foswiki authentication.

Please see the Installation Instructions for how to make this plugin work once you have installed and enabled it.

REST Usage

• https://foswiki.org/bin/rest/BigBlueButtonPlugin/listRooms returns a list of rooms configured by this plugin.
• https://foswiki.org/bin/rest/BigBlueButtonPlugin/getJoinRoomUrl?room=Daisy returns a url that will log you into the room using your foswiki name.
• https://foswiki.org/bin/rest/BigBlueButtonPlugin/joinRoom?room=Daisy automatically logs you into that room using your foswiki name.
• https://foswiki.org/bin/rest/BigBlueButtonPlugin/getPeopleInRoom?room=Daisy returns a list of the people currently in the Daisy room.

Examples

To get a list of all available meeting rooms, use

%BBBJOINROOM{}%

which returns something like this:

%BBBJOINROOM{}%

If you have configured BigBlueButtonPlugin to create a meeting room named 'Lotus', the statement

%BBBROOMNAME{Lotus}%

will create a link to the topic describing this meeting room, which includes the list of current participants and a link to join the room using your foswiki credentials. When you also installed http://foswiki.org/Extensions/ToolTipPlugin ToolTipPlugin, hovering over this link will show you current participants, which is especially convenient when used in WebLeftBarLogin for example.

To create a link that, when clicked, will transfer people into the 'Lotus' meeting room, add this:

%BBBJOINROOM{Lotus}%

To display the room details for the 'Lotus' room:

%BBBROOMDETAILS{Lotus}%

Configuration

Please delete CategoryConferenceRooms and all ConferenceRoom topics before making changes to the plugin's room configuration. The topics will automatically be re-created with up-to-date conference room list.

This plugin has the following configuration settings (set in https://foswiki.org/bin/configure):

• baseUrl: the URL of BigBlueButton's API interface, for example http://demo.bigbluebutton.org/bigbluebutton/api
• salt: the security salt for the above url, found in the server's /var/lib/tomcat6/webapps/bigbluebutton/WEB-INF/classes/bigbluebutton.properties as beans.dynamicConferenceService.securitySalt. Example: 32321f1d-ae5e-4867-0071-9be6b70a9fcb
• rooms: the list of rooms you want this plugin to create. Example:

  [
    {
      'password' => '5678',
      'name' => 'Daisy',
      'audioBridge' => '71000'
    },
    {
      'password' => '5678',
      'name' => 'Iris',
      'audioBridge' => '71001'
    }
  ]
  

The asterisk configuration on the BigBlueButton server must also declare your audioBridge numbers, otherwise you will have no audio. By default the asterisk configuration installed by BigBlueButton will use any five-digit number as audio bridge for conferencing.

Installation Instructions

The default configuration parameters will create two rooms on a demo server maintained by the BigBlueButton crew for testing purposes. This lets you evaluate both the plugin and BigBlueButton without having to install anything else bug the plugin. After enabling the plugin, you will have to invoke either a REST function or a MACRO for the plugin to contact the BBB server, instruct it to create the meeting rooms and create topics for each room. Clicking here will cause that for example.

You do not need to install anything in the browser to use this extension. The following instructions are for the administrator who installs the extension on the server.

Open configure, and open the "Extensions" section. Use "Find More Extensions" to get a list of available extensions. Select "Install".

If you have any problems, or if the extension isn't available in configure, then you can still install manually from the command-line. See http://foswiki.org/Support/ManuallyInstallingExtensions for more help.

Info

Many thanks to the following sponsors for supporting this work:

• Luxsit Communications Corp.

Author(s):	Arne.Joris@luxsit.ca
Copyright:	© 2010
License:	GPL (Gnu General Public License)
Release:	1.0.0
Version:	10081 (2010-11-26)
Change History:	20100927 first version.
Dependencies:	Name Version Description URI::Escape >=3.28 Required. Digest::SHA1 >=2.12 Required. LWP::UserAgent >=2.033 Required. HTTP::Request >=1.40 Required. XML::Simple >=2.18 Required. JSON >=2.21 Required.
Home page:	http://foswiki.org/bin/view/Extensions/BigBlueButtonPlugin
Support:	http://foswiki.org/bin/view/Support/BigBlueButtonPlugin